The Wagner Group (), officially known as PMC Wagner (, ), is a Russian state-funded private military company (PMC) controlled until 2023 by

Yevgeny Prigozhin Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin (1 June 1961 – 23 August 2023) was a Russian mercenary leader and oligarch. He led the Wagner Group, a private military company, and was a close confidant of Russian president Vladimir Putin until launching a ...

, a former close ally of Russia's president

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...

, and since then by

Pavel Prigozhin Pavel Yevgenyevich Prigozhin (, born 18 June 1998) is a Russian businessman and mercenary who has led the Wagner Group since 2023. The son of prominent oligarch and mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, he succeeded his father as the leader of t ...

. The Wagner Group has used infrastructure of the

Russian Armed Forces The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commonly referred to as the Russian Armed Forces, are the military of Russia. They are organized into three service branches—the Russian Ground Forces, Ground Forces, Russian Navy, Navy, and Russi ...

. Evidence suggests that Wagner has been used as a proxy by the Russian government, allowing it to have

plausible deniability Plausible deniability is the ability of people, typically senior officials in a formal or informal chain of command, to deny knowledge or responsibility for actions committed by or on behalf of members of their organizational hierarchy. They may ...

for military operations abroad, and hiding the true casualties of Russia's foreign interventions. The group emerged during the

war in Donbas The war in Donbas, or the Donbas war, was a phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. The war Timeline of the war in Donbas (2014), began in April 2014, when Russian separatist forces in Ukraine, Russian para ...

, where it helped Russian separatist forces in Ukraine from 2014 to 2015. Wagner played a significant role in the later full-scale

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

, for which it recruited Russian prison inmates for frontline combat. By the end of 2022, its strength in Ukraine had grown from 1,000 to between 20,000 and 50,000. It was reportedly Russia's main assault force in the Battle of Bakhmut. Wagner has also supported regimes friendly with Russia, including in the civil wars in

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...

, the

Central African Republic The Central African Republic (CAR) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to Central African Republic–Chad border, the north, Sudan to Central African Republic–Sudan border, the northeast, South Sudan to Central ...

, and

Mali Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...

. In Africa, it has offered regimes security in exchange for the transfer of diamond and gold mining contracts to Russian companies. Some Wagner members, including its alleged co-founder Dmitry Utkin, have been linked to the

far-right Far-right politics, often termed right-wing extremism, encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and nativism. This political spectrum situates itself on the far end of the ...

, and the unit has been accused of

war crime A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...

s including murder, torture, rape and robbery of civilians, as well as torturing and killing accused deserters. Prigozhin admitted that he was the leader of Wagner in September 2022. He began openly criticizing the Russian Defense Ministry for mishandling the war against Ukraine, eventually saying their reasons for the invasion were lies. On 23 June 2023, he led the Wagner Group in an armed rebellion against Russia after accusing the Defense Ministry of shelling Wagner soldiers. Wagner units seized the Russian city of

Rostov-on-Don Rostov-on-Don is a port city and the administrative centre of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. It lies in the southeastern part of the East European Plain on the Don River, from the Sea of Azov, directly north of t ...

, while a Wagner convoy headed towards

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

. The

mutiny Mutiny is a revolt among a group of people (typically of a military or a crew) to oppose, change, or remove superiors or their orders. The term is commonly used for insubordination by members of the military against an officer or superior, ...

was halted the next day when an agreement was reached: Wagner mutineers would not be prosecuted if they chose to either sign contracts with the Defense Ministry or withdraw to

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

. On 23 August 2023, Prigozhin and Wagner commanders Dmitry Utkin and

Valery Chekalov Valery Yevgenyevich Chekalov (; 10 January 1976 – 23 August 2023) was a Russian mercenary leader, head of logistics of the Wagner private military company, and a close confidant of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. Chekalov was Wagner's " ...

died in a plane crash in Russia, leaving Wagner's leadership structure unclear. Western intelligence reported that it was likely caused by an explosion on board, and it is widely suspected that the Russian state was involved. In October 2023, pro-Wagner groups reported that

, son of former leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, has taken over command of the Wagner Group.

Origins and leadership

The Wagner Group first appeared in 2014, during the Russian annexation of Crimea. Until 2022 it was unclear who founded and led the group. Both Dmitry Utkin and

have been named as its founders and leaders. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Prigozhin claimed to have founded Wagner and he was referred to as the group's head. Some sources say Prigozhin was its owner and financier while Utkin was its military commander.

Yevgeny Prigozhin

It was long reported that Prigozhin had links with Wagner and Utkin personally. He was sometimes called "Putin's chef", because of his catering businesses that hosted dinners for Vladimir Putin. The businessman was said to be the main funder and actual owner of the Wagner Group. Prigozhin denied any link with Wagner and had sued '' Bellingcat,

Meduza ''Meduza'' (Russian: Медуза, named after the Greek goddess Medusa) is a Russian- and English-language independent news website, headquartered in Riga, Latvia. It was founded in 2014 by a group of former employees of the then-independent ...

'', and '' Echo of Moscow'' for reporting his links to the mercenary group. In September 2022, he claimed to have founded the group, saying "I cleaned the old weapons myself, sorted out the bulletproof vests myself and found specialists who could help me with this. From that moment, on May 1, 2014, a group of patriots was born, which later came to be called the Wagner Battalion". Prigozhin became Wagner's public face and was referred to as its chief, but as he had no military background, he reportedly relied on Utkin to command Wagner's military operations.

Dmitry Utkin

Utkin was a Russian military veteran. Before his involvement with the Wagner Group, he was a lieutenant colonel and brigade commander of a

Spetsnaz GRU Spetsnaz GRU, formally known as Special Forces of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, () is the special forces (''spetsnaz'') of the GRU (Russian Federation), GRU, the foreign military intelligence agency of ...

unit, and fought in the First and

Second The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of U ...

Chechen wars. Many sources name Utkin as a founder and the first commander of Wagner. Reportedly, Utkin was an admirer of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

and the group was named from his alias "Wagner". The European Union sanctions against the Wagner Group name Utkin as its founder and leader. It is reported that Utkin was Wagner's military commander, responsible for overseeing its military operations, while Prigozhin was its owner, financier and public face. According to ''Bellingcat'', evidence suggests Utkin "was more of a field commander" and "was not in the driver's seat of setting up this private army, but was employed as a convenient and deniable decoy to disguise its state provenance". In December 2016, Utkin was photographed with Russian president Putin at a

Kremlin The Moscow Kremlin (also the Kremlin) is a fortified complex in Moscow, Russia. Located in the centre of the country's capital city, the Moscow Kremlin (fortification), Kremlin comprises five palaces, four cathedrals, and the enclosing Mosco ...

reception in honour of those who had been awarded the Order of Courage and the title Hero of the Russian Federation, along with Alexander Kuznetsov, and Andrei Troshev. Kuznetsov (alias " Ratibor") was said to be the commander of Wagner's first reconnaissance and assault company, Bogatov was the commander of the fourth reconnaissance and assault company, and Troshev served as the company's "executive director". A few days after, Kremlin spokesman

Dmitry Peskov Dmitry Sergeyevich Peskov (, ; born 17 October 1967) is a Russian diplomat serving as the Kremlin Press Secretary, spokesman for President of Russia, Russian president Vladimir Putin since 2012.Konstantin Aleksandrovich Pikalov (alias "Mazay") was said to have been put in charge of Wagner's African operations in 2019. Pikalov served as an officer in Russia's experimental military unit numbered 99795, based in the village of Storozhevo, near Saint Petersburg. The unit was tasked, in part, with "determining the effects of radioactive rays on living organisms". Following his retirement, he continued to live on the military base until at least 2012 and ran a private detective agency. In 2014 he allegedly took part in suppressing opponents of the Russian-backed president of Republika Srpska,

Milorad Dodik Milorad Dodik ( sr-Cyrl, Милорад Додик, ; born 12 March 1959) is a Bosnian Serb politician currently serving as the 8th president of Republika Srpska since 2022, a position he previously held from 2010 to 2018. He also served as ...

, during the Republika Srpska general election. Between 2014 and 2017, Pikalov traveled several times to destinations near the Ukrainian border, sometimes on joint bookings with known Wagner officers. Former employees of Prigozhin said Pikalov took part in military operations in Ukraine and Syria.

