Europe 1 with AFP 15:41 pm, June 27, 2023

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday paid tribute to his army, which he said prevented a "civil war" during the rebellion of the paramilitary group Wagner, for the moment forgiven, but ordered to hand over its heavy weapons.

If the shock wave of the revolt led by the men of billionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin remains to be measured, the Kremlin has already denied that Vladimir Putin emerged weakened from this crisis, the worst in more than two decades of rule.

"You opposed these unrests whose result would inevitably have been chaos," Putin said at a ceremony in front of the military in Moscow. "In fact, you have prevented a civil war," he added. The master of the Kremlin then observed a minute of silence in tribute to army pilots killed by the mutineers while they were "performing their duty with honor".

A "betrayal" for Putin

Earlier, the Russian Ministry of Defense, the bête noire of the Wagner Group, announced that "preparations (were) underway for the transfer of Wagner's heavy military equipment to active units of the armed forces" regular. Such a measure seems intended to neutralize the Wagner group, whose leader has not appeared in public since the end of the rebellion Saturday night.

>> READ ALSO - War in Ukraine: what is the Wagner Group?

In a speech Monday night, the Russian president had congratulated himself for having avoided "bloodshed" during this rebellion that saw the mutineers seize military sites in the southwest before going up with their tanks to Moscow.

While denouncing a "betrayal", Putin assured that Wagner's fighters could return home, join the regular army or go to Belarus, whose leader Alexander Lukashenko served as mediator to stop the crisis.

Prigozhin in Belarus?

Alexander Lukashenko said Tuesday that the rebellion was the result of mismanagement of rivalries between Wagner and the Russian military that have grown steadily in recent months, an implicit criticism of Putin. "The situation escaped us, then we thought it would be resolved, but it did not be resolved," Lukashenko told reporters. "There are no heroes in this story," he lamented.

Faced with Western leaders and analysts believing that Putin emerges greatly weakened from this crisis, the Kremlin stepped up to the plate on Tuesday. "We don't agree," Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov replied. "These events have demonstrated how much society is consolidating around the president," he said.

>> READ ALSO - Russia: Kremlin wants a return to normalcy after Wagner's rebellion

The mutineers found that "the army and the people were not on their side," the Russian leader added. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who forged close ties with Vladimir Putin before the conflict in Ukraine, said that the Russian president's power remained "stable" and that the rebellion had "not a great significance".

In his only audio message broadcast since the end of the revolt, Yevgeny Prigozhin on Monday defended himself from having tried to "overthrow the power", saying only that he wanted to "save" his group which was threatened with being absorbed by the regular army. While his whereabouts are unknown, some Belarusian media reported that a private jet belonging to Yevgeny Prigozhin landed in Belarus on Tuesday morning, but neither Prigozhin nor the authorities confirmed.

Charges dropped

In any case, in a sign that an agreement seems to have been reached between Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Kremlin, the security services (FSB) announced on Tuesday the abandonment of the charges against Wagner for "armed mutiny". This leniency, despite the death of an unknown number of army pilots admitted by Putin, contrasts with the relentless repression targeting opponents and anonymous denouncing the military offensive in Ukraine.

For many analysts, the abortive rebellion of the Wagner Group has highlighted weaknesses of the Putin regime and its general staff in the face of heavily armed men. In a sign of concern, Lukashenko said on Tuesday that he had ordered his army to stand "ready for battle" when the rebellion broke out.

>> READ ALSO - Wagner's rebellion: three days later, Putin presents himself as a guarantor of internal peace

Some analysts also believe that it could weaken Russian forces in Ukraine and benefit Kiev in its counteroffensive. On Tuesday, Vladimir Putin claimed that he had "not had to withdraw combat units from the area of the +special military operation" to redeploy them to Russia during the mutiny.

Meanwhile, as the conflict continues, Pope Francis' envoy for peace in Ukraine, Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, is scheduled to visit Moscow on Wednesday and Thursday, according to the Vatican.