[Newsweek] Russia's notorious Wagner mercenary group is likely "down-sizing" and restructuring after its short-lived armed mutiny in June, according to a new assessment."There is a realistic possibility that the Kremlin no longer funds the group," Britain's defense ministry said in an intelligence update on Sunday.
Wagner fighters have been arriving in Belarus for weeks and estimates on how many mercenary recruits have arrived in the country vary. A spokesperson for Lithuania's defense ministry told Newsweek in late July that it believed the tallies of Wagner members published in Russian and Belarusian media were inflated.
Wagner recruits are being built into Minsk's armed forces to "pass on experience" to Belarusian fighters, Lukashenko said earlier this month in remarks reported by the country's state news agency.
But if the Russian state is no longer financially propping up Wagner, "the second most plausible paymasters are the Belarusian authorities," the British Ministry of Defence said in its update on Sunday.
"However, the sizable force would be a significant and potentially unwelcome drain on modest Belarusian resources," the government department added.
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