 President Vladimir Putin has held Kremlin talks with Wagner mercenary group founder Yevgeny Prigazin and his commanders to discuss the armed mutiny Wagner attempted to mount against the army's top brass, Putin's spokesman said on July 10. The meeting was first reported by French newspaper Liberation, which said Prigazin had met Putin and the head of the National Guard, Viktor Zolotov, and SVR foreign intelligence, Voss Sergei Naryshkin. The Kremlin said on Monday the meeting was held on June 29, five days after the aborted mutiny, which is widely regarded to have posed the most serious challenge to Putin since he came to power on the last day of 1999, and that Putin had invited 35 people to the meeting, which lasted three hours, including Prigazin and Wagner unit commanders. The brief mutiny led by Prigazin, in which Wagner fighters took control of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and a military headquarters building, was diffused in a deal brokered by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko. Putin, who likened the events to the turmoil which engulfed Russia in the run-up to the 1917 Russian Revolution, has since thanked his army and security services for averting chaos and civil war. Prigazin has said the mutiny was not aimed at overthrowing the government but at bringing to justice the army and defense chiefs for what he called their blunders and unprofessional actions in Ukraine. He was meant to leave for Belarus under the terms of the deal that ended the mutiny.