Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday ordered the security at his country's border with Belarus to be tightened after the arrival of fighters from the mercenary group Wagner in the neighbouring nation.

The mercenary group's fighters and its chief were offered an exile in Belarus after their mutiny against Russian military leadership&nbsp;was aborted last week. As a part of a deal, President Vladimir Putin gave the fighters a choice of signing contracts with the Russian defence ministry, returning to civilian life or going into exile in Belarus.

Zelensky, on Friday, said that he had been informed of the situation in Belarus by the Ukrainian intelligence service GUR, foreign intelligence services and border guards.&nbsp;

"By the decision of the Stavka (chief of staff), Commander-in-Chief (Valery) Zaluzhny and General (Sergey) Nayev were instructed to strengthen the northern direction in order to guarantee peace. There are appropriate deadlines," the Ukraine leader said in a video posted on Telegram.&nbsp;

<h2>Wagner mutineers 'can join army or go to Belarus': Putin</h2>

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a televised address to the nation late on Monday, said that he would honour his promise to allow Wagner fighters to relocate to Belarus, if they wanted, or to sign a contract with the Defence Ministry or simply return to their families.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/explained-how-lukashenko-emerged-as-a-key-player-to-resolve-wagner-situation-608913">Explained | How Lukashenko emerged as key player to resolve Wagner situation</a>

"I thank those soldiers and commanders of the Wagner Group who made the only right decision - they did not turn to fratricidal bloodshed, they stopped at the last line. Today, you have the opportunity to continue serving Russia by entering into a contract with the Ministry of Defence or other law enforcement agencies or to return to your family and friends. Whoever wants to, can go to Belarus. The promise I made will be fulfilled."

He then thanked the Wagner mercenary fighters and commanders who had stood down to avoid bloodshed.

“We knew and we know that the vast majority of the fighters and commanders of the Wagner Group are also Russian patriots, devoted to their people and state. They proved it with their courage on the battlefield, liberating the Donbas and Novorossiya. They tried to use them in the dark against their brothers-in-arms, with whom they fought together for the sake of the country and its future. Therefore, from the very beginning of the events, on my direct instructions, steps were taken to avoid a lot of bloodshed."

Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko offered Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin refuge after he aborted the armed rebellion against Moscow a week ago.

(With inputs from agencies)

&nbsp;

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday ordered the security at his country's border with Belarus to be tightened after the arrival of fighters from the mercenary group Wagner in the neighbouring nation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday ordered the security at his country's border with Belarus to be tightened after the arrival of fighters from the mercenary group Wagner in the neighbouring nation. The mercenary group's fighters and its chief were offered an exile in Belarus after their mutiny against Russian military leadership was aborted last week. As a part of a deal, President Vladimir Putin gave the fighters a choice of signing contracts with the Russian defence ministry, returning to civilian life or going into exile in Belarus. Zelensky, on Friday, said that he had been informed of the situation in Belarus by the Ukrainian intelligence service GUR, foreign intelligence services and border guards. "By the decision of the Stavka (chief of staff), Commander-in-Chief (Valery) Zaluzhny and General (Sergey) Nayev were instructed to strengthen the northern direction in order to guarantee peace. There are appropriate deadlines," the Ukraine leader said in a video posted on Telegram. Wagner mutineers 'can join army or go to Belarus': Putin Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a televised address to the nation late on Monday, said that he would honour his promise to allow Wagner fighters to relocate to Belarus, if they wanted, or to sign a contract with the Defence Ministry or simply return to their families. Also read: Explained | How Lukashenko emerged as key player to resolve Wagner situation "I thank those soldiers and commanders of the Wagner Group who made the only right decision - they did not turn to fratricidal bloodshed, they stopped at the last line. Today, you have the opportunity to continue serving Russia by entering into a contract with the Ministry of Defence or other law enforcement agencies or to return to your family and friends. Whoever wants to, can go to Belarus. The promise I made will be fulfilled." He then thanked the Wagner mercenary fighters and commanders who had stood down to avoid bloodshed. “We knew and we know that the vast majority of the fighters and commanders of the Wagner Group are also Russian patriots, devoted to their people and state. They proved it with their courage on the battlefield, liberating the Donbas and Novorossiya. They tried to use them in the dark against their brothers-in-arms, with whom they fought together for the sake of the country and its future. Therefore, from the very beginning of the events, on my direct instructions, steps were taken to avoid a lot of bloodshed." Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko offered Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin refuge after he aborted the armed rebellion against Moscow a week ago. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE

Volodymyr Zelensky orders tighter security on Ukraine-Belarus border after arrival of Wagner fighters

It was cold in Belarus, bitterly cold, but at least it offered hope, however illusory.

