Lukashenko: «Wagner's revolt is a gift to the West, a provocation to which we cannot remain indifferent, we will be the voice of reason in such difficult times..."
«An ambassador to Minsk? Do we still have an ambassador in Minsk?". The felucca has been taken off for a while: the Ukrainian plenipotentiary in Belarus, Igor Kizim, 61 years old, with a long career that saw him serve from Canada to France, was recalled to his homeland months ago and is also wearing military camouflage. And he brings generators to the front, greetings to the soldiers, flowers on the graves. Yet, he held the position of ambassador until last Thursday: incredibly, in these 500 days of war, the Kiev government never wanted to withdraw him. Nor completely break off diplomatic relations with the Belarusian dictator. «Do we still have an ambassador in Minsk?».
No one in Ukraine cared anymore. A diplomat left to maintain relations with Putin's nuclear nest. Troops with the «Z» ready for the invasion. In the country most hostile to Ukraine, after Russia. Last Thursday, two days before the march on Moscow, perhaps sensing something, President Volodymyr Zelensky blurted out and said enough: His Excellency Igor Kizim has been fired. And Ukraine has officially closed its embassy in Minsk.
Just in time. It is not known where Yevgeny Prigozhin, a butcher chef exiled in Belarus, went to survive. «All your questions have been forwarded to him», is the response of the Minsk presidency to journalists: «He will communicate when he has the appropriate answers. And in the meantime he sends you his greetings." It doesn't even mean he's really there. And not even that he stays there.
Because it is none other than Lukashenko, according to the Kremlin "a friend of Prigozhin for twenty years", has ever loved mercenaries: in July 2020 alone, he put around thirty of them in prison, reporting that there were another two hundred on his territory, without it being clear what they were doing there. «Those arrested were in a residence – the Belarusian authorities said at the time – and pretended to be tourists, but they were strange: they only took photos of military sites and did not drink alcohol. We suspect they wanted to destabilize the elections."
Past history. The next so-called elections are scheduled for February 25 and "they will be fair, not like the American ones", promises Europe's last dictator, who the last time overturned the result and imprisoned 1.500 opponents — and Prigozhin will certainly not be granted of using incendiary tones in a country that for thirty years has been forced to give 80 to 90% support for its "Batka", the father (master) of the country.
Saturday morning, lukashenko he had responded to Putin's request for help by playing the moderate's flute: «Wagner's revolt is a gift to the West, a provocation to which we cannot remain indifferent, we will be the voice of reason in such difficult times…».
Saturday night, when Prigozhin left Rostov towards Minsk, a 20-hour drive, no one understood what he was going to do with us «and I believe – comments the leader of the Belarusian opposition in exile, Sviatlana Tsikhanovskaja – that he doesn't know it well either»: for an Estonian MP, Marko Mihkelson, «this transfer hides something different from what was declared and now Lukashenko's sovereignty is clearly limited: time will tell why he did it, who was behind it and what the final result will be».
And anyway, says the Lithuanian president Nauseda Gypsy which borders both Moscow and Minsk, «if part of Wagner ends up in Belarus with unclear intentions and plans, then NATO must strengthen security on its eastern front».
A couple of days ago the little dictator spoke on the phone again with "older brother", as the Kremlin leader calls: according to Kiev intelligence, Prigozhin may be assassinated. And in any case he should not have contact with the 1.500 Russian soldiers deployed in Belarus to breach the Ukrainian border, nor access to the storage of Russian nuclear missiles. He will have reduced movements: «He will stay there for a while – predicts a former prime minister from Putin's early days, Mikhail Kashyanov, who knows him well – but then he will move to Africa and set up somewhere in the jungle, or something like that…».
Hidden, because «Putin will never be able to forgive him».
He says the same thing Ilya Ponomarev, Russian dissident living in Ukraine: «Belarus is just a passing stage, he will certainly go to Africa».
From his friend Faustin-Archange Touadéra, the president of the Central African Republic, who the Wagner group has been helping in the defense of diamond mines for years. Or in Mali, guest of Assimi Goita's military junta, which Prigozhin assisted in the anti-French coup in exchange for a uranium deposit. More difficult in Cyrenaica, by the trusted general Khalifa Haftar, supported with weapons and men in the attempt to conquer the whole of Libya.
«Lukashenko has once again made us hostages of other people's wars – opponent Tsikhanovskaya is furious -. Prigozhin is a man for all wars. He does not bring peace. There is nothing he can do in Minsk.".
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