The head of Wagner’s mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin and Belarusian President Oleksandr Lukashenko are not allies and may be disloyal to each other, exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svitlana Tikhanovskaya told AFP, Agerpres reports.

“At any moment, Lukashenko can betray Prigozhin, and Prigozhin can betray Lukashenko. They are not allies. They cannot trust each other,” Tykhanovskaya said in an interview on Wednesday.

Prigozhin arrived in Belarus on Tuesday, President Lukashenko announced. The head of Wagner’s group went to this country after the agreement to end his military rebellion in Russia.

But Tikhanovskaya, who announced her victory over Lukashenka in the 2020 presidential elections, believes that much remains unclear in this alleged agreement. According to her, Lukashenka’s decision to help President Putin is an act of personal indulgence for the sake of saving his own regime.

“He did not act to save appearances for Putin, or to save Prigozhin, or to avoid civil war in Russia,” she claims.

The leader of the Belarusian opposition says that Lukashenko summoned Prigozhin to the country out of fear

“He only cared about his personal survival, because Lukashenko knows that if the factions in Russia collide, he will pay the price,” adds Tikhanovska. If Prigozhin and Wagner’s militants defect en masse to Belarus, it could threaten Europe, Svitlana Tikhanovska believes.

“The presence of Prigozhin himself or Wagner’s group on our territory is primarily a threat to the Belarusian people and our independence,” says Svitlana Tikhanovska. “This presence is a threat to Ukraine and our western neighbors,” adds the head of the Belarusian opposition, whose husband is in prison in Minsk.

Warning that Lukashenko could use Wagner’s power to further suppress any dissent in Belarus, Tikhanovska said “he is the man who brought rapists and murderers to our land,” referring to prisoners recruited by a group of mercenaries from prisons. prisons and colonies, which were criminally charged. Russia.

“What will these people do in our country? This is a big question. How will they behave?”, she wonders.

Svitlana Tikhanovskaya accuses the West of treating the Belarusian dictator with gloves

Tikhanovska also condemned the “insufficient attention” of the West to the situation in her country, which is increasingly under the influence of Moscow, since Vladimir Putin supported Lukashenka.

The lack of a firm reaction of the international community to the transfer of nuclear weapons from Russia to Belarus encouraged Moscow and Minsk, she believes.

“We are still waiting for an answer regarding the deployment of nuclear weapons on our territory. When the world is silent at such an important moment, dictators perceive it as weakness,” said Svitlana Tikhanovska.

The European Union’s latest sanctions against the Belarusian regime for its role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine date back more than a year. Earlier, the Europeans imposed several series of sanctions on Minsk for the brutal suppression of demonstrations against Lukashenka.

For several months, EU member states have been negotiating new sanctions against Minsk, but could not agree, AFP notes.

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