Lukashenko tells Putin Wagner fighters want to "visit Warsaw"

He said this at a meeting with Putin on Sunday, July 23, in St. Petersburg, the Belarusian state news agency BELTA reports.

"Perhaps I shouldn't have said it. But the Wagner fighters are begging to visit the West. "Allow us!" they say. "Why do you want to go to the West?" I ask. We are monitoring what is happening, you see. "Well, we’ll go on an excursion to Warsaw and Rzeszów," Lukashenko explained.

According to Lukashenk, the Polish city of Rzeszów is of interest to the Wagner fighters because Ukraine receives Western military equipment through it.

"Rzeszów is unacceptable for them. They know where the military equipment came from when they fought under Bakhmut. They have it inside. They know Rzeszów is no good," he said.

"I'm keeping them in the center of Belarus as we agreed. I don't want to move them from there because the moods are bad. They are aware of what's happening in the Union State," Lukashenko said.

He also asked Putin to keep an eye on the situation. These words were not mentioned in the official report but were seen in a video posted by Pavel Zarubin, a Russian propagandist.

• Lukashenko visited Putin on the evening of Saturday, July 22, and negotiations will continue until Monday, July 24.

• A former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Polish Army says Yevgeny Prigozhin's mutiny was a political spectacle used to move the Wagner PMC to Belarus.