Prigozhin whereabouts unclear

Last seen on Saturday night smiling and high-fiving bystanders from the back of an SUV as he withdrew from a city occupied by his men, Prigozhin said his fighters had halted their campaign in order to avert bloodshed.

“We went as a demonstration of protest, not to overthrow the government of the country,” Prigozhin said in the audio message.

He made no direct reference to his own whereabouts, nor provided further details of the mysterious agreement that had brought a halt to his mutiny.

On Saturday Prigozhin had said he was leaving for Belarus under a deal brokered by its president, Alexander Lukashenko. In Monday’s remarks he said Lukashenko had offered to let Wagner operate under a legal framework, but did not elaborate.

The White House said it could not confirm whether the Wagner chief was in Belarus.

Prigozhin said his men had been forced to shoot down helicopters that attacked them as they drove towards Moscow.

Putin also alluded to some fighting, saying “the organisers of the mutiny” had led the Wagner troops “to shoot their own.”

Putin thanked Wagner fighters and commanders who stood down to avoid what he called “fratricidal bloodshed”, and said the vast majority of Wagner’s members were patriots.

Russia’s three main news agencies reported on Monday that a criminal case against Prigozhin had not been closed, an apparent reversal of an offer of immunity publicised as part of the deal that persuaded him to stand down.

‘Nothing to do with it’

In comments before a speech at the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden called the mutiny “part of a struggle within the Russian system”. He discussed it in a conference call with key allies who agreed it was vital not to let Putin blame it on the West or NATO, he said.

“We made it clear that we were not involved. We had nothing to do with it,” Biden said.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said U.S. policy did not seek to change the government in Russia.

Foreign governments, both friendly and hostile to Russia, were left groping for answers to what had happened behind the scenes and what could come next.

“The political system is showing fragilities, and the military power is cracking,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters in Luxembourg.

In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the military had made advances on Monday in all sectors of the front line. “It is a happy day,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address, delivered from a train after visiting frontline positions. “May I wish our boys more such days.”

Kyiv hopes the chaos caused by the mutiny attempt in Russia will undermine its defences as Ukraine presses on with a counteroffensive, begun earlier this month to recapture territory which Moscow claims to have annexed.

On Monday, Ukraine said its forces had recaptured the small southern village of Rivnopil, the ninth village it says it has retaken since launching the counteroffensive, and the first in more than a week. Russia said it had foiled Ukrainian attacks.

(Reporting by Reuters journalists;Writing by Peter Graff and Cynthia Osterman; Editing by Grant McCool and Rosalba