Comment on this storyComment
RIGA, Latvia — Wagner boss Yevgeniy Prigozhin said in what appears to be the first video of him since he led a short-lived insurgency in late June that the Russian mercenary group will not fight in Ukraine for the time being, repeating his criticism of Russia’s Ukraine invasion having failed.
The blurry clip, apparently filmed at dusk, showed a man resembling Prigozhin addressing a crowd of at least several hundred men in military uniforms. He promised to continue operating the Wagner Group in Africa and to make the military of his new host country, Belarus, the “second army in the world”.
“Congratulations on arriving in the Belarusian land. We fought well. They did a lot for Russia,” Prigozhin said in the clip, posted by the Telegram channel Wagner Unloading and confirmed by the Washington Post. “What is happening at the front now is a disgrace that we do not have to be a part of. And now we have to wait for the moment when we can fully prove ourselves.”
Prigozhin’s irregular troops seized military installations in southern Russia and began marching on Moscow on June 24. This was a dramatic escalation of his months-long feud with senior Russian Defense Ministry officials, whom he accused of incompetence and undermining his fighters.
The mutiny ended abruptly after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his ally, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, had stopped Prigozhin from traveling further to the capital. Putin then said he would let Prigozhin and Wagner’s troops move to Belarus, although he called Prigozhin a traitor and announced severe penalties. Prigozhin’s public appearance in Belarus and Wagner’s movements in recent days show that the agreement between Prigozhin and the Kremlin seems to be holding up, at least for the time being.
The Road to Moscow: A Visual Timeline of Wagner’s Uprising
Independent surveillance project Hajun, which tracks military movements in Belarus, said the video was likely taken Tuesday night. A private jet linked to Prigozhin was spotted arriving in Belarus at a military airfield around 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Hajun reported.
In the past week, Hajun has identified eight large convoys heading from the Russian border to a newly established tent camp near the Belarusian village of Tsel, a site believed to be where Wagner’s new base is believed to be. The Belarusian Defense Ministry released a video last week showing Wagner fighters training the country’s armed forces at a base near Tsel. Satellite images of the camp also showed the arrival of large convoys over the weekend.
“We were surprised by the amount of construction machinery; “We see civilian vehicles, excavators and bulldozers,” Ruslan Leviev, a military analyst with the Conflict Intelligence Team, an independent monitoring group specializing in Russian military movements, said in a daily briefing. “So far it looks like this [Wagner is] To move all their property out of Russian-controlled territory, probably to avoid having it confiscated.”
The columns ranged in size from 50 to 150 vehicles, Hajun said, and included pickup trucks, vans and military trucks. The convoys were conspicuously missing heavy combat equipment, further evidence that the group was forced to return a significant part of its arsenal to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Hajun estimated there were at least 2,000 Wagner fighters and more than 500 pieces of equipment in Belarus as of Tuesday.
Wagner boss Prigozhin in Belarus is bad news for pretty much everyone
“It was decided that we would stay here in Belarus for some time,” Prigozhin said in the video. “In that time we will make them, and I’m sure, the second army in the world. And if necessary, we stand up for them.
“And then we prepare, improve and embark on a new path to Africa,” he added. “But maybe we will return to the war in Ukraine the moment we are sure that we will not be forced to embarrass ourselves and our experiences.”
Groups linked to Prigozhin in Africa, where Wagner has a military and commercial presence in over a dozen countries, said earlier this week that the mogul sold part of his business on the continent to pay salaries to his fighters.
“We continue to rotate instructors in CAR,” Alexander Ivanov, head of a shady group called Commonwealth of Officers for International Security, which manages Russian military instructors working in CAR, one of Prigozhin’s main African deployments, told a Telegram post. “I am dispatching a new group of highly qualified professionals with extensive experience at private military company Wagner who will be of great use in training the Central African Republic’s security forces… and in ensuring the security of that country.”
Ivanov said he spoke to Prigozhin and “confirmed that some of the African assets were indeed sold, but on the other hand all the fighters’ salaries were paid in full.” Despite the change in the structure of the African business [Prigozhin] confirmed once again that he does not want to limit his presence in Africa, but to expand it.”
Prigozhin’s rebellion raises questions about Wagner’s African footprint
Shortly after the mutiny, Putin admitted that Wagner was fully funded by the Russian state and that the group’s operations cost billions of dollars, though for years he denied Moscow had anything to do with mercenary activity. It is unclear whether Prigozhin will continue to receive funds from contracts awarded by the Russian state.
Wagner’s main training camp in the village of Molkino in Russia’s southern Krasnodar Krai will close on July 30, Telegram channels close to the mercenaries reported on Monday. A short clip shared by broadcaster Wagner Unloading showed a group of masked men in combat fatigues lowering the flags of Russia and Wagner.
“The base ceases to exist. “Wagner is moving to a new location,” said one of the people in the video. The flags appear to have reappeared in Wednesday’s video, as after his three-minute speech, Prigozhin passed a fighter a large piece of cloth bearing Wagner’s symbol.
The group’s alleged founder and operational head, identified by Hajun as Dmitry Utkin, a former Russian army officer whose nickname Wagner gave the company its name, also made a brief appearance in the clip.
“This is not the end. “This is just the beginning of the greatest job in the world,” Utkin yelled before adding in English. “Welcome to Hell!”
Sarah Cahlan in Washington contributed to this report.
Give this item as a gift
Understanding the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Check out 3 more stories