Wagner Mercenary Group Will Cease Recruiting, New Recording Says

A social media account linked to Russia’s Wagner non-public army firm has posted a recording purportedly of the mercenary group’s chief saying that it might pause recruiting new fighters and would deal with actions in Africa and in Russia’s neighbor, Belarus.

The recording appeared to sign that the unruly mercenary pressure would proceed to function, albeit on a smaller scale, after staging a short-lived mutiny final month due to a dispute over Moscow’s dealing with of the warfare in Ukraine.

The standing of Wagner has been shrouded in hypothesis ever since Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the group’s pugnacious founder, led the rebellion, an try to topple the Russian protection management.

In a recorded assertion revealed by a Wagner-linked channel on the Telegram app on Monday, a voice that seemed to be Mr. Prigozhin’s mentioned that the group’s members had been presently determining “their subsequent duties.”

He mentioned that many Wagner fighters had been taking day without work following a interval of “very intense work,” and that some had joined Russian legislation enforcement companies.

“So long as we don’t expertise a scarcity in personnel, we don’t plan to hold out a brand new recruitment marketing campaign,” the recording mentioned. “As quickly because the motherland would want to create a brand new extra group that may have the ability to defend the pursuits of our nation,” it added, “we’d start recruiting.”

The recording adopted a assertion posted Sunday on a Telegram channel devoted to Wagner recruitment that mentioned that its regional facilities in Russia would stop operations “indefinitely.”

Because the aborted mutiny, some Wagner fighters have relocated to Belarus, the place they’ve been seen in movies coaching service members. Others are believed to nonetheless be lively in Africa, serving Mr. Prigozhin’s various enterprise and political pursuits on the continent.

Mr. Prigozhin’s whereabouts and standing even have been the topic of questions. He seems to nonetheless have the power to journey to Russia — final week, unverified photos appeared to point out him assembly with African leaders in St. Petersburg, Russia, the place President Vladimir V. Putin was internet hosting a summit — however his media empire there has largely been dismantled, and Russian state information media have portrayed him as a reckless thug.

Mr. Prigozhin has toned down his public exercise, releasing solely occasional feedback and quieting his criticism of Russia’s army brass.