Global Courant
STORY: This disused military camp in Belarus had been offered to fighters of the Russian mercenary group Wagner.
But according to the Belarusian defense ministry, none of the group has even visited.
Wagner’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, would resign his mercenaries and move to Belarus in exchange for the charges against Russian President Vladimir Putin being dropped.
These were the terms of an agreement brokered last month by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to end an armed mutiny by Wagner – Putin’s biggest challenge in his 23 years in power.
But the deal doesn’t seem to be heading in that direction.
On Friday, Guy Faulconbridge, Reuters Russia headquarters chief, visited the camp.
“What we saw was 300 large tents surrounded by forest. And what the takeaway is, if Wagner is not in the camp, then what does that mean for the deal that was made to overcome one of the most serious challenges facing the Russian state? to end?” since the 1991 coup against Mikhail Gorbachev? That’s the main question.”
Lukashenko said on Thursday that Prigozhin was in Russia with thousands of fighters and the issue of their relocation had yet to be resolved.
He added that Wagner’s fighters were still in the permanent camps they had been in since leaving the front.
And that Belarus had offered Wagner the disused Soviet-era military quarters at Tsel, but that, I quote, “Wagner has a different view of deployment.”
He does not want to say what that vision entails.
