Wagner chief to leave Russia in deal to ease crisis
The chief of the rebel Wagner mercenary force will leave Russia and won't face charges after calling off his troops' advance on Saturday, Moscow said, easing Russia's most serious security crisis in decades.
The feud between Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russia's military brass came to a violent head in the past day, with his forces capturing a key army headquarters in southern Russia and then heading north to threaten the capital.
Within hours of Prigozhin's about-face, the Kremlin announced he would leave for Belarus and Russia would not prosecute either him or the group's members.
It had been a dramatic day of developments, with President Vladimir Putin warning against civil war, Russia telling locals to stay off the streets and Kyiv revelling in the chaos engulfing its enemy.
The tide shifted suddenly when Prigozhin made the stunning announcement that his troops were 'turning our columns around and going back to field camps' to avoid bloodshed in the Russian capital.
Prigozhin, who has feuded bitterly with Moscow's military leadership even as his outfit led parts of Russia's Ukraine offensive, said he understood the importance of the moment and did not want to 'spill Russian blood'.
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