Prigozhin’s former lawyer says mercenary boss discussed ’land corridor to Kaliningrad’ after Wagner mutiny
The late Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin discussed creating a land corridor to Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave through the Suwałki Gap — the narrow piece of land connecting Poland and Lithuania — after Wagner Group’s mutiny in June 2023, according to his former lawyer, Igor Eliseev.
“It wasn’t for nothing that we discussed a land corridor to Kaliningrad with the boss after the march, and we would have done it if we’d been given the green light from above,” Eliseev wrote.
He did not say who else took part in the discussions or how detailed the plans were.
After the 2023 mutiny, part of Wagner’s forces were relocated to Belarus. In July 2023, Andrey Kartapolov, then head of the Russian State Duma's defence committee, said the Wagner fighters would be capable of taking over the Suwałki Gap “in a matter of hours”. Later that month, Poland’s then-prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said around 100 mercenaries had moved toward the corridor. A week later, a deputy Polish foreign minister said Wagner fighters had tried to infiltrate Poland.
The Suwałki Gap sits between Kaliningrad and Belarus and is the only land link between the Baltic states and the rest of NATO.
Eliseev worked for Prigozhin from 2016 until his death. In his book Wagner’s Empire, he wrote about helping Wagner Group recruit prisoners to fight in Ukraine. In an interview with the outlet Fontanka, he also claimed to have acted as an intermediary between Wagner Group, the Putin administration, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), and other state bodies.
