Poland and the Baltic countries demanded that the Belarusian authorities immediately withdraw the fighters of the Wagner PMC stationed there from the country. Alexander Lukashenko said in response to this that “these are unreasonable and stupid demands.”
Lukashenka said that the leadership of Poland and the Baltic countries “incites hysteria” about the presence of Wagnerites in Belarus, and now “demands their immediate withdrawal from Belarus.” At the same time, as he stated, these countries are “increasing military budgets, concentrating large military formations to our borders.”
“The answer is simple: neither in Poland, nor in Lithuania, nor in other Baltic countries should there be a single foreign serviceman. Then we can also make claims about the presence of servicemen from other countries here. In the meantime, these are unreasonable and stupid demands. Not even requests and proposals, but demands,” the BelTA state agency quotes Lukashenka as saying.
Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski, following a meeting with the Baltic Interior Ministers, said earlier that the presence of several thousand armed mercenaries in Belarus poses a danger both to the citizens of the country and to the entire region. According to him, the EU states do not rule out “incidents of a military nature” with the participation of the Wagnerites. In this case, Kaminski said, Poland and the Baltic states are ready to completely close the borders with Belarus.
Soldiers of PMC “Wagner” began to move to Belarus after the rebellion of Yevgeny Prigozhin. Prigozhin’s rebellion began on the evening of June 23 and lasted a little less than a day, and exactly two months later his business jet crashed in the Tver region. On August 27, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation confirmed the death of Prigozhin, and two days later he was buried at the Porokhov cemetery in St. Petersburg next to his father.
The main base of PMC “Wagner” is called a camp near the town of Osipovichi in the Mogilev region of Belarus, they also use military warehouses on the territory of the former military camp No. 28 (“Floats”). The Belarusian service of Radio Liberty, citing a satellite image dated August 23, previously wrote about the dismantling work in the Wagner camp near Osipovichi and that about a third of the field tents were dismantled.
Lukashenka, answering a question about the fate of the Wagner PMC units stationed in Belarus after the death of Prigozhin and the dismantling of tents in the camp, assured that they would remain in the country. “Why are we removing extra tents – we don’t need so much. The core remains here, someone went on vacation, someone decided to live on the sidelines, but the phones, addresses, passwords, appearances in this core are known. Within a few days everyone will be here, up to 10 thousand people,” he said.
