The Belarusian president said on Friday he had warned Wagner group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and mercenary commander Dmitri Utkin — believed to have died in a plane crash — of potential threats to their lives, Reuters reported.
Alexander Lukashenko said Prigozhin had twice dismissed concerns raised by the Belarusian leader after the Wagner leader carried out the mutiny aimed at overthrowing military hierarchies.
In the course of the riot, Lukashenko said he warned Prigozhin that he would die if he continued the armored car march on Moscow. “May this go to hell, I’m going to die,” the Wagner leader is said to have said, according to the Belarusian president.
Lukashenko also said in remarks from state news agency Belta that he gave Prigozhin and Utkin a warning when the two were with him: “Be careful guys.”.
The Belarusian president said he could not imagine his Russian counterpart and ally Vladimir Putin ordering the death of the head of the Wagner group.
“I know Putin. He is a calculating man, very calm and even slow to make decisions on minor matters. Therefore, I cannot imagine that Putin did this,” Lukashenko said.
Lukashenko believed that if it turns out to be a murder, it was “too brutal and amateurish work”, according to the French agency AFP, citing the Belarusian counterpart.
However, he said he could not say who might have been responsible for Prigozhin’s presumed death.
The Russian authorities have announced an investigation into the accident, but are yet to say anything about the possible causes.
Putin’s spokesman today denied any involvement of the presidency in Prigozhin’s presumed death, calling the insinuations speculative.
“This is an absolute lie,” Dmitri Peskov replied to journalists.
Lukashenko mediated between Moscow and Prigozhin in late June, when the head of the Wagner group staged an uprising to overthrow the military hierarchy, accusing it of incompetence in waging the war against Ukraine.
The Belarusian leader also denied any responsibility for Prigozhin’s safety, saying he had never made such a demand. “The conversation never went that way,” he said.
According to Belta, Lukashenko said he had already warned Putin about an attempt to assassinate Prigozhin after receiving “very serious information” from reliable sources during a recent trip to the United Arab Emirates.
Later, Lukashenko said he spoke with Prigozhin, who confirmed that Putin had warned him about the threat, the AP news agency reported.
Guarantees that mercenaries of the Wagner group will remain in Belarus
Lukashenko also told Belta that Wagner Group personnel will remain in Belarus in number and for as long as necessary.
He said Belarus is building accommodation so they don’t have to sleep in tents. “After all, Belarus is neither Africa nor Ukraine, where they were at the front,” he told Belta.
“The core stays here. Some are on leave. (…) They will all be here in a few days. Up to 10,000 people. There is no need to keep them here now,” he said.
Lukashenko also denied any fear in the country, including in the armed forces, due to the presence of a military force, including convicts recruited by Prigozhin in exchange for pardons from prison terms.
“I have read the descriptions (…): they are former convicts, they are bad. Listen, they help an elderly woman cross the street and they do not accept change in a shop, [são] fantastic people. Iron discipline,” he remarked.
Source: DN
