Satellite images appear to show new facilities set up recently at a military base in Tsel, Mogilev Region, Belarus: (Picture: AP/Reuters)
Satellite images appear to show rapid construction at an abandoned military base in Belarus, revealing a possible new HQ for the exiled Wagner mercenary group.
Its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin moved across the border from Russia as part of a deal to end the militia’s mutiny which rocked the Kremlin.
The guns for hire escaped prosecution for treason and were offered refuge in Belarus by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, a staunch ally of Vladimir Putin.
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Lukashenko said he had offered the private military company an ‘abandoned military unit’ to set up camp and promised to ‘help with whatever we can’.
‘We’re looking at it pragmatically -– if their commanders come to us and help us, (we get their) experience,’ Lukashenko said.
Although the base’s location has not been made public, Russian media have reported that Wagner could set up at a vacant military facility near the town of Osipovichi, about 50 miles from Minsk.
Images captured by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 2 satellites on June 27 show rows of long structures in the nearby village of Tsel, in a field which had appeared empty on June 14.
Alexander Lukashenko said he had offered the private military company an ‘abandoned military unit’ (Picture: Reuters)
Images captured by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 2 satellites on June 27 show rows of long structures (Picture: Reuters)
Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin leaving the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov-on-Don, Russia (Picture: Reuters)
Wagner fighters atop a tank while being deployed near the headquarters of the Southern Military District (Picture: Reuters)
Residents of the city of 30,000 said they were worried by the developments.
Inga, a 43-year-old doctor in Osipovichi, said: ‘There’s military equipment in the streets and Belarusian servicemen — all residents are discussing the arrival of Wagnerites and, frankly speaking, we’re panicking and are not happy about being neighbours with them.
‘I have teenage daughters. … How will we live next to thugs, pardoned murderers and rapists?’
Belarusian opposition and guerrilla activists, who called Wagner fighters ‘a threat to the Belarusian people and (the country’s) independence’, promised action.
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Aliaksandr Azarau, leader of the BYPOL guerrilla group of former military members, said: ‘We’re categorically against stationing Russian mercenaries in Belarus and are preparing a “warm” welcome to Wagnerites in Belarus.’
Neighboring Baltic countries also expressed concerns about how this would affect regional security.
In a joint statement Wednesday, parliament speakers in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania urged the European Union to label Wagner a terrorist organisation.
‘The emergence of the Wagner mercenary group in Belarus could make the security situation on the eastern borders of NATO and the EU even more precarious,’ it read.
Lukashenko has been Putin’s closest ally, allowing Russia to use Belarus to send troops and weapons into Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko (Picture: Reuters)
He has welcomed a continued Russian military presence in the country and the deployment there of some of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons.
But he has stressed that Wagner fighters ‘will not be guarding any nuclear weapons’.
Prigozhin himself arrived in Belarus on Monday, Lukashenko said, but his exact whereabouts are unknown.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has played down concerns that Wagner would pose a threat from Belarus.
He said the mercenaries probably wouldn’t go there in significant numbers and added that Ukraine’s military believes security along their border will remain ‘unchanged and controllable’.
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Its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin moved across the border from Russia as part of a deal to end the militia’s mutiny which rocked the Kremlin.