Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko has asked Wagner Group mercenaries to the military of his country, in a new twist to the armed group’s journey from Russia’s pillar in the Ukraine war to the rebelled group and finally a unit exiled to Minsk, an ally of Moscow.
According to state news agency Belta, Lukashenko said, “Unfortunately, they (Wagner mercenaries) are not here. “And if their instructors, as I already told them, come and pass on combat experience to us, we will accept this experience.”
The proposal of Lukashenko comes just a week after he was given the credit for defusing Wagner forces’ armed insurrection against Moscow. In a shocking series of events which seemed to threaten the position of Russian President Vladimir Putin in decades, Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin had marched towards Moscow along with his forces and taken control of military facilities in two cities of Russia.
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The crisis came to an end after Lukashenko successfully brokered a deal according to which Prigozhin had to move to Belarus. In the same deal, Wagner troops were given the option to either go to Belarus, sign up with the Russian military or law enforcement agencies, or go back to their family and friends.
Lukashenko, in his speech, said that he did not fear the members of the Wagner Group and had “known them for a long time.” “These are people who fought all over the world to establish a normal civilisation. The West hates them to the core,” he added.
He further warned a “world-scale military-political crisis unprecedented in the history of mankind” was brewing, and slammed the West for not understanding the need for dialogue to resolve the situation.
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The European Union and the United States were accused of “arming Poland at an accelerated pace” and claimed that the West was making Poland into “a proxy training ground” to use against Russia and Belarus.
“Thus, another hotbed of tension is being created, another stronghold is being created for the aggression of the most aggressive country in the world and, unfortunately, the most powerful – the United States,” he stated.
CIA director meets Zelensky
Recently, CIA Director William Burns visited Ukraine and held talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukrainian intelligence officials, as per a US official.
Speaking to CNN, the official said, “Director Burns recently travelled to Ukraine, as he has done regularly since the beginning of Russia’s recent aggression more than a year ago. As with other trips, the director met with his Ukrainian intelligence counterparts and President Zelensky, reaffirming the US commitment to sharing intelligence to help Ukraine defend against Russian aggression.”
He noted that Director Burns had travelled to Kyiv before the rebellion of Yevgeny Prigozhin.
