Following the presumed death of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, members of his mercenary group have started leaving their large base in Belarus, according to reports.
Prigozhin was listed as a passenger on a jet that crashed in Russia’s Tver region on Wednesday, killing all 10 people aboard. On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin provided something of a confirmation of Prigozhin’s death when he spoke about the crash and his time knowing the Wagner founder.
The National Resistance Center of Ukraine, which was created by the Armed Forces of Ukraine soon after Putin launched his invasion in February 2022, reported Wagner fighters in Belarus began disembarking in convoys following news of the plane crash and were “probably” headed to Russia. The center added Belarusian special services “are trying to prevent the mercenaries’ vehicles from leaving.”
Radio Svoboda, the Russian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, reported that a satellite image taken Wednesday shows about a third of the primary Wagner camp in Belarus has been cleared out. Belaruski Hajun, an independent Minsk-based monitoring group, also described the satellite image showing the camp being dismantled.
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The satellite image obtained by Radio Svoboda came from Planet Labs services and shows the Wagner camp in the village of Tsel, which is near the town of Osipovichi and close to the Ukrainian border.
Previous satellite images showed Wagner members began arriving in Tsel in June following Prigozhin’s failed mutiny against Moscow in late June. One of the conditions for Kremlin charges to be dropped against Prigozhin was for him to go into exile in Belarus, and larger droves of his fighters began building tents in Tsel throughout July.
Newsweek reached out to the Belarusian Minister of Foreign Affairs via email for comment.
According to Radio Svoboda, the Tsel camp recently contained 273 residential tents, and of those, 101 have been already been dismantled. The outlet estimated each tent accommodates about 20 troops, which it said means around 2,000 Wagner fighters could be moving out of the territory.
Radio Svoboda said other satellite images studied by its editors “do not show the formation of similar tent camps on the territory of other Belarusian training grounds or military units.” The outlet noted Telegram channels closely associated with Wagner have included messages about members of the organization being sent on “long vacations” to Russia.
“There is a possibility that some of Wagner’s mercenaries began to be transferred to Africa,” but Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel have shown no evidence of this thus far, Radio Svoboda wrote.