In a video allegedly welcoming his soldiers to Belarus, the Wagner Group’s Russian head made an appearance.
According to reports, Yevgeny Prigozhin blasted the front line situation in Ukraine and told his forces they would “stay there for some time.”
According to Sky News, it’s thought to have been filmed last evening at the Tsel military facility in the south of the nation.In a video allegedly welcoming his soldiers to Belarus, the Wagner Group’s Russian head made an appearance.
It comes after an ex-US military official claimed he was ‘probably dead’.
Prigozhin’s plane arrived in Belarus on Tuesday morning and he is believed to have said: ‘Welcome lads… welcome to Belarusian soil.
‘We fought honourably. You have done a great deal for Russia. What is going on at the front is a disgrace that we do not need to get involved in.’
He also reportedly said the Wagner Group would take no further part in the war for now.
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One Twitter user translated Prigozhin’s speech, explaining that he said his troops will remain in Belarus before ‘gathering our strength and heading off for Africa’.
He reportedly added: ‘We may return to [fight in Ukraine] when we will be certain that we won’t be made to disgrace ourselves and our experience.’
Prigozhin staged a coup against Vladimir Putin in late June by ordering his soldiers to travel towards Moscow.
The rebellion against the Kremlin ultimately failed and the Russian president said his former caterer’s actions amounted to ‘armed mutiny’.
Many experts predicted that Prigozhin was likely to be dead following the march on Moscow and he has not been seen in public since.
After the brief uprising against Putin, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko reportedly made a deal to welcome Wagner forces across the border to join the military in Belarus.
Earlier this month, Mr Lukashenko claimed Prigozhin had returned to Russia and his fighters had decided against the offer of relocating to Belarus.
However, satellite images taken on Monday appeared to show a huge convoy arriving at a previously abandoned military base in the town of Osipovichi, around 45 miles from the capital Minsk.
The site had been offered to Wagner by local authorities and more than 100 vehicles with Russian flags and Wagner insignia were seen heading towards the camp, according to Belaruski Hajun, an activist group that monitors the movement of troops.