As the proverbial dust settles on Yevgeny Prigozhin’s staged uprising in Russia over the weekend, the Belarusian opposition signaled Monday that it fears Prigozhin’s tears may not be over – and that Wagner mercenaries may attempt a similar uprising in their own country .
“Many people in Belarus, including military personnel, will be very nervous to see Prigozhin’s people on our territory,” Valery Kavaleuski, a foreign policy officer for the Belarusian opposition’s shadow government, told The Daily Beast.
“They could easily overtake Belarus in general,” Kavaleuski added, referring to the Wagner Group mercenaries. “It’s a huge force that could take control of the whole country.”
The democratic opposition in Belarus – working to end Aleksandr Lukashenko’s nearly 30-year grip on power – has watched with nervousness reports that Wagner mercenary boss Prigozhin has agreed to be exiled to Belarus under a deal brokered with him by Belarusian ruler Lukashenko Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It was this deal that abruptly ended the Wagner mutiny when a mercenary column approached Moscow late Saturday, as Prigozhin ordered his troops to withdraw from Russia and return to camps in Ukraine.
But reports surfaced on Monday that camps for Wagner mercenaries were being set up on Belarusian territory, ringing alarm bells in the country’s democratic opposition circles that Prigozhin might be ready to stir up more unrest in Belarus.
“It looks really bad for Belarus that Belarus will now harbor no less than an army of mercenaries and cutthroats who are highly trained, who are ruthless, who can kill effectively and who are involved in war crimes,” Kavaleuski told The Daily Beast. “By any measure, this is really bad news. This poses a serious threat to Belarusian society.”
The democratic opposition in Belarus has long declared that Russia’s use of Belarusian territory to station troops and launch attacks on Ukraine has escalated into a kind of partial occupation, requiring Belarus to be deflated, The Daily Beast has reported. Now that the prospect of Wagner mercenaries moving in, the hybrid cast seems to be growing by the day.
And while Lukashenko is reportedly allowing Prigozhin into Belarus as part of the deal to end the mutiny against Russia and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, it’s not clear how much control Lukashenko will have over Prigozhin, warned Kenneth Yalowitz, a former US ambassador to Belarus .
“For Lukashenko, it would be practically like Russian troops occupying Belarus and that will not go over well with his public,” he told the Daily Beast on Monday.
With Prigozhin’s recent crackdown on his former close ally Putin, Prigozhin is also likely to lack loyalty to Lukashenko, raising the prospect of further mutinous activity.
“I definitely don’t see any loyalty there, neither to Lukashenko nor to the Republic of Belarus,” Kavaleuski said. “They turned against Putin. So what would be your motivation to stay with Lukashenko to pursue his political goals?”
Concerns have even been raised in recent days that the presence of Prigozhin’s 25,000-strong force in Belarus could lead to an escalation of tensions or even an attack on neighboring countries, including Ukraine and neighboring Poland, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO).
“They pose a threat to Ukraine. Because…if they move to Belarus, it’s significant, and they can threaten Ukraine from the north,” Kavaleuski warned. “They can threaten the NATO and EU countries with provocations.”
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also announced that after Prigozhin’s deal with Belarus, Poland “expects attacks” and will strengthen its military defense units along its border with Belarus.
A Ukrainian commander added that any attacks from Belarus on the country’s northern border would be a suicide squad for the Russians.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the leader of Belarus’ democratic opposition, said Monday that world leaders need to come together to recognize that Russia is dumping its problems on Belarus and they can only grow from there.
“Belarusians are not pawns in the dictators’ game,” she said on social media. “We refuse to be held hostage in Russia’s domestic conflicts. The world must stand with us in defending our sovereignty. This is a fight for the future of Europe.
Although Prigozhin has rebelled against Putin’s leadership in recent days, it is not clear whether Prigozhin can completely disengage himself and his military goals from those of the Kremlin, Kavaleuski warned.
“We clearly understand that they will follow the interests of the Kremlin,” Kavaleuski said.
The fate of the Wagner group hangs in the balance for the time being. The White House has been closely monitoring Prigozhin’s uprising and its aftermath in Russia, with President Joe Biden getting hourly updates from his national security team to prepare for “a range of scenarios,” National Security Council coordinator John Kirby told reporters Monday briefing
The White House refused to predict what impact this will have on Wagner’s future operations.
“It’s just too early to know,” Kirby said. “It is too early to speculate on the potential impact of these events or to come to any firm conclusions.”
Kirby added that he didn’t know where Prigozhin was as of Monday afternoon.
Reports have been circulating since Monday that Prigozhin has been sighted in the Belarusian capital of Minsk.
Lukashenko’s press team said they did not know if Prigozhin had arrived.