Wagner Mercenaries Shift Focus from Ukraine to Belarus and Africa

The leaders of the notorious Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary group, appeared in a video from Belarus promising a new "beginning" for the group. The video showed the founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, rallying the mercenaries and criticizing the "disgrace" unfolding in Russia's regular army in Ukraine. He announced that the group would be staying in Belarus for some time and aimed to make the Belarusian army the second strongest in the world. Prigozhin also mentioned the group's plans to continue operations in Africa. The video featured Dmitry Utkin, the neo-Nazi commander after whom the group is named, who declared that this was only the beginning of their work and welcomed everyone to "hell."