Nazar Shamsaldin was one of thousands of Iraqis who made their way to the Eastern European country in recent months, hoping it would prove a jumping-off point to new lives in the West, only to become pawns in a geopolitical game.

But this weekend he was back in Iraq, sitting on the cold floor of a tiny unfinished concrete house, newly deported from Belarus. Nearby a small boy, one of a dozen children crammed into the house, was trying to warm his hands over a single, battered kerosene heater.

Shamsaldin, a laborer, and 35 of his relatives had risked everything to travel West. Like many of the hundreds of other Iraqis deported last week, they are now deep in debt and despair.

The Iraqis are at the heart of a crisis that erupted after Belarus loosened its visa rules this summer, luring migrants but then pushing them across borders to punish the European Union for imposing sanctions against the autocratic Belarusian president.

Once in Belarus, many of the migrant families were abandoned in deep forests with no shelter, food or water, sometimes thrust into dangerous confrontations as they tried to make it into Poland, Lithuania or Latvia, all members of the European Union.

“A Belarusian police officer pointed a pistol at my head, so I had to go back to Lithuania,” said Shamsaldin, 24, who had three small children with him. “In Lithuania, the commandos had guns pointed at me and told me, ‘If you don’t go back, we will kill you.’”

He got the message.

On Thursday, Shamsaldin returned with his family on an Iraqi Airways flight evacuating 431 migrants from Minsk, the capital of Belarus.

Several thousand other migrants remain in Belarus near the border. They are mostly Iraqi Kurds, like Shamsaldin, as well as Iraqi Arabs, Syrians, Yemenis and even some Cubans. But with their usefulness to Belarus diminished, the now-penniless Iraqi migrants are being deported.

Most are traumatized. Some have lingering injuries.

“The Belarusians beat us with sticks, but the Lithuanians attacked us with sticks and tasers,” said Dhiab Zaydan, a cousin of Shamsaldin’s.

Zaydan, 30, had a large bandage around his leg where, he said, he was beaten with night sticks. Photographs showed his entire side to be a deep purple, which he attributed to electric shocks.

Reports of assaults at the border are common.

“People have been beaten up, and they are in distress,” said Safeen Dizayee, head of the Foreign Relations Department of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government. “We have told these authorities that they should be treated humanely and, at least until this problem is resolved, they should be treated like normal human beings with some kind of shelter or some food.”

For many of the migrants, it was not their first attempt to leave. Shamsaldin had been trying to get to Germany, where he spent six months in 2015 before returning to Iraq to care for his sick father.

“Germany is the only country where we have experienced human rights,” he said.

Shamsaldin said that after walking for two days, he and his relatives were captured by the Belarusian police, pushed into the back of a military truck and driven to the Lithuanian border. There, they were told to cross the fence.

Once they were in Lithuania, an aid organization gave them bread and water, and medical staff assessed any injuries while a cameraman filmed the operation, they recounted. Shamsaldin’s 2-month-old son was taken to a hospital to be treated for exposure.

But once the aid organization and the cameras left, Lithuanian soldiers started using sticks and tasers, the Kurds said, trying to drive them back over the border.

Shamsaldin said he reprimanded one Lithuanian officer, telling him, “‘You destroyed our country, and now we are coming to you, and you don’t have any humanity.'”

The reference was to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, but the Lithuanian was quick to offer a correction.

“That was Poland,” he replied.

While Lithuania provided support during the U.S. occupation, Poland was part of the invading force.

Shamsaldin said he sold his car to pay $11,000 for airfare and visas for his wife and three children, which he said were issued by a Belarus travel agency. After they were stranded in the forest in Belarus, he said, a Belarusian soldier in civilian clothes demanded their last $3,000 to drive them back to Minsk.

