Satellite images appear to show activity at a disused military base in Belarus, amid speculation about Wagner forces relocating to the country.
An image from 27 June obtained by BBC Verify, and first reported by Radio Free Europe, shows what could be tents or similar structures appearing at the base.
An earlier image taken on 17 June shows the fields within the military compound largely empty.
The camp is about 13 miles (21km) from the town of Asipovichy, an area reported in Russian media as a place which could house Wagner fighters.
The Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has offered to accommodate Wagner fighters in his country, where it is believed the group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has gone into exile.
Mr Lukashenko mentioned an abandoned military base but did not specify the location, saying: “There is a fence, everything is available, erect your tents.”
There has since been speculation about a site near Asipovichy which used to be home Belarus’ 465th Missile Brigade before they relocated in 2018.
The image taken on 27 June is low resolution, so saying exactly what has been constructed there is difficult, but there’s clearly been development since mid-June.
You can see several lines of rectangular structures which look to be consistent with tents seen at other military bases in the region.
It’s unclear who was responsible for these structures being erected.
Ukrainian military expert Oleg Zhdanov told Radio Free Europe it was “unrealistic” for Wagner troops to have started building a camp with so little time passing since the rebellion.
But Marina Miron, a researcher specialising in the Russian military at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, said it was possible.
“It [Wagner] is not like an army where everything is slow… if they managed to get halfway to Moscow within one day it is plausible to think they might already be starting to build camps in Belarus,” she said.
