Yevgeny Progozhin, the leader of a rebel Russian mercenary squad, landed in Belarus today, according to Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko.
“I see that Prigozhin is already flying on this plane. Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today,” Lukashenko told the Belarusian state TV.
Meanwhile, CNN TV said that a senior European intelligence officer told the network earlier that two private planes “linked to” Prigozhin landed in Minsk early Tuesday morning.
Reuters and Japan’s NHK previously reported that a jet thought to be carrying the leader of Russia’s mercenary company Wagner arrived in Belarus today.
“Flight tracking service Flightradar24’s website showed an Embraer Legacy 600 jet, bearing identification codes that match a plane linked to Prigozhin in US sanctions documents, descending to landing altitude near the Belarus capital Minsk,” Reuters news agency said.
The flight tracker first detected the plane above Rostov, the southern Russian city Prigozhin’s fighters captured on Saturday.
According to the NHK, which cited an independent Belarusian organisation, Prigozhin’s private jet landed at a military airfield near the Belarusian capital Minsk.
However, no news agency was able to confirm whether Prigozhin was on board the jet.
After his arrival in Belarus, no news outlet was able to obtain images of the rebel mercenary leader, and the exiled mercenary chief has not made any fresh statements.
According to the BBC, Lukashenko promised Wagner militants abandoned military locations in Belarus in exchange for joining their leader in exile.
