A Russian military base housing the notorious Wagner Group has been destroyed in Ukraine, after a Kremlin propagandist accidentally doxxed his comrades by sharing their location online.
Earlier this week, Russian ‘war correspondent’ Sergei Srada visited a secret location in the occupied city of Popasna to report on the group, seen as far-right mercenaries.
Srada says he was ‘treated like family’ upon arrival and even posed for a picture with Yevgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch who leads the group and is known as ‘Putin’s Chef’ as a close confidante of the Russian President.
Shortly afterwards, Srada started uploading several photos of his surroundings to Russian Telegram channels, including one which revealed the paramilitary force had set up a base in a residential building which he referred to as the group’s ‘headquarters.’
Another photo showed a street sign with the address of the nearest bomb shelter – Myronivska Street, 12.
Although the photos were quickly deleted from Telegram, Ukrainian intelligence was nevertheless able to triangulate the group’s location with enough precision to launch a HIMARS strike, obliterating the base with the high-tech missile system donated by the US.
‘There is no more Wagner HQ in Popasna,’ Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Honcharenko wrote on Facebook, referring to the location of the camp in the Luhansk region of Russian-controlled Ukraine.
‘Thank you, HIMARS and the Armed Forces of Ukraine!’
It is currently unclear how many fighters were killed or injured during the attack.
But Ukrainian media outlet Hromadske reported that photos have been shared on Russian Telegram channels of soldiers being dragged from the rubble.
Reports on Monday suggest Yevgeny Prigozhin has not been heard from since the attack, and his possible death has boosted Ukrainian morale.
Wagner fighters have been active in Crimea and the Donbas region since 2014, and have previously been called upon to protect Russian interests in Syria, Libya, Mali, as well as the Central African Republic.
Although the Kremlin has officially denied their existence for years, the group are widely believed to be at Putin’s beck-and-call, often acting as his own private army.
Mercenaries are often recruited from the ranks of Russia’s regular military, often having been discharged for poor conduct.
Prigozhin is also thought to recruit from prisons, and is said to be in the middle of a hiring spree amid heavy casualties in Ukraine.
Murderers are allegedly being offered clemency from prison sentences provided they are willing to fight for six months on the frontlines.
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