Wagner Group reportedly continues to recruit mercenaries

Regional Wagner Group centers are continuing to recruit mercenaries, despite the group’s founder Yevgeny Prigozhin having publicly stated that they would stop recruitment, according to independent news outlet iStories.

At the end of July, messages appeared on Wagner Group’s Telegram recruitment channels announcing that the operations of regional centers would be suspended indefinitely, as “the presence of large personnel reserves” meant there was no need for new recruits. Prigozhin himself announced that Wagner Group continues its operations only in Africa and training centers in Belarus.

One former mercenary who fought in Africa and Ukraine told iStories journalists, on condition of anonymity, that Wagner Group recruitment centers have reopened through the Orthodox sports club Desantnik in Omsk and a Wagner Group center in Novosibirsk.

One iStories correspondent called both centers, pretending to be a volunteer. In the Desantnik club in Omsk, they told him “Wagner was forbidden from recruitment in the Russian Federation, so there’s no way.” The Novosibirsk veteran’s organization which serves as the city’s official representative for Wagner, said that new recruitment of volunteers takes place on Fridays. The main destination would be African countries.

The former mercenary claimed that new recruits can be sent to the war in Ukraine after they are enlisted. The recruiters did not confirm this information. The iStories correspondent did, however, receive an offer to be sent to the “special military operation zone” with Redut, another mercenary group, which is connected to Gazprom.