Ukraine destroys the secret base of Wagner, the company of Russian mercenaries

The Ukrainian army yesterday achieved a great propaganda success by destroying the base of the mercenaries of the Wagner company in the town of Popansa, in Luhansk. According to the data that has been released so far, the headquarters of these soldiers of fortune was hit by US precision missiles – the Himars system – which are now part of the invaded country’s arsenal.

The presence of Wagner’s troops in the Ukraine is one of the worst kept secrets of the Ukraine invasion. Like other private armies, Russia is using these paid troops for missions where it does not want to put regular soldiers at risk and needs to carry out high-risk operations. For this reason, the ‘wagnerites’ have stood out in decisive battles such as the taking of Azov or Mariupol. The fact that private troops are used – in many cases they are ex-convicts – also allows them to act outside the rules of war, so these soldiers are being accused of all kinds of crimes, from rape to murder of civilians.

The band of mercenaries, given the controversy surrounding their interventions, does not usually appear in official information about the progress of the war and their participation in the invasion has even been denied. However, on August 8, Russian war correspondent Sergey Sereda reported on his Telegram channel that he had visited Wagner’s base. «I arrived in Popansa and stopped at the Wagner barracks. They treated me like a member of his family and told me quite a few funny stories,” he wrote. This comment was enough for the Ukrainian intelligence services to start tracking data on that headquarters, whose location was a secret until that date.

In the early hours of Sunday to Monday, the Wagner base was hit by Himars missiles, a precision attack system with which the United States has supplied the Ukrainian Army. These rockets have a range of between 180 and 300 kilometers and are considered one of the most precise weapons systems manufactured in the world to date. In the images of the barracks that have been shown in recent hours, it can be seen how militiamen try to remove the wounded mercenaries from the rubble. Weapons can also be seen destroyed by the deflagrations. The number of casualties is unknown.

President Putin with Yevgeni Priogzhin, alleged owner of the Wagner company. /

AFP

The Wagner company is owned, according to Russian dissidents, by Yevgeni Priogzhin, a former convict who owned President Putin’s favorite restaurant in St. Petersburg. Priogzhin, hand in hand with the Russian president, was climbing positions in the business world until he became a successful businessman. Among the dark activities attributed to him is the organization of the Wagner company and the creation of the digital infrastructure from which destabilization campaigns have been carried out in the West by spreading fake news on the Internet.

Performance in Syria

The Wagner group – which takes its name from the nickname used by one of its founders, the member of the Russian special forces Dimitri Utlin – has been detected in conflicts such as that in Syria or Libya, as well as in the pro-Russian rebellion in Donbass sponsored by Moscow. in 2014. In 2018, this private army starred in one of its darkest episodes when they attacked the Syrian city of Deir Ezzor, a place where US troops fighting the Islamic State (Isis) were deployed.

The indiscretion in Telegram that has allowed the destruction of the headquarters of these soldiers is not the only one that has been discovered in the last few hours. The investigative journalism consortium Bellingcat yesterday published information on the identification of a soldier who was acting with the Chechen troops in Luhansk and who is allegedly responsible for the castration of a Ukrainian prisoner and his subsequent murder.

The investigators managed to locate the alleged torturer because of a cowboy hat that he was wearing in the images and were even able to call him by phone. The person involved denied the facts attributed to him and assured that the images of torture corresponded to a settling of scores between Ukrainians. This version has been questioned by Bellingcat experts.