Prigozhin meets African leader in St Petersburg, Facebook photo shows

Mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has shown up on the sidelines of the Africa summit in St Petersburg a month after his brief rebellion against Moscow's military leadership, according to Russian sources.

The head of Russia's cultural centre, known as the Russia House, in the Central African Republic, Dmitry Syty, posted a photo on Facebook on Thursday purporting to show Prigozhin meeting with the African country's ambassador in St Petersburg.

The ambassador shared the first picture from the summit with him, Syty wrote. Prigozhin's Wagner paramilitary is active in the Central African Republic.

According to the report, Prighozin continued to stay in his hometown of St Petersburg even after the brief attempted coup on June 24.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is currently meeting African heads of state and government at the second Africa Summit in that city, in a summit lasting until Friday.

Russian media were astonished that Prigozhin, who had also recently spoken to Putin in the Kremlin, has apparently been rehabilitated.

The Wagner chief did not initially respond. The photo was widely shared on social media - including channels close to Wagner. However, local media reported that the Wagner boss had held the meeting at his Trezzini Palace Hotel and not at the Expoforum itself, where the summit is organized under massive security.

Prigozhin is deployed in many African states with his private army, which most recently moved into a camp in Belarus to represent Russian interests there in addition to his own business interests.