Moscow
\nAs Ukraine started to gear up its military response against Russia, President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that the counteroffensive of Kyiv planned against Moscow\u2019s forces has failed, as he met with his Belarusian counterpart in Saint Petersburg.
\nPutin met for the first time with his ally Alexander Lukashenko \u2014 after Wagner\u2019s failed mutiny late last month \u2014 for two-day talks as he helped mediate a deal between the private mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.
\n\u201cThere is no counteroffensive,\u201d Lukashenko said before being interrupted by Putin: \u201cThere is one, but it has failed.\u201d
\nBoth leaders met hours after the Russian army had struck Ukraine\u2019s Black Sea port of Odesa.
\nIn a sign of the importance of the meeting, Putin said he had \u201cchanged some of my plans so that talks with Lukashenko could last two days.\u201d
\nAccording to the Russian leader, both would discuss \u201csecurity in our region.\u201d
\nThe President of Belarus now hosts Wagner fighters on his territory, the deal that Prigozhin to end a march on Moscow and exile himself to Belarus.
\nLukashenko said Minsk was \u201ccontrolling\u201d the situation with the Wagner fighters, and restricting them to staying in the center of the reclusive country.
\nWagner\u2019s presence in Belarus has rattled EU and Nato member Poland, which has strengthened its border.
\nBoth Putin and Lukashenko accused Warsaw of having territorial ambitions on Ukraine and Belarus, with the Belarusian strongman issuing a veiled threat.
\n\u201cThey are asking to go West, ask me for permission… to go on a trip to Warsaw, to Rzeszow,\u201d Lukashenko said, referring to Wagner fighters, to Putin, who smiled.
\n\u201cBut of course, I am keeping them in central Belarus, like we agreed. We are controlling what is happening [with Wagner],\u201d he said, adding that \u201cthey are in a bad mood.\u201d He thanked Putin for vowing to defend Belarus should it be attacked.
\nThe comments came two days after Putin said western Poland was a gift from Stalin. Lukashenko accused Poland of trying to \u201crip off a western chunk\u201d of Ukraine.
\nHe also accused Poland of bringing mercenaries to the border, saying he had \u201cbrought him a map of moving armed forces of Poland to the borders of the union state\u201d. The comments came after Warsaw summoned the Russian ambassador over Putin\u2019s Poland remarks.
\nAfter their talks, Putin and Lukashenko greeted crowds in the naval town and base of Kronstadt on Kotlin Island in a rare walkabout.
\nRussia\u2019s Kommersant newspaper posted a video of Putin and Lukashenko posing for photographs with people, with bodyguards standing nearby.
\nAsked about quarantine rules which the Russian leader has been keeping up strictly since the pandemic, Putin replied: \u201cPeople are more important than quarantine.\u201d
\nSeveral days after Wagner had ended its mutiny last month, Putin met with adoring crowds in Dagestan in an apparent show of popularity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Moscow As Ukraine started to gear up its military response against Russia, President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that the counteroffensive of Kyiv planned against Moscow\u2019s forces has failed, as he met with his Belarusian counterpart in Saint Petersburg. Putin met for the first time with his ally Alexander Lukashenko \u2014 after Wagner\u2019s failed mutiny late […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338556,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-344966","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n