His cousins, most of whom make $10 a day working in construction, borrowed tens of thousands of dollars and now cannot pay rent. More than a dozen children were crammed into the only living area of the two-room house. None go to school, their families unable to afford the transportation fees of about $20 per month per child.

On Thursday, another family deported from Belarus sat on the sidewalk outside the air terminal in Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, dazed and silent and unable even to come up with the taxi fare to return to the camp for displaced Iraqis where they had been living. They were Yazidis, members of a religious minority, many of whom still languish in camps seven years after the Islamic State group began a campaign of genocide against them.

One of the Yazidis, Naam Khalo, 56, said she, her son and her daughter-in-law had spent 24 nights in the deep forest, only to be sent back to Belarus each time they made it across the border.

To raise the $20,000 needed for the trip, Khalo said, she borrowed money and sold her gold jewelry.

“Now we don’t have anything,” she said.

In a middle-class neighborhood of Irbil, Yadgar Hussein described her own tortuous journey, which led to her deportation from Poland three weeks earlier with her children. In October, they had waded through stream of sewage, she said, and walked through the forest for days in freezing temperatures after the Belarusian police cut the border fence. But once in Poland, a driver led them into a police checkpoint, where they were arrested, with her 19-year-old son and another migrant hiding in the trunk of the car.

She still cannot sleep, she said.

“The only thing I know is my life is destroyed,” said Hussein, who was married at 14 and widowed four years later when her husband stepped on a land mine.

She is divorced from the father of her three youngest children.

Hussein says she has not given up on leaving Irbil again, perhaps next time by the perilous sea crossing from Turkey to Greece.

“If I had money, I would go by sea tomorrow for the sake of my children,” she said. “Either you die or you make it there. But nobody gets arrested.”

It was cold in Belarus, bitterly cold, but at least it offered hope, however illusory. Nazar Shamsaldin was one of thousands of Iraqis who made their way to the Eastern European country in recent months, hoping it would prove a jumping-off point to new lives in the West, only to become pawns in a geopolitical game.

