[10] In the early morning of 24 June, President of Russia Vladimir Putin appeared in a televised address to denounce the Wagner Group's actions as treason before pledging to quell their uprising.

Ground defenses were concentrated on the approach to Moscow, but before Wagner Group could reach them, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko brokered a settlement with Prigozhin, who subsequently agreed to halt the rebellion.

[12] In the early 1990s, Prigozhin, having served a decade in prison before embarking on an entrepreneurial career, emerged as a prominent figure in Saint Petersburg's business life, gaining recognition for a string of highly regarded restaurants.

[16][17] Many analysts have said the government employed Wagner services to allow for plausible deniability and obscure the actual toll in terms of casualties and financial costs of Russia's foreign interventions.

[21][22][23] The group maintains close ties with multiple African governments, enjoying considerable autonomy to exploit the natural resources of these nations in return for supporting local forces in their battle against anti-government rebels.

[57][58] CNN obtained documents that indicated Surovikin had a personal registration number with Wagner and held a covert VIP membership within the group, alongside at least 30 other high-ranking Russian military and intelligence officials.

[60] The Moscow Times reported that hours before his announcement of the rebellion, Prigozhin was secretly planning to attend a roundtable discussion in the State Duma opened by A Just Russia – For Truth leader Sergei Mironov in which MPs criticized the Kremlin's handling of the war effort in Ukraine.

[65] In an effort to create a pretext for rebellion,[66][67] later on 23 June, Prigozhin amplified a video that had already been circulating in Wagner-associated Telegram channels that reportedly showed the aftermath of a missile strike on a Wagner rear camp.

[68][69][70][71] The MoD denied the allegations of attacking Wagner's rear camps,[72] and the Institute for the Study of War was unable to confirm the veracity of the video, noting that it "may have been manufactured for informational purposes".

[58] State-run Channel One Russia broadcast an "emergency newscast," during which host Ekaterina Andreeva declared that Prigozhin's statements regarding alleged attacks by regular military forces on Wagner positions were false.

[83] Eyewitness footage depicted a long convoy of military and civilian vehicles heading towards the city, purportedly comprising Chechen paramilitaries (Kadyrovites) with the objective of engaging the Wagner forces.

Unconfirmed reports in Russian media said cardboard boxes containing 4 billion rubles ($47 million) were discovered from vehicles near the office,[130] and that cash in U.S. dollars, handguns,[131] gold bars and packs of an unknown white powder were also seized.

[133] Olga Romanova, a journalist and leader of the Russian civil rights organization Russia Behind Bars, accused the FSB of threatening relatives of convicts recruited by Wagner since the early hours of 24 June.

Final negotiations were reportedly conducted by Anton Vaino, the chief of staff, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Security Council, and Boris Gryzlov, the Russian ambassador to Belarus.

I said, 'Halfway there you'll just be crushed like a bug'.In an audio statement, Prigozhin stated that he had accepted the deal to prevent bloodshed, and re-explained his motivations for the rebellion, emphasizing that it was not a coup attempt:[97][143][144][145] They wanted to disband the Wagner military company.

Understanding responsibility [for the chance] that Russian blood will be spilled on one side, we are turning our columns around and going back to field camps as planned.At around 11:00 p.m. (GMT+3) on 24 June, the Wagner Group commenced the withdrawal of their forces from Rostov-on-Don.

[161] Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic, called the mutiny "treason" and said his troops were en route to "zones of tension" to "preserve Russia's units and defend its statehood".

[167] Exiled former oil magnate and opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky urged Russians to support Prigozhin, saying that it was important to back "even the devil" if he decided to take on the Kremlin.

[194][195][196][197][198] Foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba called the rebellion an opportunity for the international community to "abandon false neutrality" on Russia and to provide the Ukrainian government with all the weapons it needs to push Russian forces out of Ukraine.

[199] Moldovan foreign minister Nicu Popescu said that the events in Russia were proof that Moldova should continue on its trajectory of distancing itself from the "Eurasian space of destruction and war" and towards the European Union to ensure peace, stability and democracy in the country.

"[203] Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment commander Dzianis Prokharaŭ expressed a similar sentiment in a video address on social media, calling on Belarusian military personnel not to interfere in the events.

[204][205] Valery Sakhashchyk, the Representative for Defense and National Security in the Belarusian United Transitional Cabinet in exile, called for a quick decision to either "use [the] historical chance and become a prosperous European country" or "lose everything".

[242] On 21 July, Igor Girkin, who commanded separatist fighters during the War in Donbas and was convicted in absentia by a Dutch court for the MH-17 shootdown in 2015, was detained by the FSB according to his wife Miroslava, on charges of extremism.

[253][254][255] The French newspaper Libération, citing Western intelligence sources, reported that Prigozhin had been back in Moscow since at least 1 July to negotiate the Wagner Group's fate with Putin, and that he met with Russian National Guard commander Viktor Zolotov and SVR head Sergey Naryshkin.

[265] Concerned about the potential concentration of Wagner forces in neighboring Belarus, Latvia and Lithuania made a joint request to NATO for additional troops to be deployed to their countries, specifically along the eastern border of the alliance.

[51] According to a New York Times analysis, the rebellion undermined Putin's legitimacy which relies on being viewed as a guarantor of stability and security, which may cause a lasting erosion of support among the Russian power elite.

On 27 June, Putin declared that the Russian National Guard would be equipped with heavy weapons, including tanks, in order to suppress any potential future uprisings and assume a more prominent position in the Russo-Ukraine conflict.

[284] The ISW assessed that Wagner staked its chances on quickly rallying sufficient support from parts of the regular military to make an armed conflict with forces loyal to the MoD feasible.

[103] According to a senior U.S. Department of Defense official, U.S. intelligence agencies monitored the defection of large numbers of Russian soldiers from their military commanders, who then joined the Wagner movement.

[54] According to analysts consulted by The New York Times, the enduring systemic problems within the Russian military, which were strongly criticized by Prigozhin and widely condemned by the soldiers, were likely to persist following the rebellion.