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Minsk to ink contract with Wagner PMC if it is deployed in Belarus — Lukashenko

"The most important is that we have not yet signed a contract with them," the Belarusian leader noted

MINSK, July 6. /TASS/. Belarus may sign a contract with Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) in case the military formation decides to be deployed on its soil, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday.

"If we have Wagner PMC here it means they must be protecting our interests," the Belarusian leader said at a meeting with foreign and domestic media outlets attended by a TASS correspondent. "The most important is that we have not yet signed a contract with them."

"When they [Wagner PMC] make a decision to be deployed here they will have a contract, legal obligations and everything will be documented," Lukashenko said.

The Telegram channel of Wagner private military company founder Yevgeny Prigozhin posted several audio records with his statements on the evening of June 23, in which he claimed that strikes had allegedly been delivered against his formations and accused the country’s military leadership of that.

The Russian Defense Ministry dismissed this information as false. The units of the Wagner private military company that supported Prigozhin moved towards the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and Moscow.

In the wake of this, the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia opened a criminal case into a call for an armed mutiny. In a televised address to the nation on June 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the Wagnerites’ actions a betrayal.

Later, upon agreement with the Russian leader, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko held negotiations with Prigozhin, following which the Wagner private military company pulled back its military columns and returned to its field camps. The FSB press office announced on June 27 that the criminal case had been terminated.

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Belarus Alexander Lukashenko

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