Zelensky asks Lukashenko to extradite Wagner agents who fought in Donbas

Ukrainian President Zelensky told Belarusian President
Lukashenko during an Aug. 5 telephone call that he is seeking the extradition
to Ukraine for prosecution 14 of the 33 captured Russian Wagner mercenaries who
are reported to have engaged in illegal military operations in Donbas.
Lukashenko said in response that Belarus law enforcement bodies will cooperate
on this matter within the framework of international agreements signed by
Russia and Belarus, his press service said. The pravda.com.ua news site noted
that it wasn’t disclosed who initiated the phone call. This morning, Lukashenko
invited to Belarus the prosecutor generals of Russia and Ukraine to discuss the
situation, the belta.by news site reported.

The 33 detained Wagner mercenaries admitted under
questioning that they were deployed by Russia specifically to Belarus ahead of
the Aug. 9 elections, Lukashenko said in an Aug. 4 national address. He
dismissed as dangerous the speculation that he staged their detainment in
cooperation with the Russian president. “All these lies about Istanbul,
Venezuela, Africa and Libya! They’re all lies! These people – they gave their
testimony – were directly specifically at Belarus. The order was to wait.
Tickets for Istanbul is a legend,” he said.

Thirty of the 33 mercenaries offered testimony to
investigators, Aleksandr Agafonov, the head of the investigative group, told
Belarusian television on Aug. 1. “Their testimony is inconsistent, and the aims
of being in Belarus are contradictory. Eleven individuals were supposed to fly
to Venezuela, 15 to Turkey, two to Cuba and one to Syria. One didn’t know at
all where he was flying to. Three declined to testify,” Agafonov said. In his
view, the true version is they had plane tickets to Istanbul, but they were
merely an alibi for their true aim, which was to destabilize the situation in
Belarus on behalf of the opposition ahead of the elections.

On Aug. 3, Russian Consul to Belarus Kirill Plentyov
told Russian state television that all the Wagner mercenaries detained in
Belarus were supposed to fly on July 25 to Istanbul, where they had a transfer
flight to a Latin American country. The pravda.com.ua news site identified this
country as Venezuela. “They don’t understand, absolutely don’t understand, why
they are incriminated in having ties with opposition leaders in Belarus, the
surnames of which they never heard,” he said.

Zenon Zawada: We believe
Lukashenko is using this entire Wagner incident to distract the Belarusian
public from the criticisms against him during the last week of elections. Going
into the voting booths on Sunday, he thinks they will be more likely to cast
votes for him out of fear of destabilizing the situation in the country. In
this operation, Lukashenko alone (and not in cooperation with Putin, as
suggested) chose Russia as the aggressor in order to discredit and demoralize
the pro-Western opposition ahead of possible mass protests. Should they be
launched, he will argue to the public that they are playing into Russia’s hands
and they risk making the country vulnerable to Russian intervention.

Not only is Lukashenko manipulating the Russians in
his game, but he is also manipulating Zelensky. We don’t believe he will
extradite the mercenaries to Ukraine, which will be viewed by the Kremlin as an
even more humiliating betrayal. Lukashenko is counting on the Russians to
understand that he’s their only ally in Belarus, and they will simply have to
accept these humiliating ploys in order to ensure his re-election and ongoing
cooperation. We expect this scandal to evaporate gradually once the elections
are over, with the Wagner mercenaries quietly disappearing into the night.