Wagner mercenaries train with Belarusian troops near Polish border

MOSCOW: On Thursday, mercenaries from Russia’s military business Wagner began joint drills with the Belarusian military along the border with Poland. This comes after the mercenaries relocated to Belarus after their brief insurrection, a move that led Warsaw to redeploy its soldiers. Wagner is a subsidiary of Russia’s military company Wagner.

The Belarusian Ministry of Defence announced that the Belarusian special forces will participate in the manoeuvres that will take place at a firing range close to the city of Brest and will last for a total of one week.

The ministry noted that Wagner’s experience in battle will contribute to the Belarusian military’s efforts to become more contemporary.

A video that was made public on Wednesday seems to show Wagner’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin for the first time since he led the uprising a month ago.

Prigozhin is seen in the video telling his men that they will spend some time in Belarus training its military in order to assist in “making the Belarusian army the second strongest army in the world before they deploy to Africa.

Since the establishment of the private army in 2014, Wagner mercenaries have been sent to a number of nations across Africa in addition to their role in the conflict in Ukraine.

During Prigozhin’s rebellion, which began on June 23 and lasted for less than 24 hours, his mercenaries took control of the military headquarters in the city of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia without firing a single shot. They then marched to within 200 kilometres (125 miles) of the capital city of Moscow.

The revolt was met with little resistance, and the mercenaries were successful in bringing down at least six military helicopters and an aircraft used as a command post, which resulted in the deaths of at least ten servicemen.

Valery Gerasimov, who requested that contracts be signed between the Wagner forces and the Ministry of Defence.

After Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko mediated a deal to put an end to the uprising in exchange for amnesty for Prigozhin and his soldiers and permission to transfer to Belarus, he gave the order for his forces to return to their camps.

The uprising posed the most serious danger to the reign of Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has been in place for 23 years. It undermined his authority and revealed the inadequacies of the government.