Is that this the place Wagner Group fighters could possibly be based mostly in Belarus?

For a base that Wagner Group forces are definitively not at – not less than for now – the coaching facility at Tsel, close to Osipovichi in Belarus, is attention-grabbing sufficient.

We noticed row upon row of tents – 300 in all and sufficient to deal with 5,000 troops, an adviser to the Belarusian defence minister advised us.

Wagner representatives haven’t been right here, nor was it constructed for them, stated Leonid Kasinsky, but when they resolve to return, they will be welcome.

The web site has been the topic of feverish hypothesis since satellite tv for pc imagery appeared to indicate the speedy development of tents right here within the days after Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s short-lived mutiny.

On 24 June, the day his males marched on Moscow, no exercise was seen on the web site from above.

Two days later, the primary few tents have been seen.

Had there been a connection between the 2 occasions, then Belarusian chief Alexander Lukashenko would have wanted to offer directions fairly rapidly.

He stated in a assembly with journalists on Thursday that he had supplied Wagner the bottom at Tsel, amongst others, however that they had stated no and their “vision for encampment” differed from his.

For the time being, he claimed, they have been again at their bases to relaxation and had made no agency choices as but about any Belarus deployment.

Not removed from Tsel is the army city of Osipovichi and the Yuzhny army garrison, which homes Russia’s 465th tactical missile brigade.

In February, the Ministry of Defence confirmed that Belarus had taken supply of Russian Iskander missiles, that are able to carrying nuclear payloads.

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Given the truth that the 465th brigade is Belarus’s solely tactical missile brigade, already armed with the soviet Tochka-U missile system, it might make sense for the Iskanders to have been deployed there.

On Thursday, Mr Lukashenko proudly declared that tactical nuclear warheads had already been delivered to storage websites on Belarusian territory and that the total quota can be in situ by the top of the 12 months.

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If these storage websites are close to Osipovichi, which might make sense given the truth that Iskander and Tochka-U missiles are each able to carrying ballistic and nuclear warheads, then Mr Kasinsky wasn’t giving a lot away.

“No one is ever going to tell you where the tactical nuclear weapons are stationed – you should understand that,” he stated.