Lukashenko on Prigozhin's mutiny: We thought it would resolve itself somehow, but it didn't
Self-proclaimed Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has called the mutiny of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin "a clash between two people who fought at the front".
Source: Lukashenko quoted by Pul Pervogo, a Belarusian presidential media outlet
Quote: "I said: don't make a hero out of me, neither me, nor Putin, nor Prigozhin, because we lost [control of] the situation, and then we thought it would resolve itself somehow, but it didn't. And two people who fought at the front clashed. There are no heroes in this case."
Details: On 27 June, Lukashenko commented on the situation with the Wagner Group. The self-proclaimed president of Belarus said that it was "painful for him to watch the events" that took place in southern Russia, "because there is [only] one Motherland".
Lukashenko has said that during the Wagnerites’ rebellion in Russia, he put the Belarusian army on full combat alert, including the police and special forces.
As usual, the Belarusian dictator also filled his speech with Kremlin propaganda messages about the "collective West, the threat of NATO expansion, etc.".
Quote: "The worst thing is that if there were turmoil, the West would immediately take advantage of it."
Background:
- On the evening of 23 June, Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that the regular Russian army had launched a missile strike on the Wagner mercenaries’ rear camps. He therefore deployed 25,000 of his mercenaries "to restore justice".
- On 24 June, the Wagner mercenaries took control of military facilities in Rostov-on-Don and seized military facilities in Voronezh, and were on their way to Moscow, and the Russian capital was already preparing for defence.
- In an emergency address, dictator Vladimir Putin talked of betrayal and attempts to "organise a rebellion". Ukrainian intelligence had information that Putin had urgently left Moscow for his residence in Valdai.
- In the evening of the same day, after a conversation with self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, Prigozhin said that his mercenaries were returning to field camps. The criminal case against Prigozhin in Russia was promised to be closed, and he was to "go to Belarus".
- On 27 June, Prigozhin's business jet left from the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don for Belarus, and another plane arrived there from St Petersburg.
- The FSB reported that the criminal case on "armed rebellion" against the head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had been terminated.
Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron!
