Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday that Wagner boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is in Russia and not Belarus.
“As for Prigozhin, he’s in St. Petersburg or on his way to Moscow. He is not on the territory of Belarus,” and that “Wagner fighters are still in their bases on Russian soil, and the issue of their transfer to Belarus will be negotiated with Russia and with the leadership of Wagner,” Lukashenko was cited talking to reporters by the Russian state-run agency TASS.
Regarding the situation in Ukraine, Lukashenko said he believes that “Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy realized he won’t win the war and that’s why he started blaming those who pushed Ukraine into this war,” and that he’s after money and weapons and wants to involve the Western allies in a war with Russia by insisting on joining NATO.” He also stressed the need to address the conflict in Ukraine through negotiations saying “it has to stop because what happened is bad and could get worse.” He also added that negotiations should be brought to the table without preconditions, warning that they won’t be possible after the counterattack Ukraine is preparing for as the time right now is suitble for peace talk.
On June 24, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin led an armed rebellion during which his forces seized the cities of Rostov and Voronezh, in a move described by President Vladimir Putin as a betrayal and threatened to crush him.
President Lukashenko was able to help contain the conflict between Wagner and the Russian leadership by reaching an agreement under which Prigozhin pledged to withdraw his forces from the Russian cities and end the rebellion in return for the Russian authorities’ commitment to drop all criminal charges against him and his members.
Source: Kuwait News Agency