It was cold in Belarus, bitterly cold, but at least it offered hope, however illusory. Nazar Shamsaldin was one of thousands of Iraqis who made their way to the Eastern European country in recent months, hoping it would prove a jumping-off point to new lives in the West, only to become pawns in a geopolitical game. But this weekend he was back in Iraq, sitting on the cold floor of a tiny unfinished concrete house, newly deported from Belarus. Nearby a small boy, one of a dozen children crammed into the house, was trying to warm his hands over a single, battered kerosene heater. Shamsaldin, a laborer, and 35 of his relatives had risked everything to travel West. Like many of the hundreds of other Iraqis deported last week, they are now deep in debt and despair. The Iraqis are at the heart of a crisis that erupted after Belarus loosened its visa rules this summer, luring migrants but then pushing them across borders to punish the European Union for imposing sanctions against the autocratic Belarusian president. Once in Belarus, many of the migrant families were abandoned in deep forests with no shelter, food or water, sometimes thrust into dangerous confrontations as they tried to make it into Poland, Lithuania or Latvia, all members of the European Union. “A Belarusian police officer pointed a pistol at my head, so I had to go back to Lithuania,” said Shamsaldin, 24, who had three small children with him. “In Lithuania, the commandos had guns pointed at me and told me, ‘If you don’t go back, we will kill you.’” He got the message. On Thursday, Shamsaldin returned with his family on an Iraqi Airways flight evacuating 431 migrants from Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Several thousand other migrants remain in Belarus near the border. They are mostly Iraqi Kurds, like Shamsaldin, as well as Iraqi Arabs, Syrians, Yemenis and even some Cubans. But with their usefulness to Belarus diminished, the now-penniless Iraqi migrants are being deported. Most are traumatized. Some have lingering injuries. “The Belarusians beat us with sticks, but the Lithuanians attacked us with sticks and tasers,” said Dhiab Zaydan, a cousin of Shamsaldin’s. Zaydan, 30, had a large bandage around his leg where, he said, he was beaten with night sticks. Photographs showed his entire side to be a deep purple, which he attributed to electric shocks. Reports of assaults at the border are common. “People have been beaten up, and they are in distress,” said Safeen Dizayee, head of the Foreign Relations Department of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government. “We have told these authorities that they should be treated humanely and, at least until this problem is resolved, they should be treated like normal human beings with some kind of shelter or some food.” For many of the migrants, it was not their first attempt to leave. Shamsaldin had been trying to get to Germany, where he spent six months in 2015 before returning to Iraq to care for his sick father. “Germany is the only country where we have experienced human rights,” he said. Shamsaldin said that after walking for two days, he and his relatives were captured by the Belarusian police, pushed into the back of a military truck and driven to the Lithuanian border. There, they were told to cross the fence. Once they were in Lithuania, an aid organization gave them bread and water, and medical staff assessed any injuries while a cameraman filmed the operation, they recounted. Shamsaldin’s 2-month-old son was taken to a hospital to be treated for exposure. But once the aid organization and the cameras left, Lithuanian soldiers started using sticks and tasers, the Kurds said, trying to drive them back over the border. Shamsaldin said he reprimanded one Lithuanian officer, telling him, “‘You destroyed our country, and now we are coming to you, and you don’t have any humanity.'” The reference was to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, but the Lithuanian was quick to offer a correction. “That was Poland,” he replied. While Lithuania provided support during the U.S. occupation, Poland was part of the invading force. Shamsaldin said he sold his car to pay $11,000 for airfare and visas for his wife and three children, which he said were issued by a Belarus travel agency. After they were stranded in the forest in Belarus, he said, a Belarusian soldier in civilian clothes demanded their last $3,000 to drive them back to Minsk. His cousins, most of whom make $10 a day working in construction, borrowed tens of thousands of dollars and now cannot pay rent. More than a dozen children were crammed into the only living area of the two-room house. None go to school, their families unable to afford the transportation fees of about $20 per month per child. On Thursday, another family deported from Belarus sat on the sidewalk outside the air terminal in Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, dazed and silent and unable even to come up with the taxi fare to return to the camp for displaced Iraqis where they had been living. They were Yazidis, members of a religious minority, many of whom still languish in camps seven years after the Islamic State group began a campaign of genocide against them. One of the Yazidis, Naam Khalo, 56, said she, her son and her daughter-in-law had spent 24 nights in the deep forest, only to be sent back to Belarus each time they made it across the border. To raise the $20,000 needed for the trip, Khalo said, she borrowed money and sold her gold jewelry. “Now we don’t have anything,” she said. In a middle-class neighborhood of Irbil, Yadgar Hussein described her own tortuous journey, which led to her deportation from Poland three weeks earlier with her children. In October, they had waded through stream of sewage, she said, and walked through the forest for days in freezing temperatures after the Belarusian police cut the border fence. But once in Poland, a driver led them into a police checkpoint, where they were arrested, with her 19-year-old son and another migrant hiding in the trunk of the car. She still cannot sleep, she said. “The only thing I know is my life is destroyed,” said Hussein, who was married at 14 and widowed four years later when her husband stepped on a land mine. She is divorced from the father of her three youngest children. Hussein says she has not given up on leaving Irbil again, perhaps next time by the perilous sea crossing from Turkey to Greece. “If I had money, I would go by sea tomorrow for the sake of my children,” she said. “Either you die or you make it there. But nobody gets arrested.”

Limping and penniless, Iraqis deported from Belarus face bleak futures

The situation at the Poland-Belarus border continues to escalate. Major world powers have shifted the blame and sought to shake responsibility as thousand of migrants from West Asia are manhandled by troops stationed at either side.

Vladimir Putin says Russia 'has nothing to do with it'

With Belarus still rocked by protests against President Alexander Lukashenko, the strongman leader promoted the Minsk police chief to new interior minister on Thursday.

Belarus: Lukashenko closes borders amid security shakeup

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Volodymyr Zelensky orders tighter security on Ukraine-Belarus border after arrival of Wagner fighters

Limping and penniless, Iraqis deported from Belarus face bleak futures

Vladimir Putin says Russia 'has nothing to do with it'

Belarus: Lukashenko closes borders amid security shakeup