Putin Wanted to ‘Wipe Out’ Prigozhin During Mutiny Attempt: Lukashenko

Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus, said that he convinced Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, not to “wipe out” mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in reaction to what the Kremlin saw as a mutiny that drove Russia towards civil war.

Prigozhin and some of his fighters were granted permission to travel to Belarus when a deal was reached, despite Putin’s original vow to end the mutiny and comparisons to the unrest during the First World War that sparked the 1917 Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war.

Prigozhin flew to Belarus from Russia on Tuesday.

According to Reuters, Lukashenko used the Russian criminal slang expression for killing someone—equivalent to the English phrase “wipe out”—while discussing his Saturday talk with Putin. 

“I also understood: a brutal decision had been made (and it was the undertone of Putin’s address) to wipe out” the mutineers, Lukashenko told a meeting of his army officials and journalists on Tuesday, according to Belarusian state media.

“I suggested to Putin not to rush. ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘let us talk with Prigozhin, with his commanders.’ He told me: ‘Listen, Sasha, it is useless. He does not even pick up the phone; he does not want to talk to anyone.”

As Prigozhin’s longtime friend and a close supporter of Putin, Lukashenko said that he had counselled the Russian leader to look “beyond our noses” and that Prigozhin’s removal could spark a widespread uprising among his fighters.

The Belarusian leader added that Wagner forces, now free to enter Belarus according to a deal reached with the Kremlin, might help his army by sharing their experience.

Meanwhile, Prigozhin stopped his “march of justice” on Moscow from the Southern city of Rostove-on-Don within 200km of the capital after the president of Belarus’s intervention.

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