According to a former Russian army officer, the repositioning of Wagner Group forces to Belarus places Russia in a position to swiftly strike vital NATO targets near Poland and Lithuania.
Andrey Kartapolov, a Russian politician and former military colonel, told Russian state television that the private military corporation Wagner Group could strike the border region of Poland and Lithuania in "a matter of hours" from its new location in Belarus.
Wagner Mercenaries Move to Belarus Camp
The presence of the Russian mercenary group in Belarus follows last month's apparent failure of an insurrection by Wagner Group and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
As part of an agreement with the Kremlin to end the uprising, Prigozhin consented to be exiled to Belarus. Wagner fighters have reportedly begun to join him and are assisting with military training, according to Fox News.
Belarus, which has aligned itself with Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the conflict in Ukraine, is located at a strategically significant crossroads in Europe, bordering NATO nations such as Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia in addition to Ukraine.
This border encompasses the strategically significant Suwalki Corridor, a 60-mile tract of land along the Poland-Lithuania border between Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, the home of Russia's Baltic Fleet.
According to reports, the Wagner Group will close its primary military base in Russia the following week, as footage shows members of the mercenary organization lowering their flag and the Russian flag at the site.
Per Daily Express, the Wagner Group has resided at the Molkino base in the southern Russian district of Krasnador, adjacent to the Crimean peninsula, for nine years. Supposedly, the private military corporation (PMC) shared the site with the 10th Separate Special Purpose Brigade of Vladimir Putin's foreign military intelligence agency, the GRU.
Multiple Wagner convoys have been captured on camera traversing western Russia from Molkino to a decommissioned military base in southern Belarus, approximately 60 minutes from the Belarusian capital Minsk, over the past six days.
According to the Belarusian Hajun Project, the footage was released hours before the fifth Wagner convoy in six days arrived in Belarus.
The convoy, which was escorted by Belarusian traffic police and consisted of "vans, pickups with open trunks, passenger buses, trucks, cars, a few fuel trucks, and Ural trucks with trailers," entered Belarus at the Dubovichka checkpoint in Russia, which was located 290 kilometers from the new military base near Tsel.
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Wagner Chief Arrives at Belarusian Military Airfield
According to the Hajun monitoring group, at least 2,000 Wagner mercenaries and approximately 400 vehicles have arrived in Belarus within the past week.
On Monday, pro-Wagner channels purportedly shared footage of the third convoy traveling through the Russian city of Orel, roughly six hours west of Belarus. Several vehicles displayed Russian and Wagner banners flying from poles mounted to their rears.
A fourth convoy arrived on Tuesday, around the same time Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's private aircraft landed at a nearby Belarusian military airfield. In the weeks preceding the Wagner insurrection on June 24, satellite images depicted the development and erection of hundreds of shelters on the abandoned military base.
Analysis by BBC Verify reveals scores of vehicles entering the camp at Tsel, an abandoned military base in southern Belarus - approximately 103 kilometers (64 miles) from the capital Minsk.
The camp materialized shortly after an agreement was reached in late June to terminate Wagner's rebellion against the Russian military. The agreement reportedly included the relocation of Wagner forces to Belarus.
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