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The whereabouts of Yevgeny Prigozhin have been largely shrouded in mystery since he mobilized the Wagner Group to carry out a short-lived mutiny against Russia’s military leadership last month.
But a newly surfaced image of the mercenary organization’s leader, which was widely circulated across social media on Friday, hints that he may now be living in a makeshift tent at a Belarus military camp alongside Wagner fighters who have started training Belarusian soldiers. The tent where he was photographed matches those photographed a week before during an official tour of the disused installation led by Belarussian officials.
As part of the negotiations to end the Wagner Group’s armed rebellion on June 24 before it could reach Moscow, the mercenary fighters were given the option to seek exile in Belarus alongside Prigozhin, sign contracts with Russia’s military, or just go home to avoid prosecution.
Belarus has since offered to host Wagner Group fighters at an abandoned military camp near Tsel in the country’s central Asipovichy district. Satellite imagery captured on June 29 and obtained by Insider shows and aerial view of the camp, where dozens of new tents were reportedly constructed in the two weeks prior.
Photographs taken at the camp by international media last week showed rows of empty tents that are capable of accommodating a few thousand troops. Still, it remained unclear how many Wagner fighters actually planned to head to the camp. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Tuesday that the military alliance had not seen “any deployment or movement of any Wagner forces into Belarus.”
On Friday, however, Belarus’ defense ministry said Wagner fighters had begun training Belarusian territorial defense units near Asipovichy, according to state-run media site Belta.
“According to the ministry, the units are drilling the skills of tactical shooting and movement on a battlefield. In addition, reservists are acquiring engineering and tactical medicine skills,” Belta reported. “Instructors in some military disciplines are PMC Wagner fighters.”
Wagner’s reported training of Belarusian soldiers comes after the country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, boasted that Minsk has troops who are “roughly as good as Wagner personnel, or they may be even better,” in comments earlier this month. That said, he also said he would welcome their training.
Over the past three weeks since his failed mutiny, Prigozhin’s whereabouts have been a mystery.
He was supposedly cast into exile in Belarus as part of negotiations to call off the mutiny, but the Kremlin claimed earlier this week that on June 29 — five days after the day-long mutiny ended — Prigozhin actually met with, and pledged loyalty to, Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. In early July, Prigozin — and a private jet linked to him — were reportedly in St. Petersburg.
Where Prigozhin has been since then has been anyone’s guess. But the new image of Prigozhin suggests that he may be at the same military camp where his Wagner mercenaries are training Belarusian soldiers.
The photo, shared to Twitter by even senior Ukrainian officials, shows Prigozhin sitting upright on a small cot in a tent. Beside him are blankets, a duffle bag, and several electronics chargers. Behind him are two darkened windows.
The windows in the photo appear to match those on tents at the military camp being used by Wagner and Belarusian soldiers. The floorboards also appear to be the same as ones used in the tents.
It’s not immediately clear how many Wagner fighters are in Belarus, nor is it known if Prigozhin has any role in the training, assuming the camp in Belarus is where he is now.
In the months leading up to Prigozhin’s mutiny, the Wagner Group played a key role on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine while fighting alongside Russia’s regular military. Although the rebellion left questions about where Wagner fighters would end up, US officials have since said that they aren’t fighting in Ukraine anymore.
“At this stage, we do not see Wagner forces participating in any significant capacity in support of combat operations in Ukraine,” a Pentagon spokesperson told reporters at a Thursday briefing. Wagner forces pulled off the line after the battle for Bakhmut.
Even as Wagner’s future continues to remain uncertain, Russia’s defense ministry has been making a public showing of disarming the mercenaries. Moscow published a video this week showing a massive collection of weaponry and military hardware — including advanced tanks and other high-profile systems — confiscated from the organization.
“All equipment and armaments are transported to rear areas, where repair and recovery units of the Russian Armed Forces carry out maintenance and prepare them for use for their intended purpose,” the defense ministry said.
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