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In late July, a special unit of the Belarusian security services (KGB, like the intelligence services of the Soviet Union) carried out an operation in a former Soviet-era sanatorium converted into a hotel, next to a lake nearby from Minsk. , the capital of Belarus. The operation, whose images were later broadcast on national television, led to the arrest of 32 men, all housed on the second floor of the building and all accused of being Russian mercenaries. The Belarusian government claimed that the mercenaries had arrived with the aim of destabilizing the country and influencing the presidential elections, which would be held two weeks later.
The story was also picked up by international newspapers, especially since the mercenaries were suspected of being members of the “Wagner group”: the “Wagner group” is a somewhat nebulous set of Russian private security companies considered very close to Russian President Vladimir. Putin. Although Putin has always denied connections with the group, several journalistic inquiries have shown how in recent years the Russian government has used Wagner’s mercenaries on more than one occasion to destabilize foreign countries, including Libya, Ukraine, Venezuela and the Central African Republic. . .
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According to the reconstruction of New York Times, who spoke with some people employed in the hotel zone on the outskirts of Minsk, the Russian mercenaries caught the attention of the locals for some peculiar behavior. Veronika Step, a DJ at a local nightclub, said the 32 Russians were so unsociable they aroused suspicion; she and other clubbers jokingly said they should call the police “to find out what they were hiding.” Yelena, the hotel cleaner who wanted to be identified only by name, said she was surprised to learn that the Russians were mercenaries: “They didn’t look like fighters, just some had very muscular physiques.”
It is not known whether the Belarusian secret services immediately learned of the presence of the Russian mercenaries near Minsk, or whether they only learned of the report from a local person later.
However, it is known that Lukashenko decided to arrest the mercenaries to fuel the nationalist and anti-Russian propaganda that he had adopted before the elections, thinking of increasing his support. Although Russia and Belarus were two allied countries, in fact, it was at least since 2018 that relations were tense, due to disputes related to the sale of Russian crude oil and the process of integration into the Union of States, an international organization at the both states belong. .
Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin (Tatyana Zenkovich, Pool photo via AP, File)
Immediately after the arrests, Russia tried to give an explanation as to why the mercenaries of the “Wagner group” were in Belarus.
The Russian ambassador in Minsk said the arrested men had simply missed a flight and needed a place to stay while they searched for another. It is not known whether this version of events is true: the video of the arrests shows banknotes and a phone card from Sudan, the country where the “Wagner group” operates. On the other hand, journalist Ivan Nechepurenko pointed out, among others, that there are no convincing explanations why the mercenaries chose to stay in a hotel on the other side of the city from the airport.
– Read also: What Russia wants to do in Belarus
However, after the presidential elections and the start of the protests against Lukashenko, the position of the Belarusian government towards Russia changed. The Belarusian president asked Putin for help to quell the protests: he personally called him four times and sent his eldest son, Viktor, to check that the conditions of the Russian mercenaries in prison were good. The mercenaries were released on August 14: they immediately returned to Russia and all charges against them were dropped. For the Belarusian government, priorities had changed and Putin’s support had become essential to continue surviving.
At that time, the Belarusian version of the Russian mercenaries also changed.
The Lukashenko regime claimed that the mercenaries had been lured to Belarus by Ukrainian intelligence agents, who were instructed to bring them to Ukraine for trial on charges of fighting alongside separatist rebels in the war in eastern Ukraine. The plan, Belarus argued, was to hijack the Minsk-bound plane carrying the Russian mercenaries and force an emergency landing in Ukraine. The independent newspaper jellyfish, which deals with Russia and is quite respected, has put in order the journalistic inquiries carried out in Ukraine on this matter, which would seem to support the hypothesis of Ukrainian involvement. Others have been very skeptical of this version, which has not yet found solid evidence to support it.
Once back in Russia, several mercenaries involved in the affair were interviewed on television and claimed that they had no connection to the “Wagner group” and that they simply stopped in Belarus while on their way to Venezuela for work reasons. Shortly after his release, the head of the KGB, the Belarusian secret service, was also removed from his post and an official deemed more friendly to Russia was placed in his place.
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