Video suggests Wagner chief visited Belarus to deal with his troops this week.

Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the unruly head of the Wagner mercenary group, seems to have resurfaced in Belarus to ship a welcome speech to his fighters who had been deployed there as a part of a deal that ended his transient mutiny final month, in line with a video revealed on Wednesday by not less than three Telegram channels related to the group.

In the video, filmed at nightfall, a person whose silhouette and voice intently resemble Mr. Prigozhin mentioned that the Wagner fighters will keep in Belarus for a while to coach its military, with the objective of turning it into one of the best military on the earth exterior of Russia.

In the aftermath of the aborted mutiny, the destiny of the Wagner group seemed to be in limbo. Last week, President Vladimir V. Putin mentioned that its troops might proceed combating however with out their pugnacious chief.

On the video, nonetheless, Mr. Prigozhin seems to nonetheless be the pinnacle of a big group of fighters. He didn’t tone down his criticism of the Russian high commanders, calling the state of affairs on the entrance strains in Ukraine a “disgrace” that Wagner fighters “should not participate in.” He additionally left open the chance Wagner forces would return to fight in Ukraine.

“We need to wait for the moment when we can prove ourselves fully,” the determine believed to be Prigozhin says on the video, his face by no means totally proven. “Perhaps we will return to the special military operation, unless we are forced to shame ourselves and our experience.”

The Times verified that the video was filmed at a Wagner camp within the village of Tsel’ close to the city of Asipovichy, about 50 miles southeast of the Belarusian capital Minsk. It was filmed on Tuesday night.

To confirm the movies, the Times in contrast options seen in them — two giant buildings and uniquely coloured tents — to the identical options that seem in satellite tv for pc imagery captured on Wednesday.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Belarusian monitoring group Hajun Project tracked a jet beforehand related to Mr. Prigozhin till it landed at a army airfield south of the capital, Minsk.

Early on Wednesday, after the video on the camp was filmed, the identical plane was tracked leaving Belarus and flying towards Moscow. The Times beforehand reported that columns of Wagner Group automobiles arrived on the camp on Monday.

In the video, the person intently resembling Mr. Prigozhin is seen talking in entrance of a whole bunch of fighters who clapped and whistled. After ending, he turns the ground over to Dmitri Utkin, the mercenary whose nom de guerre, Wagner, gave the group its title. “This is not the end,” Mr. Utkin says. “This is the beginning of the biggest task in the world.”

Last week, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense mentioned that Wagner fighters have been coaching its army in protection and battlefield techniques, and state tv reported the mercenaries had already begun instructing common troops close to Asipovichy. The report couldn’t be independently confirmed.

Since Mr. Prigozhin abruptly halted his mutiny on June 24, the Kremlin has publicly labored to to decrease Mr. Prigozhin’s function in Russian politics and downplay his half within the battle effort. His media empire, together with a number of news web sites, has been shut down. Russian state tv has portrayed him as a petty and immoral thug hoarding money, weapons, passports, and presumably medication.