Organization

In early 2016, Wagner had 1,000 employees, which later rose to 5,000 by August 2017, and 6,000 by December 2017. The organization was said to be registered in Argentina and has offices in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

and Hong Kong. In November 2022, Wagner opened a new headquarters and technology center at the PMC Wagner Center building in the east of Saint Petersburg. In early October 2017, the SBU said that Wagner's funding in 2017 had been increased by 185 million rubles ($3.1 million) and that around forty Ukrainian nationals were working for Wagner, with the remaining 95 percent of the personnel being Russian citizens.SBU says Russia's Wagner mercenaries involved in Donbas war
''Kyiv Post'', 7 October 2017. One Ukrainian was killed in Syria while fighting in the ranks of Wagner in March 2016, and three were reported overall to have died that spring. Armenians, Kazakhs and Moldovans have also worked for Wagner. Following the deployment of its contractors between 2017 and 2019, to Sudan, the Central African Republic, Madagascar, Libya and Mozambique, the Wagner Group had offices in 20 African countries, including

Eswatini Eswatini, formally the Kingdom of Eswatini, also known by its former official names Swaziland and the Kingdom of Swaziland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by South Africa on all sides except the northeast, where i ...

, Lesotho and Botswana, by the end of 2019. Early in 2020, Erik Prince, founder of the Blackwater private military company, sought to provide military services to the Wagner Group in its operations in Libya and Mozambique, according to ''

The Intercept ''The Intercept'' is an American left-wing nonprofit news organization that publishes articles and podcasts online. ''The Intercept'' has published in English since its founding in 2014, and in Portuguese since the 2016 launch of the Brazilia ...

''. By March 2021, Wagner PMCs were reportedly also deployed in Zimbabwe, Angola, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, and possibly the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

'', the Wagner Group does not exist as a single incorporated entity, but instead as a "sprawling network of interacting companies with varying degrees of proximity to rigozhin'sConcord group" – such as Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering. This abstruse structure has allegedly complicated efforts by Western governments to restrict Wagner's activities. Wagner's network of shell companies, reported to be primarily trading in illegally mined and extracted natural resources, has also been shown to have used Western banking systems to process funds without their knowledge. The Washington-based think-tank the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), uncovered leaked documents showing how in 2017 the Sudanese Mining company, Meroe Gold, acting as a shell company for the Wagner Group, was able to use financial services provided by JP Morgan Chase to process a payment to a seller in China. C4ADS's report on the leaked documents showed that without the use of legitimate financial institutions such as JP Morgan Chase and HSBC as intermediaries to facilitate the movement of funds, the Wagner Group would not have been able to establish a foothold in Africa. Based partly on leaked documents provided by the ''Dossier Center'', investigative journalist David Patrikarakos has stated that Wagner has never been under the control of either the

GRU Gru is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the ''Despicable Me'' film series. Gru or GRU may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * Gru (rapper), Serbian rapper * Gru, an antagonist in '' The Kine Saga'' Organizations Georgia (c ...

or the Ministry of Defense, as has often been claimed, but is instead exclusively run by Prigozhin.

Recruitment, training, techniques

The company trains its personnel at a Russian MoD facility, Molkino (),Из Молькино в Пальмиру: как тренируют российских наемников
31 March 2016. near the remote village of Molkin,

Krasnodar Krai Krasnodar Krai (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (a krai), located in the North Caucasus region in Southern Russia and is administratively a part of the Southern Federal District. Its administrative center is the t ...

."28 сентября пришло 12 гробов"
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 6 October 2017. The barracks at the base are officially not linked to the Russian MoD, with court documents describing them as a children's vacation camp. According to a report published by Russian monthly ', the organisation that hired personnel for Wagner did not have a permanent name and had a legal address near the military settlement Pavshino in Krasnogorsk, near Moscow. In December 2021, ''New Lines'' magazine analyzed data about 4,184 Wagner members who had been identified by researchers at the Ukrainian Center of Analytics and Security, finding that the average age of a Wagner private military contractor (PMC) is forty years old and that the PMCs came from as many as fifteen different countries, though the majority were from Russia. When new PMC recruits arrive at the training camp, they are no longer allowed to use

social network services A social networking service (SNS), or social networking site, is a type of online social media platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests ...

and other Internet resources. Company employees are not allowed to post photos, texts, audio and video recordings or any other information on the Internet that was obtained during their training. They are not allowed to tell anyone their location, whether they are in Russia or another country. Mobile phones, tablets and other means of communication are left with the company and issued at a certain time with the permission of their commander. Passports and other documents are surrendered and in return company employees receive a nameless dog tag with a personal number. The company only accepts new recruits if a 10-year confidentiality agreement is established and in case of a breach of the confidentiality the company reserves the right to terminate the employee's contract without paying a fee. According to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Russian military officers are assigned the role of drill instructors for the recruits. During their training, the PMCs receive $1,100 per month. The pay of Wagner PMCs, who are usually retired regular Russian servicemen aged between 35 and 55, is estimated to be between 80,000 and 250,000

Russian ruble The ruble or rouble (; Currency symbol, symbol: ₽; ISO 4217, ISO code: RUB) is the currency of the Russia, Russian Federation. Banknotes and coins are issued by the Central Bank of Russia, which is Russia's central bank, monetary authority ind ...

s a month (667–2,083 USD). One source stated the pay was as high as 300,000 (US$2,500). In late 2019, a so-called Wagner code of honor was revealed that lists ten commandments for Wagner's PMCs to follow. These include, among others, to protect the interests of Russia always and everywhere, to value the honor of a Russian soldier, to fight not for money, but from the principle of winning always and everywhere. With increasing casualties on both sides in the war in Ukraine, the Russian government used the Wagner Group for recruitment. The NGO ''Meduza'' reported that the Russian Defense Ministry had taken control of Wagner's networks and was using its reputation for recruitment, but that the requirements had been reduced, with drug tests also reportedly not being done before duty. According to British intelligence, since July 2022 at the latest, the Wagner Group has been trying to recruit inmates from Russian prisons in order to alleviate the lack of cadets. In return for agreeing to fight in Ukraine, the criminals are promised a shortening of the sentence and monetary remuneration. ''BBC Russian Service'' reported that according to jurists, it is not legal to send inmates to war. Captured and retired members report that the Wagner policy of "zeroing out" (summary execution) of fighters who retreat or desert means that in situations where regular Army units would retreat, Wagner continues its assault. "If they move forward, they at least have the chance to live another day. If they go back, they're dead for sure." A Ukrainian battalion commander reported that in intercepted radio traffic on the battlefield, Ukrainians hear "over and over" Wagner commanders giving the order: "Anyone who takes a step back, zero them out." The Wagner Group reportedly recruited imprisoned UPC rebels in the

to fight in Mali and Ukraine. They are reportedly nicknamed the " Black Russians".

Units

Rusich unit

The Wagner Group includes a contingent known as Rusich, or Task Force Rusich, referred to as a "sabotage and assault reconnaissance group", which has been fighting as part of the Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine. Rusich are described as a

extremist or

neo-Nazi Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...

unit, and their logo features a Slavic swastika. The group was founded by Alexey Milchakov and Yan Petrovsky, both of them neo-Nazis, in the summer of 2014, after graduating from a paramilitary training program run by the Russian Imperial Legion, the fighting arm of the Russian Imperial Movement. As of 2017, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General and the

International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an intergovernmental organization and International court, international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute ...

(ICC) were investigating fighters of this unit for alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine.

Serb unit

Wagner is believed to have a

Serb The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are a South Slavic ethnic group native to Southeastern Europe who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history, and language. They primarily live in Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia ...

unit, which was, until at least April 2016, under the command of Davor Savičić, a Bosnian Serb who was a member of the

Serb Volunteer Guard The Serb Volunteer Guard, SDG. Also known as Arkan's Tigers () or Arkan's men (). was an elite Serbian volunteer paramilitary unit founded and led by Željko Ražnatović (better known as "Arkan"). It was recognized for its superior bearing an ...

(also known as ''Arkan's Tigers'') during the

Bosnian War The Bosnian War ( / Рат у Босни и Херцеговини) was an international armed conflict that took place in Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. Following several earlier violent incid ...

and the Special Operations Unit (JSO) during the

Kosovo War The Kosovo War (; sr-Cyrl-Latn, Косовски рат, Kosovski rat) was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. It ...

. His call sign in Bosnia was "Elvis". Savičić was reportedly only three days in the Luhansk region when a

BTR BTR may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * B.T.R. (band), a Bulgarian rock band * Bad Trip Records, an American record label * Beyond Therapy Records, an American industrial music record label * Big Tent Revival, a Christian rock band * Big T ...

armored personnel carrier fired at his checkpoint, leaving him shell-shocked. After this, he left to be treated. He was also reported to had been involved in the first offensive to capture Palmyra from the

Islamic State The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadism, Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS ...

