A report by the British newspaper “The Guardian” revealed that the group continued some of its operations normally on Monday, with the return of fighters to their bases and the opening of recruitment centers in a number of Russian cities.
On Monday, the commander of “Wagner” Yevgeny Prigozhin spoke for the first time after the rebellion, but he did not indicate his whereabouts or future plans, nor did he reveal more details about the mysterious agreement that stopped his rebellion, noting that he had said on Saturday that he would leave for Belarus under the mediation of the head of that. Country.
The Guardian quoted an unnamed informed source as saying that “some of Wagner’s forces have returned to their bases in the areas occupied by Russia in eastern Ukraine,” which is consistent with what Prigozhin announced on Saturday.
“They are recovering, eating and repairing their equipment after the military mission. They don’t seem to know what will happen to them either. But they are still fully armed,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Business as usual
- Representatives at five Wagner recruiting centers across Russia, including Moscow, Samara and Novosibirsk, told the Guardian that the group’s offices were open for business as normal.
- In Novosibirsk, Russia’s third-largest city, advertising posters have been hung again at the entrance to the Wagner recruitment center, after they were removed during Prigozhin’s rebellion, according to the Russian news agency Tass.
- “Everything is as usual. The work continues,” a Wagner representative from Samara told the Guardian by phone.
- The representative stressed that potential fighters would sign their contracts with “Wagner” and not the Russian Ministry of Defense.
- “Everything was going on as usual in Molkino,” said Rebar, a pro-Kremlin military analysis channel on Telegram, referring to the Wagner training facility in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia.
- “Recruitment campaigns for Wagner continue across the country, despite all the fanfare,” Ribar added.
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov moved to reassure Moscow’s allies in Africa that the thousands of Wagner fighters deployed on the continent would not be withdrawn.
no resolution
But the fact that Wagner was not immediately resolved after an unprecedented day in which its fighters marched into Moscow and fired on Russian military helicopters seems to indicate that the Kremlin has yet to make a decision on the group’s future.
“Everything points to the fact that they don’t know what to do after all of Prigozhin’s operations,” said Russian journalist with extensive knowledge of the “Wagner” group, Denis Korotkov.
Korotkov added, “Over the years, Prigozhin built up Wagner’s enormous power, which was active on several continents, which makes it difficult to dismantle it in one day.”
“Events unfolded so quickly that there was no plan in place for what to do with Prigozhin and Wagner,” he explained.
In the same context, the former leader of the group, Marat Gabidulin, questioned the possibility of the existence of “Wagner” without the leadership of Prigozhin, who is believed to be very popular among his fighters.
“If they removed Prigozhin from Wagner there would no longer be Wagner as we know it, only a pathetic imitation,” said Gabidulin, who wrote a memoir about his time at Wagner.
When Prigozhin announced his rebellion on Friday evening, he said he commanded a force of 25,000 soldiers. Gabidulin commented that Prigozhin may have exaggerated the number, but stressed that “even a much smaller force would have presented a great challenge to the Russian army.”
“Only 5,000 Wagner soldiers could really pose a great challenge to Moscow. These are some of the best trained fighters, especially when it comes to urban battles. A lot of blood would have been shed to counter them.”
Calls for drastic action
- Some Russian officials and prominent military figures involved in the war on Ukraine escalated their attacks on Wagner.
- Member of the Defense Committee of the Lower House (Duma) Viktor Sobolev said, “We must definitely remove their weapons. We cannot leave an armed group of people who have already taken part in a rebellion against our forces.”
- The head of the pro-Moscow Vostok Battalion in the Donbass, Aleksandr Khodakovsky, recalled how Prigozhin used to describe the Russian forces as “an army of pigs”.
- Others have called for the Wagner chief to be executed, including retired Russian special operations officer and famous military blogger Igor Strelkov, who said: “It was simply necessary to hang Prigozhin.”
- Similar messages have been repeated on Russian television, the most important source of information for ordinary Russians.
- On a popular talk show, Andrei Gorolyov, a retired Russian colonel and Duma deputy, said Prigozhin and the group’s alleged co-founder Dmitry Utkin should “take the bullet. There is no other choice.”
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