Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin announced in an audio message posted on his Telegram channel that he plans to recruit 30,000 additional mercenaries by mid-May. According to him, recruitment centers opened in 42 cities of Russia register a total of 500 to 800 new recruits per day, it is not possible to verify this information for now.
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Prigogine also claims that this new recruitment drive is proceeding faster than expected and that the new recruits are in better physical condition than the first volunteers who signed up at the start of the war.
The troops of the Wagner group involved in the Ukrainian front suffered heavy losses, particularly in the battle for the capture of Bakhmut, which was the longest and bloodiest battle of the Ukrainian war since the summer of last year.
At the heart of the Russian system
By January, American intelligence estimated that Wagner had already lost 50,000 men, including 40,000 prisoners recruited from Russian prisons in exchange for amnesty if they survived six months of war.
Ukraine, meanwhile, claims that as many as 30,000 Wagner mercenaries have been killed, wounded or deserted, which again cannot be independently verified.
Russia’s military position in Ukraine is based on private armed groups. The “Wagner” group, which has recruited particularly massively in Russian prisons, is thus leading in Bakhmut, the epicenter of the fighting in eastern Ukraine. This private armed group, led by Yevgeny Prigogine, is also present on other continents, particularly in Africa, because, according to its critics, it carries out the main activities of the Kremlin there.
But Wagner, who operates with considerable autonomy in the field, maintains strained relations with the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense, accusing them of incompetence or even treachery due to the lack of supply of artillery ammunition. Russian MPs on Tuesday voted on a text that punishes hard imprisonment “discredit“Armed groups like Wagner already operate against the Russian military and serve to suppress critics of the attack in Ukraine.
Source: Le Figaro
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.