Lukashenko assures that the leader of the Wagner Group returned to Russia

The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenkoaffirmed this Thursday that the leader of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is no longer on Belarusian territory and that, in fact, has returned to Russiaa country where he launched a revolt that called into question the leadership of Vladimir Putin.

Prigozhin traveled to Belarus as part of a pact with which the Russian authorities They promised not to impute him for his rebellion, although there is only a statement by Lukashenko in which he confirmed the arrival. The leader of the Wagner Group has not reappeared in public and has limited himself to the dissemination of voice recordings.

Now, the Belarusian president assured that Prigozhin left for St. PetersburgQualifying that, he does not know where he is "this morning". "Maybe he went to Moscow, or to another place, but he is not in Belarus," said Lukashenko, in a speech picked up by the official BELTA news agency.

In addition, he assured that your country will sign a legally binding contract with the Wagner Group, although so far the details of their presence in the country have not been defined, since the mercenaries have "a different vision" of their deployment.

“At the level of law or presidential decree, the framework in which this unit will operate will be determined” in Belarus and in it "everything" will be established, said the head of state in a meeting with foreign and Belarusian media, according to the official agency BELTA.

Lukashenko explained, however, that the question of Wagner's deployment in Belarus after the abortive riot on June 24 and the agreement that he facilitated between the mercenaries and the Kremlin has not yet been resolved.

“We are not building camps. We offered them several old military camps that were used in times of war. Even near Osipovichi ”, southeast of Minsk, he said.

“But the Wagner Group has a different vision for its deployment. Naturally, I won't tell you what this vision is."he added, although he revealed that the main question is where the mercenaries will be located.

The Kremlin avoids clarifying the whereabouts of Prigozhin: "We do not monitor his movements"

The Kremlin ignored this Thursday the doubts raised about the whereabouts of the head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeni Prigozhin, after the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, announced that he is in Russia, despite the fact that a little over a week ago he had stated that he was in Belarusian territory as part of a pact.

“We do not monitor their movements. We have neither the possibility nor the desire to do so," said the main Kremlin spokesman, Dimitri Peskov, in statements to the press, according to official Russian news agencies.

Peskov declined to answer the question. about whether Prigozhin is violating the conditions of the pact reached with the Kremlin at the end of June and insisted that at this stage he cannot add anything more to what has already been said.

the russian medium fontanka wrote the day before that Wagner's boss was seen on July 4 in St. Petersburg, where a pistol and other weapons seized during a police search were returned to him.

(With information from Europe Press and EFE)