Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led the Russian private Wagner mercenary group's aborted mutiny last month, has appeared in a video purportedly filmed in Belarus welcoming his fighters and saying they would be headed to Africa as the company was halting its involvement in Russia's war with Ukraine for the foreseeable future.
In the dimly lit video, posted by his press people on Telegram on July 19, Prigozhin is shown in front of a large number of armed men, greeting them "on the land of Belarus."
Since the Wagner leader was last seen pulling away in a vehicle in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on June 24, his whereabouts have been a mystery as rumors swirled about the man cast as a traitor by President Vladimir Putin, once a close friend of Prigozhin. What Wagner would do next with its thousands of soldiers was also a question mark.
"You have done a lot for Russia. What is happening now on the front line [in Ukraine] is a shame we do not need to take part in. We need to wait until the moment when we are able to fully express ourselves," Prigozhin says in the video, the date of which remains unknown, adding that "the decision was made that we will stay here in Belarus for some time.
"During that time, we will turn, and I am fully confident about that, the Belarusian Army into the second-best army in the world, and if need be, protect them.... We must get trained further...and then head to a new destination, to Africa, and then, probably, we will get back to the special military operation [in Ukraine] when we are sure that we will not be forced to shame ourselves and our experience," Prigozhin says.
The fate of Wagner troops has been unclear since Prigozhin led a short-lived mutiny on June 23-24, the biggest threat to Putin’s 23 years in power.
The authoritarian ruler of Belarus and Putin's close ally, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, was reportedly involved in talks to end the mutiny by agreeing with Prigozhin and Putin to host the Wagner troops, and their leader, in Belarus.
Days after Lukashenka’s statement, a tent camp began to appear in the eastern village of Tsel, a former garrison for members of a Belarusian missile brigade.
An analysis of satellite images by Schemes (Skhemy), an investigative project run by RFE/RL, estimates there are at least 485 vehicles near the tent camp in total.
The images from Planet Labs show almost all the equipment is located near warehouse-like buildings, as well as the parking lot of the military camp. No heavy military equipment can be seen.
The Belaruski Hayun Telegram channel that monitors the movement of military equipment on the territory of Belarus said it had registered at least six columns of military vehicles and equipment with Wagner and Russian national flags in the country’s eastern region of Mahilyou since July 11.
In the Wagner video released on July 19, Dmitry Utkin, a former Russian military officer known for his ultranationalist stance, is also shown.
"It is not the end; it is just a beginning. It is our new phase. It is the beginning of the biggest work in the world that will be performed very soon," Utkin, who chose the name for the Wagner Group and has been one of its commanders, says, ending his statement in English by adding, "Welcome to hell!"
Wagner troops played a key role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, helping take main parts of the town of Bakhmut after nearly 10 months of intense fighting. Prigozhin said earlier that he lost 20,000 men during the Bakhmut operation.