NATO tracks movements of Russia’s Wagner mercenaries: Stoltenberg

NATO is closely following the movement of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force as well as their boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Western military alliance’s secretary general has said, following revelations that neither the private army’s fighters nor their leader had taken up exile in Belarus.

NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg made his comments on Thursday amid reports that Prigozhin was back in Russia and had not taken up the offer of exile in Belarus, which was agreed after Wagner forces began and ended a 24-hour mutiny against the Russian military leadership on June 24.Asked by Al Jazeera’s diplomatic editor James Bays to comment on reports that Prigozhin had returned to the Russian city of St Petersburg, Stoltenberg said that NATO had tracked the Wagner leader’s recent travels, which he described as “moving a bit around”.

“On Prigozhin, well, what we can say is that we monitor closely where the Wagner soldiers are moving around, and also where he [Prigozhin] is moving,” Stoltenberg said in Brussels.

“I will not go into the details, but we have seen some preparations for hosting large groups of Wagner soldiers in Belarus. So far we haven’t seen so many of them going to Belarus,” he said.

“And then we have seen Mr Prigozhin moving a bit around,” Stoltenberg said, adding that he would not go into further details.