At the end of July, Tuareg rebels in Mali (Africa) effectively routed local government troops, killing dozens of Wagner mercenaries assigned to them, which partly explains the decrease in the number of mercenaries.
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As reported by NBN, citing the official X-profile of the UK Ministry of Defence, over the course of the year since the “liquidation” of the leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and the founder of this terrorist group Dmitry Utkin, the number of fighters in the “Wagner group” has decreased tenfold, since the remnants of the mercenaries have stopped returning from the territory of Belarus and the African continent.
British military intelligence analysts noted that over the period described above, the Wagner PMC became more and more fragmented, against the backdrop of the self-elimination of many high-ranking Wagner functionaries. from group management.
In particular, Andrey “Sedoy” Troshev, the former CEO of the Wagner PMC, decided to join the Russian Ministry of Defense, joining the identical unit “Redut”. This group of mercenaries was tasked with creating “volunteer corps” units for the war against Ukraine.
Also, Alexander “Ratibor” Kuznetsov, the former commander of the 1st assault detachment of the “Wagnerites”, joined the Chechen “special forces” detachment “Akhmat”, and Boris “Zombie” Nizhevenok, a former “officer” of the 3rd assault detachment of the PMC “Wagner”, became the head of the “Vostok-V” unit.
Thus, numerous mercenaries had to follow these and other former leaders of the PMC “Wagner”, leaving the group, and, in comparison with the peak number 50,000 people last year, this formation now seems to have no more than 5,000 people, scattered across Belarus and Africa.
Earlier we wrote that ISW allowed for the withdrawal of part of the Russian occupation forces from Ukraine after the losses of the Wagner PMC in Mali.