Belarus' Lukashenko says demands for Wagner to withdraw ‘groundless’: Report

Wagner, whose leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash in Russia last week, relocated some of its fighters to Belarus under a deal

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that demands for the withdrawal of Russia's Wagner mercenary group from Belarus were "groundless and stupid", Belarusian state news agency BELTA reported on Thursday.

FILE - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko listens, during his meeting with foreign correspondents, in Minsk, Belarus, on July 6, 2023. A former member of Lukashenko’s special security forces is set to face trial in Switzerland next month for the forced disappearances of political opponents in the late 1990s, according to human rights and victims advocacy groups Wednesday Aug. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File) (AP)

Wagner, whose leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash in Russia last week, relocated some of its fighters to Belarus under a deal brokered by Lukashenko after the mercenary army launched a failed mutiny aimed at ousting Prigozhin's rivals from the Russian Defence Ministry in June.