Members of the Wagner Group prepare to depart from the Southern Military District’s headquarters and return to their base in Rostov-on-Don, Russia on June 24, 2023.
Arkady Budnitsky/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Some Wagner fighters stationed in Belarus have been told to go on leave, Mozhem Obyasnit reported.
But many are not returning home and are getting drunk at train stations instead, the outlet said.
One relative wrote online that the fighters are “boozing to their heart’s content,” it said.
Wagner Group fighters are getting drunk and loitering at train stations in Russia instead of going home, according to the independent Russian media outlet Mozhem Obyasnit.
After their failed armed rebellion last month, many Wagner mercenaries traveled to Belarus, where their exiled leader Yevgeny Prigozhin set up a new training base, according to the BBC.
While some of the Wagner fighters are receiving military training to be deployed to Syria and Africa — where the group has been active for several years — others have been sent back to Russia on leave, Mozhem Obyasnit reported.
But many have not made it home and are choosing to get drunk instead, the outlet reported, citing public chat groups between the supposed relatives of Wagner fighters.
One woman in the chat group complained that “those getting drunk at the station” are “idiots” for not going home, according to a translation from The Daily Beast. “They’re boozing to their heart’s content,” she added.
“My [relative] is calling, he says one of them was taken away in an ambulance, he got drunk and became ill,” another family member said, according to The Daily Beast.
A third person wrote: “Mine is home, although he’s drunk. The others haven’t managed to make it back yet, but they’re hammered already.”
Several Wagner fighters are ex-convicts who were released on the grounds they fight with the group in Ukraine.
But since the failed rebellion, some are back on the streets, with one Russian investigative media outlet claiming they have committed crimes again.
The Wagner Group’s short-lived uprising, which experts said was the biggest threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s power in decades, came after months of feuding between Prigozhin and Russia’s military leadership.
In line with an agreement struck by Prigozhin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko after the rebellion, the Wagner Group leader was sent to Belarus. Prigozhin’s current whereabouts are unknown.