Russia’s Wagner mercenaries target in hotel attack, governor says

Members of Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group have reportedly been killed following an assault by Ukraine’s armed forces on a resort the place many have been primarily based in a city within the Russian-occupied Luhansk area, based on the area’s Ukrainian governor.

Luhansk’s exiled Governor Serhiy Haidai mentioned in an interview with Ukrainian tv on Sunday that Ukraine had launched a strike on a resort within the metropolis of Kadiivka, west of the area’s primary centre of Luhansk. Pictures posted on Telegram channels confirmed a constructing largely diminished to rubble.

“They’d a bit of pop there, simply the place Wagner headquarters was positioned,” Haidai mentioned.

“An enormous variety of those that have been there died,” he mentioned.

Russia’s defence ministry was not instantly accessible for remark and Reuters information company couldn’t independently confirm the knowledge.

A bit of Ukrainian media quoted native officers as saying the resort had been closed for a while, whereas Russian state information company TASS mentioned on its Telegram channel {that a} resort in Stakhanov – the Russian title for Kadiivka – was destroyed by a Ukrainian HIMARS missile assault and rescue staff have been clearing rubble, based on a neighborhood official.

Haidai didn’t give casualty figures, however he mentioned those that survived the assault confronted insufficient medical providers to deal with them.

“I’m positive that a minimum of 50 p.c of those that managed to outlive will die earlier than they get medical care,” he mentioned. “It’s because even in our Luhansk area, they’ve stolen tools.”

Haidai has beforehand reported strikes by Ukrainian forces on different targets in Luhansk area, together with on the Wagner headquarters within the city of Popasna in August.

The Wagner Group – a brutal combating drive of mercenaries with the aim of furthering Russia’s navy pursuits all over the world – operates in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, and Mali and has been accused of quite a few rights violations, together with torture and killings.

Managed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a detailed ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Wagner opened its first official headquarters within the Russian metropolis of Saint Petersburg in early November.

The European Union has accused Wagner, whose members are principally former service personnel, of human rights abuses and the US and EU have sanctioned Prigozhin over his function within the group. In 2021, the EU mentioned the Wagner Group was chargeable for abuses, together with torture and extrajudicial killings.

On Sunday, the physique of 23-year-old Zambian scholar Lemekani Nyirenda, who died whereas combating for Wagner in Ukraine, arrived at Kenneth Kaunda Worldwide Airport within the capital, Lusaka.

Nyirenda was learning nuclear engineering in Russia when he was convicted of drug offences in April 2020 and sentenced to 9 years in jail. He was later pardoned by means of a particular amnesty on the situation that he take part within the battle in Ukraine and was killed whereas combating.

In November, Wagner chief Prigozhin admitted he recruited Nyirenda from jail, claiming the Zambian willingly went to combat towards Ukraine.

Zambian Overseas Minister Stanley Kakubo mentioned on Friday that Russia’s Overseas Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov instructed him by phone that Nyirenda was pardoned on August 23, 2022, to permit him to hitch the navy.

“We have been knowledgeable that Russia permits for prisoners to be supplied a chance for pardon in trade for participation within the particular navy operation,” Kakubo mentioned, utilizing Russia’s description of the invasion of Ukraine.

In response to Nyirenda’s father, his son had been serving a nine-year jail sentence on the outskirts of Moscow for a drug offence when he was “conscripted” to combat.

Russia has additionally knowledgeable Zambia that cash owed to Nyirenda by Wagner, along with all of the documentation referring to his amnesty, recruitment and dying, could be handed to a Zambian consultant who would accompany the physique, the minister mentioned.

Zambia will work to make sure that nothing like this occurs once more to a Zambian learning in Russia and that there are not any different Zambians in Russian prisons, mentioned Kakubo.