Where Is Prigozhin? Mystery Surrounds Wagner Boss After Attempted Rebellion

An attempted rebellion by Yevgeny Prigozhin lasted less than 24 hours before grinding to a halt on Saturday. Since then, the Wagner Group chief's whereabouts have remained a mystery.

The head of the notorious private military outfit hasn't been seen since his fighters pulled back after claiming to take control of Rostov-on-Don and key military facilities in the Voronezh region.

The Kremlin and the Belarusian government reported Prigozhin said he would leave Russia for neighboring Belarus as part of a deal to avoid "bloodshed." However, his whereabouts have not been verified beyond his departure from Rostov-on-Don late on Saturday, when state-run news agency RIA Novosti published a video showing the Wagner boss leaving by car.

He also hasn't posted a public statement on his press service since Saturday evening, when he announced that his fighters were "turning around" from their march on Moscow and leaving "in the opposite direction."

Prigozhin's press service said he will answer all questions "when he is on normal communication," but didn't mention his whereabouts.

Meanwhile, a prominent Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel shared an AI-generated image of Prigozhin holding a finger to his lips and stating "plans love silence," the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based think tank, said in its latest analysis of the conflict in Ukraine on Sunday. "Plans love silence" is a phrase commonly used in Ukraine about operational security and its counter-offensive.

The think tank noted that specifics of the deal described by the Kremlin and the Belarusian government are still unclear beyond speculation and rumor.

"The fallout of Wagner's armed rebellion has not yet concluded, and it remains to be seen how the deal will be implemented, whether all involved parties will comply fully, what the Kremlin and Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) intend to do with Wagner personnel, and if Wagner fighters will cooperate - regardless of Prigozhin's wishes," the ISW said.

President Vladimir Putin, in a video message, described Prigozhin's attempted rebellion as a betrayal and a stab in the back. A criminal case was opened against Prigozhin for armed rebellion.

The press service of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said that he had made an agreement with Prigozhin on de-escalation. Prigozhin and the Wagner Group were offered "an absolutely profitable and acceptable option for resolving the situation, with security guarantees for the fighters," the statement said.

The Kremlin later said that Prigozhin would leave for Belarus, and that the criminal case against him in Russia would be dropped.

The attempted rebellion came amid an intensifying spat between Prigozhin and Russia's military leadership. Prigozhin recently shut down a demand from Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Putin that the Wagner Group sign contracts directly with the Defense Ministry with a July 1 deadline.

Prigozhin appeared to shift the narrative of the war on Friday, casting doubt on Putin's justifications for launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, saying they were lies fed to him by the Kremlin's top brass.

Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry via email for comment.

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