These men “have no vehicles or heavy weapons” and are coming to reinforce Russian troops, the official told reporters in Washington on condition of anonymity. The official says he has seen “displacements from areas like Syria and Libya to the eastern region of the Donbass,” where Moscow has launched a new phase in its attack.
How many of these “10 to 20,000” men come from the private Wagner group and how many fighters are from Libya or Syria is, according to him, difficult to estimate. At the end of March, the British Ministry of Defense said that “more than 1,000 mercenaries” from the Wagner company, including leaders of the organization, were to be deployed in eastern Ukraine to “carry out combat operations”.
New offensive
The Wagner Group and its paramilitaries, said to be close to Vladimir Putin, are suspected of abuse in Mali, Libya and even Syria. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia launched a major offensive in the area on Monday, a new strategic target for Russian forces following their withdrawal from the Kyiv region. Part of this Ukrainian territory has been in the hands of pro-Russian separatists since 2014.
By leading this new offensive, Russian troops are likely to take control of the Luhansk region, part of the Donbass and a small land bridge in the Zaporizhia region within “four to six months,” the European official in Washington estimated. He said he expected “total destruction” of the city of Mariupol, a strategic port city on the Sea of Azov, which has been under siege by Russian troops since early March. “My fear is that it will be even worse than Boutcha,” a Ukrainian city where the Russian army has been accused of massacring civilians, he stressed.
The official eventually predicted a possible end to negotiations between Russians and Ukrainians in autumn 2022, which would allow the conflict to be resolved before winter.