British report
400 mercenaries deployed to Zelenskyy in Kyiv
2/28/2022 3:42 p.m
The Wagner mercenary group has been fighting in Putin’s wars for years. Hundreds of fighters were deployed against the Ukrainian government during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, writes the British Times.
According to the British Times, more than 400 mercenaries are in Kyiv to kill Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. They should also eliminate his government and prepare the ground for a Russian takeover of power in the Ukrainian capital. writes the newspaper.
Accordingly, the Russian “Group Wagner” brought mercenaries to Ukraine five weeks ago. The “Times” writes that the Ukrainian government received the relevant information on Saturday morning. Hours later, Kyiv imposed a 36-hour curfew. There was also a curfew from Sunday 5 p.m. to Monday 7 a.m. Kiev’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko warned that anyone who is seen on the streets during this time will be considered an enemy. The military and territorial defense are in the process of “tracking down and neutralizing saboteurs,” he wrote on his Telegram channel on Sunday.
According to reports, the Wagner group was used, among other things, in the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014, in the Donbass war in the same year, in Syria and most recently in Mali. A source close to the leadership of the Wagner group told The Times that a total of 2,000 to 4,000 mercenaries arrived in Ukraine in January. Some would be deployed in the Donbass, 400 would have reached Kyiv from Belarus.
The mercenaries have been assured, the source said, that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not seeking a result in the ongoing negotiations with Ukraine. It’s just about creating a distraction. The mercenaries would now wait for a signal from the Kremlin to strike. Their job should be completed in the next few days, they were promised high bonuses and a safe exit from Ukraine by the end of the week.
In addition to Zelensky, 23 people are on the Russian death list, including the prime minister, ministers, Klitschko and his brother Wladimir. Zelensky himself said on Friday that, according to Ukrainian information, “the enemy identified me as the number one target and my family as the number two target.”
The Russian government denies having any contact with the Wagner group. When French President Emmanuel Macron was at the Kremlin in early February, Putin claimed he was unaware of mercenary activities in Mali. The Wagner group is a private Russian company that can accept orders. The head of the Wagner group is a right-wing Russian ex-soldier named Dmitri Utkin, and the group’s financier is the Russian oligarch and Putin confidante Yevgeny Prigozhin.