The Kremlin has dismissed a Wall Street Journal report that US intelligence believed Russia’s Wagner mercenary group plans to provide Hezbollah with an air defence system, saying such talk was unfounded, Reuters reports.
“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.”
In its report, 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.
One unidentified US official quoted by the Journal said that Washington had not confirmed that the air defense 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.
