Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the creation of “volunteer units” with the former commander of the paramilitary Wagner Group, Andrei Troshev, on Thursday evening, the Kremlin announced today.
The meeting was also attended by Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, who was responsible for the process of dismantling the mercenary company after the June uprising.
Troshev, a retired Russian colonel known within Wagner by the pseudonym “Sedoy” (Grey Hair), left the mercenary group after the failure of the uprising led by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin.
According to Rybar, a pro-Russian military analyst who writes about the war in Ukraine, Troshev has since attempted to recruit Wagner members currently in Belarus, Africa and the Middle East into mercenary units affiliated with the Russian Department of Defense.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to the official Russian news agency RIA Novosti on Friday that Troshev already works at the Defense Ministry.
During Thursday evening’s meeting, Putin revealed that the former Wagner commander “will participate in the formation of volunteer units that will be able to carry out various combat missions, of course mainly in the special military operation zone,” that is, war in Ukraine.
Troshev is under European sanctions for being “directly involved in the group’s military operations (…) in Syria,” according to a European Union document from late 2021.
Rybar said it already exists a group of former Wagner mercenaries who have recently begun returning to the front near the occupied Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, in the eastern Donetsk region.
The core of this unit, estimated at around 500 fighters, will join the mercenary group Redut and the so-called Volunteer Corps of the Russian Defense Ministry, the analyst added.
The remaining mercenaries will negotiate through Wagner’s new leader, Anton Yelizarov, for possible inclusion in detachments of the Russian National Guard.
The Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, will soon consider a bill that would allow the National Guard to include “voluntary formations.”
The leader of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was killed in the crash of a plane between Moscow and St. Petersburg in late August, along with several members of his personal security service.
Source: DN
