MADRID, 5 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Russian group of Wagner mercenaries led by Yevgeni Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and considered by the United States to be an unofficial armed wing of the Russian Army in various parts of the world, has opened its first official headquarters in the city of San Petersburg.
“The PMC Wagner Center is a group of buildings with places for inventors, project developers, IT specialists, experimental manufacturers and various start-ups,” according to Prigozhin’s statement, collected by ‘Ostorozhno Novosti’
“The mission of the PMC Wagner Center is to provide a comfortable environment for generating new ideas to improve Russia’s defense capabilities,” Prigozhin said in the statement.
Prigozhin acknowledged last month that he had founded this “group of patriots” in 2014, which now functions as a network of Russian mercenaries and paramilitary specialists in Africa and Latin America, although the Russian government has never officially admitted any relationship.
The inauguration of this headquarters is considered a staging before the public of an organization whose head is known for habitually criticizing the military commanders who direct the war against Ukraine.
“Prigozhin is now willing to publicly describe his functions in a way that he has not been able to do in the past,” Dara Massicot, an expert on the Russian military at the US think tank RAND Corporation, told the Moscow Times.
