The President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, invited the mercenaries of the Wagner group to travel to his country and train the Armed Forces. The invitation came this Friday, during the country’s Independence Day celebration speech, according to the state news agency Belta.
“Unfortunately they [os mercenários do grupo Wagner] they are not here. And if your instructors, as I told you, come to share their combat experience with us, we will accept that experience,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
Lukashenko’s invitation comes just a week after the Belarusian leader was found responsible for disarming an armed uprising by Wagnerian forces against Moscow. In a stunning series of events that posed the biggest threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin in years, Wagner group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin marched his forces into the Russian capital and seized control of military installations in two cities. Russian forces in what he said was a response to a Russian military attack on a Wagnerian camp.
The crisis only subsided after Lukashenko negotiated Prigozhin’s transfer to Belarus. Under the same agreement, Wagnerian troops had the option of enlisting in the Russian Armed Forces, in the police forces, returning to their family and friends, or going to Belarus.
Prigozhin, a former Kremlin ally who created Russia’s most powerful private army, has recruited thousands of prisoners to fight in Ukraine, as well as contract fighters deployed in Syria, Africa and Latin America. The presence of Prigozhin in Belarus was immediately criticized by the leader of the Belarusian opposition, Svetlana Tikhanovskaia, who recalled that the leader of the Wagner group and the Belarusian president “are not allies and can be disloyal to each other.”
Tikhanovskaya, who claimed victory over Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election, stressed that “there is still a lot to clarify” about the alleged deal.
Source: TSF
