Minsk, Belarus
CNN
—
If we learned something from the press conference on Thursday of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, it is the head of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has not been seen in public since June 24, as being in a dangerous condition. limbo.
Lukashenko put a gulf in the distance between himself and Prigozhin the Wagner boss when he said that Prigozhin or his mercenaries were in Belarus, and it is not clear if they will move here.
“He is in St Petersburg. Or maybe this morning he will travel to Moscow or somewhere else,” Lukashenko said in response to a question from CNN. “But he is not on the territory of Belarus now.”
When Lukashenko was said to have struck a deal to end Prigozhin’s rebellion in Russia last month, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the deal came about because Prigozhin and Lukashenko knew each other ” personally for a long time, about 20 years. .”
But on Thursday, Lukashenko said that Putin is a longtime friend of Prigozhin, who knows him “better than me and knows him better than me, about 30 years.”
Neither leader seems very keen to be Prigozhin’s best friend now.
One of the final straws for Prigozhin’s long-standing tensions with the Russian Defense Ministry was his insistence that Wagner’s mercenaries sign contracts with the Russian government; Prigozhin refused.
But on Thursday, Lukashenko insisted that Wagner go to Belarus, its mercenaries must sign documents with the Belarusian government.
“If they decide to settle in Belarus, we will make a contract with them,” he said.
Just as we learned that Prigozhin was in Russia, not Belarus, Russian state media released images from a reported police raid on Prigozhin’s office and residence in St. Petersburg. The footage – described by presenters as “scandalous” – shows what is described as a stash of gold, money and wigs, along with weapons and several passports apparently belonging to Prigozhin under various aliases.
Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Yevgeny Prigozhin was last seen in public leaving the Russian military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don on June 24.
Lukashenko, whose loyalty to Russian President Vladimir Putin has led many to regard him as a vassal state, has doubled down on his friendship with Putin.
Although sometimes there are tensions, he said, “we have channels of communication and in just a few minutes we have a conversation and in hours we meet face to face. We are in the same boat. If we choose to fight and make a hole in this boat, we will both drown.”
In fact, he said, when it comes to the Russian nuclear weapons newly installed in Belarus, the two countries are at the hip.
“It is intended only for defense purposes,” he said. If Russia uses nuclear weapons, “I’m sure it will consult with its closest allies.”