Russia closes investigation into armed rebellion led by Yevgeny Prigozhin

Russian authorities said they have closed a criminal investigation into the armed rebellion led by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, with no charges against him or any of the other participants.

The Federal Security Service, or FSB, said its investigation found that those involved in the mutiny “ceased activities directed at committing the crime”.

Over the weekend, the Kremlin pledged not to prosecute Mr Prigozhin and his fighters after he stopped the revolt on Saturday, even though President Vladimir Putin had branded them as traitors.

The charge of mounting an armed mutiny carries a punishment of up to 20 years in prison.

Mr Prigozhin escaping prosecution poses a stark contrast to how the Kremlin has been treating those staging anti-government protests.

Many opposition figures in Russia have received length prison terms and are serving time in penal colonies notorious for harsh conditions.

The whereabouts of Mr Prigozhin remained a mystery, The Kremlin has said Mr Prigozhin would be exiled to neighbouring Belarus, but neither he nor the Belarus authorities have confirmed that.

An independent Belarus military monitoring project Belaruski Hajun said a business jet that Mr Prigozhin reportedly uses landed near Minsk on Tuesday morning.

On Monday night, Mr Putin once again blasted organisers of the rebellion as traitors who played into the hands of Ukraine’s government and its allies.

The media team for Mr Prigozhin, the 62-year-old head of the Wagner private military contractor, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr Prigozhin’s short-lived insurrection over the weekend, the biggest challenge to Mr Putin’s rule in more than two decades in power, has rattled Russia’s leadership.

In his nationally televised speech, Mr Putin sought to project stability and control, criticising the uprising’s “organisers”, without naming Mr Prigozhin.

He also praised Russian unity in the face of the crisis, as well as rank-and-file Wagner fighters for not letting the situation descend into “major bloodshed”.

Earlier in the day, Mr Prigozhin defended his actions in a defiant audio statement.

He again taunted the Russian military but said he had not been seeking to stage a coup against Mr Putin.

In another show of stability and control, the Kremlin on Monday night showed Putin meeting with top security, law enforcement and military officials, including defence minister Sergei Shoigu, whom Mr Prigozhin had sought to remove.

Mr Putin thanked his team for their work over the weekend, implying support for the embattled Mr Shoigu.

Earlier, the authorities released a video of Mr Shoigu reviewing troops in Ukraine.

It also was not clear whether Mr Prigozhin would be able to keep his mercenary force.

In his speech, Mr Putin offered Mr Prigozhin’s fighters to either come under Russia’s defence ministry’s command, leave service or go to Belarus.

Mr Prigozhin said, without elaborating, that the Belarus leadership proposed solutions that would allow Wagner to operate “in a legal jurisdiction”, but it was unclear what that meant.

Mr Putin returned to this theme in a Kremlin speech, his third in four days, to soldiers and police officers, praising them for averting “a civil war”.

He again declared that the army and people did not support the mutiny, but avoided mentioning Mr Prigozhin by name.

As part of the effort to cement Mr Putin’s authority following the chaotic response to the mutiny, the ceremony featured Mr Putin walking down the red-carpeted stairs of the Kremlin’s 15th century white-stone Palace of Facets to address a line-up of troops.

Mr Putin mentioned the casualties and honoured them with a moment of silence.

“Pilots, our combat comrades, died while confronting the mutiny,” he said.

“They didn’t waver and fulfilled the orders and their military duty with dignity.”

Mr Putin’s mention of the deaths comes amid angry statements from some Russian war bloggers and patriotic activists who vented outrage about Mr Prigozhin and his troops not getting punished for killing the airmen.

Mr Prigozhin voiced regret for the deaths in an audio statement on Monday, but said Wagner troops fired because they were getting bombed.