Ukraine said on Monday it had successfully hit the headquarters of the Wagner Group, the elite Russian paramilitary organization fighting on behalf of the Kremlin – just days after photos posted online falsely revealed the location.
Ukrainian Luhansk Governor Serhiy Hayday announced that the country’s forces had attacked the group’s main operation in the eastern city of Popasna, according to the BBC.
Pro-Kremlin war reports also confirmed the attack.
The Wagner group was bombed after a tweet by a Russian propagandist published the headquarters’ address. telegram
Ukraine claims to have hit the base of private military company Wagner in Popasna with a rocket attack.HS Kharkiv Telegram Channel
Details of the strike were not immediately clear, including the death toll in the attack and the extent of the damage inflicted.
Ukraine was able to locate the headquarters after a Russian propagandist, Sergei Sreda, accidentally revealed his location in photos published on Telegram on Aug. 8, Ukrainian newspaper Ukrainska Pravda reported.
The video showed a street sign with the address of a nearby air raid shelter, allowing Kyiv to figure out the location.
The shadowy Wagner group was also used by Russia in the 2014 Crimean War and has been seen in Syria, Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic, according to the BBC.
According to several reports, members of the group have repeatedly attempted to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The group is believed to be behind some of the world’s worst atrocities and has been linked to widespread rapes and robberies of civilians in Central African Republic in 2021.
“The Russian government has found Wagner and other private military contractors useful in expanding its influence abroad without the visibility and interference of state forces,” according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
The group was reportedly founded by Dmitry Utkin, a former special forces colonel and veteran of the two wars in Chechnya. Wagner is believed to be owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch known as “Putin’s chef” because his restaurants and catering companies have thrown lavish dinner parties for the president’s inner circle.
In 2016, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Prigozhin for “materially assisting, sponsoring, or providing financial, material, or technological assistance … in support of senior officials of the Russian Federation.”