Troops from Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group, which are relocating to Belarus following last month’s aborted mutiny, will not go back to fight in Ukraine nd will stay in Belarus to train local troops, their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said Wednesday.
“We did a lot for Russia. What is happening at the front now is a disgrace. We want no part of it,” Prigozhin said in his first appearance since his troops marched on Moscow in a failed uprising last month.
In a shaky mobile phone video shot at dusk, Prigozhin can be seen in silhouette wearing a baseball cap. He speaks to a crowd of men who appear to be Wagner fighters and break repeatedly into applause and cheers.
“Therefore we have taken the decision to be in Belarus for a while. In this time, we will turn the Belarusian army into the second most powerful in the world and, if needed, we will take its place,” Prigozhin pursued, in a jab at Russia, which currently has the second largest army in the world.
He then hinted his troops could later go to Africa, where Wagner has been active in Mali and the Central African Republic.
Prigozhin’s deputy, Dmitry Utkin, whose nom de guerre gave the mercenary army its name, speaks: “This is not the end. This is the beginning. The biggest task in the world will begin very soon,” he said before switching to English: “Welcome to hell.”
After months of tension with Russia’s military leadership, Prigozhin turned his troops against the Russian authorities last month. He led his men deep into Russian territory, taking the southwestern city of Rostov-on-Don and only stopping a few dozen kilometers from Moscow.
The mutinous warlord then went off the grid after he struck a deal with the Kremlin and Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko under which Wagner fighters would be spared prosecution in Russia, while he and his men would go in exile in Belarus.
He resurfaced a few days later, posting a voice message on social media to thank the supporters of the aborted uprising while signalling that Minsk had offered options for his troops to continue operating from Belarus.
Since then, there have been contradicting reports about Prigozhin’s whereabouts. Lukashenko initially confirmed Prigozhin had popped up in Belarus three days after the rebellion, on June 27, before later saying that he wasn’t actually there — and could even be in Russia.
Last week, the Kremlin said the Wagner boss was in Moscow on June 29, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin together with other Wagner commanders.