(ISIL) in early 2016. One member of the Serbian unit was killed in Syria in June 2017, while the SBU issued arrest warrants in December 2017, for six Serbian PMCs that belonged to Wagner and fought in Ukraine, including Savičić. In early February 2018, the SBU reported that one Serb member of Wagner, who was a veteran of the conflict in Syria, had been killed while fighting in eastern Ukraine. In January 2023, Serbian president

Aleksandar Vučić Aleksandar Vučić, (born 5 March 1970) is a Serbian politician serving as President of Serbia since 2017. A founding member of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), he previously served as President of the SNS from 2012 to 2023, Deputy Prim ...

criticized Wagner for recruiting Serbian nationals and called on Russia to put an end to the practice, noting that it is illegal under Serbian law for Serbian citizens to take part in foreign armed conflicts.

Relationship with the Russian state

On 27 June 2023, President Putin, while declaring an investigation into Wagner Group spending, confirmed that the Russian state fully funded it from the country's defense budget and state budget. From May 2022 to May 2023 alone, the Russian state paid 86.262 billion RUB to the group, approximately $1 billion. Putin previously repeatedly denied any links between the Russian state and Wagner, stating that Wagner is a "private military company". Before that, many Russian and Western observers believed that the organization does not actually exist as a private military company but is in reality a disguised branch of the Russian MoD that ultimately reports to the Russian government. The company shares bases with the Russian military, is transported by Russian military aircraft, and uses Russia's military health care services. The Russian state is also documented supporting the Wagner Group with passports. The legal status of private military companies in Russia is vague: on one hand, Russian legislation explicitly prohibits "illegal armed formations and mercenary groups", but at the same time the Russian state does not prosecute numerous PMCs employing Russians and operating in Russia, including but not limited to Wagner. Viktor Ozerov once hinted that this ban does not apply for companies "registered abroad" and in such case "Russia is not legally responsible for anything". This vagueness was interpreted as a tool that enables the Russian state to selectively allow operations of PMCs it needs, while preventing creation of any PMCs that would create a risk for Putin and at the same time manage plausible deniability for their actions. As result, a number of PMCs appear to have been operating in Russia, and in April 2012 Vladimir Putin, speaking in the State Duma as Russian prime minister, endorsed the idea of setting up PMCs in Russia. Several military analysts described Wagner as a "pseudo-private" military company that offers the Russian military establishment certain advantages such as ensuring plausible deniability, public secrecy about Russia's military operations abroad, as well as about the number of losses."How 'Wagner' came to Syria"
''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...

'', 2 November 2017. Thus, Wagner contractors have been described as "ghost soldiers", due to the

Russian government The Russian Government () or fully titled the Government of the Russian Federation () is the highest federal executive governmental body of the Russian Federation. It is accountable to the president of the Russian Federation and controlled by ...

not officially acknowledging them. In March 2017, ''

Radio Liberty Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL ...

'' characterized the PMC Wagner as a "semi-legal militant formation that exists under the wing and on the funds of the Ministry of Defence". In September 2017, the chief of Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) Vasyl Hrytsak said that, in their opinion, Wagner was in essence "a private army of Putin" and that the SBU were "working on identifying these people, members of Wagner PMC, to make this information public so that our partners in Europe knew them personally".В СБУ раскрыли любопытные подробности о наемниках РФ на Донбассе
''

Segodnya ''Segodnya'' ( rus, Сегодня, p=sʲɪˈvodʲnʲə, t=Today, a=Ru-сегодня.ogg) was a Russian language, Russian-language Ukrainian tabloid newspaper founded in 1997. The newspaper ceased printing in 2019. Affiliations While run from ...

'', 4 September 2017. . The Wagner Group has also been compared with

Academi Constellis, formerly Blackwater, is an American private military contractor founded on December 26, 1997, by former Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince. It was renamed Xe Services in 2009, and was again renamed to Academi in 2011, after it was acqui ...

, the American security firm formerly known as Blackwater. According to the SBU, Wagner employees were issued international passports in bulk by the

via Central Migration Office Unit 770–001 in the second half of 2018, allegations partially verified by ''Bellingcat''. In an interview in December 2018, Russian president Putin said, in regard to Wagner PMC's operating in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere, that "everyone should remain within the legal framework" and that if the Wagner group was violating the law, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office "should provide a legal assessment". But, according to Putin, if they did not violate Russian law, they had the right to work and promote their business interests abroad. Putin also denied allegations that Prigozhin had been directing Wagner's activities. Official portrait of Sergey Shoigu

In September 2022, Prigozhin officially admitted to founding and managing "Wagner Group" which started as a battalion participating from May 2014 on the Russian side in the

War in Donbas The war in Donbas, or the Donbas war, was a phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. The war Timeline of the war in Donbas (2014), began in April 2014, when Russian separatist forces in Ukraine, Russian para ...

. According to a Russia investigative media ''Russkiy Kriminal'', the military command of "Wagner" is held directly by the

, including its current head Igor Kostyukov and former head of Russian SSO Aleksey Dyumin, with Prigozhin being responsible for its business administration. "Wagner" is mostly populated by current and former

operatives, and used for operations where direct GRU participation is undesirable. Russian journalists also link Prigozhin to Yuri Kovalchuk and Sergey Kiryenko, both influential figures close to Putin. "Wagner's" interests in the official structures of Russian Ministry of Defense are reportedly represented by general Sergey Surovikin. Private military companies are still illegal in Russia, but with their heavy participation in the war in Ukraine they have been legitimized by being referred by the Ministry of Defense and Russian government with the umbrella term of "volunteer detachments". On 5 May 2023, Prigozhin blamed Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Gen.

Valery Gerasimov Valery Vasilyevich Gerasimov (born 8 September 1955) is a Russian Army general (Russia), army general serving as the Chief of the General Staff (Russia), Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and First Deputy Ministry of Defen ...

for "tens of thousands" of Wagner casualties, saying "They came here as volunteers and are dying so you can sit like fat cats in your luxury offices." In 2023, the Russian government granted the status of combat veterans to Wagner contractors who took part in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In a video released on 23 June 2023, Prigozhin said that Russian government justifications for the Russian invasion of Ukraine were based on lies. He accused the Russian Defense Ministry under Shoigu of "trying to deceive society and the president and tell us how there was crazy aggression from Ukraine and that they were planning to attack us with the whole of NATO."

Wagner Group rebellion

On 24 June 2023, Prigozhin was accused by the Russian government of organizing an armed uprising after he threatened to attack Russian forces in response to a claimed air strike on his paramilitary soldiers. Russian security forces accused the founder of the Wagner group of launching a coup attempt as he pledged a "march of justice" against the Russian army. Prigozhin posted a voice memo claiming that Wagner had left Ukraine and was advancing on the Russian city of

. Senior Russian generals urged Wagner's fighters to withdraw. Meanwhile, Russia's national security service, FSB, said it had filed criminal charges against Prigozhin and moved to arrest him. Prigozhin claimed that Wagner mercenary forces entered Rostov without any resistance. A deal was eventually brokered by Belarusian president

Alexander Lukashenko Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko (also transliterated as Alyaksandr Ryhoravich Lukashenka; born 30 August 1954) is a Belarusian politician who has been the first and only president of Belarus since the office's establishment in 1994, making hi ...

de-escalated the rebellion. According to the agreement, Prigozhin was to leave Russia for

, and the criminal case against him was to be dropped. No legal action was to be taken against his troops, and the Wagner fighters were to sign contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry. Russian president Putin had stated on 8 February 2022, that the Russian state is not involved and has nothing to do with Wagner's activities in Africa. On 27 June 2023, he said that Wagner is fully funded by Russia, amounting to $1 billion from the defense ministry and state budget for May 2022 to May 2023 alone. In July, Russian state media said Prigozhin's Wagner Group had received the equivalent of $9.8B and his Concord catering business $9.6B from state sources. Two weeks later, Putin once again stated that "legally Wagner Group does not exist". On 26 August 2023, following Prigozhin's death in a plane crash in

Tver Oblast Tver Oblast (, ) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Tver. From 1935 to 1990, it was known as Kalinin Oblast (). Population: Tver Oblast is a region of lakes, such as Seliger and Brosno. Much o ...

, Putin signed a decree ordering Wagner Group fighters to swear an "oath of allegiance" to the Russian state. This new oath applies to all PMCs, including those fighting in Ukraine.

Activities

The Wagner Group is known to have operated in at least 11 countries; Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Syria, Sudan, Mozambique, Central African Republic, Mali, Libya, Venezuela, and Madagascar, spanning four continents, Europe, Africa, South America and Asia. There are unconfirmed reports of activities in other countries.

Ukraine

Wagner has played a significant role in the

, where it has been reportedly deployed to assassinate Ukrainian leaders, among other activities, and for which it has recruited prison inmates from Russia for frontline combat. In December 2022,

United States National Security Council The United States National Security Council (NSC) is the national security council used by the president of the United States for consideration of national security, military, and Foreign relations of the United States, foreign policy matter ...

Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby claimed Wagner had 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, including 10,000 contractors and 40,000 convicts. Others put the number of recruited prisoners at more than 20,000, with the overall number of PMC forces present in Ukraine estimated at 20,000. In 2023, Russia granted combat veteran status to Wagner contractors who took part in the invasion.

Crimea annexation and War in Donbas

Wagner PMCs were first active in February 2014 in

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

during Russia's 2014 annexation of the peninsula where they operated in line with regular Russian army units, disarmed the Ukrainian Army and took control over facilities. The takeover of Crimea was almost bloodless. The PMCs, along with the regular soldiers, were called " polite people" at the time due to their well-mannered behavior. They kept to themselves, carried weapons that were not loaded, and mostly made no effort to interfere with civilian life. Another name for them was " little green men" since they were masked, wearing unmarked green army uniforms and their origin was initially unknown. After the takeover of Crimea, some 300 PMCs went to the

Donbas The Donbas (, ; ) or Donbass ( ) is a historical, cultural, and economic region in eastern Ukraine. The majority of the Donbas is occupied by Russia as a result of the Russo-Ukrainian War. The word ''Donbas'' is a portmanteau formed fr ...

region of eastern Ukraine where a conflict started between Ukrainian government and pro-Russian forces. With their help, the pro-Russian forces were able to destabilize government security forces in the region, immobilize operations of local government institutions, seize ammunition stores and take control of towns. The PMCs conducted sneak attacks, reconnaissance, intelligence-gathering and accompanied VIPs. The Wagner Group PMCs reportedly took part in the June 2014 Il-76 airplane shoot-down at Luhansk International Airport and the early 2015 Battle of Debaltseve, which involved one of the heaviest artillery bombardments in recent history, as well as reportedly hundreds of regular Russian soldiers. Following the end of major combat operations, the PMCs were reportedly given the assignment to kill dissident pro-Russian commanders that were acting in a rebellious manner, according to the Russian nationalist Sputnik and Pogrom internet media outlet and the SBU,Owen Matthews
PUTIN'S SECRET ARMIES WAGED WAR IN SYRIA – WHERE WILL THEY FIGHT NEXT?
, ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

'', 17 January 2018. (other sources describe those who started to "turn up dead" and whose fate Wagner was suspected of being responsible for as "the most charismatic and ideologically driven leaders". According to the SBU and the Russian media, Wagner also forced the reorganization and disarmament of Russian Cossack and other formations. The PMCs acted mostly in the LPR. The LPR accused Ukraine of committing the assassinations, while unit members of the commanders believed it was the LPR authorities who were behind the killings. Wagner left Ukraine and returned to Russia in autumn of 2015, with the start of the

Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War {{Infobox military conflict , partof = the foreign involvement in the Syrian civil war, foreign involvement in the Syrian civil war, and the war against the Islamic State , image = , image_size = , border ...

. In late November 2017, a power struggle erupted in the separatist

Luhansk People's Republic The Luhansk People's Republic (LPR; , ) is a disputed territory administered as a republic of Russia in the occupied parts of eastern Ukraine's Luhansk Oblast, with its capital in Luhansk. The LPR was proclaimed by Russian-backed paramilitar ...

in Eastern Ukraine between LPR president Igor Plotnitsky and the LPR's interior minister, Igor Kornet, who Plotnitsky ordered to be dismissed. During the turmoil, armed men in unmarked uniforms took up positions in the center of Luhansk. Some of the men belonged to Wagner, according to the Janes company. In the end, Plotnitsky resigned and LPR security minister Leonid Pasechnik was named acting leader "until the next elections." Plotnitsky reportedly fled to Russia and the LPR's People's Council unanimously approved Plotnitsky's resignation. As of October 2018, a few dozen PMCs remained in the Luhansk region, according to the SBU, to kill any people considered "undesirable by Russia".

Full-scale invasion of Ukraine since 2022

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' reported that the Wagner Group flew in more than 400 contractors from the Central African Republic in mid- to late-January 2022 on a mission to assassinate Ukrainian president

Volodymyr Zelenskyy Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy (born 25 January 1978) is a Ukrainian politician and former entertainer who has served as the sixth and current president of Ukraine since 2019. He took office five years after the start of the Russo-Ukraini ...

and members of his government, and thus to prepare the ground for Russia to take control for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which started on 24 February 2022. A US official stated that there were "some indications" that Wagner was being employed, but it was not clear where or how much. By 3 March, according to ''The Times'', Zelenskyy had survived three assassination attempts, two of which were allegedly orchestrated by the Wagner Group. In late March, it was expected that the number of Wagner PMCs in Ukraine would be tripled from around 300 at the beginning of the invasion to at least 1,000, and that they were to be focused on the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. In late April, a Russian military offensive to take the remainder of the Donbas region dubbed the Battle of Donbas was launched and Wagner PMCs took part in the

Battle of Popasna In mid-April 2022, a military engagement began in Popasna between Ukrainian military, Ukrainian and Russian military, Russian forces. On 7 May, the city came under Russian control. Background Popasna is an important regional hub with many roa ...

, the capture of Svitlodarsk, the Battle of Sievierodonetsk, and the Battle of Lysychansk.Russia used private mercenaries to reinforce frontline, British intelligence says
". ''Yahoo! News''. During fighting near Popasna on 20 May, retired Major General Kanamat Botashev of the

Russian Air Force The Russian Air Force () is a branch of the Russian Aerospace Forces, the latter being formed on 1 August 2015 with the merging of the Russian Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the reb ...

was shot down while flying a Sukhoi Su-25 attack aircraft, reportedly for the Wagner Group. Annexation of Southern and Eastern Ukraine

During the invasion, Wagner PMCs also trained Russian servicemen before they were sent to the frontline. From the beginning of July, inmates recruited by Wagner, including Prighozin personally, in Russian prisons started participating in the invasion of Ukraine. The inmates were offered 100,000 or 200,000 rubles and

amnesty Amnesty () is defined as "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power officially forgiving certain classes of people who are subject to trial but have not yet be ...

for six months of "voluntary service", or 5 million for their relatives if they died. On 5 January 2023, the first group of 24 prisoners recruited by Wagner to fight in Ukraine finished their six-month contracts and were released with full amnesty for their past crimes. During the Battle of Bakhmut in late September, senior Wagner commander Aleksey Nagin was killed. Nagin previously fought with Wagner in Syria and Libya, and before that took part in the

Second Chechen War Names The Second Chechen War is also known as the Second Chechen Campaign () or the Second Russian Invasion of Chechnya from the Chechens, Chechen insurgents' point of view.Федеральный закон № 5-ФЗ от 12 января 19 ...

and the

Russo-Georgian War The August 2008 Russo-Georgian War, also known as the Russian invasion of Georgia,Occasionally, the war is also referred to by other names, such as the Five-Day War and August War. was a war waged against Georgia by the Russian Federation and the ...

. He was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation. On 22 December, United States National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby claimed that around 1,000 Wagner fighters were killed in fighting at Bakhmut during the previous weeks, including some 900 recruited convicts. Ukrainian soldiers and former convicts

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

described the use of recruited convicts at Bakhmut as "bait", as poorly armed and briefly trained convicts were sent in

human wave attack A human wave attack, also known as a human sea attack, is an offensive infantry tactic in which an attacker conducts an unprotected frontal assault with densely concentrated infantry formations against the enemy line, intended to overrun and ...

s to draw out and expose Ukrainian positions to attack by more experienced units or artillery. In 2023, journalist Joshua Yaffa reported that recruited prisoners make up approximately 80% of Wagner's manpower. They are identified with the letter "K" and deployed in waves, in intervals of 15–20 minutes, whereas professional mercenaries are given the letter "A" and "held back, entering the battle only once Ukrainian defenses had been softened." An interviewed former Wagner mercenary who deserted reported a high mortality rate for the prisoners recruited to fight for Wagner in Ukraine: "Once we started using prisoners, it was like a conveyor belt. A group comes – that's it, they're dead." He stopped remembering their names or call signs. "A new person shows up, survives for five minutes, and he's killed. It was like that day after day." In mid-January 2023, the Wagner Group captured the salt mine town of Soledar after heavy fighting. During the battle, Wagner reportedly surrounded Ukrainian troops in the center of the town. Hundreds of Russian and Ukrainian troops were killed in the Battle of Soledar. Several days later, Wagner captured Klishchiivka, south of Bakhmut, after which they continued advancing west of the settlement. A US estimate mid-February 2023, put the number of Wagner PMC casualties in the invasion at about 30,000, of which about 9,000 killed. The US estimated that half of those deaths had occurred in fighting for Bakhmut since the middle of December, with 90 percent of Wagner fighters which had been killed since December being convicts. On 1 May 2023, the US updated it's estimate of Wagner casualties, with 10,000 fighters killed and 40,000 wounded since 1 December 2022 alone, again in fighting for Bakhmut. Concurrently, the

