The Perils of Hosting Prigozhin in Belarus

Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plans are extremely unclear: Nobody can be sure whether he and his mercenaries will choose to take up Aleksandr Lukashenko’s offer of a safe haven in Belarus. But it is certainly plausible that he will do so, at least for a while.

The Belarusian dictator is presenting his role in brokering an accord between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prigozhin as a triumph of his personal diplomacy. But in truth, the presence of the warlord in Belarus is dangerous for Lukashenko. It further ties Belarus to a war that is unpopular with most citizens and has the potential to destabilize not only Lukashenko’s relationship with Putin, but also the foundations of his regime.

Since then, independent monitors have spotted Prigozhin’s jet twice in Belarus, on June 27 and July 1, though each time it is reported that he returned to Moscow after. Indeed, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later confirmed that Putin had a three-hour meeting with Prigozhin and 34 Wagner commanders in Moscow on June 29. Two days before that, on June 27, Lukashenko reportedly spent five hours in his residence on a lake just outside of Minsk, known as a venue for holding private and secretive meetings by Lukashenko and his family members. Just 39 minutes after Lukashenko had left the residence, Prigozhin’s jet took off from an airfield near Minsk.

If anyone emerged victorious out of this bizarre imbroglio, at least on the face of it, it was Lukashenko.

Prigozhin himself, however, has not been seen in Belarus, and neither have the Wagner troops. At the same time, satellite images have revealed the construction of a large military camp in eastern Belarus, which, many speculated, might be being built for the Wagner troops. The independent monitors were also told by reliable sources that some 200 Wagnerites had been deployed to the Losvida military field, near Vitebsk in northern Belarus. On July 6, however, Lukashenko said at a press conference that Prigozhin was in St. Petersburg, Russia, while the Wagner troops were also in Russia, in “their permanent camps to which they had withdrawn after leaving the front line.”

If anyone emerged victorious out of this bizarre imbroglio, at least on the face of it, it was Lukashenko. He reveled in presenting himself as capable of sorting out squabbles within the Russian elites, while also humiliating the Russian president: “I suggested to Putin not to rush … I said, ‘let’s talk to Prigozhin and his commanders’.” He boasted to journalists that Prigozhin would not answer Putin’s phone calls but did respond to his own.

It is doubtful, however, that Lukashenko had the political clout to genuinely mediate at the top level in Russia. Following his rigging of the 2020 presidential election, Lukashenko has lost legitimacy both at home and internationally and stayed in power only thanks to the Kremlin’s political and economic backing.

After the Belarusian authorities forcefully grounded a Ryanair flight en route to Vilnius, Lithuania, in May 2021, which carried an exiled Belarusian journalist, the West imposed strict sanctions against Belarus. Unable to trade with the EU as before (about 40 percent of Belarusian exports had gone to European countries), Lukashenko chose to align even more closely with the Kremlin to keep the battered economy afloat. He has de facto handed over Belarus’ foreign and defense policy to Moscow, allowing Russia to use Belarus’s territory as a launchpad for its aggression against Ukraine. Like the governor of a Russian region, Lukashenko has come to see Putin regularly, approximately once a month, reporting to him on domestic affairs and presumably taking orders.

Most likely, Lukashenko served the role of a messenger from Putin. Belarus was a convenient and perhaps temporary “dumping ground” in which the Kremlin could neutralize Prigozhin rather than dispose of him outright, in light of his rising domestic popularity. Prigozhin’s fate and that of the Wagner Group will be decided in Moscow—Belarus might offer a temporary refuge at best.

In a similar manner, Putin used Lukashenko to take his nuclear scare rhetoric one step further, when he announced in March that Russian tactical nuclear weapons would be moved to Belarus, thereby inciting fears among Western policymakers that nukes would be geographically closer to Ukraine and that they would have to deal with an additional unpredictable actor.

At first, Lukashenko seemed worried at the prospect of hosting the nukes and especially of becoming hostage to increasingly unpredictable outcomes, such as their possible use on the Ukrainian battlefield. Eventually, he decided to make the best of it and use it as a deterrence against any hypothetical Western or domestic efforts to weaken his grip on power as well as against potential retaliation from Ukraine. “I think that it is unlikely that anyone would want to pick a fight with a country that has such weapons,” he said. He also tried to present himself as playing first fiddle and, despite Moscow’s insistence to the contrary, claimed that he would have equal control over the nukes.

