STRELNA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd July, 2023) Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Sunday that the Wagner Group private military company (PMC), which moved to the country as part of a deal brokered with Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, is "bothering" him as they want to go West.
"Maybe I shouldn't be saying this, but I will. Wagner Group members have started to bother us," Lukashenko told Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting.
Lukashenko cited Wagner fighters as saying that they want to go West, "on a trip to Warsaw, to Rzeszow" and asking for his permission.
"I am keeping them in the center of Belarus, as we agreed, and I wouldn't want to reposition them there as they are in a bad mood. And, to their credit, they know what is going on around the Union State (of Russia and Belarus)," Lukashenko said.
The Wagner Group, led by Prigozhin, seized an army headquarters in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on the night of June 23 and started moving toward Moscow the following day. Prigozhin portrayed his actions as a response to the Russian Defense Ministry's alleged attack on his group's field camps, which the Russian Defense Ministry denied. Prigozhin agreed to end the mutiny after negotiations with Lukashenko, who said he was acting in coordination with Putin.
The Belarusian Defense Ministry said in early July that the Wagner Group would be involved in the training of the country's armed forces, while the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said that Minsk and the PMC have developed a roadmap for cooperation on sharing best practices between various military branches.
