Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin emerged publicly for the first time since the aborted mutiny in Russia to declare the mercenary group has moved to Belarus “for some time.”
Prigozhin is heard welcoming a large number of fighters “on Belarusian soil” in a grainy video shot in poor light that was posted Wednesday on a Telegram channel linked to his group. There was no indication of where the video was taken or on what day, and Bloomberg News couldn’t independently verify it.
“We fought worthily, we did an awful lot for Russia,” said Prigozhin, addressing the fighters gathered in a field. “What’s happening now on the front is a disgrace that we don’t need to be a part of.”
Instead, he said, the mercenaries would train and prepare for “a new journey to Africa,” and may return to Ukraine when “we’re sure that we won’t be asked to embarrass ourselves and our experience.” While in Belarus, Wagner would help its military to become “the world’s second army” and “if needed, we’ll stand up for them,” Prigozhin said.
The Wagner founder hasn’t been seen in public since calling off the brief revolt on June 24 as his forces came to within 200 kilometers (124 miles) of Moscow, meeting little resistance from army units. He had sought the overthrow of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, accusing them of failures in the conduct of the war in Ukraine and claiming they wanted to “destroy” Wagner.
While President Vladimir Putin initially denounced the revolt as treachery and said it brought Russia to the brink of “civil war,” the Kremlin disclosed last week that he met with Prigozhin and 35 Wagner commanders for nearly three hours just days after it took place.
Under a deal to end the mutiny brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Putin agreed to let Prigozhin go to Belarus with any of his fighters who wanted to join him. Until now, however, there’s been little sign of any large-scale regrouping of Wagner in Belarus, even as the Defense Ministry in Moscow claimed the mercenaries had handed over huge quantities of weapons to the Russian military.
A second figure on the video who claimed to be Dmitry Utkin, Wagner’s top commander, said the mercenaries’ work had just begun, adding in English “Welcome to Hell.”