The Russian mercenary group Wagner announced on Monday the closure of its main base in Russia, located in the town of Molkino, in the southern region of Krasnodar.
“We removed the flags of Russia and the Wagner private military company from our base in Molkino. The base ceases to exist. [O grupo] Wagner is going to other places”, announced a member of the mercenaries in a video broadcast on Telegram.
Another mercenary present during the recording specified, after the removal of the flags, that the Molkino base “will officially cease to exist on July 30.”
At the same time, the Belarusian research project Gayun, which is dedicated to monitoring military activity in Belarus, reported today the arrival of a new Wagner column, made up of more than 100 cars, trucks and buses, at its new base near the city. from Osipovichi.
This is the third column of the Wagner Group to arrive in Belarus in recent days and, according to the Gayun project, “everything indicates that it is not the last.”
Minsk confirmed last week that some of the Wagner Group instructors were already in the country, following the agreement reached after the rebellion against the Russian military leadership on June 24.
The Belarusian Defense Ministry also revealed that the paramilitaries have already started training local troops.
“We announce that the military department and the management of the company [Wagner] outlined a short-term plan for the preparation and exchange of experiences between the different military units,” said a statement from the Ministry.
Minsk today ratified an agreement signed with Russia on the creation and operation of joint training centers for its military.
At the same time, no concrete information has been released so far about the future of the Wagner Group in Belarus, nor the approximate number of members of the paramilitary force that it will deploy in this country.
Mercenaries from the Wagner Group, which played a crucial role in Russia’s offensive in eastern Ukraine, staged an armed rebellion on June 24 in which they seized a key base in Rostov in southern Russia and headed for Moscow. with the aim of overthrowing military leaders. .
The mutinous columns were only stopped when they were just over two hundred kilometers from the capital, with the mediation of the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, in exchange for an amnesty, installation of Wagnerians in Belarus or integration into regular forces in Moscow.
In recent days, there have been reports of arrests, dismissals, suspensions and/or dismissals of senior Russian officials for their alleged participation in the attempted rebellion, in the midst of the Ukrainian counteroffensive against Moscow forces, which invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Source: TSF
