Fighters from the Wagner group have arrived in Belarus from Russia, Ukrainian and Polish officers stated on Saturday, a day after Minsk stated the mercenaries have been coaching the nation’s troopers southeast of the capital.
“Wagner is in Belarus,” Andriy Demchenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian border company, stated in a press release on the Telegram messaging app. He stated the motion of “separate groups” from Russia had been noticed in Belarus.
Some Wagner fighters have been in Belarus since at the very least Tuesday, two sources near the fighters instructed Reuters.
The Belarusian protection ministry launched a video on Friday, exhibiting what it stated have been Wagner fighters instructing Belarusian troopers at a navy vary close to the city of Osipovichi.
Wagner’s transfer to Belarus was a part of a deal that ended the group’s mutiny try in June — once they took management of a Russian navy headquarters, marched on Moscow and threatened to tip Russia into civil conflict — President Vladimir Putin stated.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has not been seen in public since he left the southern Russian metropolis of Rostov-on-Don late on June 24.
Poland’s deputy minister coordinator of particular providers, Stanislaw Zaryn, stated Warsaw additionally has affirmation of Wagner fighters’ presence in Belarus.
“There may be several hundred of them at the moment,” Zaryn stated on Twitter.
Poland stated this month it was bolstering its border with Belarus to handle any potential threats.
While not sending his personal troops to Ukraine, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko allowed Moscow to make use of Belarusian territory to launch its full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022 and has since let his nation be used as a base for Russian nuclear weapons.
The Belarusian Hajun undertaking, which screens navy exercise within the nation and which is seen as an extremist formation by Belarusian authorities, stated a big column of at the very least 60 autos entered Belarus in a single day Friday from Russia.
It stated the autos, together with vehicles, pickups, vans and buses, had license plates of the self-styled Donetsk and Luhansk individuals’s republics in what’s internationally acknowledged as jap Ukraine. In a transfer extensively condemned as unlawful, Moscow moved final 12 months to annex the republics, which have been Russian proxies since 2014.
Hajun stated it appeared {that a} Wagner column was headed to Tsel in central Belarus, the place international reporters have been final week proven a camp with a whole lot of empty tents.
Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the Belarusian Hajun report. There was no quick remark from Russia or Belarus on the experiences. —Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
