Lukashenko appears to be fleeing Belarus (Image: @officejjsmart / Twitter)
An aircraft carrying Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko, who is a close ally of Vladimir Putin, has reportedly been seen fleeing the country, as rumblings of a coup in Russia continue to gather pace. According to news outlet Visegrád 24, the 68-year-old dictator’s plane was seen over Turkey just hours after mercenaries stormed a Russian city, and threatened Moscow.
An AirNav RadarBox flight tracker shows the president, who has ruled the country since 1994, flying out of Minsk and over Russia, where it appears that his plane stopped transmitting a signal, before the signal restarted over Turkey.
Accompanying the image of the flight tracker, the outlet tweeted: “A plane belonging to the Lukashenko family took off from Belarus a few hours ago and is now over Turkey.
“It’s time to make the Russian Army leave Belarus and for Belarus to join the family of democratic European states.”
Lukashenko is a close ally of Putin (Image: Getty)
Visegrád 24 earlier tweeted that the “Russian civil war had started” after the leader of the Wagner Group of mercenaries Yevgeny Prigozhin accused Putin’s forces of firing on his own men.
In a series of messages on his Telegram channel, Prigozhin said: “Those who destroyed our lads, who destroyed the lives of many tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, will be punished. I ask that no one offer resistance …
“There are 25,000 of us and we are going to figure out why chaos is happening in the country.”
An ominous message on Wagner’s Telegram channel, posted on Twitter by a Ukrainian government adviser, simply said: “We’re starting.”
Yevgeny Prigozhin has accused the Russian military of killing his own men (Image: Getty)
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Prigozhin claimed his forces have crossed into Russia, and reportedly taken a city en route to Moscow.
The mercenary leader has said his men have “liberated” the city of Rostov and claimed all military sites.
He has demanded Russian military leaders, who he accuses of killing his forces, meet with him.
In a video taken in Rostov he said: “We want [Gerasimov] and Shoigu. Until they’re here, we’ll stay, block off Rostov, and head to Moscow.”
Russian president Vladimir Putin said he had been informed of the claims and warned “necessary measures are being taken.”The FSB said it had begun a criminal investigation into the Wagner mercenaries and demanded Prigozhin’s arrest.
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