Ukraine's President's Office reacts to "return of Wagner": Attempt to distract people from Ukraine's successes

Mykhailo Podoliak, advisor to the head of the President’s Office of Ukraine, thinks that the "media" effect of the return of the Wagnerites to the east of Ukraine is more significant than the return itself.

Source: Podoliak on Telegram

Quote: "Concerning the "return of the Wagner PMC to the Bakhmut front". Remember: the Wagner PMC does not exist anymore. It ended with the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin (founder of Wagner PMC – ed.) and Dmitry Utkin (military commander of Wagner PMC), a raid of the company’s structure by the [Sergey] Shoigu (Russia’s Defence Minister) and [Valery] Gerasimov's (head of Russia’s General Staff) group and elimination of the leadership of the organisation.

Today, there are only former mercenaries of the terrorist group who were headed in different directions: some to Africa, some to criminal life of Russia’s regions, and some signed a contract with Russia’s Defence Ministry and agreed to play the last note by covering the breach in the Russian defence on the Bakhmut front with their own bodies.

So the "media" effect of this event is more significant than the event itself."

Details: Podoliak believes that the Russians aimed to "try to distract the public’s attention from the news about the liberation of Klishchiivka and Andriivka by the Ukrainian army and elimination of main combat-ready Russian formations on this front for some time".

Background: 

• Illia Yevlash, spokesperson for the Eastern Grouping of Forces, said that former mercenaries of the Wagner Group who were in Belarus had signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defence and moved to the eastern front in Ukraine, and some of them had gone to Africa.

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