Russia announced Wednesday that its army had received more than 2,000 pieces of military hardware, including tanks, from Wagner, following the mercenary group’s short-lived insurrection last month.
The armed group, which played a key role in the Ukraine offensive, sought to topple Russia’s military leadership during the brief rebellion, before backing down.
“More than 2,000 pieces of equipment and weapons have been transferred,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement, adding that the inventory included tanks, mobile rocket launchers and anti-aircraft systems.
The army said it had been given “more than 2,500 tons of various types of ammunition and about 20,000 small arms.” Much of the equipment, it said, had not been used in combat before.
The Defense Ministry also said that the weapons had been transferred to rear positions where the equipment can be maintained or repaired.
The whereabouts of Yevgeny Prigozhin, who founded the Wagner group, are largely unknown in the wake of an agreement with the Kremlin that allowed for him to be exiled to neighboring Belarus.
However, the authoritarian leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, told reporters this month that the 62-year-old mercenary chief was not in his country, but still in Russia.
The Kremlin this month said that President Vladimir Putin had met with Prigozhin during an hours-long meeting in Moscow.
