Prigozhin sends signs of life
Putin hints at new leader for Wagner mercenaries
07/14/2023, 7:15 p.m
Belarus is to become the new home of the Wagner mercenaries. Chief Prigozhin’s unit is now training troops there. Russian President Putin is already talking about a successor to the rebellious businessman.
According to a newspaper, Russian President Vladimir Putin has hinted that the Wagner Group’s mercenaries could be given a new leadership. The business newspaper “Kommersant” published an interview with Putin, in which it was in particular about his meeting with the mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and Wagner commanders after the aborted uprising of the group.
The president said he showed the mercenaries ways to continue their service. Among them was to serve under the command of a senior Wagner commander with the combat name “Sedoi”. “Nothing would have changed for them. They would have been led by the same person who had been their actual commander all along.”
According to French and EU documents, insiders and media reports, “Sedoi” – which translates as “grey-haired” – is Andrei Troshev, a highly decorated veteran of the Russian wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya. He hails from Putin’s hometown of St. Petersburg and was photographed in the company of the President a few years ago.
According to the interview, Putin stated that many of the Wagner fighters present nodded in agreement after the proposal. However, Prigozhin did not see this. “Prigozhin (…) after listening said ‘No, the guys will not agree with such a decision’,” Putin was quoted as saying. These sentences from “Kommersant” are not to be found in the official Russian government transcript of Thursday’s interview.
Wagner boss Prigozhin and dozens of his commanders met with President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin a few days after an uprising against the Russian military leadership that quickly ended on June 24. The Kremlin did not provide any information on the results of the three-hour debate. However, Putin and Lukashenko had informed that Wagner could find a new base in Belarus.
Meanwhile, Prigozhin sent a sign of life, presumably from Belarus. The 62-year-old greets the camera in the picture posted in the Wagner Telegram group, sitting on a camp bed in his underwear. The photo is said to have come from the Belarusian Defense Ministry, which announced that Wagner had now started work in Russia’s neighboring country.