The Kremlin said Thursday it was not monitoring the movements of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is said to have gone into exile in Belarus after the failed June 24 riot, but who Minsk guarantees is currently in Russia.
“No. We don’t make moves [de Prigozhin]. We have neither the time nor the inclination to do this,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a regular morning press conference.
Earlier, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that the leader of a group of mercenaries is currently in Russia.
“As for Prigozhin, he is in Pietro [São Petersburgo]. This is not on the territory of Belarus,” Lukashenka said at a meeting with foreign and Belarusian media.
Peskov declined to answer the question of whether Prigozhin was violating the terms of the agreement reached with the Kremlin in late June, and said he could not add anything to what had already been said.
A week ago, the Belarusian leader claimed that Prigozhin arrived in Belarus as part of an agreement that ended the armed insurgency led by Russian mercenaries on June 24, brokered by Lukashenka.
The Russian newspaper “Fontanka” wrote the day before that Wagner’s head was seen on the 4th of this month in St. Petersburg, where he was returned a pistol and other weapons seized during a police search.