A few days after their abortive march towards Moscow, Evgueni Prigojine and the remaining troops of the Wagner group seem to have found a base in Belarus. According to the “New York Times”, it is an abandoned base 120 km from Minsk.
Evgueni Prigojine and his troops therefore found a place of retreat, less than a week after the show of force by the paramilitary group Wagner in Russia. Welcomed in Belarus, the leader of the militia and those who have chosen to remain by his side will obviously be welcomed in the same place. The New York Times thinks he has identified their future cantonment.
The Belarusian regime seems to intend to keep all these potential putschists well in sight and also well away from the capital Minsk, 120 kilometers away in a southeasterly direction in the city of Assipovichy . During the last flyby of the satellites in mid-June, the he former military base in the city then seemed empty, disused, with no activity inside or around it. But since Tuesday, June 27, the photos taken from the sky reveal movement.
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Next to the three hectares of faded barracks or ammunition storage, on what appears to be a former army training ground, six dark rows appear. Those who have analyzed these images evoke temporary structures, large tents in all likelihood and not just any. Their size, their color, their layout resemble in all respects the Russian military camps built in a hurry since the start of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
These images do not show for the moment that the camp is being repopulated, but the description given of it corresponds in any case with the words of Belarusian President Lukashenko. When the Wagner men’s welcome loomed in his country on Tuesday, he made it clear to have offered” an abandoned base, with a fence. It’s all there, pitch your tents, we’ll help”.
A base… within reach of a putsch?
Nothing for the moment specifies what the Wagner group will do with this camp, but there is one obvious thing: using this place will make the task easier for the Belarusian government. Installing all the followers of Yevgueni Prigojine in the same place, in a camp that the local army knows by heart, surrounded by barbed wire, greatly facilitates their surveillance, like a sort of prison reserved for mercenaries.
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A question arises, however: when you have at hand, a thousand men who have shown that they are ready for anything – in Ukraine as in Africa – whose loyalty to an uncontrollable leader no longer seems to be demonstrated after the coup last Saturday, why park them only a few kilometers from another base, the one used by the 465th missile brigade of Belarus? The only one, according to an American expert quoted by the New York Timesto have Russian Iskander missiles, stealth devices that can be fired from a truck, capable of carrying thermobaric bombs or even nuclear charges.
A strange choice to wave this arsenal under the nose of Evgueni Prigojine and his men. At hand ; not to say, within reach of a putsch.