UA
FR
DEUkrainian special services are monitoring the activities of mercenaries of the private military company Wagner in the territory of Belarus. Currently, no direct threat has been recorded for Ukraine. Vadym Skibitskyi, a representative of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, said this in an interview.
“Our estimate is very simple: today, there is no direct threat (from the territory of Belarus), but we are ready. We are monitoring everything related to the so-called PMC Wagner. This is a powerful component that took a direct part in hostilities; it is prepared,” said the representative of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.
He recalled that the aggressive Russian dictatorship was unable to immediately neutralise the Wagner members during their mutiny.
“They entered the territory of Russia at night, and at seven o’clock in the morning, they already controlled Rostov fully. This says a lot: the system of the Russian Federation itself, despite the police regime and the counter-intelligence regime of security services created there, it was not able to immediately stop Wagner,” Skibitskyi said.
According to him, the cleansing in the ranks of the aggressor state’s army, which began after the mutiny attempt, is still ongoing, but it will not give the desired result for the enemy.
“The cleansing is unlikely to change the situation in the Russian army because morale is very low, especially among those on the front line,” he explained.
Intelligence also hopes that mercenary terrorists from the PMC Wagner will not participate in hostilities against Ukraine, although the Ukrainian command is considering various scenarios of the developments.
“We understand where the enemy is. Accordingly, we reconnoiter the situation. All the necessary information is reported, conclusions are drawn, and appropriate actions are taken to neutralise this threat if it continues to grow,” the representative of the Main Directorate of Intelligence concluded.
At the same time, the spokesman for the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, Andriy Demchenko, said on the air of a national telethon that the border guards did not observe enough forces in Russia to attack Ukraine again from the north or to attack from the territory of Belarus.
“Of course, by whipping up the situation both on the border with Belarus and on the border with the aggressor state within the boundaries of (the) Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv regions, the enemy is trying to restrain the Defence Forces of Ukraine, demonstrating a certain presence so that Ukraine keeps the necessary number of its forces and does not redeploy them to more important areas where such full-scale combat operations are being conducted,” Demchenko said.
As he noted, the northern border of Ukraine with Belarus is constantly being strengthened. Fortifications are being built there, and the territory is being mined, but it is very difficult to strengthen the border line of the Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv regions with Russia as the territory is under constant fire.
Recently, Demchenko notes, strikes on the Sumy and Kharkiv regions have intensified.
Bohdan Marusyak
