A fighter from the Russian Wagner mercenary group conducted training for Belarusian soldiers on a range near the town of Osipovichi in Belarus on July 14. The Belarusian defense ministry that at least some had arrived in Belarus and were instructing local troops, according to Reuters reports.
Belaruski Hajun said, “The convoy headed toward a military base outside Osipovichi, a town 230 kilometers (142 miles) north of the Ukrainian border.”
Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian president of Belarus said at the time that Minsk could use Wagner's experience and expertise, and that he had offered the fighters an “abandoned military unit” to set up camp.
Speaking to the Associated Press, a leader of an anti-Lukashenko guerrilla group said that construction of a site for the mercenaries was underway near Osipovichi.
Ukraine’s Center for National Resistance, an arm of the Ukrainian defense ministry said that later Saturday that about 240 Wagner fighters, 40 trucks, and ‘a large amount of weapons’ had arrived in the Osipovichi area.
On Saturday, a spokesperson for Ukraine's State Border Guard Service said that the force also had observed ‘some groups’ of Wagner fighters crossing from Russia into Belarus.
In an official statement, the Belarusian defense ministry said that it had developed a “road map” with Wagner’s management for joint training exercises drills by the nation's military personnel and the private mercenaries, AP reported.
It added that the Wagner fighters had begun training Belarusian soldiers. A television channel affiliated with the ministry showed footage of fighters in black masks instructing soldiers on how to shoot and provide first aid.
The Wagner group's founder and leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, on June 23 ordered his fighters to leave their camps in Ukraine and head toward Moscow to demand the removal of Russia's defense minister and General Staff chief.
The mutiny rattled Russia and posed the biggest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prigozhin's one-time benefactor, during his decades in power.
However, the Wagner fighters swept through the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and captured the military headquarters there, before driving to within about 200 kilometers (125 miles) of the Russian capital.
Prigozhin had accused the senior Russian military leadership for months of bungling the war in Ukraine and starving his troops of ammunition.
Lukashenko then brokered a deal between Prigozhin and the Kremlin that shielded the Wagner leader and his men from prosecution, allowing Prigozhin to move to Belarus in exchange for ordering his mercenaries back to the camps.
(With inputs from agencies)
