“We are going to build the second best army in the world”, “Let’s raise our level and set off on a new path, towards Africa! And, perhaps, we will return to the special military operation […]”. In a video posted on Telegram on July 19, the leader of the private military company Wagner used big words to galvanize his hundreds of mercenaries who followed him to Belarus. Soon, assures Prigojine, they will be 10,000 to join the camp located near the town of Assipovitch, about a hundred kilometers from Minsk, the capital. 3,500 men are already there, according to the Telegram channel Belarousski Gaïon. Monday, July 24, a column of vehicles, the tenth, was seen joining this new base.
A month after the mutiny of Prigojine and his men, the one nicknamed “Putin’s cook” is back in service. While the Russian President has declared, on July 14, that “Wagner does not exist”, the company reappeared in Belarus. Journalists of the Belarusian media Reform have discovered that it had been registered in the state registers of the city of Tsel. Its CEO? Yevgeny Prigozhin.
After the rebellion of June, the disorder seems to fade. Each now fulfills part of a contract probably recorded during the interview between Prigojine and Putin in early July. Their deal? Wagner’s boss agrees to go to Belarus and return most of his weapons to the Russian National Guard. In return, Prigojine seems protected by the Kremlin. Above all, he escapes the fate reserved for Igor Guirkin, alias Strelkov, military blogger and enemy of Prigojine who has been imprisoned since July 21. In this context, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko plays the facilitators. Very cooperative with Putin, he welcomes what remains of Prigojine’s private military company to his country. “It’s hard to imagine that he took any initiative in this story as the regime is subordinate to Putin Russia”, remarks the Belarusian political scientist Artyom Shraibman.
Pressure on Poland and Ukraine
It remains to be seen what the Wagnerians are going to do in Belarus. Officially, they are mobilized to train the Belarusian army which is one of the weakest in Europe. Pro-Wagner Telegram channels showed images of military exercises involving Russian mercenaries and Belarusian soldiers in the southwest of the country, a few kilometers from the Polish border, near the city of Brest. An integration of the private militia into the Russian-Belarusian contingent had been mentioned by Lukashenko. What reinforce the concerns of Westerners.
If Ukrainian officials did not express concerns, Poland reacted quickly to the announcement of the deployment of Wagner’s mercenaries. Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak announced the mobilization of a battalion of firefighters in the northeast of the country.
However, the threat is less real than pro-Prigozhin war correspondents suggest. According to the Washington-based think tank Institute for the Study of War, Wagner’s forces in Belarus pose no military threat to Poland or Ukraine as they lack mechanized vehicles. A possible involvement of Belarus in the war in Ukraine is not an option either. “Lukashenko is not ready to fully engage in war, neither in Ukraine nor against NATO,” says Belarusian journalist Youri Drakakhrust. “The stay of the Wagnerians is more like a vacation. They won’t stay long here, there is nothing for them to do”.
Subordinate
One certainty: relocating Wagner to Belarus was not Putin’s initial plan. “If he had wanted to do it, he would have done it earlier,” continues Youri Drakakhrust. In fact, the Kremlin is just adapting to the new context. “As a fine tactician, Putin intends to turn the fiasco of the Prigojine mutiny to his advantage by repositioning Wagner in Belarus, believes Russian journalist – and military expert – in exile Andrei Soldatov. First, he ousted Prigojine from the Russian political scene. Now he can use the group of mercenaries for specific operations. And that, in Ukraine but also in Africa or the Middle East. “
Since the mutiny, many media close to the Kremlin have devoted themselves to discrediting Prigojine. The 5 of July, a report from the Rossiya 1 channel showed, for example, a search of Wagner’s boss’ apartment in St. Petersburg where his lavish lifestyle could be measured, with images of gold bars and a shot of his jacuzzi. The fact that the character lives illegally has also been hammered home, with the display of a series of fake passports that have gone around the Internet. His involvement in a murder in the 1990s has also been raised. “It’s a message intended to make Prigojine understand that he should not think of repeating his mistake”, analyzes Andreï Pertsev, Russian political scientist and journalist for Riddle Russia.
Since his arrival in Belarus, the boss of the Wagners has lost influence and political weight. Some of its officers have been sent home. As for his companies, they are said to be being dismantled in Russia. “The room for maneuver of Wagner’s mercenaries has been reduced, at least for the moment, calculates Artyom Shraibman. In Belarus, for example, they will have much less freedom of movement. Lukashenko did Putin a favor by offering them a way out, but here Progozhin will remain relegated to menial tasks. “