Telegram channels associated with the Wagner Group released a video on Wednesday purportedly showing the paramilitary outfit's boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, saying he will make the Belarusian army better than Russia's.
"Welcome lads...Welcome to Belarusian soil," a man who sounded like Prigozhin said in the video, which Newsweek couldn't immediately verify. The footage, which was shot after nightfall, appeared to show a man with Prigozhin's profile.
"Now what is happening at the front [in Ukraine] is an embarrassment in which we do not need to participate," said Prigozhin, adding that as long as the Wagner Group is in Belarus, they will make the Belarusian army "the second army in the world, and if necessary, we will stand up for them."
He was alluding to recent remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said in June that the Russian army is now second strongest in Ukraine. Since 2011, the Russian army has consistently ranked second after the United States among the strongest in the world in the Global Firepower ranking of military strength.
Though specific details remain unclear, under the deal brokered by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko that ended Prigozhin's mutiny in Russia in late June, the charges against him and his Wagner Group fighters were dropped and they were to relocate to Belarus. The Wagner Group leader hasn't been seen in public since the end of his uprising.
Prigozhin also asked his fighters to pay attention to the fact that the Belarusians met them "not only as heroes, but also as brothers."
He urged his Wagner men to "prepare" to raise "their level" and "to a new path, to Africa."
"And maybe we will return to the war at the moment when we are sure that we will not be forced to embarrass ourselves and our experience," Prigozhin said.
Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry via email for comment.
Prigozhin said the Wagner Group "will bide our time until we can prove ourselves in full. Therefore, it was decided that we will be here, in Belarus, for some time."
The clip marks the first video "sighting" of Prigozhin since he led his fighters as part of a "March of Justice" against the Kremlin's top brass from southern Russia towards Moscow on June 24.
It isn't clear when or where the footage was filmed, however, on Wednesday, the Belarusian Hajun project, which monitors military activity, said a fifth column of the Wagner Group arrived in the village of Tsel in the Mogilev region of Belarus.
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Update 07/19/23, 11:00 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional background information.
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About the writer
Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel ... Read more
