The US has intelligence that Russia’s Wagner mercenary group plans to provide Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia, an air defence system, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unidentified US officials.
The Journal said Wagner plans to supply the Pantsir-S1 system, known by NATO as the SA-22, which uses anti-aircraft missiles and air-defence guns to intercept aircraft.
Wagner Group, which was funded by the Russian state and has been brought firmly under Kremlin control since an aborted mutiny by its former leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in June, did not reply to a request for comment from Reuters.
One unidentified US official quoted by the Journal said that Washington had not confirmed that the system had been sent. But US officials are monitoring discussions involving Wagner and Hezbollah, the Journal said.
It said that the Pantsir system would be provided to Hezbollah via Syria, where Russia propped up President Bashar al-Assad by entering the civil war there in 2015.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards founded Hezbollah in 1982, in the middle of Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war. It was part of Iran’s effort to export its 1979 Islamic Revolution around the region and fight Israeli forces after their 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israeli forces across the border since its Palestinian ally Hamas in Gaza and Israel went to war on Oct. 7.
Kremlin dismissal
The Kremlin on Friday dismissed the report, saying such talk was unfounded.
“We have already said that, de facto, such a group (Wagner) does not exist,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked about the report, which cited unidentified US officials as saying that US intelligence thinks Wagner plans such a transfer.
“All of these musings are as a rule based on nothing and have no foundation,” Peskov said when asked about the report. “There are emergency channels of communication between the (Russian and US) militaries, and if there are real concerns about something, they (the Americans) can always convey them to our military.”
Putin and the Kremlin have repeatedly said that there is no legal basis for Wagner under the law, which bans mercenary groups inside Russia, though in late September Putin was shown meeting one of the most senior former commanders of the group.
One unidentified US official quoted by the Journal said that Washington had not confirmed that the air defence system had been sent. But US officials are monitoring discussions involving Wagner and Hezbollah, the Journal said.
The Journal said that the Pantsir system would be provided to Hezbollah via Syria, where Russia propped up President Bashar al-Assad by entering the civil war there in 2015. The future of Wagner has been unclear since the June mutiny and the death of Prigozhin in an unexplained plane crash in August.
Asked about unverified Russian reports that Prigozhin’s 25-year-old son, Pavel, had become the leader of Wagner, Peskov said: “This is not a question for us — this is not our topic and we do not have any information on this.”
