FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Satellite images analyzed by the Associated Press news agency show what appeared to be a newly built military-style camp in Belarus, which a Belarusian guerrilla group and some officials said could be used to house mercenary fighters. Wagner.
Images provided by Planet Labs PLC suggest that dozens of tents have been erected over the past two weeks at a former military base outside Osipovichi, a town 230 kilometers north of the border with Ukraine.
In a satellite photo taken on June 15, there is no sign of the rows of white and green structures that are clearly visible in a later image, dated June 30.
Wagner group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and his fighters were offered refuge in Belarus last week after Minsk helped broker a deal to end what appeared to be an armed insurgency by the mercenary group.
Wagner's troops, who had been fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, took control of a military base in southern Russia and marched hundreds of kilometers toward Moscow, seemingly without resistance.
Belarus's authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said his country, a close ally of and dependent on Moscow, could use the experience and expertise of the Wagner group and announced that it had provided fighters with an "abandoned military base". to set up camp.
Aliaksandr Azarau, leader of the "BYPOL" guerilla group, which is made up of former soldiers and is against President Lukashenko, told the Associated Press news agency on Thursday, by phone, that a place was being built near Osipovichi for the mercenaries of the Wagner group.
Andriy Demchenko, spokesman for Ukraine's border force, told the Ukrainian newspaper "Ukrainska Pravda" on Saturday that up to 8,000 fighters of the Wagner group could be deployed in Belarus.
In response to such a scenario, he said that Ukraine will strengthen its border with Belarus to a length of 1,084 kilometers.
Mr. Lukashenko has previously allowed the Kremlin to use the territory of Belarus to send troops and weapons to Ukraine. He has also welcomed a continued Russian armed presence in Belarus, including joint military camps and exercises, as well as the deployment to his country of some of Russia's tactical nuclear weapons.
Spokesman Demchenko said that as of this week, about 2,000 troops from the regular units of the Russian army are stationed in Belarus. /VOA
Lini një Përgjigje