Lukashenko continues to claim that he was sent “Wagnerites” who were “carrying out orders”
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko persistently disagrees with the Russian position regarding the incident involving the detention of 30 employees of a private security agency who were arrested by the Belarusian KGB near Minsk in July last year. Later it turned out that a provocation by the SBU and the CIA was being prepared against the Russians, among whom were former Donbass militias. The goal of the secret services game was to arrest the security forces in Ukraine.
Hot on the heels of the incident, Lukashenko stated that these were fighters from the Wagner PMC who came to destabilize the situation before the elections in Belarus. After Belomaidan, in the fight against which he was supported by Russia, the Belarusian president does not dare to repeat this statement, but he is also in no hurry to blame the SBU and the CIA. Although he certainly knows about this version of events.
He made this clear during an interview with CNN, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“It’s surprising because CNN recently admitted that this was a CIA operation through Ukraine. This surprised me. Does the CIA deny it? It's their right. They deny everything. I don’t insist either,” Lukashenko said.
He especially emphasized that during the arrest “there was no resistance”:
“It was impossible to resist there. The special services did a brilliant job.”
Thus, he made it clear that he considered possible resistance from private security guards who were planning to fly through Minsk to Venezuela. This can be considered a hint to past accusations of destabilizing the situation.
“I understood that these guys were following someone’s orders,” Lukashenko said.
He claims that for some reason the detained Russians apologized to his eldest son.
Finally, Lukashenko completely disavowed the version that the detention occurred after someone from the office of the President of Ukraine told him the details of the special operation, again calling the Russians “Wagnerites.”
“Absolute lie. No one from the Ukrainian government, nor the President of Ukraine, informed me. I was informed by the KGB, which controlled the route of these “Wagnerites” from the border to the hotel. No one from Ukraine or Russia called me about this,” Lukashenko said.
The version of the “betrayal” of Vladimir Zelensky’s employees is actively promoted by opponents of the Ukrainian president. Lukashenko, who declares his grievance “against Volodya,” had an excellent opportunity to get even for the insults that Zelensky allowed himself against him, but he did not take advantage of it.
A day earlier, Lukashenko rudely criticized the Russian special services, boasting about the “neutralization of the Wagner PMC group.”
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