Ukraine’s leadership has offered strong reactions to the Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s decision to send 32 Russian Wagner Group mercenaries back to Moscow on Aug. 14, despite Ukraine officially requesting their extradition for trial over their alleged role in Russia’s war in the Donbas.
In his statement published on Aug. 15, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the ill-fated move “strange, irrelevant, and surely unacceptable in friendly international relations.”
On Aug. 5, in a phone call with Lukashenko, Zelensky directly requested Belarus to extradite to Kyiv the alleged mercenaries some of whom were suspected of participating in the war against Ukraine in the Donbas.
According to Zelensky, the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies had also approached Belarus with official requests for their extradition. At least nine Wagner mercenaries are believed to be Ukrainian citizens.
“Unfortunately, this did not happen,” Zelensky said. “We consider this decision, to say the least, unjust and inconsistent to the spirit of Ukrainian-Belarusian affairs based on respect and mutual assistance. The consequences of this decision will be tragic.”
The Ukrainian president also decried Lukashenko’s previous statements regarding Ukraine’s meddling in domestic affairs of Belarus, which continues seeing mass protests against Lukashenko’s presidency following elections that many deem rigged.
Oleksiy Danilov, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council secretary, in his own statement earlier in the day, said that Lukashenko made a step that is “unfriendly toward Ukraine” and that the scandal would have adverse effects on the two nation’s relations.
According to the official, Ukraine requested the extradition of a total of 28 Wagner mercenaries.
“We’d like to emphasize that Ukraine will always find a chance, with evidence basis available, to hold responsible everyone guilty of committing crimes on our territory, regardless of a distant country they hide in,” Danilov said.
Following the transfer on Aug. 15, Lukashenko had a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to official reports, they discussed the security situation in Belarus amid the ongoing mass protests endangering Lukashenko’s decades-long rule.
At least 33 Russian nationals, who are believed to be Wagner Group mercenaries, were arrested at a recreational base outside Minsk and in the south of Belarus on July 29. According to Belarusian authorities, the fighters were sent to possibly destabilize the situation in the country before and after the Aug. 9 presidential election.
Wagner Group — the unofficial private military company associated with Russian oligarch Evgeniy Prigozhyn, who is very close to Putin — is said to be rendering warfighting, bodyguarding, and training services in exchange for lucrative natural resources extraction contracts for the Kremlin’s inner circle.
In other cases, the group upholds the Kremlin’s political interests acting beyond any legislative framework or any association with the Russian government, despite broad support from Russian military and secret services.
According to Ukrainian law enforcers, the Wagner Group was also deployed to fight against Ukraine in the Donbas in 2014–2015. In particular, it was declared responsible for the downing of Ukraine’s Air Force Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft near the Luhansk airport in June 2014, which resulted in the death of 49 Ukrainian military servicemen.
