Belarus’s Ministry of Defense said Friday that soldiers from Russia’s Wagner military company were training its security forces, offering a rare if vague sign of the group’s presence in the country after its failed uprising against Moscow last month.
The ministry said in a statement that Wagner soldiers were instructing members of a local Belarusian force in defense and battlefield tactics. A Belarusian television channel released video of what its correspondent said was training for conscripts and local territorial defense soldiers by Wagner fighters “at a training base near Asipovichy,” about 55 miles from the capital, Minsk.
“The most important feature of the training is that there are fighters of the private military company Wagner, who are sharing their battle experiences with Belarus,” the correspondent, Svetlana Smyk, of VoenTV, or MilitaryTV, said on camera, while men in uniform lined up in formation behind her.
The identities of the soldiers and trainers videotaped at the camp could not be independently confirmed.
Just last week, the autocratic leader of Belarus, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, told journalists in Minsk that no members of Wagner had come to his country, at least not yet. The remarks cast doubt over a deal he said he had brokered to end the 36-hour mutiny led by the Wagner boss, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, under which Mr. Prigozhin and his fighters were invited to Belarus and would be spared prosecution in Russia.
The following day, the Defense Ministry of Belarus escorted foreign journalists to a disused base near Asipovichy, where hundreds of rapidly constructed tents appeared to be a possible new home for Wagner fighters. But senior military officials told the journalists that no Wagner fighters had come there, adding to the mystery about the group’s fate after the rebellion.
On Friday, a spokeswoman for the Belarusian Ministry of Defense confirmed that at least part of the video was filmed on the same training ground New York Times journalists visited last week.
During that visit, Belarusian Maj. Gen. Leonid V. Kasinsky said that the many new tents had been erected as part of a training exercise, but that the base “could be recommended as one of the places” where Wagner soldiers could be housed.
Wagner’s future has been in doubt since the mutiny nearly three weeks ago, which followed the implementation of a new law in Russia that required Wagner soldiers to sign contracts with Russia’s Defense Ministry. Some of the force’s heavy weaponry has been transferred to the ministry’s control, but the future of the force itself has remained in question.
The Belarusian Ministry of Defense did not specify where the Wagner fighters training their soldiers are from. There are at least 12 Belarusians known to have fought with Wagner in Ukraine since 2014, according to the Belarusian journalist Igor Ilyash, who wrote a book with his wife, Katsyaryna Andreyeva, about Belarus and the war in Ukraine that was published in 2020.
Shortly after the Wagner mutiny was crushed, Mr. Lukashenko praised the fighting abilities of the private military company, encouraging the Belarusian defense minister, Viktor Khrenin, to make the most of what he portrayed as an opportunity of hosting them in the country.
“They will tell you about weapons — which worked well, which did not,” Mr. Lukashenko said. “And tactics, and weapons, and how to attack, how to defend. It is priceless.”
He said he also agreed with Mr. Khrenin, who noted “wouldn’t mind having such a unit in the army.”
