Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko arrives to meet with foreign media at his residence, the Independence Palace, in the capital Minsk on July 6, 2023. Photo by Alexander NEMENOV / AFP
The chief of the Wagner private army that staged an aborted rebellion against the Kremlin’s military leadership last month is currently in Russia, according to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Yevgeny Prigozhin "is in St. Petersburg,” Lukashenko told reporters in Minsk Thursday, according to the state-owned Belta news agency. The mercenary leader may also have gone to Moscow, the president said.
Lukashenko said last week that Prigozhin was in Belarus days after he agreed to turn his mercenaries away from a march on Moscow June 24 that had spiraled into the greatest threat to President Vladimir Putin’s nearly quarter-century rule in Russia.
Under a deal brokered by Lukashenko, Putin agreed to allow the Wagner founder and his fighters to go to Belarus and to drop a criminal investigation against them for armed mutiny. Prigozhin hasn’t made a public appearance since the end of the mutiny.
Lukashenko said Wagner mercenaries may be allowed to deploy in Belarus as long as they help to defend the state.
"The main condition is: if we need to engage this unit to defend the state, it will be engaged immediately,” Lukashenko said.
He said he saw no risk that Wagner may organize an uprising in Belarus and turn weapons against his regime.
Still, he said, "in life anything can happen.”
