The detained in Minsk Russians were sent to Istanbul, the Ambassador said
Detained near Minsk group of the Russians was on July 25 to fly to Istanbul, said Russian Ambassador in Belarus Dmitry Mezentsev.
"The Russians, who arrived in the sanatorium "Belorusochka" of Minsk, was forced to do due to the fact that I was late for a flight from National airport of the capital of the Republic, heading the transit to a third country. They had intended to fly from Minsk to Istanbul on 25 July and is not believed to be in the Republic how whatever for a long time, and much later planned to return to the Russian capital from another state by plane, bypassing the territory of Belarus," - said in a statement Mezentsev published on the website of the Embassy.
The Belarusian state Agency BelTA reported Wednesday, citing an unnamed source in law enforcement bodies that, under the Minsk detained "32 militants, the foreign private company Wagner", another was arrested in the South of the country. All of them, as claimed by the Agency, the Russians. Thus, according to the report, earlier information was received of the arrival in Belarus ", more than 200 militants to destabilize the situation during the election campaign." Later, the Embassy of the Russian Federation said that the official has received from the foreign Ministry of Belarus a notice about the arrest of 32 Russians.
According to the Investigative Committee of Belarus, 33 of the detained Russians from PMC Wagner are suspects in a criminal case about preparation of mass riots. In the same case, are the Belarusian opposition politicians Nikolai Statkevich Sergei tikhanovski, whose wife Svetlana was the candidate in presidents of Belarus.
Thus a press-the Secretary of the President Dmitry Peskov on Thursday said that "in Russia legally, de jure, no such thing as a PMC, no." He noted that he does not have any data on "any kind of military companies."
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko a few days ago, speaking to the commandos, said that street protests can "pull" a specially-trained foreigners. According to him, "these are professional soldiers, bandits, which are specially prepared, mainly in the framework of PMCs around the world, and make a lot of money on provocations in those or other States".
Presidential elections will be held on 9 August.