UK Ministry of Defence The Ministry of Defence (MOD or MoD) is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for implementing the defence policy set by the government and serves as the headquarters of the British Armed Forces. ...

estimated that convicts recruited by Wagner had experienced a casualty rate of up to 50 percent. On 19 July 2023, Prigozhin announced the Wagner Group would no longer fight in Ukraine. On 27 September 2023, the Ukrainian military reported that around 500 Wagner Group fighters returned to fight in

Donetsk Oblast Donetsk Oblast, also referred to as Donechchyna (, ), is an Oblasts of Ukraine, oblast in eastern Ukraine. It is Ukraine's most populous province, with around 4.1 million residents. Its capital city, administrative centre is Donetsk, though d ...

as part of the

2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive In early June 2023, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine launched a Counter-offensive, counteroffensive against Russian forces Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, occupying its territory with a goal of breaching the front lines ...

and as part of the group's redeployment in Ukraine for the first time since its failed rebellion against the Russian military establishment in June. They are being led by Andrei Troshev, a retired colonel appointed by Russian president

Syria

The presence of the PMCs in Syria was first reported in late October 2015, almost a month after the start of the Russian military intervention in the country's civil war, when between three and nine PMCs were killed in a mortar attack in Latakia province. Wagner PMCs were involved in both Palmyra offensives in

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

and

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

, as well as the Syrian Army's campaign in central Syria in the summer of 2017 and the Battle of Deir ez-Zor in late 2017. They were in the role of frontline advisors, fire and movement coordinators,

forward air control Forward air control is the provision of guidance to close air support (CAS) aircraft intended to ensure that their attack hits the intended target and does not injure friendly troops. This task is carried out by a forward air controller (FAC). ...

lers who provided guidance to

close air support Close air support (CAS) is defined as aerial warfare actions—often air-to-ground actions such as strafes or airstrikes—by military aircraft against hostile targets in close proximity to friendly forces. A form of fire support, CAS requires ...

, and " shock troops" alongside the Syrian Army. In early February 2018, the PMCs took part in a battle at the town of Khasham, in eastern Syria, which resulted in heavy casualties among Syrian government forces and the Wagner Group as they were engaged by United States

air An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosph ...

and

artillery Artillery consists of ranged weapons that launch Ammunition, munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during sieges, and l ...

strikes, due to which the incident was billed by media as "the first deadly clash between citizens of Russia and the United States since the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

".Russian mercenary boss spoke with Kremlin before attacking US forces in Syria, intel claims
''The Telegraph'', 23 February 2018. Sources said Wagner group losses were anywhere between 10 and 200. Subsequently, the Wagner Group took part in the Syrian military's Rif Dimashq offensive against the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, east of Damascus. The whole Eastern Ghouta region was captured by government forces on 14 April 2018, effectively ending the near 7-year rebellion near Damascus. The PMCs also took part in the Syrian Army's offensive in northwestern Syria that took place mid-2019. As of late December 2021, Wagner PMCs were still taking part in military operations against ISIL cells in the Syrian desert. On 15 March 2023, the

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (also known as SOHR; ), founded in May 2006, is a United Kingdom-based information office whose stated aim is to document human rights abuses in Syria; since 2011 it has focused on the Syrian Civil War. ...

said that 266 Russian PMCs were killed in Syria during the civil war.

Africa

The Wagner Group has been active in Africa since 2017. It has provided military support, security and protection to several African governments. In return, Russian and Wagner-linked companies have been given privileged access to those countries' natural resources, such as rights to gold and diamond mines, while the Russian military has been given access to strategic locations such as airbases and ports. This has been described as a kind of state capture, whereby Russia gains influence over those states and they become dependent on it. Wagner Group PMCs arrived in Madagascar to provide security for then-president Hery Rajaonarimampianina in the 2018 Malagasy presidential election. In early August 2019, the Wagner Group received a contract with the government of Mozambique to provide technical and tactical assistance to the Mozambique Defense Armed Forces (FADM). At least 200 PMCs and military equipment arrived in Mozambique to fight an Islamist insurgency in Cabo Delgado Province which started on 5 October 2017. In a September 2023, New York Times opinion piece, American national security expert, Sean McFate, presented Yevgeny Prigozhin's operation of the Wagner Group in Africa as a template for mercenary money-making or "a blueprint for wannabe mercenary overlords to follow". The model is to find "conflict markets", a state with instability ("political rivalries, post-colonial grievances and short on rule of law") and natural resources. Once Prigozhin's had In November 2023, it was announced that an Africa Corps was being formed as "part of a special structure of the Ministry of Defence"; a US government source said that the Africa Corps was a rival to Wagner that aimed to absorb its personnel and activities in Africa. By the following year, the Wagner Group in Africa was merged into the 'Africa Corps'. According to the French ''

Le Monde (; ) is a mass media in France, French daily afternoon list of newspapers in France, newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average print circulation, circulation of 480,000 copies per issue in 2022, including ...

'' newspaper, its name referenced the

Nazi German Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

Afrika Korps The German Africa Corps (, ; DAK), commonly known as Afrika Korps, was the German expeditionary force in Africa during the North African campaign of World War II. First sent as a holding force to shore up the Italian defense of its Africa ...

'' of World War II.

Sudan

The earliest reports of PMC Wagner involvement in

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

came in 2017. The PMCs were sent to Sudan to support it militarily against South Sudan and protect gold, uranium and diamond mines. Following Omar al-Bashir's overthrow in a coup d'état on 11 April 2019, Russia continued to support the Transitional Military Council (TMC) that was established to govern Sudan, as the TMC agreed to uphold Russia's contracts in Sudan's defense, mining and energy sectors. This included the PMCs' training of Sudanese military officers. The Wagner Group's operations became more elusive following al-Bashir's overthrow. They continued to mostly work with Sudan's

Rapid Support Forces The Rapid Support Forces (RSF; ) is a paramilitary force formerly operated by the government of Sudan. The RSF grew out of, and is primarily composed of, the Janjaweed militias which previously fought on behalf of the Sudanese government. RSF ...

(RSF). Wagner was said to be linked to the Deputy Chairman of the TMC and commander of the RSF, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. In April 2020, the Wagner-connected company "Meroe Gold" was reported to be planning to ship personal protective equipment, medicine, and other equipment to Sudan amid the

coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Three months later, the United States sanctioned the "M Invest" company, as well as its Sudan subsidiary "Meroe Gold" and two individuals key to Wagner operations in Sudan, for the suppression and discrediting of protesters. Following the 2021 Sudanese coup d'état, Russian support for the military administration set up in Sudan became more open and Russian-Sudanese ties, along with Wagner's activities, continued to expand even after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, leading to condemnation by the United States, United Kingdom and Norway. The Wagner Group obtained lucrative mining concessions. from the town of Abidiya, in Sudan's northeastern gold-rich area, a Russian-operated gold mine was set up that was thought to be an outpost of the Wagner Group. Further to the east, Wagner supported Russia's attempts to build a naval base on the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

. It used western Sudan's

Darfur Darfur ( ; ) is a region of western Sudan. ''Dār'' is an Arabic word meaning "home f – the region was named Dardaju () while ruled by the Daju, who migrated from Meroë , and it was renamed Dartunjur () when the Tunjur ruled the area. ...

region as a staging point for its operations in other neighbouring countries, the Central African Republic, Libya and parts of Chad. Geologists of the Wagner-linked "Meroe Gold" company also visited Darfur to assess its uranium potential.

Central African Republic

In 2018, the Wagner Group deployed its personnel to the CAR, to protect lucrative mines, support the CAR government, and provide close protection for the president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra. By May 2018, it was reported that the number of Wagner PMCs in the CAR was 1,400, while another Russian PMC called Patriot was in charge of protecting VIPs. By 2021, the situation in the CAR had deteriorated further, with rebels attacking and capturing Bambari.Rebels seize Central African Republic's fourth-largest city five days before nationwide elections
, France 24, 22 December 2020 In response, Russia sent an additional 300 military instructors to the country to train government forces and provide support. The presence of Wagner and other Russian PMCs in the CAR has raised concerns about Russia's growing influence in Africa and its willingness to flout international law. In September 2022, ''

The Daily Beast ''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. Founded in 2008, the website is owned by IAC Inc. It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief ...

