Wagner Group handing over military equipment to Russian army

Kathmandu: Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group is preparing to hand over heavy military equipment to the defence ministry.

The Group is preparing to transfer the equipment to the Russian army, RIA news agency cited the ministry as saying on Tuesday, following the end of a brief rebellion at the weekend by the mercenary fighters.

‘Preparations are underway for the transfer of heavy military equipment from the private military company Wagner to units of the Russian armed forces,’ the defence ministry said in a statement online.

Wagner fighters on Saturday took control of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and its military command centre steering the Ukraine campaign, then driving an armed convoy within 200 km of Moscow before aborting their insurrection.

Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the nation about Wagner’s aborted rebellion on Monday, thanking soldiers and mercenaries for avoiding bloodshed and stating that Wagner mutineers could either join the army, or return home, or go to Belarus.

Earlier, the mercenary group’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin defended his actions in an audio statement, claiming he did not aim to overthrow the leadership of Russia but to ‘avoid the destruction of Wagner’.

Putin also accused Ukraine and its Western allies of wanting Russians to ‘kill each other’ during a revolt by Wagner mercenaries, which stunned the country with an aborted march on Moscow over the weekend.

While, US President Joe Biden declared Monday that the United States and NATO had played no part in the Wagner mercenary group’s short-lived insurrection in Russia, calling the uprising and the longer-term challenges it poses for President Vladimir Putin’s power ‘a struggle within the Russian system’.