A jet believed to be carrying rebel Russian mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin today arrived in Belarus from Russia, according to reports by three international news outlets.
"Flight tracking service Flightradar24`s website showed an Embraer Legacy 600 jet, bearing identification codes that match a plane linked to Prigozhin in US sanctions documents, descending to landing altitude near the Belarus capital Minsk," Reuters news agency said.
The report, however, added: “There was no immediate confirmation whether Prigozhin was on board.”
The flight tracker first detected the plane above Rostov, the southern Russian city Prigozhin`s fighters captured on Saturday.
The Japan-based NHK referring to an independent Belarusian group also reported that a private jet apparently owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russian private military firm Wagner Group, has landed at a military airfield near the Belarusian capital Minsk.
The independent monitoring project Hajun reported the arrival of the business jet on Tuesday.
NHK, however, reported as well that it was not known whether Prigozhin was onboard the plane.
But the US Senate Intelligence chair Mark Warner, meanwhile, told NBC News that Prigozhin landed in Belarus and was staying "in one of the few hotels in the capital Minsk that does not have any windows".
"I understand, literally as I was coming on air, that he says he`s in Minsk and he actually is. And get this - this is just reports - that he is in one of the only hotels in Minsk that does not have any windows," he said.
The development came three days after he led an aborted mutiny against the Russian military while after initial vow to expose him to stern actions by Russian leadership, Moscow subsequently said criminal charges brought against Prigozhin-led Wagner group following the aborted mutiny over the weekend, which challenged the military`s handling of the war in Ukraine, was dropped.
After the weekend`s abortive rebellion Prigozhin halted his Wagner fighters from marching towards the Russian capital and said he would go to neighbouring Belarus, a major Russian ally under President Alexander Lukashenko, who brokered a deal in consultation with Moscow to quell the revolt.
But details of his proposed journey into exile were not made public while the mercenary leader was last seen in public on Saturday night, smiling and high-fiving bystanders as he rode out of Rostov in the back of an SUV after ordering his men to stand down.
It first appeared on the tracking site above Rostov, the southern Russian city Prigozhin`s fighters captured on Saturday. There was no immediate confirmation whether Prigozhin was on board.
Russia said today it prepared to take possession of heavy military hardware held by Wagner as Moscow moved to bring the mercenary group under its control after its aborted mutiny while asked Wagner members to join the regular Russian armed forces, or go back to their families or go Belarus in exile.
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