Belarus welcomed the head of the Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin into exile yesterday following an aborted rebellion, as NATO warned it was ready to defend against "Moscow or Minsk".
As the fallout unfolded from Mr Prigozhin's brief mutiny -- widely seen as the biggest threat to Kremlin authority in decades -- Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to shore up his authority by thanking regular troops for averting a civil war.
But as Russia announced preparations to disarm Wagner fighters, Mr Putin's arch foe, jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, launched a stinging attack on the president in his first comments since the aborted mutiny by the paramilitaries.
"There is no bigger threat to Russia than Putin's regime," Mr Navalny said on social media.
"Putin's regime is so dangerous to the country that even its inevitable demise will create the threat of civil war," he wrote.
In the Hague, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said it was still too early to draw conclusions from the move to Belarus of Prigozhin and, likely, some of his forces, but he vowed that the alliance was ready to defend its members.
"What is absolutely clear is that we have sent a clear message to Moscow and to Minsk that NATO is there to protect every ally and every inch of NATO territory," Mr Stoltenberg said.
'Stopped civil war'
Mr Putin's supporters, however, insisted that his rule was not weakened by the revolt.
Asked whether Mr Putin's power was diminished by the sight of Wagner's rebel mercenaries seizing a military HQ, advancing on Moscow and shooting down military aircraft along the way, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused political commentators of exaggerating, adding that: "We don't agree."
Putin himself attempted to portray the dramatic events at the weekend as a victory for the Russian army.
"You de facto stopped civil war," Putin told troops from the defence ministry, National Guard, FSB security service and interior ministry gathered in a Kremlin courtyard to hold a minute's silence for airmen slain by Wagner.
Private army
Mr Prigozhin, a former Kremlin ally and catering contractor who built Russia's most powerful private army, has boasted -- with some support from news footage -- that his men were cheered by civilians during his short-lived revolt.
In a separate meeting with defence officials, Mr Putin confirmed that Wagner was wholly funded by the Russian federal budget, despite operating as an independent company, adding that in the past year alone since the assault on Ukraine, the state had paid the group 86.262 billion rubles (around $1 billion) in salaries.
The feud between Wagner and the army had escalated for months, with Mr Prigozhin making increasingly scathing statements against the generals' handling of the offensive in Ukraine, blaming them for thousands of Russian losses.
Russian officials have been trying to put the crisis behind them for three days, with the FSB dropping charges against rank-and-file Wagner troops and the military preparing to disarm the group.
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'Wipe out'
Meanwhile, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he persuaded Mr Putin not to "wipe out" Mr Prigozhin, in response to what the Kremlin cast as a mutiny that pushed Russia towards civil war.
Mr Putin initially vowed to crush the mutiny, comparing it to the wartime turmoil that ushered in the revolution of 1917 and then a civil war, but hours later a deal was clinched to allow Mr Prigozhin and some of his fighters to go to Belarus.
While describing his Saturday conversation with Mr Putin, Mr Lukashenko used the Russian criminal slang phrase for killing someone, equivalent to the English phrase to "wipe out".
"I also understood: a brutal decision had been made (and it was the undertone of Putin's address) to wipe out" the mutineers, Mr Lukashenko told a meeting of his army officials and journalists yesterday, according to Belarusian state media.
"I suggested to Putin not to rush. 'Come on,' I said, 'Let's talk with Prigozhin, with his commanders.' To which he told me: 'Listen, Sasha, it's useless. He doesn't even pick up the phone, he doesn't want to talk to anyone'."
Mr Putin used the same Russian verb in 1999 about Chechen militants, vowing to "wipe out them out in the shithouse", remarks that became a widely quoted emblem of his severe persona.
There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin on Mr Lukashenko's remarks, which give a rare insight into the conversations inside the Kremlin as Russia, according to Mr Putin's own account, teetered towards turmoil not seen for decades.
Mr Lukashenko, both an old acquaintance of Mr Prigozhin and close ally of Mr Putin, said that he had advised the Russian president to think "beyond our own noses" and that Mr Prigozhin's elimination could lead to a widespread revolt by his fighters.
The Belarusian leader also said that his own army could benefit from the experience of Wagner troops who, according to a deal struck with the Kremlin, are now free to move to Belarus.
"This is the most trained unit in the army," BelTA state agency quoted Mr Lukashenko as saying.
"Who will argue with this? My military also understand this, and we don't have such people in Belarus."
Later Mr Lukashenko told his military that "people fail to understand that we are approaching this in a pragmatic way ...They've (Wagner) been through it, they'll tell us about the weaponry - what worked well, which worked badly."
The bloody conflict is now 16 months old, with mass casualties on both sides and a rising civilian toll.
Yesterday, a Russian rocket struck a bustling restaurant in the middle of Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine, killing at least nine people including a teenager, regional officials said.
The blast at the Ria Pizza restaurant also wounded at least 56 at the eatery, popular with both soldiers and journalists in the town of 150,000 people, one of the largest still under Ukraine control in the east.
"There was loads of blood, everyone was wounded," said Yevgen, who had been dining at the restaurant with two friends. "I couldn't understand anything, everything went dark."
Meanwhile, the United States announced a new $500 million tranche of arms to bolster Ukraine's mounting counteroffensive, including armoured vehicles, precision munitions and mine-clearing equipment.
