The deal brokered by Alexander Lukashenko to halt an armed rebellion in Russia wasn’t the first time the Belarusian leader has cast himself as a peace maker on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Saturday, Lukashenko helped defuse a crisis as forces from the Wagner paramilitary group moved toward Moscow.
“The two presidents really agreed that President Lukashenko would mediate efforts to resolve the situation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a press call late Saturday evening, noting that Putin “thanked his Belarusian counterpart for the work done.”Relations between the two leaders stretch back years.
In 2014 and 2015, Lukashenko allowed the Belarusian capital, Minsk, to host a series of international talks which sought to end the war in Ukraine’s Donbas region that was being fought between Russian-backed separatists and the Ukrainian army.
The agreements, which would become known as the Minsk accords, subsequently went nowhere, because Kyiv believed that they could give Moscow too much say in Ukraine’s future.
Persons:
Alexander Lukashenko, Vladimir Putin, Lukashenko, Wagner, Dmitry Peskov, Putin “
Organizations:
Russia wasn’t
Locations:
Russia, Moscow, Minsk, Ukraine’s Donbas, Russian, Ukrainian