The purpose, according to the Belarusian Ministry of Defence, is for mercenaries from the Wagner group to provide training to Belarusian special forces. The exercise takes place in a military camp near the city of Brest. Only a few kilometers from the border with NATO country Poland. This is the Wagner Group * The Russian Wagner Group is a private military mercenary company. The group is based in southwestern Russia, near the annexed Crimean peninsula. * How many from the group have participated for Russia in the war in Ukraine is not known. Many of the group’s soldiers are recruited from Russian prisons. * The Wagner group has sent soldiers to a number of countries, including Syria, Libya, Mali, the Central African Republic, Sudan and Mozambique. * Mercenaries from Wagner are accused of war crimes in Syria, Libya and Mali. * The group was founded by the former GRU officer Dmitry Utkin and is led by the oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin (62). * Prigozhin is sometimes referred to as Putin’s chef because he previously ran a catering company that delivered food to the Kremlin. * The EU and Great Britain have imposed sanctions on the Wagner group, and Prigozhin is wanted by the FBI. Polish authorities are closely monitoring the situation. – Poland’s borders are secure. We monitor the situation on our eastern border at all times. We are prepared for various scenarios, writes the Polish Ministry of Defense in a statement, according to Reuters. Brest is located in the far west of Belarus, a few kilometers from the border with NATO country Poland. Prigozhin appeared in video On Wednesday, the alleged Wagner boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, appeared in a video on Telegram. This is the Wagner chief’s first public appearance in weeks. Prigozhin’s absence from the public eye has led to a number of speculations about his whereabouts. In the video, Prigozhin welcomes Wagner soldiers to Belarus. He says that they will not participate further in the Ukraine war for the time being. He tells them to gather strength for new missions in Africa, while training the Belarusian army. Video will show Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s speech in Belarus – Welcome to Belarusian soil. We fight with dignity, he says. Reported move to Belarus Much tension has been attached to what would happen to the Wagner Group after they started their march towards Moscow on 24 June to overthrow the military leadership. The military uprising was stopped at the twelfth hour. Afterwards, it became known that it was President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus who negotiated an agreement between Prigozhin and President Vladimir Putin. The Wagner group took control of the Russian city of Rostov-na-Donu on Saturday 24 June in what was described as an attempted coup against the Russian army leadership and Vladimir Putin. Photo: Vasily Deryugin / AP The agreement involved amnesty for both the soldiers and the Wagner boss. In addition, Prigozhin was to move to Belarus. In Russia, Putin has appointed Andrey Troshev as the new head of the Wagner group. Prigozhin will bring around 10,000 mercenaries with him to Belarus, writes Reuters. Rehearsing in several places in Belarus Lately, the mercenaries from the Wagner group have been practicing together with Belarusian soldiers in several places in Belarus. Wagner soldiers are now training Belarusian special forces in the border town of Brest. On Thursday, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense published several photos from the exercise near the Polish border. – Belarus’s armed forces will continue to train together with fighters from the Wagner Group. This week, special soldiers and representatives from Wagner will train together in the Brest military camp, says a statement, according to Reuters. This picture is supposed to be from an exercise in Brest in Belarus where both soldiers from the Wagner group and the Belarusian defense are participating. Photo: BELARUSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY / Reuters Polish authorities announced earlier this month that they will send 500 more police officers to the border area. The police officers help to deal with the growing number of migrants arriving in Poland via Belarus. In addition to potential threats linked to the Wagner group’s establishment in the neighboring country, the news agency writes.
ttn-69