The Wagner group has handed thousands of tonnes of weaponry and ammunition to Russia’s regular army, the country’s defence ministry has said, as Moscow moves to bring the rebellious mercenary force under its control.
The ministry said it had received more than 2,000 pieces of equipment, including hundreds of tanks and more than 2,500 tonnes of ammunition.
The handover suggests that the Wagner head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is following through with at least some aspects of the deal he made with the Kremlin last month under which his forces called off their short-lived mutiny.
Under the deal brokered by the Belarusian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, Prigozhin abandoned what he called a “march for justice” on Moscow by thousands of his recruits in exchange for safe passage to exile in Belarus. Criminal charges against Prigozhin were also dropped against his group as part of the agreement.
After the aborted rebellion, Vladimir Putin said Wagner would be dismantled in Russia and that its fighters could sign contracts with the defence ministry, leave for Belarus or go home.
The ministry on Tuesday also published a video showing officials inspecting some of the heavy military hardware reportedly belonging to Wagner.
During their march, Wagner forces were seen carrying several types of anti-aircraft weapons, and shot down six helicopters and a transport plane in one battle with the Russian army.
Questions emerged this week about Prigozhin’s current standing with the Kremlin after he appeared to move freely in Russia despite the deal with Moscow under which he agreed to relocate to Belarus.
Lukashenko initially said Prigozhin had travelled to Belarus on 27 June but the Kremlin revealed on Monday that the warlord met Putin in the Kremlin on 29 June, five days after his mercenary fighters marched towards Moscow.
Prigozhin’s current whereabouts are unknown. According to flight tracking data of his private jet, he has flown several times between Moscow and St Petersburg, where local news outlets reported sightings of him.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters last week the deal under which Prigozhin relocated to Belarus “remained relevant”.
Thousands of Wagner members are still believed to be based at the group’s camp in Russian-occupied areas of eastern Ukraine. Several commanders have indicated in interviews this week they were not planning to sign contracts with the ministry of defence.
In one interview, a prominent Wagner commander with the callsign Zombie claimed that “everyone” in the group was against registering with the regular army. “I am either in Wagner with my fighters, or I will gladly relax at home in front of the TV. And everyone thinks this way,” the commander said in a video interview published by a Wagner-linked Telegram channel.
Meanwhile, a senior Russian official said Sergei Surovikin, a top general who has not been seen in public since the Wagner mutiny, was “resting”. Andrei Kartapolov, the head of the State Duma defence committee, told a Russian reporter on Wednesday he was “not available right now”.
Surovikin, who is known to have a close relationship with Prigozhin, was being interrogated by the security forces at an undisclosed location over his links to the warlord, according to media reports.
