Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the controversial private military Wagner Group that seemed to stop seconds short of launching an insurrection against Russian President Vladimir Putin last month, is now promising “new victories” for the paramilitary group and its supporters “at the front.”
Last month Prigozhin bloodlessly seized control of his home city – Rostov-on-Don – and turned his military contractors toward Moscow in what he termed a “March of Justice” to hold the Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu accountable for alleged mismanagement, bad tactics, and supply line failures at the front.
Just before Wagner was set to reach Moscow, setting the stage for a full-scale civil war in Russia, an agreement was brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that put a sudden end to the hostilities. As part of the deal, the majority of Wagner contractors reportedly signed new contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense while Prigozhin was exiled to Belarus.
Since a brief video message upon leaving Rostov-on-Don for neighboring Belarus, there have been virtually no recent sightings of Prigozhin.
Now the private military founder released a new audio message asking Russians for their support and asserting that his “March for Justice” was meant to “fight the traitors” and “mobilize our society.” “I think that we succeeded in a lot of that,” said Prigozhin in the short audio message. “In the near future I am sure that you will see our next victories on the front.”
Prigozhin recorded a new audio message. He said his "march for justice" was intended to "fight the traitors" and "mobilize society", promising that "you will soon see our next victories on the front".
He did not specify which front or what kind of victories.
Is this just to… pic.twitter.com/36yfOxtUrp
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 3, 2023
Simultaneously, the controversially pro-war Daily Mail has reported that satellite imagery appears to show a new base being built in Belarus for Prigozhin and up to 8,000 of his private military fighters.
The outlet reported that satellite images provided by Planet Labs PLC seemed to show “dozens of tents” erected at a former military base outside the Belarusian town of Osipovichi only days after Prigozhin arrived in the country. Osipovichi is 142 miles from the Ukrainian border, the outlet adds.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Ukraine border force recently claimed as many as 8,000 Wagner fighters may be “deployed” in Belarus, according to the British publication.
Though much analysis in the West has focused on the repercussions for Putin’s hold on power within Russia and the country’s potentially diminished prestige in the eyes of China, some have questioned whether Wagner could be used to launch a second vector of attack against Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.
Osipovichi is approximately 290 miles from Kiev, or about a 6 hour drive under normal conditions.
