Putin tries to split Prigozhin from his Wagner fighters

Vladimir Putin has suggested that he‍‍`s created a split between senior Wagner fighters and the leader of the mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin, according to a report in the Kommersant newspaper.

The paper was reporting on a meeting held by the Russian leader five days after the Wagner rebellion collapsed at the end of June -- a meeting attended by Prigozhin and several dozen senior Wagner combatants.

Putin told the mercenaries that among the choices before them was continuing to fight under their direct commander, a man going by the call sign, "Sedoy," meaning "Grey hair," according to Kommersant.

"Nothing would have changed for them. They would be led by the same person who has been their real commander all along,” Putin had told the group, Kommersant reported.

"And what happened then?" the Kommersant reporter says he asked the Russian leader.

“Many people nodded

Prigozhin, however -- who was sitting in front of the group and had not seen the men apparently nodding their approval -- took a different tack, Kommersant says the Russian president told them.

"No, the guys do not agree with this decision," the Wagner leader said, according to Putin.

The paper does not say how the Kremlin meeting progressed immediately beyond that point, but the reporting suggests a fresh attempt by Putin to weaken Prigozhin without undermining the achievements of the Wagner fighters carrying out Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.