I read it as “close personal associate” meaning Lukashenko.
I’d guess that the Wagner troops who don’t sign loyalty oaths to Russia MoD will be shipped off to Africa. Wagner is still involved in multiple countries there, and this is a logical way to get them out of the picture but still useful.
This is a fast-moving situation, but reports earlier today said that Wagner itself was going to become Belarusian, and in fact they are already building a base of operations/training facility 200km north of the border with Ukraine.
Here, this just posted a minute ago:
So those that fired on Russians will be hunted, but the rest of them are free to either join the military, or join Wagner in Belarus. I would guess approximately zero percent of them will opt to join the Russian military. Maybe some specialists, some pilots or other highly trained soldiers who can be paid well in Russia might stay, but the rest are, IMO, going to Belarus.
I mean, if it’s all legit it works out well for everyone. Wagner stays together, gets out of the Bakhmut meat grinder, and keeps its lucrative operations going in Africa and elsewhere. Lukashenko gets himself some paramilitary forces he doesn’t have to answer for. And if Wagner is still in the Ukraine fight, they can now launch attacks from Belarus without formally bringing Belarus in the war. And Putin gets to claim that he has freed Russia of mercenaries, which are supposed to be illegal.
The other possibility is that in a few months Wagner may turn on Lukashenko.
I think of the Protestant mercenary general Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, who during the Thirty Years War recruited and led (semi-)private armies as a military contractor (common back then) and served in succession the German Electoral Palatinate, the Dutch, the Danes, the Swedes and finally the French who “inherited” his army (the ‘Bernadines’) after he died. Always fought for one (religious) side, but had many different masters.
Family might play a part in who takes a Golden Ticket to Belarus. I assume (though the who the fuck knows about any of this) that this is effectively a banishment, so some might prefer not to potentially sever connections in Russia. But then these are mercenaries, not always well known for their patriotic attachments.
Yeah. And also, I would expect that these guys would not have an easy time of it in the military. They’d probably wind up being used for artillery fodder and suicide attacks. There’s no love lost between PMC Wagner and the regular forces.
Apparently, Yukashenko also gets reduced gas prices for his country out of the deal.
“Sent to Belarus” is reminding me of “a trip to Belize” from Breaking Bad.
Letting someone use your territory to launch attacks on another country is bringing your country into the war, even if your army doesn’t join in the fighting. Belarus already did this when they let the Russian army use their territory as base for their original attack at the beginning of the war, so Belarus is, in fact, a party to the war.
Sounds like a great example I don’t know anything about.
Another kind of historical example I saw somewhere in punditry is — peasant rebellion. Since most peasant rebellions utterly failed, this suggests Prigozhin was neither fully informed nor expert at overthrowing a government. If that’s the correct model, Prigozhin is in a hopeless position.
Soon we’ll find out who is the real revolutionaries
And I don’t want my people to be tricked by mercenaries
—Bob Marley, “Zimbabwe”
As a reminder…
That was June 17. And now Prigozhin is going to Belarus with Wagner?
I sure hope this isn’t a Trojan PMC. But if it was, it would make everything we’ve seen logical. It would either be a ruse for getting Putin’s man in and fooling Lukashenko, or Putin and Lukashenko figuring out a way to get Prigozhin and his army into Belarus to control the nukes or something and fooling the west.
I hope that’s not what this is, because it carries disturbing implications. For instance, nuclear blackmail works much better when it’s carried out by an ‘out of control’ Wagner. A nuke launch by Belarus might not result in a nuke fired at Russia. And Kiev is very close. It might be harder to shoot down a missile fired from Belarus than from Russia. It forces Ukraine to commit defenses to the north as well.
So…what does Belarus do with Wagner? Just host them as a staging base as they go off to the world to do whatever?
I don’t kmow, but the Belarusian military is quite small. Total regular forces are around 60,000-70,000. Wagner could wind up with almost as many, and more of them will be combat soldiers.
Whatever reason for Wagner landing in Belarus, there is now a nuclear capable country hosting a mercenary force potentially capable of taking down the government.
There are reports that the Belorussian military refused Lukashenko’s orders of going into Ukraine. According to Azerbaijani media (broken link to allow the system to post it):
htt ps://youtu.be/WtdN6i7PK7s
If this is true, having Wagner in Belorussian territory might be seen by Lukashenko as an insurance against any attempt at open rebellion by his own military.
Of course, it would remain to be seen how the Belarusian military would take such an “intrusion” in their own turf. Also, whether Wagner would actually obey Lukashenko.
OMG! What a surprise! Putin goes back on his word!
Straight from TASS:
"MOSCOW, June 26. /TASS/. The investigation of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC), accused of organizing an armed mutiny, has not been closed, a source in the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office confirmed to TASS on Monday.
“The criminal case against Prigozhin has not been closed. The investigation is continuing,” the source said.
Kommersant newspaper reported on Monday that as of the morning of June 26, the criminal case concerning the organization of the armed mutiny involving Prigozhin has not been closed and continues to be investigated by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB)."
Tsk, tsk, tsk……
So, drop the charges until he’s out of the country, then charge him in absentia? That’s one way to exile someone.
Interesting take on this from Krushchev’s grand-daughter:
How well did that work out for Afghanistan and Al Qaeda?
Al Qaeeda and the Emirate did not have nukes, nor the unconstitutional support of a nuclear power.
So he gambled that the army would support them but lost the Wagner wager?
Nobody has the tech to shoot down an ICBM, and an ICBM can be launched from anywhere on the planet to anywhere else.