Kremlin: ‘Mercenaries’ Arrested in Minsk Were En Route to Latin America

An inmate uses a mirror to look outside his cell at the Los Angeles Men’s Central Jail i
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Gabrielle Reyes

Over 30 suspected Russian mercenaries detained in Belarus last week were passing through the country en route to Latin America, a Russian diplomat said on Monday.

The claim comes as the detainees themselves have given conflicting answers as to their alleged destination, including some saying they were on their way to Istanbul to visit the Hagia Sophia.

Belarus security forces arrested 32 men – all or nearly all Russian citizens – at a health resort near the capital, Minsk, on July 29 for allegedly trying to disrupt the country’s August 9 presidential election. On July 30, Belarus’ Investigative Committee said the men will face criminal charges including “preparing mass disorder,” an offense punishable by up to eight years in prison. Following the arrests, Belarus’ KGB released a statement “identifying the men as part of the Wagner Group,” a private military contractor believed to be controlled by an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Wagner Group is suspected of promoting the Kremlin’s interests in Ukraine, Syria, and Libya, among other nations, though Russia officially denies using mercenaries.

On July 31, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed claims that “organizations from Russia are sending some people to destabilize the situation in Belarus” as “nothing but insinuations.” Peskov seemed to confirm the men’s Russian nationality, denouncing the arrests as the “groundless detention of Russian citizens.” He described the men as “employees of a private security company” who were temporarily in Belarus on their way to Istanbul.

On Monday, Russian diplomat Kirill Pletnyev contradicted Peskov’s claim that the men were en route to Istanbul. As reported by Reuters, Russian news agency RIA quoted Pletnyev as saying that “their final destination was one of the states in the Latin American region.” The diplomat did not elaborate on his claim. According to RIA, Belarus allowed Pletnyev “consular access” to the detained Russians.

Russia maintains close ties with some Latin American nations including socialist Venezuela. Last year, Moscow sent at least two Russian air force planes and roughly 100 Russian military personnel to Caracas, describing them as “Russian specialists” sent to service previously delivered military equipment.

According to Alexander Agafonov, described by Reuters as “the head of the Belarusian investigative group … handling the case,” the detained men have provided “contradictory accounts” of their travel plans. On July 31, Agafonov was quoted as saying that “11 of the arrested men had told authorities they planned to fly on to Venezuela, 15 to Turkey, two to Cuba, and one to Syria. Another said he did not know his destination, while three refused to make a statement.”

On August 1, the head of Belarus’ Investigative Committee, Ivan Noskevich, relayed this information to Belarus’s dictator Alexander Lukashenko, who has demanded an official inquiry into the incident.

“Those who named Turkey as their destination cited a number of different reasons for going there,” Noskevich told Lukashenko in a meeting broadcast on the state-run Belarus 1 TV channel. “Some said they were planning to vacation, some said they were going to work as guards, and some said they planned to see Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia cathedral. While the group had purchased flight tickets to Istanbul, they never went to the airport.”

“There was no [plan for] Istanbul and could not be,” the president replied. “It is clear that this group had other goals.”

The alleged Russian mercenaries could have been on their way to Sudan, the U.S. government-funded website Svoboda.org argued last week. Svoboda cited video footage of the men’s arrest which, “showed Sudanese currency and a telephone card depicting the Khatmiya Mosque in Kassala [a town in Sudan] among the detained men’s belongings.” In mid-July, the U.S. government said it would impose sanctions on Russia’s Wagner Group for its alleged illegal activity in Sudan.

After halting nearly all of its international flights during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Russia has used its traditional ally and neighbor, Belarus, as an intermediary to transport goods and people to other countries by land. Moscow and Minsk are officially allies, but their relationship has grown increasingly strained in recent years. Observers have posited a variety of reasons for this state of affairs, including the Kremlin’s designs to reunify Belarus with Russia as part of a supra-state, which Lukashenko has reportedly rebuffed. Others say that the two nations’ failure to agree on a mutually beneficial oil supply contract for this year caused their relationship to rupture.

Belarus has endured a highly contentious election season ahead of this weekend’s August 9 presidential vote. Lukashenko has been “president” of Belarus since the office was established in 1994. He has faced persistent rivals in the run-up to this year’s presidential election, despite his attempts to quell the opposition by repeatedly detaining its candidates. Some of the jailed opposition candidates’ wives have popped up to replace them on the ballot. One, in particular, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, gained a massive following in the final weeks of the campaign and has emerged as his strongest opponent.

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