From Le Figaro with AFP
Published 2 hours ago, updated 33 minutes ago
The flag of the Wagner private mercenary group at the site of the plane crash that killed Prigozhin, in Russia’s Tver region, September 1, 2023. OBTAINED BY Portal/Portal
UPDATE ON THE SITUATION – Putin’s request to Andrei Trochev is further evidence of the integration of Wagner veterans into the Russian army.
Russia says it shot down 11 Ukrainian drones, Putin asks Andrei Trochev, Prigozhin’s former lieutenant at Wagner, to train volunteers to fight in Ukraine… Le Figaro takes stock of the situation.
Putin asked Prigozhin’s ex-lieutenant to train volunteers to fight in Ukraine
Vladimir Putin tasked a former lieutenant of Yevgeny Prigoyine, head of the Wagner Group, who fell out of favor in the eyes of the Russian president and died when his plane crashed in late August, with training volunteers to fight in Ukraine. “At the last meeting we discussed the fact that you will be involved in the training of volunteer units capable of carrying out various combat missions, mainly, of course, in the zone of “special military operation” in Ukraine, Putin explained Andreï Trochev on Thursday, according to a Kremlin press release dated Friday, September 29. According to Vladimir Putin, Trochev, who is called “Sedoï” (gray hair) in Russian and is a former very close confidant of Yevgeny Prigozhin in the Wagner Galaxy, has the experience to carry out such a mission, three months after Russia’s failed attempt at an uprising the paramilitary group.
A retired colonel, he is often cited as one of Wagner’s founders and is under European sanctions for being “directly involved in the group’s military operations… in Syria,” according to an EU document dated late 2021. “You know the ones Questions that must be clarified in advance so that combat work is carried out as best and successfully as possible,” the Russian president argued in turn to the “former military.” The Russian president also praised the fact that Trochev “maintains good relations with (his) comrades-in-arms.”
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Vladimir Putin’s request, made official in the presence of Deputy Defense Minister Younouss-Bek Evkourov, is further evidence of the integration of Wagner veterans into the Russian army. “(Trochev) is already working in the Ministry of Defense,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov even confirmed to the Ria Novosti news agency a few moments later.
In late June, after Wagner’s failed mutiny, the Kremlin gave the paramilitary group’s fighters three options: join the Russian army, return to civilian life or go into exile in Belarus, an ally of Moscow in its attack on Ukraine. But the death of their leader Evgeni Prigojine at the end of August when his plane between Moscow and Saint Petersburg crashed, along with several members of his bodyguard, meant the end of Wagner in the form he had known up to that point.
Russia says it shot down eleven Ukrainian drones
On Friday, September 29, Russia claimed to have shot down 11 Ukrainian drones during the night. A local governor reported that a power pole was damaged by one of these devices in a Russian village near the Ukrainian border. “Eleven Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed by air defense systems (…), including one over the territory of the Kaluga region and ten over the Kursk region,” the Russian Defense Ministry said via Telegram.
Kursk Governor Roman Starovoit previously said the border region with eastern Ukraine had come under “massive attacks” by Ukrainian drones. In Belaïa, less than 25 kilometers from the border, “a Ukrainian drone dropped two explosive devices on a power pole,” Roman Starovoit said on Telegram. “One of the transformers caught fire. Five towns and a hospital were cut off from the power grid. Firefighters rushed to the scene,” he said. Power will be restored “as soon as it is safe to do so,” he added.
The Russian Defense Ministry previously announced via Telegram that it had destroyed two Ukrainian drones over the neighboring Belgorod region. The ministry said a first drone was destroyed around 5 p.m. on Thursday, about four hours before a second drone was shot down “over the Belgorod region by deployed air defense systems.”
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