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Maj. Gen. Leonid Kosinsky, left, speaks with CNN journalist Matthew Chance in the Belarusian army camp near Tsel village, Belarus, on July 7. Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

The Belarusian government on Friday showed CNN and other foreign media outlets a disused military camp about an hour outside Minsk that they say could be used to house Wagner fighters, should they come to the country.

The plan to host Wagner in Belarus is on hold, President Alexander Lukashenko told CNN during a news conference on Friday.

Neither Wagner mercenary fighters nor their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin are in Belarus, Lukashenko said, adding “it doesn’t depend on me, but on Russian authorities and Wagner PMC (private military company) itself whether they come to Belarus or not.”

The foreign media outlets were given a brief tour on Friday of a tent city erected on a military base near Osipovichi.

“There is absolutely no connection between this camp and Wagner,” Maj. Gen. Leonid Kasinsky told CNN. “Yesterday the President said that if Yevgeny Prigozhin makes a decision together with his commanders to come to Belarus to set up, then this camp among other places could be offered to them.”

Major General Leonid Kasinsky shows a tent camp near the village of Tsel in the Asipovichy District, Belarus, on July 7.
Major General Leonid Kasinsky shows a tent camp near the village of Tsel in the Asipovichy District, Belarus, on July 7. Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

The camp can house around 5,000 personnel, he said, but is currently occupied by only around a dozen troops. The large canvas tents, baking in the hot summer sun, are currently outfitted with little more than rough and ready lumber bunks and no mattresses.

When asked whether he had been told to prepare the camp for Wagner, Kasinsky demurred. “We prepared this camp within for the training of (Belarusian) territorial defense and militia,” he said.

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