Yevgeny Prigozhin is in Belaurs with his army. This is stated by the country’s president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, on Tuesday. The Wagner group has been offered an abandoned military facility to stay in. On the other hand, Lukashenko denies that special camps are currently being built for the Wagner soldiers, although he does not rule it out in the future.
He hopes the Wagner group will assist the country with “military expertise”.
– We don’t need to be afraid of Wagner, we keep a close eye on them. They will tell you about weapons: which ones worked well, which ones didn’t,” he said at a meeting with the military leadership on Tuesday.
Worries neighboring countries
The Wagner group’s presence in Belarus has caused several neighboring countries to react. Latvia and Lithuania are calling on NATO to increase security on the alliance’s eastern border as the risk of infiltration operations and sabotage has increased in the area. During the day, Polish President Andrzej Duda also expressed wishes for NATO to step up security in the east.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated at a press conference in The Hague on Tuesday evening that NATO has strengthened defenses in the area but that it is too early to say what the Wagner group’s move means.
New help package
– We have sent a clear message to Moscow and Minsk that NATO will protect every inch of its territory, says Stoltenberg.
He also says that this weekend’s events in Russia show that there are clear divisions in Russia regarding the Ukraine war.
A spokesperson for the White House also states that President Joe Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Zelensky and assured him of continued military support. During Tuesday, the Pentagon announced that it is giving a new aid package to Ukraine, worth about 500 million dollars.