WAGNER HEAD SAYS ‘AFGHAN UNIT’ FIGHTS ON ITS SIDE IN UKRAINE

Fri 17 March 2023:

The head of Russia’s Wagner private military company (PMC) claimed on Thursday that members of the group fighting in Ukraine are Afghan citizens.

In a statement on Telegram, Yevgeny Prigozhin said there is an artillery unit that operates US M-777 howitzers and works with Javelin anti-tank tank missile systems that were either bought from the Ukrainian military or were captured in battles.

“Yes indeed, the Afghan fighters of the Wagner PMC work with us in small numbers. Now there is an artillery unit, which at one time was trained to work on American artillery systems, M-777 howitzers, plus it works with Javelin anti-tank missile systems, which we manage to buy from Ukrainian units, or capture,” he said.

During the Afghan War, American and British forces put a lot of resources into training Afghan special force platoons. Having a competent army to protect the US-installed Afghan government was a key part of the NATO armies’ strategy for exiting Afghanistan and keeping the Taliban at bay.

The US trained them much better than soldiers in the regular Afghan army, but some of the CIA-trained units had a reputation for carrying out extrajudicial killings and settling personal disputes with impunity.

When the US left Afghanistan in 2021, some 20,000-30,000 commandos were out of work

and being hunted by the Taliban. According to several reports, these Afghan commandos fled to Iran, where they were recruited by a Russian mercenary outfit called the Wagner Group, who promised them good salaries and help to relocate their families. Early on in the Ukraine War Wagner Group-affiliated Telegram channels posted videos of US-bought Afghan Army helicopters now being used by the Ukrainian army.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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