Lukashenko was dismayed when his renewed attempt to broker a deal by hosting negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Belarus at the start of the war brought no fruit, and his role was later overtaken by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But now, not only has Lukashenko been publicly praised by the Kremlin, but Ukraine also seems to have noticed his mediation potential. Oleksiy Danilov of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council said that Lukashenko might play a role in potential future negotiations with Russia.

Having done the Kremlin a favor, Lukashenko can now hope for reciprocity. It might come in the form of granting Lukashenko his wish of no Belarusian boots in Ukraine, since, unlike in Russia, the war is unpopular with the Belarusian public—only 30 percent support it. Moscow might also extend direct financial assistance to Belarus’s battered economy; offer more help with circumventing Western sanctions against Belarus (Russia has already taken over some 70 percent of Belarus’ exports that used to go to the EU); or pause some of its “economic integration” projects that could chip away at Belarus’s sovereignty, such as a push toward sharing a single currency.

Lukashenko is also intent on reaping benefits from Prigozhin and his mercenaries. The two men allegedly first met in person 20 years ago and have spoken favorably of each other since then. For example, Prigozhin glorified Lukashenko for flexing his muscle in grounding the Ryanair plane. According to the Belarusian Investigative Centre, the arrival of Prigozhin’s mercenaries and his other business interests in Africa in 2018 may have facilitated lucrative gold and diamond mining by the Belarusian firms supposedly linked to Lukashenko and his family. Lukashenko may well demand a bigger slice of the pie in Africa in exchange for granting Prigozhin a safe harbor in Belarus.

Lukashenko would be anxious about any possibility, however remote, of Prigozhin turning the security services against their current master.

Lukashenko said that the Belarusian army, which has never fought a real battle, would benefit from learning about Wagner’s combat experience. According to the Institute for the Study of War, Lukashenko might seek to use the Wagner Group to “help rebuild lost capability within the Belarusian military” that Belarus had delegated to Russia. “The Belarusian military’s dissolution of its unified ground command in 2011 effectively subordinated Belarus’ military to [Russia’s] Western Military District. Belarus has no recent experience in conducting large-scale operations or organizing exercises above the battalion level. …The Wagner Group has experience conducting combined arms operations with formations larger than the combat services of the Belarusian military.”

Yet Wagner’s expertise in suppressing rebellions against autocratic leaders in Africa would be even more welcome to the Lukashenko regime. Indeed, some of the infamous Berkut police officers who shot at protesters during the 2014 Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine later found refuge in Belarus. Lukashenko would appreciate Prigozhin’s advice on training a formidable personal security service, of a type that Wagner provides for many African strongmen. He wants one that is capable of suppressing any potential attempt at toppling his regime, be it a home-grown public protest or an insurgency supported from abroad (a scenario that part of the Belarusian opposition seems to be planning for).

And Prigozhin’s advice on meddling with elections through troll farms and internet bots, for which his (now crumbling) Internet Research Agency was responsible, is another area of great interest to Lukashenko.

Any attempt to subordinate previously independent Wagner mercenaries to Belarus’s inexperienced armed forces and bureaucratic command structures, as Lukashenko suggested earlier, would pose similar stability risks. It would also raise the question of costs—could Lukashenko really afford Wagner mercenaries? He said himself that “it would be good for our army, if we could invite them [the Wagner Group] at their own expense.”

The Wagner presence in Belarus would also upset both the domestic elites and the public, who would worry not only about further involvement in Russia’s war but also about welcoming dodgy individuals. Mercenary activity is a criminal offence under Belarusian law, punishable by between three and seven years in prison. Lukashenko’s support, already low, could dip even further.

So it is not surprising that Lukashenko has tried repeatedly to reassure not only public opinion, but also his officials: “You should not worry or be concerned. … They [the mercenaries] are not frightening for us,” he has said.

Last but not least, the West may turn further against Lukashenko should the Wagner Group, which some countries call a terrorist organization, find shelter in Belarus. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has already said that his country may revise its sanctions law and impose stricter entry restrictions for Belarusians. Other countries might toughen sanctions against the Lukashenko regime, too.

Thus, having offered Prigozhin and his mercenaries a safe haven in Belarus, Lukashenko has found himself in a weaker position. The regime in Belarus rests on two pillars: the Kremlin’s support and repression (in June alone, the country made 560 political arrests).

But as the Prigozhin mutiny has exposed Putin’s weakness and his incapacity to deal with domestic crises, Moscow’s backing might not be as solid as it appeared. The other pillar relies on violence, but Prigozhin’s presence in Belarus—if he manages to buy off, or sow discord in, Lukashenko’s security services—could undermine that one, too.