Some Wagner commanders in Syria were arrested by Russian forces in the days following a major revolt in Ukraine by the state-funded paramilitary organization, and the group’s offices in various parts of Syria were raided, a report by the Washington Institute said on Thursday.
Russian deputy foreign minister Sergey Vershinin met with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Monday and reportedly urged him to prevent the group’s forces from leaving the country without the Russian defense ministry’s consent. Some Wagner personnel have apparently been withdrawn to the Russian operations center at Hmeimim Air Base in western Syria.
The overall situation remains calm, however, and Wagner is still deployed in resource-rich areas where Syrian forces are nominally in control but rely on help from Russian military and police units, the report noted.
The areas include Syria’s largest natural gas and oil fields (Shaer, al-Mahr, Jazal, and Hayan), where some reports indicate that Wagner has used a shell company called Evro Polis to receive up to a quarter of the production profits. The Assad regime apparently granted Wagner this cut because the group recaptured the fields from the Islamic State (ISIS) and has continued to guard them against opposition raids.
Serious questions also surround the fate of Wagner’s heavy weapons in Syria, which include tanks, other armored vehicles, and rocket launchers.
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a report that “Russian forces gave Wagner members a choice to either leave Syria or join the Russian army to continue to work in Syria,” and that “the Syrian contractors with Wagner would gradually be demobilized.”
Wagner is estimated to have over 2,000 fighters deployed in Syria.
Source: Gerçek News
