Belarus's Lukashenko says he told Putin not to kill Wagner's Prigozhin

Belarus strongman seeks credit for stepping in to mediate Wagner's turnaround on the road to Moscow

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko speaks in Minsk on June 27. Belarus President Press Service / EPA

Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko said Tuesday he had urged his ally President Vladimir Putin not to kill the head of the mercenary Wagner Group, which last week tried to topple Russia's top brass.

Mr Lukashenko, a long-time ally of Mr Putin, claimed to have negotiated an end to the armed insurrection and has said he will take in exiled rebels and Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.

"I said to Putin: we could waste [Prigozhin)], no problem; if not on the first try, then on the second," he told a meeting of security officials, according to state media.

"I told him: don't do this."

Mr Lukashenko, 68, has been hit with western sanctions for cracking down on opposition figures and allowing Russia to attack Ukraine last year from Belarusian territory.

Meanwhile, Belarus welcomed Mr Prigozhin into exile on Tuesday as Mr Putin thanked regular troops for averting a civil war.

Mr Putin's supporters insisted that his rule was not weakened by the revolt, which was widely seen as the biggest threat to Kremlin authority since he came to power.

Asked whether Mr Putin's power was diminished by the sight of Wagner's rebel mercenaries seizing a military headquarters, advancing on Moscow and shooting down military aircraft along the way, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused political commentators of exaggerating.

"We don't agree," Mr Peskov said.

Wagner forces aim to topple Moscow's military leadership - in pictures

Mr Putin tried to portray the dramatic events at the weekend as a victory for the Russian army.

"You de facto stopped civil war," he told troops from the Defence Ministry, National Guard, FSB security service and Interior Ministry, who gathered in a Kremlin courtyard to hold a minute's silence for airmen killed by Wagner.

"In the confrontation with rebels, our comrades-in-arms, pilots, were killed. They did not flinch and honourably fulfilled their orders and their military duty."

Mr Prigozhin, a former Kremlin ally and catering contractor who built Russia's most powerful private army, has boasted with some support from news footage that his men were cheered by civilians during his short-lived revolt.

But Mr Putin insisted that Wagner's ordinary fighters had seen that "the army and the people were not with them".

In another meeting with defence officials, he confirmed that Wagner was wholly funded by the Russian federal budget, despite operating as an independent company.

He said that since the assault on Ukraine, Moscow had paid the group 86.26 billion roubles (about $1 billion) in salaries.

Russian officials have been trying to put the crisis behind them for three days, with the FSB dropping charges against rank-and-file Wagner troopers and the military preparing to disarm the group.

"Preparations are under way for the transfer of heavy military equipment from the private military company Wagner to units of the Russian armed forces," the Defence Ministry said.