The Wagner Group has deployed more than a thousand mercenaries in Ukraine
Militants of the Russian Wagner group have been deployed in eastern Ukraine, the British Ministry of Defense said on Monday, estimating that more than 1,000 fighters of the consulting organizations are or are already involved in the war.
“The Russian private military company Wagner Group has developed in eastern Ukraine,” the UK Department of Defense said via Twitter.
“It is expected to send more than 1,000 mercenaries, including senior executives, to combat operations,” he continued.
The Wagner Group, which Western analysts say has close ties to Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin, has been accused of atrocities in Mali, Libya and Syria.
“Because of the heavy losses” of the Russian army and the fact that “the invasion (of Ukraine) has ended”, Moscow “probably had to transfer Wagner’s personnel to Ukraine at the expense of Africa and Syria”, always according to the Ministry of Defense. of Britain.
In mid-March, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated that Russia had compiled lists of 40,000 Syrian army fighters and allied paramilitaries ready to deploy to Ukraine.
A Western official said Friday that Russian forces were concentrating their efforts in Ukraine on Donba, where they were facing “the best-equipped and most well-trained Ukrainian forces.”
According to the same source, “separatist forces, with reinforcements from the Russian army and Wagner’s personnel in the Luhansk and Danieck regions, are trying to encircle them.”
The Wagner Group is among 59 companies and individuals who on Thursday were targeted by London for new sanctions on imports into Ukraine, which the Russian military entered on February 24.
In addition to the mercenary company, the Russian giant diamond company Alrosa as well as Rushydro, a construction group specializing in hydroelectric power plants, also came into focus. The list of natural and legal persons subject to sanctions by London now has more than 1,000 entries.
Source: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