Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that, in his opinion, the founder of the Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin tried to get hold of nuclear weapons during the rebellion he staged in June 2023, and this caused concern not only in Russia but also in the West.
“I felt that Zhenya Prigozhin was striving for the nuclear button,” BelTA quotes Lukashenko as saying in an interview with American blogger Mario Naufal. “I realized this in the middle of the day, not right away. I didn’t even think that Zhenya Prigozhin could go so crazy,” the Belarusian president said. He stressed that the Russian authorities would not have allowed such a development of events, which was also unacceptable for Western countries.
According to Lukashenko, during Prigozhin’s attempted rebellion, he informed Russian President Vladimir Putin that he was ready to send Belarusian special forces to strengthen Moscow’s defense.
Lukashenko recalled that during telephone conversations with Prigozhin, he agreed that members of the Wagner PMC would leave for Belarus. “That’s how this conflict ended,” he said.