NATO Secretary General Reveals the Current Status of Wagner Fighters in Belarus and Africa

Although Wagner’s boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, made a deal to move to Belarus, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that only a handful of Wagner fighters ended up there.

In an interview with Politico on Wednesday, the NATO secretary said that Wagner forces are still active in Africa and far from the front lines in Ukraine, but not many of them have reached Belarus.

“We have seen some preparations for the deployment of Wagner forces,” Stoltenberg added. But, he added, “we haven’t seen many of them pray yet.”

He also stressed that NATO is closely following the developments in Belarus, noting that “what we have seen is that the Wagner forces continue to work in Africa”, stressing that although many have not left for Belarus, “some of them are in Ukraine, but not on the front line.\” \”.

However, the General Secretary was cautious in his assessments of what lay ahead for Wagner.

“I think it’s somewhat premature to draw any definitive conclusions” about the implications of the recent Wagner events, he said.

Big challenges await Kyiv

Asked about Ukraine’s counter-offensive, the Secretary General expressed optimism but acknowledged the serious challenges Kyiv forces face on the battlefield.

“Ukrainians have made progress, but they face a fierce struggle,” he said. “They faced difficult terrain and faced entrenched Russian resistance,” the NATO chief continued, referring to “many pre-prepared defensive lines.”

The Secretary-General indicated that this had affected the pace of progress.

Notably, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko brokered an agreement to send Prigozhin home after the failed insurgency in Russia, raising concerns about the possibility of Wagner’s presence in the region in the future.