The leader of the Wagner group, Yevgueni Prigozhin, has ordered his mercenaries to leave until early August after the failed uprising last June, one of the commanders of the private military company told a Russian journalist.
“We all went on vacation until the beginning of August, there are many tasks to solve, so Yvgeny Viktorovich [Prigozhin] decided to let everyone rest”Anton Yelizarov told journalist Timofey Ermakov, according to Telegram accounts linked to military blogs updated this Saturday.
“Personally, I have not been at sea with my family for five years, other people are now also engrossed in family matters. To give everyone a chance to rest from the great work we have to do, this decision has been made by the Board of Commanders [do Grupo Wagner]”, noted the military, known as “Lotus”.
The conversation took place in a confectionery in the south of Russia, where the journalist happened to meet Yelizarov. The commander explained that after the holidays, the transfer of the mercenaries to Belarus will begin, under the agreement with the Kremlin, mediated by the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, to prevent armed insurrection in exchange for the annulment of criminal cases. .
“First we have to bring in new blood. The second and most difficult is access to Belarus. We have to prepare bases, set up training camps, coordinate with local governments and administrations, organize interaction with Belarusian law enforcement and set up logistics”continued.
“There is a lot of work and the tasks are not easy, but the more difficult the task, the more interesting it is. I think we can do them,” Yelizarov said.
Lukashenko said this week that Prigozhin, who was due to go into exile in Belarus, was in St. Petersburg and his mercenaries at their bases in Russia.
According to the Belarusian leader, the problem of transferring mercenaries has not yet been resolved and the military company has a “different” vision of its future mission, which would consist of training and advising the army.
In any case, he said, the relationship with the Wagner Group and Belarus will be established by law or by presidential decree.
Worried about Ukraine
Wagner’s commander also said he is monitoring the situation in Ukraine and is “concerned about what is happening”.
“But if they don’t listen to you, they’ll ignore all the proposals and ways to solve the problems, even if we talk about it to the whole world, so it’s probably better to step back and see what happens. from the outside,” he said. “Lotus”.
“Although it is very insulting and painful when there are proposals and opportunities to solve the problem and they are thrown away, as our wise ancestors used to say, let’s wait and see. And we will stand aside and watch in silence he continued. .
However, he noted that if the mercenaries are called upon by the Russian people to help the Motherland, they are ready to do so.
The Wagner group, led by Prigozhin, started an uprising on the night of June 23-24 with the capture without resistance of the Russian city of Rostov, the headquarters of the army’s southern command, with the intention of going to Moscow to military leaders following an alleged bombing of mercenaries in Ukraine.
In the middle of the conflict with the Kremlin and 200 kilometers from the Moscow province, a military column of the Wagner Group turned around on the afternoon of June 24, after mediation by the President of Belarus, in an agreement to stop the uprising , amnestying mercenaries and sending Prigozhin and some of his men into exile in Belarus, and offering others the chance to be integrated into Russia’s regular armed forces.
The Wagner group has been at the forefront since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, on February 24, 2022, and has played a leading role in the capture of Bakhmut, in the province of Donetsk (east), in the longest and bloodiest battle of this war, at the cost of heavy casualties, amid Prigozhin’s open accusations of lack of military support from Moscow.
Source: DN