'' interviewed survivors and witnesses of a massacre committed by the Wagner Group in the village of Bèzèrè in December 2021, which involved torture, killing and disembowelment of a number of women, including pregnant ones. According to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', a report "prepared for members of the U.N. Security Council" found Wagner forces complicit in numerous cases in the Central African Republic of "excessive force, indiscriminate killings, occupation of schools and looting on a large scale, including of humanitarian organizations." War_in_Central_African_Republic

In mid-January 2023, the Wagner Group sustained relatively heavy casualties as a new government military offensive was launched near the CAR border with

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

and

Chad Chad, officially the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North Africa, North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to Chad–Libya border, the north, Sudan to Chad–Sudan border, the east, the Central Afric ...

. Fighting also erupted near the border with

. The rebels claimed between seven and 17 Wagner PMCs were among the dozens of casualties. A CAR military source also confirmed seven Wagner contractors were killed in one ambush. According to a 2022 joint investigation and report from European Investigative Collaborations (EIC), the French organization ''All Eyes on Wagner'', and the UK-based ''Dossier Center'', Wagner Group has been controlling Diamville diamond trading company in Central African Republic since 2019. According to ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'', the group also holds sway over "much of the timber industry and operates a network of gold and diamond mines", and according to "a senior US intelligence official", the CAR is now a "proxy state" of the Wagner Group. At the same time, a "French military official" complained to journalist Joshua Yaffa, "They don't really bring stability, or even fight rebel groups all that successfully. What they do is protect the government in power and their own economic interests." Bohumil Doboš of the Institute of Political Studies in Prague described Wagner's operation in the CAR as a neo-imperialist and neo-colonial kind of state capture, whereby Russia gains sway by helping to keep the ruling government in power and making them reliant on its protection, while generating economic and political benefits for Russia, without benefitting the local population.

Libya

The group's presence in Libya was first reported in October 2018, when Russian military bases had been set up in

Benghazi Benghazi () () is the List of cities in Libya, second-most-populous city in Libya as well as the largest city in Cyrenaica, with an estimated population of 859,000 in 2023. Located on the Gulf of Sidra in the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean, Ben ...

and

Tobruk Tobruk ( ; ; ) is a port city on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast, near the border with Egypt. It is the capital of the Butnan District (formerly Tobruk District) and has a population of 120,000 (2011 est.)."Tobruk" (history), ''Encyclop� ...

in support of Field Marshal

Khalifa Haftar Khalifa Haftar (; born 7 November 1943) is a Libyan-American politician, military officer, and the commander of the Tobruk-based Libyan National Army (LNA). In 2015, he was appointed commander of the armed forces loyal to the 2014 Libyan parliam ...

, who leads the

Libyan National Army The Libyan National Army (LNA; , ''al-jaysh al-waṭaniyy al-Lībii''), also known as the Libyan Arab Army (LAA; , ''al-Jaysh al-'Arabiyy al-Lībii'') or the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF; ), is a component of Libyan Armed Forces, Libya's mil ...

(LNA). The group was said to be providing training and support to Haftar's forces, and Russian missiles and SAM systems were also thought to be set up in Libya. By early March 2019, around 300 Wagner PMCs were in Benghazi supporting Haftar, according to a British government source. The LNA made large advances in the country's south, capturing a number of towns in quick succession, including the city of Sabha and the El Sharara oil field, Libya's largest oil field. Following the southern campaign, the LNA launched an offensive against the Government of National Accord (GNA)-held capital of Tripoli, but the offensive stalled within two weeks on the outskirts of the city due to stiff resistance. By mid-November, the number of Wagner PMCs in Libya had risen to 1,400, according to several Western officials. The US Congress was preparing bipartisan sanctions against the PMCs in Libya, and a US military drone was shot down over Tripoli, with the US claiming it was shot down by Russian air defenses operated by Russian PMCs or the LNA. An estimated 25 Wagner military personnel were killed in a drone strike in September 2020, although the Russian government denied any involvement. The GNA ultimately recaptured Tripoli in June 2020, leading to a ceasefire agreement in October 2020.

Mali

In September 2021, reports surfaced that an agreement was close to being finalized that would allow the Wagner Group to operate in Mali. France, which previously ruled Mali as a colony, was making a diplomatic push to prevent the agreement being enacted. Since late May 2021, Mali has been ruled by a

military junta A military junta () is a system of government led by a committee of military leaders. The term ''Junta (governing body), junta'' means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the Junta (Peninsular War), national and local junta organized by t ...

that came into power following a coup d'état. The United Kingdom,

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

and Ivory Coast also warned Mali not to engage in an agreement with the Wagner Group. Still, on 30 September, Mali received a shipment of four Mil Mi-17 helicopters, as well as arms and ammunition, as part of a contract agreed in December 2020. The following months, Russian military advisors arrived in the country and were active in several parts of Mali. On 5 April 2022, Human Rights Watch published a report accusing Malian soldiers and Russian PMCs of executing around 300 civilians between 27 and 31 March, during a military operation in Moura, in the

Mopti Mopti (Fulfulde: Mobti) is a town and an urban commune in the Inner Niger Delta region of Mali. The town is the capital of the Mopti Cercle and the Mopti Region. Situated 630 km northeast of Bamako, the town lies at the confluence of the ...

region, known as a hotspot of Islamic militants. According to the Malian military, more than 200 militants were killed in the operation, which reportedly involved more than 100 Russians. On 28 July 2024, it was reported that "dozens" of Wagner mercenaries had been killed or injured by Tuareg rebels in fighting at the commune of Tinzaouaten near the Algerian border in the north of Mali as they were moving in a convoy with Malian government soldiers. The Wagner Group confirmed that it suffered casualties during the battle, but did not give a death toll. On 21 November, at least seven Wagner soldiers were killed by

al-Qaeda , image = Flag of Jihad.svg , caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions , founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden , leaders = {{Plainlist, * Osama bin Lad ...

affiliate JNIM in an ambush on a convoy in the

Mopti region Mopti (Fula language, Fulfulde: 𞤁𞤭𞥅𞤱𞤢𞤤 𞤃𞤮𞥅𞤩𞤼𞤭𞥅, transliterated ''Diiwal Moobti'') is the fifth administrative region of Mali, covering 79,017 km2. Its capital is the city of Mopti. During the Mali War, ...

Venezuela

In late January 2019, Wagner PMCs were reported by ''

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

'' to have arrived in Venezuela during the unfolding presidential crisis. They were sent to provide security for President

Nicolás Maduro Nicolás Maduro Moros (; born 23 November 1962) is a Venezuelan politician and former union leader serving as the 53rd president of Venezuela since 2013. Previously, he was the 24th Vice President of Venezuela, vice president from 2012 to 20 ...

, who was facing opposition protests as part of the socioeconomic and political crisis that had been gripping Venezuela since 2010. The leader of a local chapter of a paramilitary group of Cossacks with ties to the PMCs reported that about 400 contractors may have been in Venezuela at that point. It was said that the PMCs flew in two chartered aircraft to Havana, Cuba, from where they transferred onto regular commercial flights to Venezuela. An anonymous Russian source close to the Wagner Group stated that another group of PMCs had already arrived in advance of the May 2018 presidential election. Before the 2019 flare-up of protests, the PMCs were in Venezuela to mostly provide security for Russian business interests like the Russian energy company

Rosneft PJSC Rosneft Oil Company ( stylized as ROSNEFT) is a Russian integrated energy company headquartered in Moscow. Rosneft specializes in the exploration, extraction, production, refining, transport, and sale of petroleum, natural gas, and pet ...

. They assisted in the training of the

Venezuelan National Militia The Bolivarian Militia of Venezuela is a militia branch of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela. Its headquarters is at the National Military Museum, Fort Montana, Caracas. The Commanding General of the National Militia is Major Gene ...

and the pro-Maduro Colectivos paramilitaries in 2018. Russian ambassador to Venezuela, Vladimir Zayemsky denied the report of the existence of Wagner in Venezuela.

Belarus

In July 2020, ahead of the country's presidential election, Belarusian law enforcement agencies arrested 33 Wagner contractors. The arrests took place after the security agencies received information about over 200 PMCs arriving in the country "to destabilize the situation during the election campaign", according to the state-owned '' Belarusian Telegraph Agency'' (BelTA). The Belarusian Security Council accused those arrested of preparing "a terrorist attack".Was Belarus' Arrest of Russian Wagner Soldiers Staged in a Ploy to Postpone Elections?
, ''The Daily Beast''. ''Radio Liberty'' reported the contractors were possibly on their way to Sudan, citing video footage that showed Sudanese currency and a telephone card depicting

Kassala Kassala (, ) is the capital of the state of Kassala (state), Kassala in eastern Sudan. In 2003 its population was recorded to be 530,950. Built on the banks of the Mareb River, Gash River, it is a market city and is famous for its fruit gardens. ...

