Wagner Group continues to recruit militants for war in Ukraine
The Wagner Group Private Military Company (PMC) is continuing to recruit fighters for the war in Ukraine throughout Russia, despite Yevgeny Prigozhin's failed rebellion attempt.
Source: BBC
Details: BBC journalists noted that they have called dozens of numbers of recruitment centres located in Russia. The journalists told the centres that they were applying at their brother’s request, and were interested in the possibility of joining the war against Ukraine as part of the Wagner Group.
In particular, a woman from the Viking sports club in Murmansk, Russia, confirmed that the club was still recruiting fighters for the war in Ukraine.
The BBC noted that Wagner Group's long list of contacts is based mainly on fight clubs such as martial arts schools and boxing clubs.
Several people who answered the phone call emphasised that the new recruits sign contracts with Wagner Group PMC but not with the Russian Defence Ministry.
"It's absolutely nothing to do with the Defence Ministry," said the Sparta sports club in Volgograd. "Nothing has stopped, we're still recruiting."
"We are working. If something had changed, they'd have told us. But there's nothing," a female recruiter in Krasnodar said firmly.
Background:
- On the evening of 23 June, Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that the regular Russian army had launched a missile strike on the Wagner mercenaries’ rear camps. He therefore deployed 25,000 of his mercenaries "to restore justice".
- On 24 June, the Wagnerites took control of military facilities in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and seized military facilities in the city of Voronezh. They were on their way to Moscow, and the Russian capital was preparing for defence.
- In an emergency address on 24 June, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia was "fighting for survival" and that attempts were being made to "organise a rebellion" in the country. Ukrainian intelligence said he had urgently left Moscow for his bunker in Valdai.
- On 24 June, following a conversation with Alexander Lukashenko, Prigozhin said that his mercenaries were heading back to their field camps. He had been promised that the criminal charges against him in Russia were to be dropped, and he was to "leave for Belarus".
- On 27 June, Yevgeny Prigozhin's business jet flew from the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don to Belarus, and another plane arrived there from St Petersburg.
- The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) reported that the criminal case of the armed rebellion against Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC), had been closed.
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