Is Putin now sending his brutal shadow army to Ukraine?
Created: 02/16/2022, 12:11 p.m
Russian President Vladimir Putin: What connection do he and his country have to the “Wagner Group”?
© Kirill Kudryavtsev/dpa
The "Group Wagner" is considered a brutal mercenary commando that represents the interests of Russia - without there being an official connection.
Will the group be used in Ukraine?
Munich/Kiev - The first troops are withdrawing, the situation in Ukraine does not seem to be escalating for the time being.
President Vladimir Putin speaks of dialogue at the meeting with Chancellor Scholz.
A war could be prevented - and yet mercenaries may already be making their way into the country who could represent Russia's interests very unofficially: Putin's so-called shadow army.
The “Wagner Group”.
According to a report by the US news
site Daily Beast
, dozens of mercenaries from the "Wagner Group" have set off from Africa - according to a military official to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
The group is seen as Russia's brutal shadow army.
There are photos that supposedly show the Wagner offshoot "Task Force Rusich" in Kharkov, Ukraine.
Rape and looting: "Group Wagner" is brutal
Private combat troops are actually banned in Russia, as Russia expert Gerhard Mangott from the University of Innsbruck confirmed to
Focus Online
.
Mangott believes it is likely that Wagnerists will be deployed in Ukraine, for example as part of acts of sabotage.
The group has already been deployed in conflicts several times: for example in the Crimean crisis in 2014, when they fought on the side of pro-Russian separatists.
According to numerous media reports, the group has also been deployed in the Syrian civil war, in Liyben, in Mali and in the Central African Republic.
According to a report in the
Süddeutsche Zeitung
, the mercenaries there were accused of mass shootings, rape and looting.
Wagnerists also published photos of desecrations on the Internet.
"Wagner is closely, often directly, connected to the Russian state," Andras Racz from the German Society for Foreign Relations told
WAZ
.
Racz explains that Wagnerists are flown to their locations in Russian military aircraft and are also issued with passports by the state.
In Libya in 2020, a Wagner soldier left his tablet - the only items on the shopping list were weapons that only the Russian military can obtain.
They also train on the premises of the military intelligence service GRU.
Putin: Russia has nothing to do with the Wagner group
There are also personal connections: Wagner founder and commander Dmitry Utkin is closely connected to Putin companion and oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin.
A Russian journalist told
rbb
in 2021: "Evgeny Prigozhin is a person who enforces Russia's foreign policy interests with unofficial, hybrid means"
The president, however, denies any connection between the state and the Wagner group.
"The Russian state has nothing to do with Wagner," Putin said to French President Emmanuel Macron just a few days ago when it came to Mali, where Wagner soldiers had been sighted.
But the important addition was this: Mali still has the right to work with private Russian companies.
(cg)