Global Courant
A view of a tent camp that Belarusian Defense Ministry officials say could be offered as one of the places to house Wagner fighters, in the Tsel military settlement in the Asipovichy district of the Mogilev region of Belarus Russia on July 7, 2023 .
Alexander Nemenov | Afp | Getty Images
Mercenaries from Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner group are preparing to move to Belarus under the terms of a deal that defuses their mutiny against the Russian military leadership, a senior group commander said.
Since the mutiny of 23 and 24 June, in which Wagner fighters briefly captured a southern Russian town and marched towards Moscow, the exact whereabouts of Prigozhin and his mercenaries have been unclear.
Under the deal that ended the mutiny, Prigozhin was supposed to move to Belarus and his men – some of them ex-convicts who had been released early to fight in Ukraine – were given the opportunity to travel with him to to move to Belarus, join Russia’s regular armed forces, or go home.
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However, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday that Prigozhin and thousands of his fighters were still in Russia, raising questions about the implementation of the deal.
Anton Yelizarov, whose cover name is “Lotus”, was quoted by a channel on the Telegram messaging app on Saturday as saying that the fighters were now going on vacation until early August, on Prigozhin’s orders, before moving to Belarus.
“We need to prepare bases and training areas, coordinate with local governments and administrations, organize interaction with Belarusian law enforcement agencies and set up logistics,” he was quoted by the Yevgeny Prigozhin on Telegram channel.
Reuters was unable to verify the authenticity of the interview.
Prigozhin himself has been unusually quiet for the past two weeks. He hasn’t posted on his formerly favorite Telegram channel – Yevgeny Prigozhin Press Service – since June 26, when he defended the mutinous actions of his fighters.
Empty camp
An adviser to the Belarusian defense ministry said on Friday that no one from the Wagner group had yet visited the disused military camp that Lukashenko had offered for use by the fighters.
Yelizarov said there had been no attempt by Russian security forces to “hit” Wagner fighters since the mutiny.
Prigozhin, who has long been fiercely critical of Russia’s defense ministry and chiefs of general staff over their handling of the war in Ukraine, said he launched his “march of justice” on Moscow to protest corruption and incompetence among the top.
Asked about recent attacks on Prigozhin in the Russian state media, Yelizarov said it was an attempt by the Russian military establishment to drive a wedge between the mercenary chief and his Wagner fighters.
The attempt would fail, he said, because Prigozhin himself had created and formed the Wagner fighters “when the state didn’t need us.” Yelizarov compared Prigozhin and his men to the mythical King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
This week, Russian state television broadcast footage allegedly captured during raids by law enforcement officers on Prigozhin’s St. Petersburg office and one of his “palaces.”
It said an investigation against Prigozhin was still ongoing despite the June 24 deal, which dropped criminal charges against him over the botched mutiny.
