The secretary general of Western military alliance, NATO has revealed that the group is closely following the movement of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force as well as their boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, following revelations that neither the private army’s fighters nor their leader had taken up exile in Belarus.
NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg made this known yesterday amid widespread reports that Prigozhin was back in Russia and had not taken up the offer of exile in Belarus, which was agreed upon after Wagner forces began and ended a 24-hour mutiny against the Russian military leadership on June 24.
When quizzed by journalists, Stoltenberg claimed that NATO had tracked the Wagner leader’s recent travels, which he described as ‘moving a bit around’.
‘On Prigozhin, well, what we can say is that we monitor closely where the Wagner soldiers are moving around, and also where he [Prigozhin] is moving,’ Stoltenberg said in Brussels.
‘I will not go into the details, but we have seen some preparations for hosting large groups of Wagner soldiers in Belarus. So far we haven’t seen so many of them going to Belarus,’ he said.
‘And then we have seen Mr Prigozhin moving a bit around,’ Stoltenberg said, adding that he would not go into further details.
Africa Today News, New York reports that Prigozhin’s return to Russia was revealed by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday.
Lukashenko – who mediated the exile deal that ended the Wagner mutiny last month – said that after a brief period in Belarus, the Wagner chief had returned to Russia.
‘As for Prigozhin, he’s in St Petersburg. He is not on the territory of Belarus,’ Lukashenko told reporters on Friday.
‘Where was he this morning? Maybe he went to Moscow, or some other place. But he is not in Belarus,’ Lukashenko said.
Lukashenko also said that Wagner’s troops were in their camps, but he did not specify the location of the camps. He did say that Wagner troops were offered the use of Belarusian military camps, but that the private armed group had not made a final decision.