Bluff or not? “Wagner” PMC fighters present in Russia report on Telegram that they are preparing to storm the Ukrainian capital, La Libre Belgique reports, citing Rador.​

Members of Wagner’s group present in Russia said that they are preparing to storm the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, writes La Libre Belgique newspaper on Wednesday.

“Hello from Siberia. We practice recreational hunting. We are waiting for the order to storm Kyiv,” reads some of the photos published on Telegram on Wednesday morning. In the photos, Wagner’s soldier poses with a machine gun and the group’s flag.

First, what are the “Wagnerians” doing in Russia? Last week, the American think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) announced that troops sent to Belarus after Prigozhin’s failed coup attempt were preparing to return to Russia. Nothing specific, no movement was observed.

But according to one of the main commanders of the group nicknamed “Lotus” (real name Anton Yelizarov), the fighters who are on the territory of Russia are on vacation by order of Prigozhin. Then they will return to Belarus.

These cryptic messages would be the result of Wagner’s communication strategy, which aims to sow excitement. The frightened group puts pressure on the parties to the conflict in Ukraine. According to the quoted newspaper, such a message allows to alarm six countries at once: Poland and Lithuania, which fear that Wagner will not cross the border, Ukraine, which fears an attack from the north, and the Belarusian opposition, which fears that Lukashenko will cross the border. to use fighters to further suppress any protests, as well as France and the United States, who were concerned about Wagner’s expansion into Africa.

This report also supports the “masking” thesis, that is, a military hoax, which would mean that Wagner’s June uprising against Russia was nothing more than a stage. An unlikely hypothesis, notes La Libre Belgique.

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