The leader of the Belarusian opposition, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, warned on Thursday that the leader of Wagner, a Russian mercenary company, and the Belarusian president “are not allies and may be disloyal to each other.”
“At any moment, (President Aleksandr) Lukashenko can betray [Yevgeny] Prigozhin or Prigozhin can betray Lukashenko. They are not allies. They don’t trust each other,” Tikhanovskaya said.
Prigozhin arrived in Belarus on Tuesday, according to President Lukashenko’s announcement.
The Russian businessman, leader of the Wagner group, went to Belarus as part of an agreement negotiated with Moscow to put an end to the rebellion he promoted with his mercenaries in Russia.
Tikhanovskaya, who claimed victory over Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election, stressed that “there is still a lot to clarify” about the alleged deal.
For the Belarusian opposition leader, in exile in Lithuania, Lukashenko’s decision to help Vladimir Putin is a gesture of personal convenience to save the Minsk regime.
“He did not act to save Putin’s face, or to save Prigozhin, or to prevent a civil war from breaking out in Russia,” he said.
“(Lukashenko) was only concerned with his own personal survival, because Lukashenko knows that if Russia’s factions clash, he can pay the price,” he said.
“If Prigozhin’s fighters invaded Belarus in large numbers, they could threaten Europe,” he added.
“The presence of Prigozhin himself or the Wagner group on our territory is, first of all, a threat to the Belarusian people and our independence,” Svetlana Tikhanovskaya declared.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former Kremlin ally and businessman who created Russia’s most powerful private army, recruited thousands of prisoners to fight in Ukraine, as well as recruiting fighters deployed in Syria, Africa and Latin America.
Late last week, he led an armed rebellion on Russian soil.
The Belarusian opposition leader has warned that the Russian oligarch may use the forces of the Wagner company to further quell any dissent in the country.
“He is the person who brought rapists and murderers to our land,” he accused.
Tikhanovskaya also criticized the “inattention of the West” to the situation in Belarus, increasingly under Moscow’s rule.
The lack of a firm response from the “international community” on the transfer of nuclear weapons from Russia to Belarus emboldened Moscow and Minsk.
“We are still waiting for a response to the installation of nuclear weapons on our territory. When the world is silent at such an important moment, dictators face silence as a weakness, ”he considered.
Source: TSF
