Belarusian dictator Oleksandr Lukashenko on Tuesday afternoon officially confirmed that the head of Wagner’s mercenaries Yevgeny Prigozhin is in his country, Reuters reports with reference to the Minsk agency Belta.

“Security guarantees have been provided, as he promised [președintele Vladimir Putin] yesterday Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today,” Lukashenko said about Wagner’s mercenary.

Lukashenko also said that his Defense Minister Viktor Grennikov told him that he was not against having a Wagner unit in the Belarusian army. The Belarusian leader said that he instructed Khrennikov to hold negotiations with Prigozhin on this matter.

The official confirmation came after Russian and Belarusian media reported on Monday evening that Prigozhin would be staying at the luxury Green City Hotel in Minsk, citing information on Telegram, which is used in the two countries not only as a messaging app, but also as a popular means. information and news broadcasting.

This information was immediately ridiculed on social networks, and some observers noted that it will be the only skyscraper in the Belarusian capital that does not have opening windows.

Assumptions about the whereabouts of Yevgeny Prigozhin

But data from flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed on Tuesday that the Embraer Legacy 600, believed to belong to Prigozhin and subject to US sanctions, had only landed in Minsk on Tuesday morning.

The plane first appeared on the radar over the city of Rostov-on-Don, captured by Wagner’s mercenaries on the night from Friday to Saturday. However, it is not clear whether Prigozhin would have been among the passengers on board on Tuesday.

However, Lukashenko seemed to hint at this during a speech on the occasion of the premiership of some of his generals.

Prigozhin was last seen in public late Saturday night in the city of Rostov-on-Don, when he got into a black SUV after announcing the end of a riot he had started against the military command in Moscow.

The Kremlin pretended not to know the location of Wagner’s mercenary

Responding to Tuesday’s daily press conference on Prigozhin’s fate, a Kremlin spokesman said he had no information on his whereabouts.

“I don’t have any data and I can’t say anything,” Dmytro Peskov said.

However, he said the deal brokered by Lukashenka was being implemented as the Kremlin announced Saturday night that authorities were dropping the criminal case against Prigozhin and that he would move to Belarus with his fighters, who want to leave with him instead. on signing contracts with the Ministry of Defense of Russia.

“A lot of work was done by several people. And I repeat once again, the president’s will to prevent the worst-case scenario from unfolding has been revealed. There was some agreement to avoid that worst-case scenario, and there were some promises from the president, guarantees from the president. The agreements are being implemented,” Dmytro Peskov said.

“You know that the president of Russia – and this applies to both international affairs and internal affairs – always keeps his word, and if he gives his word, he keeps it,” he assured.

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