The Civil War that Might Never Happen

A few hours ago, a group of so-called Wagner soldiers, were marching towards Moscow. The Russian capital was preparing for war, and the world tried to understand what happened. Now, the Guardian reports that there’s a peace negotiated:

The Wagner group chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, will move to Belarus under a deal to end the armed mutiny that Prigozhin had led against Russia’s military leadership, the Kremlin said on Saturday night.

The deal was brokered by the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Lukashenko had offered to mediate, with Vladimir Putin’s agreement, because he had known Prigozhin personally for about 20 years.

Peskov said the criminal case that had been opened against Prigozhin for armed mutiny would be dropped, and that the Wagner fighters who had taken part in his “march for justice” would not face any action, in recognition of their previous service to Russia.

Although Putin had earlier vowed to punish those who participated in the mutiny, Peskov said the agreement had had the “higher goal” of avoiding confrontation and bloodshed.

Prigozhin and all of his fighters vacated the military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don that they had previously taken over, the RIA news agency reported.

Forcing your enemies into exile is very Caligula-esque.