Putin met Prigoschin after the mutiny for private conversations in Moscow

Vladimir Putin held a secret meeting with Jewgeni Prigoschin five days after the failed mutiny of the Wagner boss, even though he had promised to punish him for the uprising.

The talks on June 29th in the Kremlin lasted three hours and included almost three dozen people, including the commanders of the Prigoschin and Wagner units.

the Kremlin said Putin called the meeting to find out first -hand why the group rebelled five days earlier.

"Putin listened to the explanations [Wagner]" We attacked the commanders and offered them further employment and combat options, "said Dmitri Peskow, Putin's speaker.

Flight tracking data from FLIGHTRADAR24 showed that Prigozhin's private jet flew from St. Petersburg to an airport near Moscow on June 29. The next day he returned to St. Petersburg.

Putin, on the other hand, had an unusually tight public schedule on the day of the meeting. His only official commitment was a speech on a strategyorum in the Russian capital.

Exceptional conversations

The extraordinary conversations give the uprising that shaken the Kremlin another turn and represent the greatest threat to Putin's almost a quarter of a century.

Putin had threatened Wagner's leaders with a "hard" punishment when the uprising was out and later accused the organizers of the mutiny that they had "betrayed their country and their people".

During the 24-hour uprising, Prigoschin's armed forces almost unhindered from the southern city of Rostow on Don to 125 miles to Moscow before stopping the uprising as part of an agreement negotiated by the Belarusian President Alexander Lukaschenko.

Putin agreed to allow the Wagner founder and his men to move to Belarus and to stop the criminal proceedings for armed mutiny against them as part of the agreement.

Mr. Peskow said that Prigoschin and his commanders had apologized to Putin at the meeting last month and insisted that the goal of their rebellion was the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Defense Minister Sergei Schoigu, an important allied allied Putin, and General Waleri Gerassimow, the head of the general staff, regularly accused incompetence of the Russian offensive in Ukraine.

"They emphasized that they were convinced supporters and soldiers of the head of the state and commander

Peskow's confirmation of the meeting took place after the French newspaper Libération had reported, citing an unnamed western secret service, that Putin and Prigoschin had had personal discussions on July 1st.

According to Libération, the head of the National Guard, Wiktor Solotow, and the head of the Russian foreign intelligence agency, Sergei Naryschkin, also took part.

Analysts said that the attempt to meet Prigoschin indicates that Putin may still be dependent on the Wagner boss despite the recent unrest.

Moscow-comprehensive invasion in Ukraine, in which Wagner mercenaries were significantly involved, continued to stall in recent weeks, and Russia's president seems to be increasingly isolated after the uprising of June 24th.

The obvious inactivity of the Russian military to stop Prigoschin's uprising has raised the question of whether Putin can count on the loyalty of its security forces.

Putin has already promised to strengthen the National Guard directly assumed to him and may also want to ensure the loyalty of combat-tested Wagner fighter.

Russian officials have only made half -hearted efforts since the uprising to turn off Wagner by putting his fighters under pressure to sign contracts with the military or to move to Belarus, and have switched off advertising on the side of the road, even though the recruitment systems still work.

Lukaschenko said last week that Prigoschin was back in Russia and Wagner fighter the offer to move to Belarus, had not yet accepted what questions about the implementation of the agreement.

Konstantin Sonin, professor of public order at the University of Chicago, said Putin's obvious approach to his former ally shows that he was a "dysfunctional autocrat".

He also said that the resuscitation has been the first time since the rebellion of the widely hated general Gerasimov on Monday morning the Russian leader like a "dictator in difficulties that cannot be dismissed by his incompetent".