Lukashenko says demands for Wagner to quit Belarus are ‘stupid’

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said demands by Poland and the Baltic states for the withdrawal of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group from Belarus were “groundless and stupid”.
Belarusian state news agency BELTA quoted Lukashenko as saying that opposition to Wagner’s presence in Belarus was unjustified as long as foreign troops are stationed in Poland and the Baltics, which are all members of NATO.
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 to end a brief mutiny by the mercenary army against the Russian defence establishment in June.
Poland and its neighbours see Wagner’s presence in Belarus as a security threat, and Warsaw in response has moved some of its own troops eastwards towards the Belarus border.