A defense line made of concrete blocks, stretching from the front to the border with Russia, is intended to stop the Ukrainian counterattack in the occupied areas of Donbas. This fortification has been erected by the Wagner Group, the mercenary army of the ultra-nationalist businessman Yegueni Prigozhinvery close to the Russian president.
In this video we explain what this line of defense is for and why it was built in an area far from the battlefront. According to a map published by the portal Ria Fan, funded by Prigozhin, will stretch for tens of kilometers. The The first sector runs from Donetsk to the interior of Luhansk. Further north, already inside Russia, in the Belgorod and Kursk region, preparations are under way another section near the border with Sumy and Kharkov provinces, reconquered by Ukraine. The Wagner line should cover a front of more than 200 kilometers, although to build just one and a half kilometers, Wagner engineers have taken 10 days, from September 25 to October 5, according to satellite images viewed by CNN . The Wagner Line is made up of concrete cylinders, called dragon teeth, which are designed to break tank tracks. To this are added different systems of trenches two meters wide.
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These fortifications They are inspired by the Siegfried Line, a defense wall that protected the eastern flank of Germany from the Netherlands to Switzerland. For Nazi propaganda it was an impassable line of defense, but in 1944 the Allies managed to overcome it in just three months. However, this fortification it is far from the lines of contact between the Russian and Ukrainian forces, and it seems designed to defend a minimum space of the occupied territories. In other words, according to the interpretation of the Institute for the Study of War, Wagner would be preparing to defend only positions that can realistically be held and not the extension of the territory that Russia claims to have annexed and that Putin has allowed to defend.
Finally, the Wagner Group would be recruiting civilians in the Belgorod region to create a “popular militia”, inspired by the Russian partisan brigades that during World War II fought against the Nazi army. Without these armed groups, they could become another occasion of contrast with the Ministry of Defense. In fact, the local authorities in Belgorod have already asked the Wagner Group to stop the construction of the trenches.