Vladimir V. Putin is thought for his tight management over the news media in Russia. His onetime ally, the Wagner army group founder Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, is himself the proprietor of a conservative media outlet and a flamboyant showman on social media.
But it was an unlikely determine who emerged with a public relations victory within the wake of Mr. Prigozhin’s mutiny: the longtime dictator of Belarus, the neighboring nation that’s firmly in Moscow’s orbit.
The Belarusian chief, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, is considered largely because the Kremlin’s docile satrap. But on Sunday, he took credit score for brokering an settlement between Mr. Putin and Mr. Prigozhin, averting a situation that the Russian chief had in comparison with the civil struggle that adopted the Revolution of 1917.
Now Mr. Lukashenko, a world pariah, is making an attempt to make use of the P.R. victory to burnish his credentials as a reputable statesman, mediator — and above all, loyal ally to Mr. Putin.
Late on Saturday night, as fears have been heightening over a possible conflict between Wagner troops, who have been inside 125 miles of Moscow, and Russian troopers, Mr. Lukashenko’s press service issued an announcement: The Belarusian president had discovered “an absolutely profitable and acceptable option for resolving the situation.”
Shortly thereafter, Mr. Prigozhin introduced {that a} column of his fighters that had ridden 570 miles from southern Russia was turning round and going residence.
As a part of the deal, the felony case opened in opposition to Mr. Prigozhin for organizing an armed revolt can be dropped, Wagner troops wouldn’t face costs and Mr. Prigozhin would go away Russia for Belarus, the Kremlin’s spokesman stated. His whereabouts on Sunday weren’t identified.
What, if any, guarantees have been made on behalf of the Kremlin, Wagner, or Mr. Lukashenko stay unclear. But Mr. Lukashenko’s state-controlled media rapidly switched into excessive gear, to painting his efforts to defuse the battle as proof of statesmanship.
The state news company, Belta, reported that on Saturday morning — as Mr. Putin confronted “the most acute phase of the situation in Russia” — he phoned his Belarusian counterpart in Minsk.
Mr. Putin “was skeptical about the possibility of negotiations and doubted whether Yevgeny Prigozhin would pick up the phone, since at that time he did not talk to anyone,” a Belarusian authorities propagandist, Vadim Gigin, advised pro-Kremlin media on Sunday, in an interview that was lined extensively by Belta.
But Mr. Putin agreed to mediation, and when “the president of Belarus called, Yevgeny Prigozhin immediately picked up the phone,” stated Mr. Gigin, on whom the European Union as soon as imposed sanctions for “supporting and justifying repression against the democratic opposition and civil society.”
The dialog between Mr. Lukashenko and Mr. Prigozhin was “very difficult,” stated Mr. Gigin, who this month turned the director of the National Library of Belarus. “They immediately blurted out such vulgar things it would make any mother cry. The conversation was hard, and as I was told, masculine.”
Though different potential explanations have been superior for why Mr. Prigozhin gave up on his “march for justice” to Moscow, some providing minimal credit score to Mr. Lukashenko, But the Belarusian media machine has been trumpeting his position as an influence dealer, a uncommon position reversal at a time when the dictator has develop into overwhelmingly depending on Russia.
“Putin lost because he showed how weak his system is, that he can be challenged so easily,” stated Pavel Slunkin, a former Belarusian diplomat and analyst on the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Prigozhin challenged, he attacked, he was so bold and then he retreated, looking like a loser. Only Lukashenko won points — first in the eyes of Putin, in the eyes of the international community as a mediator or negotiator, and as a possible guarantor of the deal.”
Mr. Lukashenko has managed to carry onto energy for 29 years, however at a value. He has more and more allowed Belarus to develop into a vassal state of Russia, particularly after getting Moscow’s backing in 2020, when he violently crushed a democracy motion difficult his declare that he had received an election in a landslide,
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Dependent on Moscow not only for political help but in addition for financial viability, Belarus allowed Mr. Putin to make use of it as a staging floor for his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and as a storage website for Russian tactical nuclear weapons.
Details have additionally emerged that Belarus has participated in Russia’s follow of taking kids out of Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine and bringing them to so-called summer time camps. The International Criminal Court has issued warrants for Mr. Putin and his kids’s rights commissioner, and Ukrainian prosecutors are reviewing proof that kids have been introduced to a few camps in Belarus, together with at the least one belonging to a state-owned firm.
Opposition leaders imagine that Mr. Putin’s ambitions are usually not restricted to Ukrainian territory. Eventually, they predict, he’ll attempt to strengthen his management over Belarus.
With his reported mediation within the Wagner disaster, Mr. Lukashenko might hope to reclaim a few of his quickly eroding sovereignty, and stem Belarusian fears of being swallowed by its bigger neighbor, stated Dmitri Avosha, the founding father of the Belarusian web site Tribuna.
“Lukashenko simply did a favor to Putin in its purest form, and helped himself solve the problem of occupation,” he stated.
It isn’t the primary time Mr. Lukashenko additionally tried to assert the mantle of mediator.
He did so in 2014 and 2015, after an earlier Russian foray into Ukraine, when it launched a clandestine invasion of the jap Donbas area. He tried once more shortly after the full-scale invasion, dragooning delegations from Moscow and Kyiv to the southeastern metropolis of Gomel, however the talks rapidly fell aside.
Many observers are actually elevating questions on whether or not Mr. Prigozhin can be protected from the specter of kidnapping or assassination in Belarus, given Mr. Putin’s brazenly expressed anger at him.
Even earlier than 2020, when Lukashenko turned nonetheless extra Putin’s puppet, Russian particular providers typically entered Belarus’ territory to seize its enemies, stated Mr. Slunkin, the European Council analyst. “And now, they will just do what they want.”
However much the balance of power between Mr. Lukashenko and Mr. Putin may have shifted now, both men still need each other to remain in power.
“They are two Siamese twins,” stated Pavel Latushka, a former Belarusian diplomat and minister now in exile. “They can’t live without each other. It’s one body, two heads. The fall of one means the political death of another.”
Source: www.nytimes.com