The Russian Federation Federal Security Service (RF FSB) has informed about the dropping of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Wagner private mercenary group, RIA Novosti reported.

"During the investigation of the criminal case (under Article 279 of the RF Criminal Code, on the fact of armed riot) initiated by the RF FSB Investigation Department on June 23, it was found that on June 24, its participants stopped their actions aimed at committing a crime," the aforesaid department informed, adding that "taking this and other circumstances important for the investigation into account, the investigative body made a decision on June 27 to stop the criminal case."

Earlier, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov had said that Prigozhin "will go to Belarus," and the criminal case on organizing an armed riot will be dropped.

On the evening of June 23, Yevgeny Prigozhin had announced that his Wagner private mercenary group was advancing on the territory of Russia on a "march of justice," after which the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia had opened a criminal case on charges of organizing an armed riot.

On June 24, the Wagner mercenaries entered Rostov-on-Don city, and some of them moved to Moscow. Wagner's units had not reached the Russian capital, on the evening of June 24, Prigozhin announced that after talks with Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, the mercenaries were "turning back their convoys" and "leaving in the opposite direction to the field camps, according to the plan."