's Khatmiya Mosque among the belongings of those who had been arrested. Others also believed the contractors were simply using Belarus as a staging post on their way to or from their latest assignment, possibly in Africa, with ''

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

'' pointing out the footage of the Sudanese currency and a Sudanese phone card as well. Russia confirmed the men were employed by a private security firm, but stated they had stayed in Belarus after missing their connecting flight to TurkeyRussia and Belarus at odds over suspected mercenaries' travel plans
, Reuters. and called for their swift release. The head of the Belarusian investigative group asserted the contractors had no plans to fly further to Turkey and that they were giving "contradictory accounts". The PMCs stated they were on their way to Venezuela, Turkey, Cuba and Syria. Belarusian authorities also said they believed the husband of opposition presidential candidate

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya Sviatlana Hieorhiyeuna Tsikhanouskaya (; born 11 September 1982) is a Belarusian political activist. After standing as a candidate in the 2020 presidential election against the president Alexander Lukashenko, she has led the political opposit ...

may have ties to the detained men and launched a criminal case against him. The detained contractors were returned to Russia two weeks later. During the contractors' detention, Russian media reported that the Security Service of Ukraine had lured the PMCs to Belarus under the pretext of a contract for the protection of

facilities in Venezuela. The operation's plan was to force an emergency landing of the contractor's plane from

Minsk Minsk (, ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administra ...

as it flew through Ukrainian airspace and, once grounded, the PMCs would have been arrested.Ukrainian Reverberations of the Wagner Arrests in Belarus: Russian Disinformation?
, Jamestown Foundation. Later, Russian president Putin also stated that the detained men were victims of a joint Ukrainian- United States intelligence operation. Although the Ukrainian president's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, denied involvement in the detentions, subsequently, a number of Ukrainian journalists, members of parliament, and politicians confirmed the operation. The operation was supposedly planned for a year as Ukraine identified PMCs who fought in eastern Ukraine and were involved in the July 2014 shoot down of

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Kuala Lumpur that was shot down by Russian-backed forces with a Buk missile system, Bu ...

. The operation failed after being postponed by the

Office of the President of Ukraine The Office of the President of Ukraine (, ), formerly the ''Administration of the President of Ukraine'' ( ), is a standing advisory body set up by the President of Ukraine pursuant to clause 28, Article 106 of the Constitution of Ukraine. The ...

, which was reportedly informed of it only in its final stage. Ukrainian reporter Yuri Butusov accused Andriy Yermak of "betrayal" after he reportedly deliberately released information on the operation to Russia. Butusov further reported that the Turkish intelligence agency MİT was also involved in the operation. The failure of the operation led to firings and criminal proceedings among Ukraine's Security Service personnel, according to a Ukrainian intelligence representative using the pseudonym "Bogdan". Former Ukrainian president

Petro Poroshenko Petro Oleksiiovych Poroshenko (born 26 September 1965) is a Ukraine, Ukrainian politician and Oligarchy, oligarch who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019. He served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Ukraine), Minister ...

also claimed in December 2020 that he sanctioned the operation at the end of 2018.

Possible activities

Nagorno-Karabakh

Several days after Russian media reported that Russian PMCs were ready to fight against Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh, a source within the Wagner Group, as well as Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer, reported Wagner contractors were sent to support

armed forces A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a ...

of the partially recognized

Republic of Artsakh Artsakh ( ), officially the Republic of Artsakh or the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh ( ), was a breakaway state in the South Caucasus whose territory was internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan. Between 1991 and 2023, Artsakh cont ...

against Azerbaijan during the

2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War was an armed conflict in 2020 that took place in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding occupied territories. It was a major escalation of an unresolved conflict over the region, involvi ...

ATGM An anti-tank guided missile (ATGM), anti-tank missile, anti-tank guided weapon (ATGW) or anti-armor guided weapon is a guided missile primarily designed to hit and destroy heavily armored military vehicles. ATGMs range in size from shoulder ...

operators. However, ''Bellingcat'' reported that the Wagner Group was not present in Nagorno-Karabakh, pointing to the Reverse Side of the Medal (RSOTM) public channel, used by Russian PMCs, including Wagner. RSOTM posted two images and a song alluding to the possibility of Wagner PMCs arriving in Nagorno-Karabakh, but ''Bellingcat'' determined the images were unrelated. Following the end of the war, retired military captain Viktor Zlobov stated Wagner PMCs took a significant role in managing to preserve the territory that remained under Armenian control during the conflict and were the ones mostly responsible for the Armenians managing to keep control of the town of

Shusha Shusha (, ) or Shushi () is a city in Azerbaijan, in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Situated at an altitude of 1,400–1,800 metres (4,600–5,900 ft) in the Karabakh mountains, the city was a mountain resort in the Soviet Union, Soviet ...

for as long as they did before it was ultimately captured by Azerbaijan during the major battle that took place. Turkey reported that 380 "blondes with blue eyes" took part in the conflict on the side of Artsakh, while some Russian publications put the number of Wagner PMCs who arrived in the region in early November at 500. 300 of these were said to have taken part in the Battle of Shusha and a photo of a Wagner PMC, apparently taken in front a church in Shusha during the war, appeared on the internet the following month. The Russian news outlet OSN reported the arrival of the PMCs was also one of the factors that led to Azerbaijan's halt of their offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh.

Burkina Faso

Following more than six years of a Jihadist insurgency in Burkina Faso, a

coup d'état A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...

took place on 23 January 2022, with the military deposing president

Roch Marc Christian Kaboré Roch Marc Christian Kaboré (; born 25 April 1957) is a Burkinabé banker and politician who served as the President of Burkina Faso from 2015 until he was deposed in 2022. He was the Prime Minister of Burkina Faso between 1994 and 1996 and Pre ...

and declaring that the parliament, government and constitution had been dissolved. The coup d'état was led by lieutenant colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba and came in response to the government's failure to suppress the Islamist insurgency, which has left 2,000 people dead and between 1.4 and 1.5 million displaced. Anger was also directed towards France, which was providing military support to the government. One day after the coup, Alexander Ivanov, the official representative of Russian military trainers in the CAR, offered training to the Burkinese military. Subsequently, it was revealed that shortly before the military takeover lieutenant colonel Damiba attempted to persuade president Kaboré to engage the Wagner Group against the Islamist insurgents. In addition, less than two weeks before the takeover, the government announced it had thwarted a coup plot, after which it was speculated that the Wagner Group might try and establish itself in Burkina Faso. The coup found significant support in the country and was followed by protests against France and in support of the takeover, with the protesters calling for Russia to intervene. The

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and superv ...

stated it was aware of allegations that the Wagner Group might have been "a force behind the military takeover in Burkina Faso" but could not confirm if they were true. On 30 September 2022, a new coup d'état took place that saw colonel Damiba being deposed by captain Ibrahim Traoré due to Damiba's inability to contain the jihadist insurgency. According to Traoré, he and other officers had tried to get Damiba to "refocus" on the rebellion, but eventually opted to overthrow him as "his ambitions were diverting away from what we set out to do". Some suspected Traoré of having a connection with Wagner. As Traoré entered

Ouagadougou Ouagadougou or Wagadugu (, , , ) is the capital city of Burkina Faso, and the administrative, communications, cultural and economic centre of the nation. It is also the List of cities in Burkina Faso#Largest cities, country's largest city, wi ...

, the nation's capital, supporters cheered, some waving Russian flags. Senior U.S. diplomat Victoria Nuland traveled to Burkina Faso in the wake of Traoré's seizure of power in order to "strongly urge" him not to partner with Wagner. Still, the

Government of Ghana The Government of Ghana was created as a parliamentary democracy, followed by alternating military and civilian governments in Ghana. In January 1993, military government gave way to the Fourth Republic after presidential and parliamentary elect ...

publicly alleged that Traoré began collaborating with the Wagner Group following the coup, enlisting the mercenaries against the jihadist rebels. According to Ghana's president, the ruling junta allocated a mine to the Wagner Group as a form of payment for its deployment, which was denied by Burkina Faso's mines minister. In late January 2023, the ruling junta demanded France withdraw its troops, numbering between 200 and 400 special forces members, from Burkina Faso, after battling the jihadists for years. France agreed and completed its withdrawal by 19 February 2023.

