KYIV — Mercenaries from the Russian Wagner Group are back fighting on the front line in Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian military official told POLITICO on Wednesday.
Several hundred fighters from the group once ruled by now-dead warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin were spotted fighting in the ranks of different Russian military units on the eastern front, said Colonel Serhiy Cherevatyi.
Wagner mercenaries had fought in Ukraine until May when they finally occupied the remains of Bakhmut, a Donetsk region town which was razed during nine months of brutal fighting. Wagner was notorious in Ukraine for mercilessly decapitating Ukrainian soldiers and killing civilians.
After Wagner was thrown into disarray following an aborted insurrection against the Kremlin in June led by Prigozhin — who subsequently died in a fiery plane crash in August — many of its troops were either welcomed to Belarus by its ruler Alexander Lukashenko or deployed to African countries where Russia has interests.
“Wagnerites were not hiding. Maybe they thought it would scare our soldiers. In fact, that showed Russia needs new meat for the grinder,” said Cherevatyi, deputy commander of Ukraine’s eastern group of troops for strategic communications. “Wagner as an organization was finished in Bakhmut. Now their more fortunate soldiers are sent to Africa, where there’s more money. The less fortunate ones are back to Ukraine.”
He added that Ukrainian wiretapping and reconnaissance had been used to confirm that former Wagner forces were back on the Donbas battlefield, but warned, “We know everything about them.”
Ukraine’s National Resistance Center previously reported that fewer than 1,000 Wagner mercenaries remained in Belarus as of September.
“Currently, 200 of them remain instructors in the special units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Defense of Belarus. The rest are those who do not want to be recruited either to the new PMCs or to the Russian defense ministry,” the resistance center said, citing its sources on the ground.
Earlier, CNN reported that Wagner fighters are back in Ukraine, citing Ukrainian soldiers fighting around Bakhmut. Wagner’s Telegram channels have been quiet on Ukraine, currently posting news from Belarus, Niger, and Mali.
“I see nothing special in their return. Wagner is no longer a powerful force. Those who returned are far from being in a good fighting mood, as they know what to expect here,” Cherevatyi said. “Furthermore, they are now under the control of the Defense Ministry.
“They used to call themselves soldiers of fortune but now they are more like misfortune soldiers.”
