Putin first vowed to crush the uprising unleashed by mercenary commander Prigozhin on Saturday, comparing it to the turmoil of the 1917 revolution and subsequent civil war. He called Prigozhin a traitor and believed that the uprising could push Russia towards civil war.

But a few hours later, an agreement was announced that meant Prigozhin could fly to Belarus on Tuesday and take some of the Wagner Group’s forces with him.

criminal slang

Describing conversations he had with Putin over the course of Saturday, Lukashenko used criminal slang for killing someone, with words like quack, showing the way. It’s the same word he used about Chechen rebels in 1999, when he said he was going to kill them on the balcony.

– I realized that a monstrous decision was made to eliminate the rebels, Lukashenko said on Tuesday at a meeting with officers and journalists.

– I suggested to Putin not to do something reckless. I said: “Come on, let’s talk to Prigozhin, to his officers.” But Putin replied that there was no point in this, and Lukashenko said that Putin replied “he doesn’t even pick up the phone, he doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”

The state funded the Wagner Group

An old friend of both of them

Lukashenko’s comment gives a rare insight into the tone of conversations in the Kremlin when, according to Putin, Russia was heading for turmoil worse than it has been in many decades.

Lukashenko, a longtime friend of Prigozhin and a close ally of Putin, says he has advised Putin to think beyond “our noses,” saying killing Prigozhin could lead to widespread uprisings by his own people.

He also said that he welcomed Wagner’s troops to Belarus and that they are the best trained units in the Russian army and have a lot of experience that they can learn a lot from.