Belarus’s Ministry of Defense mentioned Friday that troopers from Russia’s Wagner army firm have been coaching its safety forces, providing a uncommon if obscure signal of the group’s presence within the nation after its failed rebellion in opposition to Moscow final month.
The ministry mentioned in a press release that Wagner troopers have been instructing members of a neighborhood Belarusian pressure in protection and battlefield techniques. A Belarusian tv channel launched video of what its correspondent mentioned was coaching for conscripts and native territorial protection troopers by Wagner fighters “at a training base near Asipovichy,” about 55 miles from the capital, Minsk.
“The most important feature of the training is that there are fighters of the private military company Wagner, who are sharing their battle experiences with Belarus,” the correspondent, Svetlana Smyk, of VoenTV, or MilitaryTV, mentioned on digicam, whereas males in uniform lined up in formation behind her.
The identities of the troopers and trainers videotaped on the camp couldn’t be independently confirmed.
Just final week, the autocratic chief of Belarus, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, advised journalists in Minsk that no members of Wagner had come to his nation, at the least not but. The remarks solid doubt over a deal he mentioned he had brokered to finish the 36-hour mutiny led by the Wagner boss, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, below which Mr. Prigozhin and his fighters have been invited to Belarus and could be spared prosecution in Russia.
The following day, the Defense Ministry of Belarus escorted international journalists to a disused base close to Asipovichy, the place lots of of quickly constructed tents seemed to be a doable new dwelling for Wagner fighters. But senior army officers advised the journalists that no Wagner fighters had come there, including to the thriller concerning the group’s destiny after the rise up.
On Friday, a spokeswoman for the Belarusian Ministry of Defense confirmed that at the least a part of the video was filmed on the identical coaching floor New York Times journalists visited final week.
During that go to, Belarusian Maj. Gen. Leonid V. Kasinsky mentioned that the various new tents had been erected as a part of a coaching train, however that the bottom “could be recommended as one of the places” the place Wagner troopers may very well be housed.
Wagner’s future has been doubtful for the reason that mutiny almost three weeks in the past, which adopted the implementation of a brand new regulation in Russia that required Wagner troopers to signal contracts with Russia’s Defense Ministry. Some of the pressure’s heavy weaponry has been transferred to the ministry’s management, however the way forward for the pressure itself has remained in query.
The Belarusian Ministry of Defense didn’t specify the place the Wagner fighters coaching their troopers are from. There are at the least 12 Belarusians identified to have fought with Wagner in Ukraine since 2014, in response to the Belarusian journalist Igor Ilyash, who wrote a ebook together with his spouse, Katsyaryna Andreyeva, about Belarus and the struggle in Ukraine that was revealed in 2020.
Shortly after the Wagner mutiny was crushed, Mr. Lukashenko praised the combating skills of the personal army firm, encouraging the Belarusian protection minister, Viktor Khrenin, to benefit from what he portrayed as a possibility of internet hosting them within the nation.
“They will tell you about weapons — which worked well, which did not,” Mr. Lukashenko mentioned. “And tactics, and weapons, and how to attack, how to defend. It is priceless.”
He mentioned he additionally agreed with Mr. Khrenin, who famous “wouldn’t mind having such a unit in the army.”
Source: www.nytimes.com