The future of the Wagner Group is murky

With Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group private military company, agreeing to go into exile in Belarus, questions are swirling about what will happen to his mercenaries that have been fighting in Ukraine.

This weekend, Prigozhin accused Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of ordering airstrikes against his fighters, and led a brief revolt that saw his forces march toward Moscow and take control of the Russian city Rostov-on-Don. Tensions have been brewing for months between Prigozhin and Shoigu, especially after the defense minister announced a decree commanding "volunteer formations" like the Wagner Group sign to contracts with the Defense Ministry by July 1. Prigozhin pushed back and said he would not sign, since it would place Wagner fighters under Shoigu.

Prigozhin called on Russian citizens and military members to join Wagner, and in response, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a televised address on Saturday, saying any actions that "split our unity are a stab in the back of our country and our people." In a surprise turn, the Kremlin later announced that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko negotiated a deal where Wagner soldiers would turn around and Prigozhin would go into exile in Belarus to avoid prosecution.

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Prigozhin has not been heard from since, and it's not clear what will happen to the Wagner Group. Wagner forces earned Russia's only land victory in months in Bakhmut, Ukraine, and as part of the negotiations, Wagner troops who did not support the revolt inside Russia will be offered contracts directly with the Russian military. Lord Richard Dannatt, former chief of the general staff of the British armed forces, told The Associated Press that "what we don't know, but will discover in the next hours and days is, how many of [Prigozhin's] fighters have gone with him, because if he has gone to Belarus and kept an effective fighting force around him, then he ... presents a threat again" to Ukraine.

Many Wagner soldiers were recruited from Russian prisons, attracted to offers of sentence reductions and cash payments, and in addition to fighting in Ukraine, Wagner mercenaries have been sent to Syria and Sudan. Wagner soldiers are also in the Central African Republic fighting rebels, with the organization being paid in mining concessions, a member of the U.N. working group on the use of mercenaries told NBC News in early June. Wagner fighters have been accused of brutality and human rights abuses, leading the U.S. to label the group a "significant transnational criminal organization."