MOSCOW, June 27. /TASS/. Presidents of Russia and Belarus, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko respectively, exchange opinions and coordinate their actions literally every day, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
"Alexander Lukashenko is the head of brotherly and allied Belarus, he is a very experienced, wise official, hardened by various battles. President Putin enjoys very long-standing good and not just allied, but friendly relations with him," Peskov said at a news briefing.
"Therefore, the presidents’ exchange of opinions, coordination of actions, and so on, is something that happens on a daily basis," Peskov said adding that it speaks for a particular nature of relations between our countries, "of our State Union."
Lukashenko said speaking earlier in the day at a ceremony of presenting general’s shoulder straps to officers of the republic’s power ministries promoted to these ranks that he handed down an order to put the republic’s armed forces on full combat alert amid the latest developments in Russia.
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.