Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he had persuaded Russian President Vladimir Putin not to “crush” mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in response to the riot he orchestrated, which the Kremlin described as pushing Russia toward civil war, Reuters reported.
Describing his conversation with Putin during the events, Lukashenko indicated that he told the Russian president not to kill Prigozhin, using an expression from Russian criminal slang meaning to kill someone, similar to “rub someone.”
“And as far as I understand, a harsh decision was made (and this was the subtext of Putin’s speech on the day of the riot) to crush” the rioters, Belarusian state media quoted Lukashenko as saying during his address to the military and journalists yesterday. “I suggested to Putin not to rush. “Let’s,” I said, “talk to Prigozhin and his commanders.” To which he replied: “Listen, Sasha, it’s useless. He doesn’t even pick up the phone, he doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”
In 1999, Putin used the same Russian verb to address the Chechen fighters. Then he vowed: “We will chase them everywhere. Excuse me for saying it – we will catch them in the toilet, we will stick them in the toilet in the yard. That statement subsequently became a widely quoted symbol of Putin’s brashness, Reuters notes.
So far, there has been no comment from the Kremlin on Lukashenko’s statement, which was an unexpected opportunity for the public to learn what the talks were, while Russia, in Putin’s own words, could be experiencing unrest the likes of which it has not seen in decades.
Lukashenko, who is an old acquaintance of Prigozhin and a close associate of Putin, said he had advised the Russian president to be pragmatic and that a possible liquidation of the head of Wagner could have led to a mass revolt among his fighters.
The Belarusian leader added that his army could gain a lot from the experience of “Wagner” fighters, who, according to their agreement with the Kremlin, are free to transfer to Belarus, BTA reported.
“This is the most prepared unit in the army,” Lukashenko was quoted as saying by the state-run BelTA agency. “Who would dispute that? My army also understands it, we don’t have such people in Belarus,” he added.
“People don’t understand that we just take a pragmatic approach. They (‘Wagner’) have the experience, they will tell us about the weaponry – which of it worked and which didn’t,” the Belarusian president then told his army.
After Lukashenko’s intervention, Prigozhin stopped his so-called march of justice from Rostov-on-Don to Moscow, 200 km from the capital.
Putin initially vowed to crush the unrest and compared it to the troubled times of the 1917 revolution and subsequent civil war. Only hours later, an agreement was reached allowing Prigozhin and some of his fighters to transfer to Belarus.
2023-06-28 10:46:00
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