No need for new mobilisation to replace Wagner: Russian defence official
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The Wagner group played a key role in the capture of several eastern Ukrainian towns, including Bakhmut.
PHOTO: REUTERS
MOSCOW – There is no need for further mobilisation in Russia to replace Wagner troops who have left the battlefield in Ukraine after a short-lived mutiny, state media said on Monday, quoting a defence official.
In June, the head of the mercenary Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led his forces in a rebellion against Russia’s top military brass, in a huge embarrassment for the Kremlin.
Prigozhin later abandoned his advance on Moscow and struck a deal with the Kremlin under which he accepted exile in neighbouring Belarus.
“There is no threat at all regarding a drop in the combat potential, both in the mid-term and long-term perspective,” Mr Andrey Kartapolov, head of the State Duma Defence Committee, was quoted as saying by the state-backed Tass news agency.
“At the time of the (attempted) rebellion, there were no Wagner PMC employees at the forefront, they were all in camps,” he added.
“As for replacing them (Wagner forces) in the reserve, there is something and someone to replace them with.”
After sending troops to Ukraine in February 2022, President Vladimir Putin in September ordered a “partial” military call-up to boost regular forces, in the first military mobilisation in Russia since World War II.
Hundreds of thousands of men have been drafted, while tens of thousands more have fled abroad.
On June 13, before the Wagner rebellion, Mr Putin told reporters there was “no such need” for any additional mobilisation.
The Wagner Group played a key role in the capture of several eastern Ukrainian towns, including Bakhmut, after a mass recruitment drive in Russia, which included convicts.
Mr Putin has insisted that the mutineers did not galvanise support during their rebellion.
He initially condemned the rebel Wagner fighters as traitors and vowed tough punishment, but after the mutiny was halted, he gave the fighters the choice of either going back to their homes, joining the regular army or going into exile in Belarus.
A top Russian propagandist on Sunday accused the Wagner boss of going “off the rails” after receiving billions in public funds, as Moscow’s new narrative takes shape in the wake of the brief mutiny. AFP