Pioneer, Asipovichy Base Commander for Wagner in Belarus

The All Eyes On Wagner project received an information package from an anonymous source a few months ago. After verification and analysis of the documents, the information could be cross-referenced with open sources and the file was assessed as authentic. The Faces of Terror series uses this dossier to tell the story of these men who kill and loot for the Wagner group.

In a new video from the June 25 mutiny, Yevgeny Prigojine gives a speech on the future of the Wagner Group in front of several hundred mercenaries and hands over the flag of the Wagner Group’s former Molkino base to “Pioneer”/Sergey new commander of the Asipovichy base, near Tsel in Belarus.

Behind the nickname Pioneer hides Sergey Vladimirovich Chubko, registration number M-2870, a 47-year-old veteran of the Wagner group. He was born in Chernivitsi in Ukraine. He emigrated in the early 90s to Russia with his parents. Before joining the Wagner Group, the man served in the airborne troops of Russia from 1994 to 2002.

From 2003, he became the chairman of the commission for youth affairs in the administration of Novorossiysk. In 2005, he became Deputy Head of Okrug Administration. From 2014, we find him at the head of the Cossack Society of the city of Novorossiysk specializing in security with Gennady Vidergold, Oleg Kolesnikov and Leonid Nazarov. He will leave the company in 2021. In the meantime Pioneer joins Wagner on January 26, 2017 and is sent to Syria where he is part of the group trying to advance on an oil field near Deir-Ez-Zor in 2018 where the Kurdish and American forces are positioned. Wagner’s mercenaries are hit by an American airstrike. He returns to Russia where he has jobs in logistics and security companies in 2020 before returning to Syria until June 4, 2021.

He goes to the Central African Republic from July 2, 2021 as head of operations, a strategic position. According to data from ACLED, from his arrival in the Central African Republic to his taking command of the Belarusian base, 137 incidents of violence against civilians have been recorded in the Central African Republic, resulting in 686 deaths. Cases of harassment of civilians and humanitarian workers by the Wagner group under his orders have been documented, as well as numerous cases of arbitrary detentions, violence and systematic practices of terror.