Lukashenko urges the mercenaries of the Wagner group to train the army of Belarus

Lukashenko allude to an invitation to a speech Friday dedicated to Belarus's Independence Day, according to state news agency Belta.

Unfortunately, Wagner mercenaries are not here”, Lukashenko said. And if their instructors, as I already told them, come and convey our combat experience, we will accept this experience”.

The invitation by Lukashenko comes only a week after the Belarusn leader was credited with the disappearance of an armed uprising by Wagner forces against Moscow.

In the uprising, which posed the biggest threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin in years, Wagner's leader, Yevgeny Pigozin, had marched his forces towards the Russian capital, taking control of military facilities in two Russian cities, in what he said was a response to a Russian military attack on a Wagner camp, CNN writes.

The crisis was eased only after Lukaschenko brokered an agreement under which Prigozhin would be transferred to Belarus. As part of the same agreement, Wagner troops were given the opportunity to register in the Russian Army or law enforcement agencies, return to their family and friends, or go to Belarus.

In his speech Friday, Lukashenko said he was not afraid of Wagner members because “knew them for a long time”.

These are people who fought around the world to create a normal civilization. The West hates them until the bone of”, he said.

He also warned that a globally unprecedented military-political <x0-political crisis was approaching in the history of humanity” and criticised the West for not recognising the need for dialogue to solve it.

He accused the European Union and the United States of “arming Poland at an accelerated pace of” and claimed that the West was making Poland “a training ground with representatives” to use it against Belarus and Russia, comparing it to Ukraine.