The number of mercenaries deployed in Ukraine by the Wagner Group, a private military force with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, is expected to more than triple to at least 1,000 fighters from about 300 a month ago, shortly before the invasion. a U.S. official said Friday. The official added that the mercenaries would focus on defeating Ukrainian forces in the Donbass region of the country, where Russian-backed separatists have been waging war since 2014, and elsewhere in eastern Ukraine. The deployment of trusted Russian mercenaries to help a key part of the Russian invasion underscores the Kremlin’s efforts to reorganize and refocus its monthly military campaign, which has so far failed to achieve Putin’s original goals. western officials. The Russian military on Friday said it might reduce its military ambitions and focus on the eastern Donbass region, although military analysts said it remained to be seen whether the move was a substantial change or a maneuver to divert attention to another. attack. Wagner is best known for a number of Russian mercenary groups, which over the years have become more formal, operating more like Western military contractors. “The Wagner Group is a private military contractor for Russia,” said John F. Kirby, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman. “We know they are interested in increasing their footprint in Ukraine.” Wagner’s fighters have accumulated military experience in conflicts in the Middle East and have served as security advisers to various governments, including in the Central African Republic, Sudan and, more recently, Mali. Although loosely linked to the Russian military, they operate at a distance, which has allowed the Kremlin to try to divert responsibility whenever the fighters’ behavior is brought under control. Underlining how serious Wagner’s role in the conflict in Ukraine is, Wagner’s top leaders themselves are expected to grow in the Donetsk and Luhansk separatist enclaves to coordinate Russia’s efforts, the US official said. condition of anonymity to discuss. confidential business evaluations. Wagner is transporting not only some of its mercenaries to Libya and Syria to Ukraine, but also artillery, air defense and radar used by the group in Libya, the official said. The Russian military supports these transfers by providing military cargo aircraft for the relocation of personnel and equipment. While Wagner’s numbers are tiny compared to the more than 150,000 troops Putin gathered at Ukraine’s border and eventually sent to the country, their presence is an indication that Putin is taking a page from his book in 2014, when the Kremlin deployed Russian mercenaries, mostly Russian army veterans, to bolster rebel forces in eastern Ukraine. UPDATED March 25, 2022, 7:00 p.m. ET Earlier this year, Western intelligence services spotted the first small group of Wagner mercenaries fleeing Libya and Syria to Russian-controlled Crimea. From there, they infiltrated the lands of the revolutionaries. But their initial performance on the battlefield was undoubtedly ominous, as they faced tougher resistance than expected from Ukrainian soldiers. By the end of February, 200 Russian mercenaries had been killed, the US official said. The original purpose of mercenary development was a matter of debate. Some European and American officials said the mercenaries were stationed in rebel territory to carry out sabotage operations and carry out false-flag operations in order to show that Ukrainian forces were attacking civilian targets.
Russia-Ukraine War: Key Developments
However, a Ukrainian military official said shortly before the invasion began that mercenaries had been brought in mainly to fill the ranks of the separatist forces, so that local fighters appeared to be leading the attack. The mercenaries are now taking on a more direct militant and leading role in eastern Ukraine, the US official said. In 2017, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Dmitry Utkin, the founder of the Wagner Group, for his role in recruiting soldiers to join the separatist forces in Ukraine. In 2021, a United Nations report found that mercenaries from Wagner, based in the Central African Republic, had killed civilians, looted homes, and shot dead worshipers in a mosque. Several years earlier, Wagner fighters in Syria had partnered with pro-government Syrian forces to launch a large artillery barrage against a U.S. command in a desert area, apparently in an attempt to seize US-protected oil and gas fields. In response, the Americans called for air strikes that resulted in 200 to 300 deaths. In both cases, the Russian government refused to intervene.
