Belarusian President Alexandr Lukashenko defended this Thursday that it is necessary to negotiate “peace with Kiev in talks without “preconditions”, adding that the mercenaries of the Wagner group expected in Belarus is not going to attack Ukrainian territory.
“Today we have to think again. There is a package of negotiations on the table. A package of things that can be agreed upon. Tomorrow it will be impossible,” the Belarusian head of state said at a press conference.
“Today we need to talk to Ukraine and reach some kind of peace agreement,” he said, without specifying dates and concrete proposals.
Lukashenko, who organized three rounds of negotiations on Belarusian territory at the end of February and March 2022 he said Ukraine’s head of state, Volodymyr Zelensky, “finally already realizes that he will not win the war” and that the “counter-offensive will bring no other result” than the deaths of “thousands and thousands of people”. .
So thought the allied head of state of Russia fighting in Ukraine will intensify because the country still has significant strategic reserves, in addition to the fact that it wants to “demonstrate something” on July 11, the start date of the NATO summit in Vilnius.
“We have to stop. We have already done a lot of bad things. But it could be worse. That is why we have to stop now and sit down at the negotiating table. Without preconditions. We have to decide everything at the negotiating table,” he said. stressed out.
Kiev does not see Belarus as a mediating country because Lukashenko is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who offered the area at the start of the latest invasion so that Russian troops could enter northern Ukraine.
Lukashenko said on Thursday that the future presence of Wagner Group mercenaries in Belarus will not be used to design another attack on Ukraine.
“We have never attacked anyone. I have said it more than once and we will not attack. Nobody will attack anyone from our territory. Both the Wagner group and the Belarusian army will protect our interests,” Lukashenko said.
For Ukraine, the only goal is the recovery of all areas occupied by Russian troops since the first invasion in 2014, which led to the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.
At the same press conference, Lukashenko referred directly to the Wagner Group, a mercenary company involved in Moscow’s campaign in Ukraine, in addition to servicing contract fighters in various parts of the world, such as Syria and the Central African Republic.
According to Lukashenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin will not “crush” the company’s leader, oligarch Yevgueny Prigozhyn, despite being deemed a “traitor” on June 24 following the uprising against the Kremlin brokered by Belarus.
“You have to realize that Putin knows Prigozhin much better than I do. I have only seen him at a few events, while Putin has known him since the time they both lived and worked in St. Petersburg,” Lukashenko said, adding that “she had a close relationship quite well”.
Lukashenko said the leader of the Wagner Group is currently in St. Petersburg, Russia, and contacted Prigozhin by phone on Wednesday afternoon.
“Yesterday afternoon (Wednesday) we spoke on the phone and discussed some matters related to Wagner’s subsequent actions,” he revealed without materializing.
According to Lukashenko, the oligarch who organized an armed uprising in Russia on June 24 “will continue to work for the good of Russia”.
“What will happen to him (Progozhin) next? Anything can happen in life. But if you think that Putin is so vicious and vindictive that he will ‘crush’ him… No, that will not happen,” predicted he.
Source: DN
