Lukashenko, who has a reputation for erratic behavior and wild claims, announced Tuesday that he had been infected with the coronavirus but had fully recovered without treatment. That announcement was met with skepticism, as it played on its long-standing position that the pandemic does not pose a serious public health hazard and can keep itself at bay by drinking vodka, riding tractors, and playing ice hockey.
In June, Lukashenko had two potential rival candidates in the August 9 presidential elections in Belarus arrested on corruption charges, alleging that he had foiled a plot to foment revolution by Russian interests.
On Wednesday, the government released videos of a nighttime raid this week at a sanitarium near Minsk, where 32 Russian fighters were arrested; another was arrested in a different part of the country. The video showed heavily armed officers of the Belarusian security service, which was still called, as in Soviet days, the KGB, breaking into rooms occupied by the alleged mercenaries. It showed several burly Russians in handcuffs, one lying on the floor in boxer shorts, Russian passports, and a stack of $ 100 bills.
But belongings seized in the raid also included Sudan’s banknotes and phone cards and texts written in Arabic, suggesting that the arrested Russians may have been on their way to or from North Africa, rather than on a mission to Belarus.
The arrested Russians, according to a Belta report, raised suspicions as soon as they arrived in Belarus because each man had three heavy suitcases, wore military-style clothing, and behaved in a manner “unusual for Russian tourists”, avoiding alcohol and avoiding night clubs. .
The Wagner Group, the mercenary team accused of employing the men, has sent fighters, mostly veterans of the Russian military, to Syria, Libya, Sudan and other countries. According to United States officials, it is controlled by Mr. Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s Chef” due to his success in winning restoration contracts from the Russian Army.
