After the crisis, the opportunity.
The exile of the Wagner group and especially of its big boss, Evgueni Prigojine, in Belarus this week, could only be a temporary humiliation for Vladimir Putin.
It is because, after the affront of the aborted mutiny carried out by these mercenaries in the pay of the Kremlin in the last few days, the spectacular reconfiguration it has induced of the military forces present around Ukraine, and now on the territory of Belarus, could very quickly become an asset for Moscow.
This presence of the paramilitary group, which we learned for the first time on Tuesday from the mouth of the Russian president himself that it was indeed 100% financed by the Kremlin, could thus help Putin to strengthen his hold on this former – soviet republic. Under the iron hand of dictator Alexander Lukashenko, the country is also torn, like Ukraine, between a rapprochement towards the West and an attachment to the East.
Prigojine’s men are also coming to reinforce a military front in northwestern Ukraine, which has been thinned out in recent months and, in doing so, are also approaching the edge of NATO member countries. A front that Moscow could use as much to relaunch a new attack on Kiev as to fuel its revolt against the Western countries that the weakened man from the Kremlin has been provoking repeatedly for more than a year, in the hope of bringing them in directly. in its difficult Ukrainian conflict.
“Belarus has already been used as a transit territory,” commented geopolitical analyst Vytis Jurkonis, researcher at the Freedom House, a non-governmental organization versed in the defense of democratic movements, in an interview. The duty joined him in Lithuania. “Whether this country will once again become a base for Moscow is of great concern. As much for the Belarusian people as for others around the world. »
On Tuesday, the President of Poland, neighbor of Belarus, Andrzej Duda, described as “serious and very worrying” this easy entry of Wagner’s forces into the territory of Belarus after the failed attempt by Yevgeny Prigojine to overthrow the military power. Russian approaching the 1er July. This date was to mark the forced integration of his private organization into the regular Russian troops.
So far, this whole story shows signs of weakness in Putin who, as a very good tactician, could however turn the situation in his favor.
Strangely, on March 25, the deployment announced by Vladimir Putin of Russian tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus did not cause the same terror. NATO and Ukraine then saw nothing more than the usual nuclear threat brandished by Moscow since the beginning of the war.
However, coupled with the arrival of Wagner’s mercenaries, this threat now takes on another dimension. “If Wagner deploys his serial killers in Belarus, all neighboring countries face an even greater danger of instability,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said on Tuesday.
Strengthen the troops
Earlier this week, Russian independent media Verstka reported that Belarus has embarked on the construction of a military base to accommodate nearly 8,000 soldiers of the mercenary group on 24,000 square kilometers. This contingent would bring to 9,000 the number of soldiers linked to the Kremlin in this country, ie as many as last spring. At the beginning of June, they were only 1000.
From Minsk, Alexander Lukashenko denied this information during a speech on Tuesday, speaking instead of the provision of a disused military camp for Prigozhin’s men. He added that he was, however, ready to offer them better if Wagner asked him to.
According to the Belarusian dictator, the Wagner group will not open recruitment centers in Belarus as it has done in Russia, but Belarusians – like other nationals – will be allowed to join the ranks of the paramilitary formation. Last year, Minsk created a Wagner-inspired private armed militia, the Gardservis, denouncing opposition to Lukashenko in exile. Senior officers from the Prigozhin group helped train these troops.
Although Wagner seems to have been confined to the Belarusian region of Asipovichy, 200 km from the Ukrainian border for the moment, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), his possible movement towards Gomel or Brest, the along the border with Ukraine, could become much more problematic. Belarus has been building fortifications there since last spring in addition to having held military maneuvers there in May.
Two weeks ago, during a meeting with military bloggers in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin cast doubt on a possible new march on Kiev to bring down the government of Volodymyr Zelensky. And this, after the failure of his project in February 2022. At the time, Russian troops had partly crossed the border between Belarus and Ukraine. With the complicity of Alexander Lukashenko.
“What is certain is that we have sent a clear message to Moscow and Minsk: NATO is here to protect every ally and every square inch of NATO territory,” Jens Stoltenberg said this week. secretary general of the organization, on leaving a meeting in The Hague, while saying that it was “too early” to pass a “definitive judgment” on the consequences of the strategic withdrawal carried out by Prigojine in Belarus, after his strange and short burst of force.
“At this point, anything is possible,” says Russian investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, co-founder ofAgentura.ru. So far, this whole story shows signs of weakness in Putin who, as a very good tactician, could however turn the situation in his favor. “If the members of the Wagner group agree of course to collaborate…
“They were offered a choice: some will join the Russian forces, others could flee to Africa or elsewhere, says the Duty political scientist Alexander Motyl of Rutgers University. Will there be enough left in Belarus to start a war with Ukraine? [à partir de là] ? And will Alexander Lukashenko allow it? Because if he does, he knows it could end his regime.