Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has brought even more confusion and eye-raising discrepancies about the so-called Wagner scandal, which has haunted the country’s leadership for nearly a year.
In his interview with 1+1 channel aired on June 25, Zelensky foggily admitted that the alleged special operation to arrest Russian mercenaries with Warner Group in July 2020 had been contemplated and planned, but not by Ukraine, contrary to his previous staement.
“It was surely not our operation,” Zelensky said. “This operation was a brainchild of, shall we say, other countries.”
The president did not specify the countries he was talking about.
“The fact that Ukraine was being lured hard into this issue is true,” he said. “And regarding the fact that this did not happen… thank God, we acted at our own discretion.”
According to numerous reports in media, Ukrainian intelligence operatives, allegedly supported by the United States and Turkey, planned to stage an emergency on board a passenger jet transporting Russian militants between Minsk and Istanbul for their new deployment overseas.
The plane was reportedly to make a forced landing midway its course in Ukraine, following which Ukrainian intelligence operatives were to detain the mercenaries, who previously fought against the Ukrainian forces in the Donbas.
But the mercenaries never got on their plane from Minsk to Istanbul. Instead, 33 militants were arrested by Belarusian police in Minsk on July 29, 2020, the day before their flight.
According to Ukrainian authorities, many of the arrested were involved in Russia’s war in Donbas and were wanted on terrorist charges. Ukraine asked the Belarusian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko to hand the militants over, but instead, Lukashenko sent them to Russia, saving them.
That’s when a scandal broke out in the media.
Numerous reports quoted intelligence insiders suggesting that the operation was deliberately sabotaged by an official in Zelensky’s inner circle. Fingers were pointed at chief of staff Andriy Yermak, who allegedly did so to avoid further confrontation with Russia.
Zelensky and Yermak vehemently denied that such an operation was ever in the plans, calling it all a Russian propaganda plot.
In the June 26 interview, Zelensky for the first time admitted that there indeed existed a plan to seize the mercenaries from a plane flying over Ukraine.
In the same interview, Zelensky also compared the operation with the case of Roman Protasevich, the Belarusian opposition journalist who was arrested on May 23 after Belarusian authorities forced a passenger jet with Protasevich on board to land in Minsk.
The Belarusian regime’s move triggered a strong international condemnation and sweeping sanctions. According to Zelensky, Ukraine could have faced international isolation of a similar kind in the case of the Wagner operation’s success.
Zelensky also vaguely told about his last phone conversation with Lukashenko, which, according to the Ukrainian president, took place as part of the Wagner controversy.
“When the Wagner members were in Belarus, I called (Lukashenko),” Zelensky said. “I told him, I forewarned him. I said ‘I am ready to provide you with all information regarding these people. We have already got their names.”
Zelensky did not specify if he called Lukashenko after the mercenaries were arrested, or if he called to inform Lukashenko that the mercenaries were in Minsk — therefore triggering their detention and extradition to Russia.
After the interview aired, Mykhailo Podolyak, a communications adviser to Zelensky’s chief of staff, had to clarify in a comment to BBC Ukraine that Zelensky had this conversation with Lukashenko days after the mercenaries were arrested, in a bid to request that the militants be handed over to Ukraine.
Speaking of Yermak, who is believed by many to be the one to have reportedly failed the operation, Zelensky insisted that he trusts the senior member of his administration.
“SBU security service and military intelligence have zero questions to Yermak,” he said.
