Yevgeny Prigozhin will leave Russia after reaching an agreement with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko
Yevgeny Prigozhin, chairman of the Wagner Group, has left Russia for Belarus, where he is expected to stay after striking an agreement with Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko.
The agreement with Lukashenko provoked the withdrawal of mercenary troops heading for the Russian capital Moscow. He gave the order in an audio file that was shared on the group’s networks. Hours later, Prigozhin and his troops were seen leaving the city of Rostov.
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After signing the deal with Lukashenko, the Russian government announced it would not prosecute Prigozhin if the mercenary leader left the country.
The Moscow representative said that the other members of the Wagner group are not being pursued, since they take into account the efforts of the mercenary team that served at the front during the war with Ukraine. It was also reported that those who refused to take part in the rebellion can sign contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry.
In his speech, Peskov stated that the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin had “always respected the accomplishments” of the Wagner group.
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UNDERSTAND THE CASE
The Wagner Group launched an uprising against the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday (June 23). The leader of the mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, declared war on the Russian military high command and accused Russian Defense Minister Serguey Choigu of bombing a camp belonging to the group stationed on the front lines of the war with Ukraine.
The paramilitary group immediately seized control of the city of RostovonDon, near the border with Ukraine, and vowed to march on Moscow to overthrow the government, which it labeled “a liar, corrupt and bureaucratic”.
A few hours later, President Vladimir Putin classified the maneuver as a “stab in the back” and promised the members of the Wagner group severe penalties. According to the Kremlin chief, the forces loyal to the country have already received the necessary orders to put down the uprising and announced that decisive maneuvers will be carried out in the next few hours.
According to Prigozhin, the group includes more than 25 thousand soldiers.
In January 2023, the US classified the Wagner Group as a “transnational criminal organization”. The statement was made by John Kirby, Strategic Communications Coordinator at the National Security Council. According to him, there would be about 50,000 mercenaries on the battlefield, plus 10,000 contractors and 40,000 Russian prisoners.
Founded in 2014 by Lt. Col. Dmitry Utkin, the Wagner Group is the main mercenary company involved in military operations aligned with Putin’s interests. The faction rose to prominence that same year for supporting Russianbacked separatist forces in Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula. In 2015, Yevgeny Prigozhin became the head of the organization.
The Russian constitution prohibits mercenary groups from operating in the country, but there are loopholes in the legislation that allow these types of organizations to operate. Russian state companies are allowed to have private armed security forces, which allows mercenaries to operate legally and in an organized manner.
In this way, the Wagner Group acts as Putin’s private army, able to expand its area of operations to other continents without directly involving the country’s official armed forces. Paramilitaries are already deployed in several African countries, including Libya, Sudan, Mali and Madagascar. The group has also worked in Syria to help the regime of President Bashar alAssad, an ally of Putin.
In response to Putin’s statement, Prigozhin spoke about the group’s involvement on the African continent and that they remain in contact with the Russian government to intervene in those countries. “When we were fighting in Africa, they didn’t say we needed Africa and then left because they stole all the aid money,” he said.
With regard to the current confrontation with Ukraine, the Wagner group was distinguished by fighting on the front lines in the main battles of the conflict. The mercenaries were the main Russian attacking force in the city of Bakhmut, the scene of the bloodiest battle of the war.