Lukashenko: Prigozhin is in St. Petersburg
According to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, the head of the Wagner mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is in St. Petersburg, Russia, and no longer in Belarus. The fighters of the Russian mercenary force are in their permanent camps, Lukashenko said on Thursday. His offer still stands that some of them could be stationed in Belarus after their mutiny. “As for Prigozhin, he is in St. Petersburg. He’s not on Belarusian territory,” Lukashenko told the press. On June 27, a few days after the mercenary mutiny, the president announced that Prigozhin had arrived in Belarus.
In June, Prigozhin, who hails from St. Petersburg, led a rebellion of his mercenaries and sent them on what he called the “March of Justice” towards Moscow. He broke off the mutiny a few hundred kilometers from the Russian capital. Lukashenko had to According to his own statements, Prigozhin and Russian President Vladimir Putin were mediated, after which Putin assured Prigozhin and his fighters of impunity and that they would go into exile in Belarus.
Prigozhin’s rebellion was directed against the Russian military leadership, which he has long accused of incompetence in the war against Ukraine. The Wagner mercenaries were an important support of the Russian military, especially in the fight in eastern Ukraine.