Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko revealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the Wagner Group mercenaries were causing him stress.
Lukashenko mentioned that the Wagner soldiers currently in his country expressed their desire to “go west” for “a vacation.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t say it, but I will. Wagner is starting to stress us out,” Lukashenko said in a lighthearted conversation with Putin, as quoted by CNN.
He added, “They asked for permission to go west, to visit Warsaw [Poland], to Rzeszow. But, of course, I positioned them in central Belarus, as we agreed.”
Lukashenko is a close ally of Putin, and the conversation turned out to be a jest, as seen in the video with Putin smiling while hearing the banter.
This was the first meeting between Putin and Lukashenko after Wagner mercenaries were transferred to Belarus following an attempted uprising in Russia at the end of June.
During the meeting, Putin claimed that Ukraine’s retaliatory attacks to reclaim captured territory “had failed.”
“It [the retaliatory attack] was there, but it failed,” Putin disclosed.
Previously, it was reported that around 5,000 Wagner soldiers are now in Belarus. They were relocated from the battleground in Ukraine after their attempted insurgency in Russia at the end of June.
While in Belarus, Wagner mercenaries have been involved in training Belarusian troops in techniques such as drone usage, reconnaissance, and psychological training for soldiers.
