RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin in a national address Monday urged the members of the Wagner private military group to sign contract with the country's defense ministry, return home or go to Belarus.

“I thank those soldiers and commanders of the Wagner Group who made the only right decision — they did not go for fratricidal bloodshed, they stopped at the last line,” Putin said.

It was Putin’s first statement since Saturday when he promised to crush the reported rebellion and called the actions of the Wagner group a “stab in the back.”

“Time was needed, among other things, to give those who had made a mistake a chance to come to their senses, to realize that their actions were firmly rejected by society and that the adventure in which they had been involved had tragic and destructive consequences for Russia,” Putin said.

He also said those fighters would have the “opportunity to continue serving Russia by entering into a contract with the Ministry of Defense or other law enforcement agencies, or to return to your family and friends. Whoever wants to can go to Belarus.”

A short-lived insurrection

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner group, led a successful takeover of the Russian city Rostov-on-Don, and his soldiers drove an armed convoy across Russia to within 200 kilometers of Moscow, according to reports.

Prigozhin blamed Russian officials for cutting off the supply of arms and leaving their soldiers stranded to die in Ukraine and called for the Russian defense minister and general staff to be dismissed. Prigozhin also said he was forced to shoot down Russian helicopters that were firing on his personnel on their way to Moscow.

Wagner mercenaries returned to their base after Putin accepted an amnesty deal which meant its leader Prigozhin would go into exile in Belarus, according to the agreement mediated by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Prigozhin, 62, a former Putin ally whose forces have fought the bloodiest battles of the 16-month war in Ukraine, said his decision to advance on Moscow was intended to remove corrupt and incompetent Russian commanders he blames for botching the war.

He was seen leaving the district military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don — hundreds of miles south of Moscow — late Saturday in a sport utility vehicle. His whereabouts on Sunday was not immediately clear.

Videos shared on social media from Rostov overnight purportedly showed the mercenaries withdrawing from the city in a convoy of armored vehicles, tanks and coaches to the sound of cheers, chants of “Wagner” and celebratory gunfire from local residents. “Take care of yourselves,” shouted one woman.

Moscow was calm Sunday, with the Red Square closed but otherwise little evidence of increased security in the streets. Monday has been declared a non-working day to allow time for things to settle.

The authorities had previously told residents to stay indoors and deployed soldiers in preparation for the arrival of the Wagner fighters, who appeared to meet little pushback from the regular armed forces.

Chechen special forces who deployed to the Rostov region to resist the mercenaries’ advance were also withdrawing back to where they had been fighting in Ukraine, commander Apty Alaudinov said in a video published on Telegram.

A Belarus-brokered deal

After capturing Rostov — the main rear logistical hub for Russia’s attacks on Ukraine — Wagner soldiers had raced hundreds of miles north in what Prigozhin called a “march for justice,” transporting tanks and armored trucks and smashing through barricades set up to stop them, before the deal to withdraw was reached.

Under the deal, brokered late Saturday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a criminal case opened against Prigozhin for armed mutiny would be dropped, Prigozhin would move to Belarus, and Wagner fighters who rallied to his cause would face no action, in recognition of their previous service to Russia.

Peskov said Lukashenko had offered to mediate, with Putin’s approval, because he had known Prigozhin personally for around 20 years.

In a televised address during Saturday’s drama, Putin said the rebellion put Russia’s very existence under threat.

“We are fighting for the lives and security of our people, for our sovereignty and independence, for the right to remain Russia, a state with a thousand-year history,” Putin said, vowing punishment for those behind “an armed insurrection” and drawing parallels with the chaos of 1917 that had led to the Bolshevik revolution.

Peskov declined to say whether any concessions were made to Prigozhin, other than guarantees of safety for him — something he said Putin gave his word to vouch for — and for Prigozhin’s men, to persuade him to withdraw all his forces.

Prigozhin railed for months against the military’s top brass, especially Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, accusing them of incompetence and of withholding ammunition from his fighters as they battled to take Bakhmut in Ukraine.

Led by Prigozhin, a former convict whose forces include thousands of ex-prisoners recruited from Russian jails, Wagner has grown into a sprawling international business with mining interests and fighters in Africa and the Middle East.

This month, he defied orders to sign a contract placing his troops under the command of the Defense Ministry. He launched the rebellion Friday after alleging that the military had killed many of his fighters in an airstrike. The Russian Defense Ministry denied this. The revolt came just weeks into the start of Ukraine’s strongest counteroffensive drive since Moscow’s military action in February last year.(CGTN)