A Russian military base
housing the notorious Wagner Group has been destroyed in Ukraine after a
Kremlin propagandist accidentally doxxed his comrades by sharing their location
online.
Earlier this week, Russian
‘war correspondent’ Sergei Srada visited a secret location in the occupied city
of Popasna to report on the group, seen as far-right mercenaries.
Srada says he was ‘treated
like family’ upon arrival and even posed for a picture with Yevgeny Prigozhin,
an oligarch who leads the group and is known as ‘Putin’s Chef’ as a close
confidante of the Russian President.
Shortly afterward, Srada
started uploading several photos of his surroundings to Russian Telegram
channels, including one which revealed the paramilitary force had set up a base
in a residential building which he referred to as the group’s
‘headquarters.’
Another photo showed a street
sign with the address of the nearest bomb shelter – Myronivska Street, 12.
Although the photos were
quickly deleted from Telegram, Ukrainian intelligence was nevertheless able to
triangulate the group’s location with enough precision to launch a HIMARS
strike, obliterating the base with the high-tech missile system donated by the
US.
‘There is no more Wagner HQ in
Popasna,’ Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Honcharenko wrote on Facebook, referring to the
location of the camp in the Luhansk region of Russian-controlled Ukraine.
It is currently unclear how
many fighters were killed or injured during the attack.
But Ukrainian media outlet
Hromadske reported that photos have been shared on Russian Telegram channels of
soldiers being dragged from the rubble.
Reports on Monday suggest
Yevgeny Prigozhin has not been heard from since the attack, and his possible
death has boosted Ukrainian morale.
Wagner fighters have been
active in Crimea and the Donbas region since 2014, and have previously been
called upon to protect Russian interests in Syria, Libya, Mali, as well as the
Central African Republic.
Although the Kremlin has
officially denied their existence for years, the group are widely believed to
be at Putin’s beck and call, often acting as his own private army.
Mercenaries are often
recruited from the ranks of Russia’s regular military, often having been
discharged for poor conduct.
Prigozhin is also thought to
recruit from prisons and is said to be in the middle of a hiring spree amid
heavy casualties in Ukraine.
Murderers are allegedly being
offered clemency from prison sentences provided they are willing to fight for
six months on the frontlines.
