Feygin: NATO Should Destroy Wagnerites Right At Tsel

Lukashenka can also become a target.

Russian blogger Mark Feygin believes that NATO countries need to destroy the Wagnerites on the territory of Belarus. He expressed this opinion in an interview with the Obozrevatel.

– The number of Wagner troops in Belarus is constantly growing, there are reports of a group of 10,000 troops. We see that Lukashenka is actively using Wagner to blackmail Europe, in particular Poland. He is promising to send this PMC "on an excursion". In your opinion, can Wagner be involved in any provocation against any NATO country, since it is formally a private, not a state-owned military company?

– It is not private and never has been like that. Even the Russian government confirmed that when they announced that the Russian Ministry of Defence has been financing all the activities of the Wagner PMC with the state budget starting from 2014. This is no longer a PMC.

Putin personally said that the PMC does not exist legally when answering a question from his lackey journalist Kolesnikov from Kommersant. In fact, this means that the Wagner is an ordinary military group like the GRU special forces. Therefore, of course, this is a state-owned group, and Russia is controlling it, and there is no public or private division. Private military activity is prohibited in Russia.

As for deploying the Wagner troops in Belarus, Putin is driving these troops out of Russia after the events of June 23-24. Withdrawing the Wagner troops is beneficial In all respects so that this military rebellion does not happen again.

The best option for Putin is to dispose of the Wagner PMC so that there are no more problems with its existence at all. Accordingly, they need to be sent on some kind of journey.

I think that with the increase in the number of the Wagner troops in Belarus, the transfer of some military equipment to them is still taking place on a modest scale. If they try to carry out some kind of military provocation or raid, on the territory of Poland for example, then this is absolutely unrealistic, because there are remote means, missiles, those very F-16 fighters, Apache helicopters - everything that the Ukrainian army does not have. The Polish army itself has almost 200,000 troops, so no 10,000 Wagnerites don't carry the day.

But Putin is now increasing this pressure in order to use it in matters of a solution to Ukraine, that is, the beginning of peace negotiations and other things that he usually demands.

Of course, some process is underway, but these troops can begin to act conditionally independently at a certain moment. They may say that they went to Moscow and now they can go somewhere to a NATO country, to Lithuania or Poland, and Moscow can do nothing about it... But this is an excuse only for idiots. I think that NATO is ready for this. A number of statements have already been made about how an attempt at such a provocation will be regarded.

Everything that happens is happening in the information space, but the pressure is increasing. These helicopters that flew into the territory of Poland and everything else are evidence of a rising degree of tension. And now no one will undertake to say that nothing is impossible at all. There are too many things that give grounds to say that Moscow may decide on a provocation, which is organized through refugees or in some other way. We have already seen a lot in this war.

But they have no real ability to resist the Polish army or the NATO army. I do not see a resource for this - neither the Belarusian Army nor the Wagner PMC. Many paint a gloomy picture, they say that the Polish Army is not combat-ready, but I do not think so.

– What about the Suwalki Gap? Can the Wagner Group face such a task?

– They, of course, are trying to promote this topic, they are telling that Russia needs this and so on. But this is still a war specifically with NATO, this is the border of Lithuania and Poland. I can hardly imagine that the NATO member states won’t react to this.

If something happens and this is not followed by a lightning-fast and the most severe response, then it will be possible to say that there is no NATO. I do not think that the officials in Washington and in Brussels do not realize that this is really risky. If you are not prepared to respond quickly to this, then you simply do not exist.

– But you must admit, we have already seen an example of how the largest international organization, the UN, turned out to be completely unable in the face of Russian aggression and did not fulfill its direct functions. How can we be sure that NATO won’t turn out to be the same declarative organization and that Article 5 of its Charter will work?

– NATO simply has no other choice. If this is missed, if it comes to the point that there will be no answer, then that's it, NATO no longer exists. Even if the answer is not quick, because a quick answer is important here, just kill everyone and then show on TV what happens to those who decide to experience the action of Article 5.

I personally believe that there will be an answer, and it will be quite effective. Why? Because the American army has already encountered the Wagner PMC in Deir ez-Zor [a Syrian province - Ed.]. But there they did not stand during the ceremony. They just took and killed everyone. Moreover, there was no contact between the troops since remote means was used.

I don't understand what's stopping them from killing more Wagnerites if it comes to that. Their base location is known, it is the village of Tsel in the Mahiliou region. It can be destroyed as soon as the Wagner PMC acts anyhow against the Polish Army, actually the NATO army, on the border.

You just need to decide on this destruction, so that later for many years to beat off any desire to test Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. If they will show this whole bloody mountain of corpses, no one will ever dare to do this again.

This fear is caused by the fact that suddenly this will lead to a thermonuclear war. But if you drop it, then a thermonuclear war will be for sure, guaranteed. If the hit is painful and powerful, then this can be avoided because everyone will understand: it will pose a threat of killing those behind the Wagner troops. I mean, Putin and maybe Lukashenka, although in this situation he is a follower.

I think we need to answer, and I think NATO is preparing for this because this is not about Ukraine but about NATO.

– There will be a presidential election in the United States next year. Trump can take part too. We remember his ideas regarding the war in Ukraine - he promised to end it in 24 hours. Is it possible that he will decide to surrender Ukraine if becoming the head of the White House?

– Nothing can be ruled out. It would be naive to say that no. Knowing what we are dealing with. It is possible that Trump will come to the White House and arms supplies to Ukraine will simply be stopped. Ukraine won’t be able to continue its fight without this military assistance. It’s quite hard even now.

No one is saying that Trump will definitely win the election. Going to the primaries against Biden does not mean winning the elections.

But there is much time. The US elections will be in November next year, and he can come to real power only in January 2025. That's a decent amount of time actually. It is necessary to resolve all the issues during this time and not take risks. Either militarily or politically. Apparently, the US Administration is more inclined towards the second option. At least that's what it looks like. However, no one really knows what they are thinking about.