On Tuesday, the Belarusian president felt that tensions between Wagner’s Russian mercenary company and the Moscow army were “poorly managed,” which prompted the weekend’s “confrontation.”
“The situation eluded us, and then we thought that it would be resolved, but it was not resolved,” Lukashenko told reporters, quoted by the Belarusian state news agency Belta, adding that “there are no heroes in this story.”
The head of state of Belarus, the main ally of Vladimir Putin, said earlier that he had ordered the Minsk army to “prepare for battle” in connection with the “mutiny” of the Wagner mercenary company in Russia.
“I gave all orders to the army [da Bielorrússia] be in full combat readiness,” Belarusian state news agency Belta quoted Alexander Lukashenko as saying.
The measure was taken after the “mutiny” of the Wagner group last Friday and Saturday.
The leader of the Wagner Company, Yevgeny Prigozhin, according to the Kremlin, is due to travel to Belarus after agreeing to put an end to the coup.
In the meantime, the Russian authorities announced that they had dropped charges against a group of militants supported by the Wagner company, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin.
It was “established” that the rioters “suppressed actions that were directly aimed at committing a crime,” the Russian Security Service (FSB) said, citing Moscow news agencies, on Tuesday.
Under these conditions, “the decision to drop the charge was made on June 27,” the FSB added.
Over the weekend, Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner group, led a 24-hour armed mutiny in which mercenaries captured the city of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia and advanced up to 200 kilometers from Moscow.
The mutiny ended with an “agreement” brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, which the Kremlin believes establishes that Prigozhin is exiled to Belarus in exchange for immunity for himself and his mercenaries.
Yevgeny Prigozhin justified Monday’s “mutiny” as a need to “save” the organization, dismissing the coup attempt and adding that 30 contract soldiers died in clashes with the Russian military.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a speech broadcast on Russian television on Monday, accused the perpetrators of the rebellion of betrayal and said their actions only benefited Ukraine and Kyiv’s allies.