Russian Wagner mercenaries detained in Belarus for alleged election interference

A total of 33 mercenaries with the Russian private
military contractor Wagner were detained in Belarus the night of July 28-29 in
what law enforcement described as an attempt to destabilize the situation
during the presidential election campaign, as reported by the belta.by news
agency. Thirty-two of the mercenaries were detained in a health resort in a
suburb south of Minsk, while more suspects are under search throughout the
country, according to Belarus Security Council Secretary Andrei Ravkov, as
reported by the tut.by news site. The next day, he said criminal cases have
been opened in relation to preparing a terrorist act.

All those detained are citizens of the Russian
Federation, while 14 were confirmed to have participated in the war in Donbas,
as identified in an online database (myrotvorets.center) of active opponents to
Ukrainian statehood. The mercenaries arrived in Belarus on July 24 and stayed
in one hotel, before switching to the health resort on July 27, belta.by
reported. They didn’t disguise themselves, walking in public in military-style
clothes.

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko called an
emergency meeting of the Security Council of Belarus within hours of the
detentions, as reported by the Pul Pervogo Telegram channel, identified as linked
to his press service. He reportedly accused the mercenaries of having bad
intentions in Belarus. “I am looking at the reaction of the Russians. They are
already excusing themselves, speaking as if it was us who brought them here.
Clearly, they need to somehow justify their dirty intentions. So I would very
much request that in this situation, and with this fact, everything was
extremely frank and honest. If these are Russian citizens … we need to
immediately address the respective structures of the Russian Federation, so
that they explain what is happening,” he reportedly told the meeting.

The mercenaries had no activity planned in Belarus and
instead were in transit to a foreign country, said on his Facebook page Zakhar
Prilepin, a Russian author who confirmed that several of those detained fought
in his battalion in Donbas. Among the items in the soldiers’ possession were
Sudanese cash and phone cards, as reported by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,
which also reported on the possibility that they were in transit to Africa.

The detained Wagner soldiers could have been used to
destabilize the situation in Belarus ahead of the Aug. 9 presidential
elections, said on July 30 Kateryna Zelenko, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s
Foreign Ministry. “Ukraine has long warned that participants in the Russian
occupational forces and illegal armed formations, which participated in
military actions in eastern Ukraine, are being used in other parts of the world
and pose a threat. The uncovering of these fighters in Belarus confirms this
fact and affirms they can be used for destabilizing the situation in Belarus on
the eve of the presidential elections,” she said.

Zenon Zawada: This is a
political stunt by Lukashenko ahead of the Aug. 9 vote, in our view. It’s clear
that he knew the Wagner mercenaries were in Belarus, so he decided to exploit
them to demonstrate his patriotism. The Wagner detentions are part of a
campaign to at least placate, if not win over, some of the Western-leaning
electorate with such gestures that are hostile to the Kremlin. We believe
Lukashenko has made the gamble that the Russians will tolerate all his
uncooperative activities, which he has demonstrated for at least a year now,
because he is still the better option for them than any of his pro-Western
opponents (who have been disqualified from the elections). This is also aimed
at convincing enough Belarusians that coming out to a maidan isn’t worth it.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian foreign ministry’s
statement is strictly political, aimed at feeding the (accurate) narrative of
Russia’s ongoing aggressive interference in the internal affairs of its
neighbors. The implications for Ukraine is that the country will have a
northern neighbor with a similar foreign policy of playing the West and Russia
off each other, extracting and exchanging offers from either power when it’s
advantageous. And we can expect positive relations, if not close cooperation,
between Lukashenko and Zelensky in the future, given their similar geopolitical
position of being caught between two powers, but not being able to fully submit
to either.