Russia-Ukraine war live: Wagner group leader Prigozhin arrives in Belarus as Putin orders probe into his finances

President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the finances of Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s catering firm would be investigated after his mutiny, saying Wagner and its founder had received almost $2 billion from Russia in the past year.

Putin initially vowed to crush the mutiny, comparing it to the wartime turmoil that ushered in the revolutions of 1917 and then a civil war, but hours later a deal was clinched to allow Prigozhin and some of his fighters to go to Belarus.

Speaking to soldiers from the Russian army at a meeting in the Kremlin, Putin said he had always respected Wagner’s fighters, but that the fact was the group had been “fully financed” from the state budget.

He said it had received 86 billion roubles ($1 billion) from the defence ministry between May 2022 and May 2023.

In addition, Prigozhin’s Concord catering company made 80 billion roubles from state contracts to supply food to the Russian army, Putin said.

“I do hope that, as part of this work, no one stole anything, or, let’s say, stole less, but we will, of course, investigate all of this.”

Prigozhin, whom Putin did not mention by name, could not be reached for immediate comment on Putin‘s remarks.

He said earlier this year that he had always financed Wagner but had looked for additional financing after the war began in Ukraine.

He said on Monday that he had not been trying to overthrow the Russian state and that he remained a patriot who was trying to settle scores with the defence ministry.

His advance on Moscow has been likened by some to Mussolini’s march on Rome – but can the mercenary contninue to escape Putin’s wrath, asks Kim Sengupta

Prigozhin’s march on Moscow will have frightened Putin – but the Russian leader survived because no other senior figures joined the call for change, writes historian Peter Frankopan.

Once a low-profile businessman who benefited from having President Vladimir Putin as a powerful patron, Yevgeny Prigozhin moved into the global spotlight with Russia’s war in Ukraine.

As the leader of a mercenary force who depicts himself as fighting many of the Russian military’s toughest battles in Ukraine, the 62-year-old Prigozhin has now moved into his most dangerous role yet: preaching open rebellion against his country’s military leadership.

Prigozhin, owner of the Kremlin-allied Wagner Group, has escalated what have been months of scathing criticism of Russia’s conduct of the war by calling on Friday for an armed uprising to oust the defense minister. Russian security services reacted immediately, opening a criminal investigation and demanding Prigozhin’s arrest.

Claiming treachery one minute, then praising Wagner’s role in Ukraine the next, may have allowed the Russian leader to steer out of an immediate storm, writes Mary Dejevsky. But such mixed messages expose cracks in his authority that will be hard to repair.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raging for 16 months, Ukraine is now pushing back with its long-awaited counteroffensive that has already recorded a number of gains.

On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised Ukrainian troops for advancing “in all sectors”, having spent the day presenting awards to front-line soldiers in the east and south.

“Today in all sectors, our soldiers made advances. It is a happy day,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly video address, which was delivered from a train after visiting two frontline areas.

Two Russian missiles struck the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk on Tuesday and killed at least four people, police and the military said.

Ukraine‘s national police put the death toll from the attack at four dead and 42 injured.

Emergency workers were pictured moving in and out of the restaurant as residents stood outside embracing and surveying the damage from the strike.

Kramatorsk is a major city west of the front lines in Donetsk province and a likely key objective in any Russian advance westward seeking to capture all of the region.

The city has been a frequent target of Russian attacks, including a strike on the town’s railway station in April 2022 that killed 63 people.

The US on Tuesday imposed sanctions on four firms and one individual connected to the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenaries that led a brief revolt against the Kremlin last week.

The sanctions from Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control targeted entities in the Central African Republic, the United Arab Emirates and Russia that were connected to the Wagner Group and its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The sanctions are not directly related to last week’s uprising. The U.S. has previously issued sanctions against Prigozhin and the Wagner Group multiple times, including alleging that he tried to interfere with the 2016 U.S. election.

The talks between Mr Lukashenko and Mr Prigozhin were very difficult. They immediately blurted out such vulgar things it would make any mother cry. The conversation was hard, it was masculine”.

Vadim Gigin, a Belarusian propagandist, was describing the negotiations between President Alexander Lukashenko and Yevgeny Prigozhin which brought the extraordinary attempted coup in Russia to an end after a tumultuous 24 hours.

The agreement, under which the Kremlin agreed to drop criminal charges against Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries who took part in the rebellion, averted a catastrophic civil war and, arguably, may have saved Vladimir Putin from being overthrown.

Having proven his worth as a vassal to the Russian leader, the Belarusian president is in a more secure position than he has been for years, writes Kim Sengupta: