After the long siege of Bakhmut, following by the dramatic and aborted insurrection and finally with Prigozhin\u2019s death in a filmed fiery plane crash in August, the mere mention of the name Wagner carries some weight, some drama.<\/p>\n
Whatever your opinion about the outfit, it\u2019s the stuff of legend.<\/p>\n
Tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides have lost their lives in Artemovsk\/Bakhmut, in what has been widely considered one of the toughest battles since the Second World War \u2013 the \u2018meat grinder\u2019, the \u2018vortex\u2019.<\/p>\n
While US and UK officials have, as of late, tried to downplay the strategic importance of\u00a0Bakhmut\u00a0(Ukrainian name), deeming it to be merely \u2018symbolic\u2019, Ukrainian president previously Zelensky stated that a loss in Bakhmut would mean an open road for Russian forced to attack other important cities in Eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n
As for the symbolic value of Bakhmut, Zelensky called it the\u00a0\u2018the fortress of our morale\u2019, so it\u2019s understandable that he and his Generals may have chosen to defend it \u2018to the end\u2019.<\/p>\n
Evgene Prigozhin is gone, but can Wagner continue?<\/p>\n
It was also announced by Russian MoD that Wagner troops would sign contracts with the Army, and the outfit was supposed to be disbanded.<\/p>\n
But now, it appears that the \u2018musicians\u2019 are starting to pop up again.<\/p>\n
Politico<\/a> reported:<\/p>\n \u201c<\/em>Mercenaries from the Russian Wagner Group are back fighting on the front line in Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian military official told POLITICO on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Several hundred fighters from the group once ruled by now-dead warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin were spotted fighting in the ranks of different Russian military units on the eastern front, said Colonel Serhiy Cherevatyi.\u201d<\/p>\n After the failed coup\/insurrection, Wagner troops were welcomed in Belarus by Alexander Lukashenko, or else deployed to African countries where Russia has interests.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2019Wagnerites were not hiding. Maybe they thought it would scare our soldiers. In fact, that showed Russia needs new meat for the grinder\u2019, said Cherevatyi, deputy commander of Ukraine\u2019s eastern group of troops for strategic communications.\u201d<\/p>\n Ukrainian wiretapping and reconnaissance can confirm that former Wagner forces were back on the Donbas battlefield.<\/p>\n It is reported that fewer than 1,000 Wagner mercenaries remained in Belarus as of September.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2019Currently, 200 of them remain instructors in the special units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Defense of Belarus. The rest are those who do not want to be recruited either to the new PMCs or to the Russian defense ministry\u2019, the resistance\u00a0center said,\u00a0citing its sources on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n Ukrainian fighters had previously confirmed to CNN of Wagner\u2019s presence near Bakhmut<\/a>.<\/p>\n At the same time, Russian sources also started to report on the reappearance of Wagner forces in the Special Military Operation zone, but surprisingly, not in the Donbas, but south on Kherson Oblast.<\/p>\n Russian Telegram channel Sitrep<\/a> reported:<\/p>\n \u201cA Number of Sources confirm that Groups of \u2018Wagner\u2019 PMC have now arrived in the Combat Zone in the #Kherson region.<\/p>\n Assault squads of the legendary compound are distributed across sectors. Details are not yet known. The information is classified as \u2018Secret\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Back in Africa, the \u2018musicians\u2019 are also active.<\/p>\n Central African republic President Faustin-Archange Touadera declared officially that the personnel of the Wagner PMC, who act as instructors and also take part in combat operations, will remain in the country, in a decision was made after consultations with Moscow.<\/p>\n At the same time, a giant transport plane \u2018linked to Wagner army\u2019 crashes in Africa<\/a>, exactly \u2018one month to the day after group\u2019s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in exploding business jet near Moscow\u2019.<\/p>\n Read more about Wagner and Bakhmut:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018Bakhmut Has Fallen!\u2019 \u2013 Russian Forces on the Brink of Capturing Strategic Donbas City \u2013 Ukrainians Control Half a Square Mile \u2013 Last Stronghold Under Heavy Attack<\/a><\/p>\n\n VIDEO: \u201cWagner\u201d Group Soldiers Raise the Russian Flag after Historic Victory in Bakhmut, Ukraine<\/a><\/p>\n\n The post Is Wagner PMC Returning? Fighters From Supposedly Disbanded Group Are Getting Spotted in Ukraine and in Africa<\/a> appeared first on The Gateway Pundit<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After the long siege of Bakhmut, following by the dramatic and aborted insurrection and finally with Prigozhin\u2019s death<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n