Lukashenko had to endure half an hour of cursing during negotiations with the head of the Wagner group to stop the uprising against Putin

The Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenkoclose ally of Vladimir Putinacted as a mediator in the Russian crisis and welcomed Yevgueni Prigozhin and his men who wish to in Belarus, under an agreement concluded with him, after his criminal case was filed in his country.

The agreement reached through the mediation of the Belarusian head of state allows the Wagnerites to join the Russian army, return home or go to Belarus, in addition to closing the criminal cases brought by their insurrection has been initiated.

Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the loyalty of his military and security forces in the face of the uprising led by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.

“You defended the constitutional order, life, security and freedom of our citizens, saved our homeland from shock and, in fact, stopped a civil war,” Putin said at a solemn ceremony in the Kremlin Cathedral Square.

Putin admits to financing the Wagner Group

The head of the Kremlin revealed that between May 2022 and the same month 2023, the financing of the Wagner Group was fully borne by the state, which distributed 86,000 million rubles ($1,014 million) during that period.

At the same time, he indicated that Concor, Prigozhin’s company, earned 80 billion rubles in one year, more than 900 million dollars, from food supply contracts for the army.

Timeline of the uprising

Lukashenko said he learned about the uprising early on Saturday and spoke to Putin almost immediately, who briefed him on the situation “in the most detailed way”.

“The most dangerous thing, as I understood, was not the situation at the time, but how it could develop and its consequences (…) and I also understood that the cruel decision was made to crush them. I suggested to Putin not to rush,” Lukashenko said.

The Belarusian president added that Putin did not have high hopes for the possibility of a dialogue with Prigozhin, as Wagner’s boss “did not pick up the phone and did not want to speak to anyone”.

After receiving Prigozhin’s phone number from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Lukashenko contacted him and noted that he was “very upset”: “the first round of talks lasted 30 minutes, exclusively swearing. There were ten times more tacos than normal lexicon,” he recalls.

Lukashenko noted that Wagner’s fighters had “just emerged from the front lines in Ukraine, where they saw the deaths of thousands of their own”.

“The guys were very offended, especially the commanders. And as I understood, they had a lot of influence on Prigozhin.

“Yes, he is such, you know, a heroic man, but he was put under great pressure and influence from those who led the robbers and saw all those dead. And in those circumstances (…) in a quasi-rabid state, I talked to him,” he said.

According to the Belarusian president, Prigozhin insisted on marching to Moscow, where Lukashenko assured him that no one would hand him over to Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, or the chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov, against whom Wagner launched his rebellion navy.

“You know Putin as well as I do,” Lukashenko told Wagner’s boss, pointing out that even if the mercenaries arrived in Moscow, the Kremlin chief would never agree to receive him “under these circumstances.”

“They will crush you like an insect along the way, despite the fact that the Russian army is busy at the front. Think about that,” warned Lukashenko, assuring Prigozhin that he was ready to send a White Russian brigade “to defend Moscow, as in 1941,” referring to World War II.