Prigozhin is not in Belarus, but in St. Petersburg, says Lukashenko

(Sputnik) – (Sputnik). – The head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is not in Belarus. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko told reporters on Thursday that he was in St Petersburg. “As for Yevgeny Prigozhin, he is in St. Petersburg… Where was he this morning? Maybe he went to Moscow,” the Belta news agency quoted the head of state as saying.

“I was also informed this morning that the fighters of the Wagner Group are in their fixed camps, where they were after leaving the front to rest and rebuild,” he added. At the same time, Lukashenko indicated that he does not see any dangers for Belarus due to the possibility of receiving fighters from the Wagner Group on the territory of his country.

On the night of June 23-24, armed fighters from the Russian Wagner Paramilitary Company occupied the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov-on-Don, a key city for the logistics of the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine.
Prigozhin, who had recently been very critical of the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, announced a march to Moscow, which forced him to open a criminal case for incitement to armed rebellion.

On the night of June 24, it turned out that Lukashenko, in agreement with Putin, held talks with Prigozhin, and Chief Wagner agreed to stop the advance of his fighters towards Moscow in order to avoid bloodshed. Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced that Prigozhin could move to Belarus, under Putin’s personal guarantee, and that the criminal case against him would be dropped, as well as that his followers would not be persecuted.