MINSK, June 27. /TASS/. The group of Russian forces deployed on routes of approach to Moscow to counter the advance of the private military company (PMC) Wagner that attempted to stage an armed mutiny last weekend consisted of about 10,000 men, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said.

"Toward the evening the negotiations were drawing to an end. I was in a hurry, because 200 kilometers outside Moscow <...> a defense line had already [been] created up. Everyone available had been alerted, as [Russian President Vladimir] Putin would later tell me in the evening. The way it happened during the [Great Patriotic] War. The cadets... And the police were in reserve - one and a half thousand. They gathered a major force in the Kremlin and near the Kremlin. There were ten thousand defenders, I think," the BelTA news agency quotes Lukashenko.

The Belarusian leader said that in the evening of June 24 he told Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the rebel PMC Wagner to contact the director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov. According to Lukashenko, Ivan Tertel, the chief of Belarus’ State Security Committee (KGB) helped to establish communication.

"They (Prigozhin and Bortnikov - TASS) had a conversation. He (Prigozhin - TASS) turned the convoy back and they went to their camps in the Lugansk Region (LPR - TASS). They went back to the camps," said Lukashenko.

"I had a conversation with Putin in the evening. I told him again: ‘Under no circumstances [should there be bloodshed].’ - ‘Yes. Good. I will do everything what I promised’. And he has kept his promise," the Belarusian president said.

On the evening of June 23, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the PMC Wagner, said on his Telegram channel that his units had been attacked, and accused the military leadership of Russia. The Defense Ministry dismissed these allegations as false. PMC Wagner units who agreed to support Prigozhin headed for Rostov-on-Don and towards Moscow. The Federal Security Service (FSB) opened a case over the call for armed mutiny. Russian President Vladimir Putin in a televised address described the PMC Wagner’s actions as treason.

Later, by agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko held talks with Prigozhin. The PMC Wagner’s convoys turned back and returned to their field camps.

On Tuesday, the FSB public relations center said that the criminal case had been dropped.