Crimea sets up own mercenary group

THE Kremlin-installed head of Crimea has created his own mercenary unit inspired by Wagner Group.

Sergey Aksyonov has recruited a former Wagner commander in Africa to lead his Convoy mercenary unit of 300 fighters which has already deployed to occupied parts of Kherson region in southern Ukraine.

“This is Aksyonov’s private military company but the entire group is made up of former Wagner employees,” one of the mercenaries told the Russia-24 TV station in a news report.

In the TV report, mercenaries were training in a forest, digging trenches and learning how to set landmines.

Convoy’s Telegram channel was set up last November and heavily features Russian Orthodox imagery and refers to Ukrainians as “Satanists”.

Russian opposition media identified the head of Convoy as Konstantin Pikalov, who worked for Wagner in Madagascar and the Central African Republic.

Mr Aksyonov has not commented but the opposition media stories described Convoy as part of the Russian army’s reserve force because its fighters sign a contract with both the mercenary unit and the ministry of defence.

Wagner mercenaries have been credited with romanticising the concept of the plucky mercenary in Russia, even though most of its fighters are murderers or drug dealers recruited from jail.

Before it invaded Ukraine, the Kremlin had preferred to use Wagner to deploy to Africa and the Middle East to prop up client-dictators.

Now, Wagner openly recruits in Russia’s towns and cities and its fighters are given funerals with military honours. Shops in Moscow sell Wagner-branded memorabilia.

Other Russian mercenary companies fighting in Ukraine include Patriot and Redut, which are both closely linked to the Russian authorities and have been accused of war crimes.

Western intelligence agencies have estimated that around 10,000 Wagner mercenaries have been killed fighting in Ukraine out of around 50,000 deployed. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner chief, also said today that 5,000 ex-convict Wagner mercenaries have been pardoned after serving six months on the frontline.

‘This is Aksyonov’s private military company but the entire group is made up of former Wagner employees’