“Wagner mercenaries are armed with different types of weapons, including warplanes. They have 30 jet fighters in Algourbabia military base in Sirte and in the al-Jufra base. The Russians are looking for a foothold in North Africa and they found that in Libya,” al-Mishri said in statements on audio-chat app Clubhouse on Sunday.

The Wagner Group is a Russian paramilitary organization. Some have described it as a private military company, whose contractors have reportedly taken part in various conflicts, including operations in the Syrian civil war on the side of the Syrian government as well as, from 2014 until 2015, in the war in Donbas in Ukraine aiding the separatist forces of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics.

The fighters from the group were sent to Libya to support warlord Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) when it struggled to seize Tripoli from the UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in 2019. (ILKHA)