Some satellite photos taken in recent days appear to show the location where the group of Wagner mercenaries allegedly settled after their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and most of his fighters left Russia to seek refuge in Belarus. The photos show an abandoned military base some 130 kilometers from Minsk, the capital of Belarus, where brisk construction of new shelters and camps has been underway for several days. According to the New York Times, which was one of the first to publish satellite photos, the shape and color of the camps (six long rows of large tents) correspond to those of the Russian and Belarusian armies. They would have been pulled up within days when the Wagner group invaded Belarus after the armed uprising on Saturday, June 24.
— Christoph Köttl (@ckoettl) June 28, 2023
The Belarusian site of Radio Svaboda (which is part of the US government-funded Radio Liberty consortium) also released some satellite photos, confirming that these could be the Wagner group’s new camps. However, there is no official news yet.
Radio Liberty released satellite imagery of the village of Tsel, Mogilev Oblast, Belarus, where construction of the Wagner camp likely started pic.twitter.com/kCd7rCDmjm
— Giorgi Revishvili (@revishvilig) June 28, 2023
Under the agreement that ended Saturday’s armed insurgency by the Wagner group, the Russian government would waive the prosecution of Prigozhin and his men for crimes related to the insurgency, in exchange for them leaving Russia to seek refuge in Belarus look: The agreement was actually reached mediated by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Prigozhin arrived in Belarus on Tuesday, followed by several thousand Wagner fighters.
The probable camps of the Wagner group are not far from the town of Asipovichy, where there are already numerous Belarusian military infrastructures. The military base where the mercenaries were allegedly stationed was the headquarters of the Belarusian 465th Missile Brigade, which abandoned it in 2018.