Belarus leader Lukashenko says he told Wagner chief to stop Russian mutiny or be ‘crushed like a bug’
- Belarusian president offers his version of events following the aborted mutiny by Wagner mercenaries in Russia
- He said he urged Vladimir Putin not to kill Yevgeny Prigozhin, and warned the Wagner chief he would be ‘crushed like a bug’
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he personally intervened with Vladimir Putin and the founder of the Wagner mercenary group to prevent bloodshed during the weekend mutiny in Russia.
In Lukashenko’s version of the events, published by the state-owned news agency Belta on Tuesday, he persuaded the Russian president to let him reach out to Wagner’s Yevgeny Prigozhin as his mercenaries marched unimpeded to almost 200km (124 miles) from Moscow.
Lukashenko said he urged Putin not to kill Prigozhin and warned the Wagner chief halfway on the march to Moscow that “you’ll just be crushed like a bug”.
In the deal brokered by his Belarusian counterpart, Putin pledged to close criminal proceedings targeting Prigozhin and let his troops join the Russian army, return to their families or go to Belarus, in return for their ending the revolt.
Prigozhin was agitated on the call and demanded justice from leaders in Moscow, Lukashenko said. “We spoke in profanities for the first round of 30 minutes.”