Speculation surrounds the whereabouts of the commander of Russia's Wagner mercenary group, after reports that he returned to the country following his aborted mutiny against the Kremlin last month.
Yevgeny Prigozhin was called a “traitor” by President Vladimir Putin after his group's advance on Moscow, in which he reached 200km outside the capital before backing down following a peace deal brokered by Belarus's leader.
As part of the deal, Mr Prigozhin was allowed to move his group to Belarus where it was expected he would use the country as a base to operate his private army alongside his fighters who did not wish to sign up with the Russian Defence Ministry.
But on Thursday, Belarus's President Alexander Lukashenko said that the warlord was in St Petersburg, where Wagner's headquarters is located, or may have moved on to Moscow.
“He is not on the territory of Belarus,” Mr Lukashenko told a news conference in Minsk.
A business jet linked to Mr Prigozhin left St Petersburg for Moscow on Wednesday and was heading for southern Russia on Thursday, according to flight tracking data, but it was not clear if the mercenary chief was on board. The jet has made several trips between Moscow and St Petersburg in the past weeks.
Mr Prigozhin has not been seen in public since June 24 when his troops occupied Rostov-on-Don as they made their way north to the capital.
What could happen to Prigozhin?
Many have questioned why Mr Prigozhin has been allowed to remain free in a country where political dissent, let alone armed rebellion, is heavily penalised.
Mr Putin recently indicated the government would probe alleged financial irregularities by Mr Prigozhin’s companies, an ominous sign that he was being personally targeted by Kremlin officials.
Channels showed videos of searches at Mr Prigozhin’s St Petersburg offices and an opulent mansion he reportedly owned that has a helipad and indoor swimming pool.
They also showed a van with boxes of cash, as well as gold bars, wigs and weapons in the estate.
The goal of these revelations is “to smear the person, show he is an oligarch,” said Ilya Shumanov, Russia director for Transparency International.
“And here they say that he’s a billionaire, and all this [money] isn’t his, it’s from the [state] budget, and he was sitting on it, and there would have been no private military company without the Defence Ministry,” Mr Shumanov told the Associated Press.
But Mr Lukashenko was adamant that the earlier deal still stood and that he would meet Mr Putin in the near future and discuss the situation with him.
Mr Prigozhin is “absolutely free” and Mr Putin will not “wipe him out”, Mr Lukashenko added.
What is the Wagner Group?
What will happen to Wagner?
The future of the Wagner group remains unclear in light of Mr Prigozhin's tenuous position.
Mr Lukashenko said an offer for Wagner to station some of its fighters in Belarus – a prospect that has worried Nato countries – still stands.
“We are not building camps. We offered them several former military camps that were used in Soviet times, including near Osipovichi. If they agree. But Wagner has a different vision for deployment, of course, I won’t tell you about this vision,” the Belarusian leader told reporters.
It has since emerged that Wagner officials have yet to visit a disused camp that was offered for the group's use by Mr Lukashenko.
Asked if Wagner had come to look at the site, defence adviser Leonid Kasinsky said: “They have not come, they have not looked.”
Mr Lukashenko also said the question of Wagner units relocating to Belarus had not been resolved, and would depend on decisions by Russia and by Wagner.
“Whether they will be in Belarus or not, in what quantity, we will figure it out in the near future,” he said.
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg revealed on Thursday that Western forces had also not seen Wagner forces massing in Belarus, and were monitoring the situation “closely”.
Mr Prigozhin had also been seen “moving a bit around,” Mr Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels, adding that he would not go into further details.
