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Kremlin's odd update on Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin: ‘Russia doesn’t care if…'
Yevgeny Prigozhin: Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov brushed off the question on Prigozhin's whereabouts.
Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko said that Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is in Russia, despite the fact that the leader was reported to be exiled in Belarus following his failed mutiny against Russian president Vladimir Putin. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov brushed off the question on Prigozhin's whereabouts. "We don't follow his movements. We have neither the ability nor the desire to do so," he said.
Yevgeny Prigozhin has not made a public appearance since the rebellion almost two weeks ago. His mercenaries marched to Moscow but the rebellion ended the following day after a deal was brokered by Aleksandr Lukashenko which included Prigozhin relocating to Belarus.
"It's great that Russian authorities don't really care about a person who launched an armed mutiny against them. So where is he exactly? With the money, weapons and Wagner mercenaries?" Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's minister of internal affairs, tweeted.
Meanwhile, Russian state media shared images and videos from Prigozhin's office and his "palace" claiming that multiple fake passports that belonged to Prigozhin, photos showing him wearing a variety of wigs and gold was found after the raid.
What experts said on Kremlin's stand on Prigozhin?
"Despite Peskov's statement to the contrary, I am sure that the Kremlin is quite capable of tracking Prigozhin's movements and that it knows precisely where he is every minute of the day," George Mason university professor Mark N. Katz told Newsweek, adding, "I think Peskov, and the Putin regime more broadly, is trying to signal that Prigozhin isn't so significant a threat anymore. Maybe next week, Peskov will start claiming that there really wasn't a mutiny at all and that statements about it are all Western propaganda."
David Silbey—an associate professor of history at Cornell said that Russians are "clearly trying to downplay" Prigozhin's importance.
“They definitely have the capacity to surveil Prigozhin and they're certainly doing it as he moves around both countries. It's a way of being dismissive of him—he's old news,” David Silbey said, continuing, "The fascinating thing for me is that Prigozhin felt comfortable traveling back to Russia without, apparently, an overwhelming fear that he would be assassinated."
