By Guy Faulconbridge
MINSK (Reuters) -Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday that the mutinous chief of Russia’s Wagner group was still in Russia with thousands of fighters, but dismissed speculation that President Vladimir Putin would have Yevgeny Prigozhin killed.
Lukashenko helped broker a deal with Putin to end last month’s mutiny, the gravest challenge to Putin in his 23 years in power, under which Prigozhin was supposed to stand down his mercenaries and move to Belarus in exchange for charges being dropped.
But in comments that raised questions about the deal, Lukashenko said Prigozhin and his fighters were still in Russia.
Lukashenko added that he would stand by his offer to host Wagner – a prospect that has alarmed neighbouring NATO countries – and would speak to Putin shortly. The Kremlin said no date had been set.
“He is not on the territory of Belarus,” Lukashenko told reporters in Minsk’s vast Independence Palace. “He is in Petersburg … perhaps he went to Moscow this morning.”
Lukashenko said Prigozhin had his liberty but that journalists were naive if they thought Russian security services were not keeping a very close eye on him.
Asked about earlier comments suggesting Putin had wanted to “wipe out” Prigozhin as the mutiny unfolded, Lukashenko said some in the Kremlin had wanted this, but that it would have tipped Russia into civil war.
“What will happen to him next? Strange things happen in life but if you think Putin is so malicious and vindictive that he will ‘wipe him out’ tomorrow – to say it in Russian – no, this will not happen,” Lukashenko said.
“The fighters of the Wagner group are at their camps – their permanent camps – those where they have been located since they left the front.”
Wagner’s main camp is in southern Russia, at Molkino near Krasnodar.
Prigozhin said at the time that his mutiny was not aimed at toppling Putin but at settling scores with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov.
The 68-year-old Belarusian leader dismissed a question about whether Putin had been weakened by the crisis.
Those who helped to broker the deal included Russian Deputy Defence Minister General Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and Federal Security Service Director Alexander Bortnikov, Lukashenko said. Prigozhin did not respond to a request for comment.
MERCENARY FORCE
Lukashenko said Putin had known Prigozhin for 30 years, and that Wagner had been founded by Russia’s GRU military intelligence service and was Russia’s best fighting force.
The question of moving its units to Belarus had not been resolved, and would depend on decisions by the Kremlin and by Wagner.
“Whether they will be in Belarus or not, in what quantity, we will figure it out in the near future,” Lukashenko said, adding that he had spoken to Prigozhin by phone on Wednesday.
He said Prigozhin and Wagner intended to continue to work for Russia.
Wagner spearheaded the nine-month battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, but Prigozhin repeatedly accused the top brass of corruption and incompetence and cast the June 24 “march of justice” on Moscow as a protest against them.
Russian state TV on Wednesday launched a fierce attack on Prigozhin and said an investigation into what had happened was still being vigorously pursued.
A business jet linked to Prigozhin left St Petersburg for Moscow on Wednesday and headed to southern Russia on Thursday, according to flight tracking data, but it was not clear if he had been on board. It was later tracked flying north again.
If Prigozhin does return to Russia with impunity, it will raise new questions about Putin’s authority in the wake of the brief mutiny.
Putin told Asian leaders this week that the episode had shown Russian society to be more united than ever.
The Kremlin has declined to discuss Prigozhin’s whereabouts.
“No, we do not follow his movements, we have neither the ability nor the desire to do so,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in answer to a reporter’s question on Thursday, nevertheless confirming that Prigozhin’s departure for Belarus was one of the conditions of the deal.
Lukashenko said Belarus was not building camps for Wagner but had offered it disused Soviet-era military quarters. “But Wagner has a different vision for deployment, of course, I won’t tell you about this vision,” he told reporters.
Lukashenko also said he did not see a Wagner presence as a risk, and did not believe Wagner would ever take up arms against Belarus – but that his army could benefit from Wagner’s expertise.
(Additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin, writing by Mark Trevelyan and Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Gareth Jones and Kevin Liffey)
