Russia continues to carry its offensive in the Donbass. To this end, Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group have deployed in eastern Ukraine, the British Ministry of Defense said on Monday.
This private Russian military company “should deploy more than 1,000 mercenaries, including officials of the organization, to carry out combat operations”, indicated the ministry in a situation update published on its Twitter account.
Ukraine rather than Mali and Syria
Reputed to be close to Vladimir Putin, the Wagner group and its paramilitaries are suspected of abuses in Mali, Libya and even Syria. “Due to heavy casualties and a largely stalled invasion (of Ukraine), Russia was most likely forced to redeploy its Wagner personnel to Ukraine at the expense of operations in Africa and Syria,” London said.
In mid-March, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that Russia had drawn up lists of 40,000 fighters from the Syrian army and allied militias ready to be deployed in Ukraine.
The Donbass issue
According to a Western official on Friday, Russian forces are focusing their efforts in Ukraine on the Donbass where they face “the best equipped and most trained of Ukrainian forces”. In response, according to this source, “the separatist forces, with reinforcements from Russian forces and personnel from the Wagner group in the Lugansk and Donetsk regions, are trying to surround them”.
The Wagner group is one of 59 Russian companies and personalities targeted Thursday by a new series of sanctions decided by London. In addition to the paramilitary group, the Russian diamond giant Alrosa or the hydroelectric power station Rushydro were targeted. More than 1,000 Russian individuals and entities have been placed on the British sanctions target list.