Russia says Wagner Group's leader will move to Belarus

New Delhi: Russian military company Wagner will move to neighbouring Belarus as part of deal to defuse rebellion tensions and the criminal case against him will be closed, the Kremlin said Saturday.

Yevgeny Prigozhin's troops who joined him in the uprising will not face prosecution and those who did not will be offered contracts by the Defense Ministry, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

After the deal was reached, Prigozhin said he was ordering his troops to halt their march on Moscow and retreat to field camps in Ukraine, where they have been fighting alongside Russian troops.

The deal appeared to defuse a dramatically escalating crisis that represented the most significant challenge to President Vladimir Putin in his more than two decades in power.

The deal was mediated by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a staunch Putin ally. (AP)