The latest information on the mutiny of the paramilitary group Wagner.
Wagner’s leader allegedly wanted to kidnap senior Russian officials. According to the very serious wall street journal, the thinking head of the paramilitary group Wagner, Evguéni Prigojine, was aiming to detain senior Russian defense officials. His plans were foiled, which explains his mutiny launched Friday evening, says the newspaper. According to the media, which cites anonymous Western officials – probably US intelligence services whose sources are unknown – Prigozhin wanted to capture Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov during ‘a relocation.
But the Russian security services (FSB) became aware of this plan and the two officials changed their movement, adds the wall street journal. This would have forced Wagner’s chief to change his plans and seize the Russian army headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, crucial in the command of the war in Ukraine, from Friday to Saturday night, before to begin a ‘march’ on Moscow. Wagner’s boss has for months accused the Minister of Defense and the Chief of Staff of being incompetent and of having sent tens of thousands of soldiers to sacrifice in Ukraine. For the New York Times also, the Russian general Sergei Surovikin would have been aware of these plans for mutiny.
Joe Biden considers Russian President Vladimir Putin to be an “outcast”, Olaf Scholz considers him “weakened”. According to the President of the United States, his Russian counterpart is a “pariah across the planet” Who “clearly loses” the war in Ukraine. Despite everything, Joe Biden considers it too early to say whether Vladimir Putin has been weakened by the abortive rebellion of the paramilitary group Wagner. The White House remains cautious in commenting on the aftermath of that mutiny, when Wagner’s men seized military bases and marched as far as 330 kilometers from Moscow unhindered, before turning around. Chancellor Olaf Scholz, for his part, believes that the Russian president is “weakened” and “autocratic structures and power structures are cracked” in the country. According to him, the rebellion of the mercenary group “will have long-term consequences for Russia.”
Wagner’s presence in Belarus poses “a potential threat” to neighboring countries. Polish President Andrzej Duda believes that NATO members neighboring Belarus are threatened by the arrival of the paramilitary group Wagner in the country. Belarus announced on Tuesday the arrival on its territory of Yevgeny Prigojine, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, as part of an agreement that ended his 24-hour rebellion on Saturday in Russia. “Difficult for us to exclude that the presence of the Wagner group in Belarus could constitute a potential threat for Poland which shares a border with Belarus, a threat for Lithuania […]as well as, potentially, for Latvia, which is also a neighbor of Belarus”said President Andrzej Duda during a press conference in Kiev.
“What are the forces of the Wagner group, so in other words the Russian army, really for, precisely in Belarus? Are they intended to occupy Belarus or to create an additional threat from the north towards Ukraine, by threatening a potential attack on this country from Belarus? Or is it a form of potential threat precisely towards our NATO countries, towards Poland?, launched the Polish president. According to the Ukrainian head of state, Volodymyr Zelensky, “NATO must unanimously tell Polish and Lithuanian societies that if a foot of a Wagner man is found on the territory of Lithuania or Poland, then all Wagner fighters will be destroyed, wherever they are”.
France wants additional sanctions against Wagner. “We will continue to impose tough European sanctions for his actions in Ukraine and in Africa”, assures Olivier Becht, Minister Delegate at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, questioned in the Senate this Wednesday on the paramilitary group Wagner. Outside of Ukraine, Wagner is particularly active in Africa, notably in Mali and the Central African Republic. “We say to the countries which have made the choice of Wagner and which perhaps regret it, that it is time to dissociate from it because nothing good can come out of the chaos of which Wagner has made a specialty”said the minister again, castigating a “criminal and mafia group which has the methods, violence, predation, manipulation, settling of accounts”.
“Wagner erected, wherever he deployed, the systematic violation of human rights as a cardinal principle of his action”believes Olivier Becht, noting that where Wagner was present, the jihadist threat was reinforced while he claimed to curb it, “whether in Syria, Libya, Mozambique, Mali or the Central African Republic”. Calling Wagner a “a real scourge whose sole objective is to plunder wealth to the detriment of States and populations”, he assured that France would not remain without acting. The United States has announced that it wants to hear from “measures” this week against Wagner’s activities in Africa, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Tuesday.