OREANDA-NEWS. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko considers the information, that the detained “fighters” from Russia were traveling through the country in transit, to be a lie. According to the politician, they were ordered to wait in Belarus. The head of state also claimed that another detachment was sent to the south of the country to “destabilize” the situation.

“All this is a lie – about Istanbul, about Venezuela, about Africa and Libya. These people testified that they had been sent specially to Belarus. The order was to wait. […] Today we have received information about another detachment that has been redeployed to the south,” Lukashenko said during his address to citizens and parliament.

The group of Russians was detained in Belarus on July 29. A criminal case was opened against them for preparing mass riots. The State Security Committee of Belarus claimed that they are fighters of the paramilitary Wagner Group. According to Russia, the detainees are employees of the private security company who flew to Latin America via Minsk and Istanbul.