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Russian paramilitary group Wagner has arrived in Belarus and its fighters have started working as army instructors, according to the Belarusian defence ministry.
The fighters — whose relocation to Belarus was part of a deal to end an armed uprising led by their boss Yevgeny Prigozhin — are now training Belarusian territorial defence units, the ministry said on Friday.
“This [Wagner] experience is very useful for us,” a Belarusian said in a video posted by the defence ministry, which also claimed that Wagner would help secure key infrastructure such as factories and waterways.
The Wagner base is near Osipovichi, a town where Belarusian authorities had prepared a tent camp to house them. A Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel shared a picture of Prigozhin sitting in a tent.
Belarus’ exiled opposition has warned that the presence of Wagner in the country created a new element of instability in the region. Poland and other eastern members of Nato have reinforced their military presence at their borders with Belarus since Wagner’s aborted mutiny.
The Russian defence ministry earlier this week showed footage with Wagner members handing over their weapons before departure, suggesting that the paramilitary is complying with the terms of the truce.
Russian president Vladimir Putin, in his first comments about the deal since the aborted insurrection, told Russian newspaper Kommersant on Thursday that he had offered Wagner “several employment options.”
The deal, according to Putin, would have seen the Wagner fighters remain under a senior commander, Andrei Trochev, who has de facto led the group’s efforts in Ukraine.
Many of the 35 men present “nodded their heads, when I said that,” Putin added, “but Prigozhin, who was sat in front of them and didn’t see that, heard me out and said: ‘No, the guys don’t agree with that decision.”
Putin said he “gave an assessment of what they did on the battlefield, and on the other hand — what they did during the mutiny”.
Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko helped broker the deal that ended Wagner’s mutiny by offering Prigozhin and his troops a haven in his country.
Prigozhin’s whereabouts since have been unclear, with Lukashenko and flight data indicating that the warlord had returned to his Russian home town of St Petersburg. Analysts and people close to Prigozhin have suggested he was probably given some time to wind down his businesses before settling in Belarus.
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