The head of the Wagner Group mercenary army has returned to Russia about two weeks after he was granted safe haven in Belarus following his aborted mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said Thursday.

Yevgeny Prigozhin was in the Russian city of St. Petersburg but may have gone on to Moscow, Mr. Lukashenko told reporters at a press conference in Minsk.

On Thursday, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said he couldn’t confirm whether Mr. Prigozhin, once known as “Putin’s caterer,” was in Russia.

“We don’t follow his movements. We have neither the ability nor the desire to do so,” spokesman Dmitri Peskov said, according to The New York Times.

Mr. Lukashenko said he had a telephone conversation with the Wagner Group leader on Wednesday in which they discussed the mercenary army’s future.

“He told me one thing, ‘I will work for the good of Russia and will fulfill our duty to the end,’” the Belarusian president said, according to BelTA, the country’s state-owned news agency.

He couldn’t predict what the future holds for Mr. Prigozhin but said he doesn’t believe the mercenary army leader’s safety is in question.

“If you think that Putin is so malicious and vindictive that [Mr. Prigozhin] will be ‘killed’ tomorrow, no, this will not happen,” Mr. Lukashenko said.

The Wagner Group leader has not been seen in public since he left Rostov-on-Don, a city in southern Russia that his troops briefly occupied during their march on Moscow.

Mr. Prigozhin raised questions about his personal security if he agreed to call off the rebellion, the Belarusian president said.

“I told him, ‘If it is necessary for the sake of ending this conflict, I am ready to accept you in Belarus and guarantee your safety,’” Mr. Lukashenko told reporters.

He said Moscow agreed to stop any criminal cases against Mr. Prigozhin and other Wagner Group personnel.

“At the moment, all agreements are being observed,” Mr. Lukashenko said.

The Wagner Group troops who followed Mr. Prigozhin into Moscow are now in Belarus. Mr. Lukashenko said he’s not worried that they will use his country as a staging area for future operations in Ukraine.

But “if we need to use this unit for the defense of the state, it will be activated instantly. [Their] experience will be in demand,” Mr. Lukashenko said. “The experience that Wagner and the commanders have, they will gladly pass on to our armed forces.”

• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.