It was the first meeting between the two allies since the agreement that took the Wagner group to Belarus. Mercenaries, Poland and Ukraine dominated the conversation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin received his closest ally, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, for talks in Saint Petersburg this Sunday.
It is the first time the two have met since Lukashenko helped broker the deal to end a mutiny by Wagner Group fighters in Russia last month.
According to Russian news agencies, Putin said this at the meeting Ukraine’s counteroffensive had “failed”.
Lukashenko declared: “There is no counteroffensive”, to which Putin replied: “There is, but it failed.”
Ukraine began the counteroffensive last month, but it appears Russian forces still control more than a sixth of its territory after nearly 17 months of war.
Wagner’s mercenaries want to advance to Warsaw?
The Belarusian President expressed his concern about this The Wagner Group mercenaries stationed in your country want to advance to Warsawdue to Poland’s support for the Ukrainian army.
“Wagner’s fighters began to worry us. They ask to go west. “Let’s go!” they say and I ask why do you want to go west? And they answer: “We control what happens.” “Let’s take a trip to Warsaw, to Rzeszow.”
Lukashenko warned Putin that Warsaw was moving troops closer to the Union State’s borders, stressing that the separation of western Ukrainian territories and handing them over to Poland (proposed by some experts and media in the event of Ukraine’s collapse) was unacceptable to Belarus.
Prigozhin gave a sign of life on July 19
According to the agreement that ended the uprising on June 2324, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin agreed to move to Belarus while the mercenaries had two options: return home, accompany him, or submit to the Ministry of Defense.
After several weeks of uncertainty, the Belarusian Defense Ministry announced on July 14 the arrival of the first columns of Wagner fighters.
already this week On July 19, Prigozhin released a video of Belarus welcoming the mercenariesHe assured them that they would return to Africa, although he did not rule out a future return to the battlefield in Ukraine.
During their stay, Russian mercenaries would make the Belarusian army “second in the world,” Prigozhin predicted.
The next day, the Belarusian armed forces reported joint training with Wagner members on the Polish border, after which the deployment of two military units to the area was immediately announced.
There are now a few thousand mercenaries in the former Soviet republic, and Wagner estimates that the number will soon rise to 10,000.
The Wagner group says it currently has 25,000 mercenaries who are “alive and well.”“, plus the wounded who are recovering.
Poland’s Foreign Ministry has summoned the Russian ambassador to the country after Putin made comments during the Russian Security Council meeting on Friday.
At the time, Putin recalled that Poland’s western territories were “a gift from Stalin” and warned Warsaw that an attack on Minsk would mean aggression against Russia.