The representatives of the Wagner Group recommended this Wednesday to the mercenaries members of its ranks to find another job after the death of their leader, Yevgueni Prigozhin, who was buried on Tuesday in a St. Petersburg cemetery.
“Several tens of thousands of fully prepared combatants are ready for work and willing to defend their homeland (in Ukraine), but due to well-known circumstances for now they will not let us,” Wagner’s representative said in an audio reproduced by the “Bashnie Istorii” portal. He adds that the Wagnerites are now forced to look for work in Africa and the Middle East, but that “the situation there is not easy either”.
“We have tough competition from the Ministry of Defense and the National Guard who also plan and also try to access (those areas) with analogous activities to ours,” he says.
Wagner’s spokesman explained that Prigozhin addressed that issue on his last trip to Africa, where several countries showed interest in his services, although those future contracts are up in the air.
“We will try to find work for our members. When and how much, we do not know. Therefore, wait or look for another job. Follow the international situation closely. If our team receives permission to return to the area of the special military operation (in Ukraine) , then we will actively resume the recruitment of men. there will be work”he commented.
At the time, Russian President Vladimir Putin described the Wagnerites as heroes for last May’s seizure of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, in the Donetsk region.
However, the group fell out of favor after starring in the June 23 and 24 a failed armed rebellion, which ended with the agreement to move their base to Belarus.
weeks before dying Prigozhin acknowledged that Wagner would no longer fight in Ukraine and announced the resumption of its activities on the African continent.
However, on his return from Africa, he traveled to Moscow and the private plane in which he was flying crashed on August 23 at 300 kilometers from the capital.
At the moment the causes of the accident are unknown, although supporters of Prigozhin, the opposition in exile and the Western press accuse Putin of giving the order to liquidate Wagner’s boss, something that the Kremlin categorically denied.
According to various sources, part of the Wagnerites left Belarusian territory, although minsk maintains that Russian mercenaries have not gone anywhere and others have gone on vacation.
Some experts consider that Wagner no longer exists as a mercenary organization, even more so when Putin signed a decree for all paramilitaries and volunteers to obligatorily swear allegiance to the Russian flag, although others consider that they still represent a threat, be it in Ukraine, Belarus or Africa.
Prigozhin was buried the day before in Saint Petersburg, his hometown and Wagner’s headquarters.secretly and between strict security measures.
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As reported by the Moscow Times newspaper today, the decision to hold a secret burial was taken by the Kremlin and the Federal Security Service (FSB).
The sources cited by the outlet point out that the Kremlin never forgave Prigozhin, not so much the “treason“, but “humiliation” which led to the armed uprising that put Putin in a position of weakness in the eyes of the military and Russian citizens.