Wagner mercenaries entering Belarus as Minsk announces 'road map' for joint military drills

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A combatant from Russian Wagner mercenary radical conducts grooming for Belarusian soldiers connected a scope adjacent the municipality of Osipovichi, Belarus July 14, 2023 successful this inactive representation taken from handout video. 

Voen TV/Belarusian Defence Ministry | Via Reuters

A ample convoy carrying fighters from the Wagner backstage service was spotted entering Belarus from Russia aboriginal Saturday, a monitoring radical reported aft the country's Defense Ministry said it planned for the mercenaries and Minsk's ain equipped forces to behaviour associated subject drills.

The autarkic monitoring radical Belaruski Hajun, which tracks the movements of equipped forces successful Belarus, said that astatine slightest 60 trucks, buses and different ample vehicles crossed into the Eastern European state accompanied by Belarusian police.

The radical didn't instantly supply photos oregon videos of the vehicles but said they had licence plates from Russian-occupied areas of eastbound Ukraine, wherever Wagner mercenaries fought alongside Russian troops until a short-lived mutiny past month.

The convoy headed toward a subject basal extracurricular Osipovichi, a municipality 230 kilometers (142 miles) northbound of the Ukrainian border, Belaruski Hajun said. Satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press this period showed rows of tent-like structures that appeared to person been built astatine the basal betwixt June 15 and June 30.

The authoritarian president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, said astatine the clip that Minsk could usage Wagner's acquisition and expertise, and that helium had offered the fighters an "abandoned subject unit" to acceptable up camp. That aforesaid week, a person of an anti-Lukashenko guerrilla radical told the AP that operation of a tract for the mercenaries was underway adjacent Osipovichi.

Ukraine's Center for National Resistance, an limb of the Ukrainian defence ministry that assists guerrilla groups successful Russia-occupied territory, said aboriginal Saturday that astir 240 Wagner fighters, 40 trucks and "a ample magnitude of weapons" had arrived successful the Osipovichi area. It cited unspecified members of Belarus' underground anti-Lukashenko absorption arsenic the root of the information, which couldn't beryllium independently verified.

Separately, a spokesperson for Ukraine's State Border Guard Service said Saturday that the unit besides had observed "some groups" of Wagner fighters crossing from Russia into Belarus. The spokesperson, Andriy Demchenko, made the remarks successful an interrogation with the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper.

The Belarusian Defense Ministry said successful an online connection precocious Friday that it had developed a "road map" with Wagner's absorption for associated grooming exercises drills by the nation's subject unit and the backstage mercenaries.

Earlier Friday, the Defense Ministry said that Wagner fighters had begun grooming Belarusian soldiers. A tv transmission affiliated with the ministry showed footage of fighters successful achromatic masks instructing soldiers connected however to sprout and supply archetypal aid.

On June 23, the Wagner group's laminitis and leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, ordered his fighters to permission their camps successful Ukraine and caput toward Moscow to request the removal of Russia's defence curate and General Staff chief. The mutiny rattled Russia and posed the biggest situation to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prigozhin's one-time benefactor, during his decades successful power.

In the revolt that lasted little than 24 hours, Wagner fighters swept done the confederate Russian metropolis of Rostov-on-Don and captured the subject office there, earlier driving to wrong astir 200 kilometers (125 miles) of the Russian capital. Prigozhin had accused the elder Russian subject enactment for months of bungling the warfare successful Ukraine and starving his troops of ammunition.

Lukashenko past brokered a woody betwixt Prigozhin and the Kremlin that shielded the Wagner person and his men from prosecution, allowing Prigozhin to determination to Belarus successful speech for ordering his mercenaries backmost to the camps.

Putin indicated connected Friday that helium intends to support Wagner arsenic a azygous warring unit nether its existing commander, portion appearing to denigrate Prigozhin. His remarks, made successful an interrogation with Russia's Kommersant newspaper, seemed to bespeak the Kremlin's efforts to unafraid the loyalty of the mercenaries, who marque up immoderate of the astir susceptible Russian forces successful Ukraine.

Lukashenko antecedently allowed the Kremlin to usage Belarusian territory to nonstop troops and weapons into Ukraine. He has besides welcomed a continued Russian equipped beingness successful Belarus, including associated subject camps and exercises, arsenic good arsenic the deployment of immoderate of Russia's tactical atomic weapons there.

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