Other

A Russian news video claiming to show Serbian "volunteers" being trained by the Wagner Group to fight alongside Russian troops in Ukraine prompted outrage in Serbia. Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vučić, reacted angrily on national TV, asking why the Wagner Group would call on anyone from Serbia when it is against the country's regulations. It is illegal for Serbians to take part in conflicts abroad. Amid reports in March 2023, claiming Russia was plotting the toppling of the government of Moldova, and a subsequent anti-government demonstration, the Moldovan Border Police reported it had detained and deported an alleged member of the Wagner Group at Chisinau Airport. The U.S. government shared intelligence with the Chadian government that Wagner is working with rebels in the country to destabilise the government, and is possibly plotting to assassinate the country's president as well as other top government officials. Wagner was allegedly also seeking to forge ties with elements of the Chadian ruling class. An attempt to topple a government represented a watershed for Wagner's influence building strategy, a U.S. official told ''

''. The U.S. approach of intelligence sharing to counter Russian threats to sovereign states and subsequent leaks of the intelligence findings reflects a strategy pioneered amid the

. According to information from leaked US intelligence findings, Wagner sought to expand its operations into Haiti, reaching out to the embattled Haitian government with a proposal to combat gangs on behalf of the government. In June 2023, an email from the Wagner Group suggested that the group had plans involving the

Chatham Islands The Chatham Islands ( ; Moriori language, Moriori: , 'Misty Sun'; ) are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about east of New Zealand's South Island, administered as part of New Zealand, and consisting of about 10 islands within an approxima ...

east of the

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

mainland, following a television interview with Prigozhin when a map on the wall behind him had a coloured pin into the position of the islands. In August 2023, two Russian citizens were detained in Poland after they were spotted placing "Wagner" stickers and other recruitment materials in public places. According to law enforcement they had over 3,000 "Wagner" propaganda items and documented placing over 300 of them in various places in Poland, for which they received 500,000 RUB from Russia. In September 2024, it was claimed that PMCs from the Wagner Group (now called “Africa Corps”) had entered in

Equatorial Guinea Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. It has an area of . Formerly the colony of Spanish Guinea, its post-independence name refers to its location both near the Equ ...

at the request of Teodoro Obiang. According to the opposition, the objective of the contractors was to help consolidate a hypothetical succession of Obiang's power to his son " Teodorín".

Casualties

Families of killed PMCs are prohibited from talking to the media under a non-disclosure that is a prerequisite for them to get compensation from the company. The standard compensation for the family of a killed Wagner employee is up to 5 million rubles (about 80,000 dollars), according to a Wagner official. In contrast, the girlfriend of a killed fighter stated the families are paid between 22,500 and 52,000 dollars depending on the killed PMC's rank and mission. In mid-2018, Russian military veterans urged the Russian government to acknowledge sending private military contractors to fight in Syria, in an attempt to secure financial and medical benefits for the PMCs and their families. The Sogaz International Medical Centre in Saint Petersburg, a clinic owned by the large insurance company AO Sogaz, has treated PMCs who had been injured in combat overseas since 2016. The company's senior officials and owners are either relatives of Russian president Putin or others linked to him. The clinic's general director, Vladislav Baranov, also has a business relationship with Maria Vorontsova, Putin's eldest daughter. On 12 April 2018, investigative Russian journalist Maksim Borodin was found badly injured at the foot of his building, after falling from his fifth-floor balcony in

Yekaterinburg Yekaterinburg (, ; ), alternatively Romanization of Russian, romanized as Ekaterinburg and formerly known as Sverdlovsk ( ; 1924–1991), is a city and the administrative centre of Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Ural Federal District, Russia. The ci ...

. He was hospitalized in a coma and died of his injuries three days later on 15 April. In the weeks before his death, Borodin gained national attention when he wrote about the deaths of Wagner PMCs in the battle with US-backed forces in eastern Syria in early February, that also involved US air-strikes.

Sanctions

Prigozhin was sanctioned by the

United States Department of the Treasury The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the Treasury, national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States. It is one of 15 current United States federal executive departments, U.S. government departments. ...

in December 2016 for Russia's involvement in the war in Ukraine, and by the

(EU) and the United Kingdom in October 2020 for links to Wagner activities in Libya. The US Department of the Treasury also imposed sanctions on the Wagner Group and Utkin personally in June 2017. The designation of the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control listed the company and Dmitriy Utkin under the "Designations of Ukrainian Separatists (E.O. 13660)" heading and referred to him as "the founder and leader of PMC Wagner". Further sanctions were implemented against the Wagner Group in September 2018, and July 2020. In December 2021, the EU imposed sanctions against the Wagner Group and eight individuals and three entities connected with it, for committing "serious human rights abuses, including torture and extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and killings, or in destabilising activities in some of the countries they operate in, including Libya, Syria, Ukraine (Donbas) and the Central African Republic." Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Canada, Australia, Japan, Switzerland and New Zealand had sanctioned the group. In addition, in late January 2023, the US announced it would designate Wagner as a "significant transnational

criminal organization In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

", enabling further tougher sanctions to be implemented against the group. In early 2023, the US was reported to be working with Egypt and the

UAE The United Arab Emirates (UAE), or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East, at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a federal elective monarchy made up of seven emirates, with Abu Dhabi serving as i ...

to put pressure on the military leaders of Sudan and Libya to end their relationship with the Wagner Group and expel them from the countries. The Wagner Group had supported the UAE's and

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

's allies in Sudan and Libya. In addition, the Wagner PMCs in Libya were mainly funded by the UAE. On 4 July 2023, the Parliamentary Assembly of the

OSCE The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is a regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization comprising member states in Europe, North America, and Asia. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, the pr ...

recognized Wagner as a

terrorist organization Several national governments and two international organizations have created lists of organizations that they designate as terrorist. The following list of designated terrorist groups lists groups designated as terrorist by current and former ...

and Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. On 24 July, the US also sanctioned three

an officials for facilitating the Wagner Group's operations in their country.

Plane crash

On 23 August 2023, Wagner leaders Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin died in a plane crash in

, Russia. While the cause of the crash is unknown, ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'' cited sources within the US government as saying that the crash was likely caused by a bomb onboard or "some other form of sabotage". Early reports suggested a missile strike, but the ''Journal'' cited three veteran aviation experts who said that the visual evidence indicates a catastrophic structural failure not attributable to a missile. ''

'' discounted the possibility of a

surface-to-air missile A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground or the sea to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-ai ...

(SAM) strike, saying that the aircraft was flying too high to be hit by a short-range

man-portable air-defense system Man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS or MPADS) are portable Shoulder-launched missile, shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles. They are guided missile, guided weapons and are a threat to low-flying aircraft, especially helicopters and ...

, while a more potent medium-range SAM such as those operated by Russian forces in the area would cause much more severe and readily identifiable damage. The

press secretary Patrick Ryder said that

the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The building was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As ...

had no indication that the plane had been shot down by a SAM, calling it false information. Experts consulted by ''

'' said that the size of the debris field – with the

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French language, French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds Aircrew, crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an Aircraft engine, engine as wel ...

being found some from the

empennage The empennage ( or ), also known as the tail or tail assembly, is a structure at the rear of an aircraft that provides stability during flight, in a way similar to the feathers on an arrow.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third ed ...

– suggests a catastrophic structural failure that could not be caused by a simple mechanical problem.

Far-right elements

Various elements of the Wagner Group have been linked to extremism, including

white supremacy White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine ...

and neo-Nazism. Some founding members of Wagner belong to the far-right ultranationalist Russian Imperial Movement. Wagner's first commander, Dmitry Utkin, was reportedly a neo-Nazi and had several Nazi tattoos, greeted subordinates by saying "Heil!", wore a Wehrmacht field cap around the unit's training grounds, and occasionally signed his name with the two lightning bolt insignia of the Nazi SS. In 2021, the ''

Foreign Policy Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...

'' report noted the origin of the name "Wagner" to be unknown. Others say the group's name comes from Utkin's own

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...

"Wagner", reportedly after the German composer

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...

, which Utkin is said to have chosen due to his passion for the

Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

(Wagner being

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

's favorite composer). Members of Wagner Group said Utkin was a Rodnover, a follower of Slavic native faith. A Wagner sub-group, " Rusich", was founded by self-proclaimed neo-Nazi Alexey Milchakov and is open about its far-right ideology. Wagner members have also left neo-Nazi graffiti on the battlefield, such as

swastika The swastika (卐 or 卍, ) is a symbol used in various Eurasian religions and cultures, as well as a few Indigenous peoples of Africa, African and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, American cultures. In the Western world, it is widely rec ...

s and the SS emblem. However, Erica Gaston, a senior policy adviser at the UN University Centre for Policy Research, noted that the Wagner Group is not driven by ideology, but is rather a network of mercenaries "linked to the Russian security state".

Awards and honors

Wagner PMCs have received state awards in the form of military decorations and certificates signed by Russian president Putin. Wagner commanders Andrey Bogatov and Andrei Troshev were awarded the Hero of the Russian Federation honor for assisting in the first capture of Palmyra in March 2016. Bogatov was seriously injured during the battle. