Exclusive: Putin 'Fled Moscow' During Prigozhin's Mutiny

Russian President Vladimir Putin fled Moscow during a mutiny led by Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, Newsweek has been told.

Self-exiled former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man before he fell foul of Putin, said he was monitoring the movements of the Russian president during Prigozhin's short-lived rebellion on June 24.

He said he learned from one of his contacts that Putin left Moscow by plane during the failed coup, and most likely went to his residence in Valdai in between Russia's Tver and Novgorod regions, located some 250 miles away.

Putin's apparent absence as the mutiny played out fueled speculation about his whereabouts, and information from Khodorkovsky's contact is the latest indication from multiple sources, including aircraft tracking data, that the Russian president was not in Moscow.

Former Russian oil executive Khodorkovsky, 60, headed the energy company Yukos before he spent a decade in prison in Russia for what critics called politically motivated charges. He was one of the earliest supporters of democratic change in Russia, criticizing endemic corruption at a televised meeting with Putin in early 2003. Khodorkovsky was pardoned by the Russian president in 2013, but remains a leading critic of his regime.

Khodorkovsky, who has been designated a "foreign agent" by the Kremlin and has said he is often contacted by members of the FSB, said he had information about Putin's movements during the Wagner mutiny.

"We were monitoring Putin at that moment. And it looks like indeed, he did leave Moscow, and most likely went to Valdai to his residence," Khodorkovsky told Newsweek from London, where he now lives.

Valdai in northwestern Russia is home to property owned by Putin, multiple sources have said.

Agentstvo, an independent Russian-language investigative media outlet, reported in January that a Pantsir-S1 air defense system was placed close to the residence after drone attacks inside Russian territory. It described the home as "a place of personal leisure for Putin, his relatives and friends."

In March, independent news website Meduza reported that part of Valdai National Park was closed to visitors after an investigation revealed that Putin owns property in the area.

Putin's Presidential Airplane

A plane "which is only used by Putin" departed from Moscow on June 24 and headed to Russia's northwest, Khodorkovsky said, citing his source, adding that the aircraft disappeared from a flight tracker "somewhere around Valdai." He said he was alerted to the aircraft's movements at 1 p.m. Moscow time.

Independent Russian-language news network Current Time, citing Flightradar24 data, said that Putin's presidential jet, an Ilyushin Il-96, took off from Moscow as Prigozhin's rebellion was underway. It reported that the aircraft's transponder was turned off as it began to descend in the Tver region. It said this may indicate that the aircraft was heading to the Borisovsky Khotilovo airbase—the nearest airfield to Putin's Valdai residence.

Newsweek has checked flight information for the jet and verified Current Time's reporting. The Il-96, with the registration RA-96022, has been used to transport Putin to various meetings and summits. As indicated by Current Time, this aircraft is shown heading out of Moscow at 2:16 p.m. local time on June 24, before climbing to nearly 26,000 feet. At 2:32 p.m. it begins to descend, before tracking is lost at 2:39 p.m., west of Tver city.

Other aircraft from the Rossiya Special Flight Unit, used to transport high-ranking Russian officials or members of the armed forces, also took to the air from Moscow, with one landing in St. Petersburg.

"Leaders, all sorts of heads of different departments, indeed, a lot of them left Moscow as well," Khodorkovsky said. "So this is exactly why I thought at the time that the opposition had a chance. But...Prigozhin's mutiny came to nothing very fast."

In an article for the The New York Times on June 30, Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar also said that Putin was not in Moscow on the day of the rebellion. However, Zygar said that the Russian president spent the day on a yacht owned by his ally and businessman Yury Kovalchuk in St. Petersburg, watching the Scarlet Sails festival show. Agentsvo has disputed this, saying that there was no visual evidence, and nor did the yacht leave any digital footprint on marine tracking tools. It said, however, that transponders on Russian yachts had been turned off in the past.

Other sources have supported Khodorkovsky's version of events. Leonid Nevzlin, a Russian-Israeli businessman and Putin critic who announced weeks into the war that he was renouncing his Russian citizenship, tweeted on June 24 that "Putin is hiding in the bunker of his residence in Valdai."

"His closest friends and associates also flew there. The dictator is in a panic. Additional troops advanced towards Valdai to protect it. This has just been reported by my sources," he wrote.

Also on June 24, Ukrainian outlet Ukrainska Pravda quoted Kyiv intelligence sources as saying: "We already have information that Putin is leaving Moscow. He is being taken to Valdai."

Journalist Boris Grozovski wrote in a post for the Wilson Center think tank on June 30: "During the day, as the mutiny was unfolding, Putin fled Moscow and reportedly spent the next twenty-four hours at his Valdai estate."

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, told Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti that Putin was "working in the Kremlin" on the day of the failed coup. Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry via email for comment.

Prigozhin's Ideas 'Now Very Much Widespread'

Prigozhin advanced on Moscow as part of a "march of justice" demanding the resignation of Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov over their handling of the war in Ukraine.

After less than 24 hours, Prigozhin pulled back his fighters when the Kremlin said a deal had been brokered by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko to avoid "bloodshed." That agreement will see Prigozhin and his fighters relocate to Belarus, although details of the deal remain unclear.

Khodorkovsky said Prigozhin, through his uprising, was successful in articulating ideas "which are now very much widespread in the [Russian] army, and also the political elite," including that the war with Ukraine was a mistake—something that was previously only put forward by the democratic opposition.

"Today, it is a consolidated idea, both [in] the army and the political elite," he added.