Event of the day: the attack on Wagner Group HQ. What do we know, and was Prigozhin, "Putin’s chef", really there?

UKRAINSKA PRAVDA – MONDAY, 15 AUGUST 2022, 01:10

On 14 August 2022 there was an attack on the headquarters of the Russian private military company Wagner Group in the occupied part of the Luhansk region. Photographs of the headquarters had previously been posted by Russians.

Wagner Group mercenaries are fighting on Russia’s side in various hotspots. According to Ukrainian intelligence, they were the ones who orchestrated the killing of the Ukrainian prisoners of war in Olenivka.

The Wagner Group is thought to be overseen by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman close to the Kremlin who has been nicknamed "Putin’s chef" because of his massive catering business which makes money from state contracts. Rumours are circulating on social media that Prigozhin might also have died in the attack.

Ukrainska Pravda has collected all the information about the attack that is available to date.

What happened?

The attack by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the evening of 14 August was reported on several Russian Telegram channels. The headquarters targeted by the Ukrainian forces was located in Popasna in the Luhansk region. Popasna is currently under occupation.

The attack was reported almost simultaneously by Yury Kotyonok, a war correspondent, and a Telegram channel called "Reverse side of the medal" which has been linked to the Wagner Group in the Russian media. Furthermore, their reports were formulated in such a way that made them look like a response to the Ukrainian media. Yet the Ukrainian media did not report the destruction of the Wagner Group headquarters until an hour or two later.

The Russians also posted two photos and a video from the site of the attack. Propagandists were saying "a few people have been injured and one person seems to have been killed".

Another video later emerged which, according to the media, had been filmed by a local.

Neither Ukraine nor Russia has officially commented on the attack.

Did the Russians reveal the Wagner Group headquarters themselves?

On 8 August, Sergei Sreda, another pro-Kremlin war correspondent, reported that he had arrived in Popasna and visited the Wagner Group headquarters. He posted a photograph which shows a Ukrainian sign indicating the nearest bomb shelter with the address "12, Myronivska St".

Several other small Russian media outlets reprinted the correspondent’s gleeful report.

Sreda has now deleted this post, and his Telegram channel contains only a brief mention of his meeting with members of the Wagner Group.

At this address in Popasna there really is an apartment block that looks similar to the one photographed by Sreda. It is on the official list of bomb shelter addresses.

There are garages behind the building. They can also be seen in a photo taken at the site of the attack.

The independent Russian media outlets Radio Svoboda (Liberty) and Meduza have analysed these photos and come to the conclusion that the attack by the Armed Forces of Ukraine did indeed hit the building shown in Sreda’s photographs.

Where did the rumour of Prigozhin’s death come from?

The idea that businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin might have been at the Wagner Group base emerged because of another of Sreda’s photographs. This one shows the Russian correspondent posing with a man whose face is blurred.

His profile is somewhat similar to that of the pro-Kremlin businessman, and the Russian media described the unknown man in fatigues as "a man similar to Prigozhin".

Prigozhin has visited Donbas before - apparently, according to Russian media, to "coordinate the mercenaries personally".

Yet there is no proof that the businessman came under fire on 14 August, or even that he was in Popasna.

Meanwhile Ruslan Leviev, founder of Conflict Intelligence Team, a group which investigates war events using open data, has expressed his doubts about the situation. He believes that the whole story about the "Prigozhin photo" could have been a Russian provocation.

Leviev has speculated that the Russian army might have "exposed" the address of the apartment block on purpose in order to provoke the Ukrainians to open fire, thereby working out where the Ukrainian equipment was located and launching an attack in response.

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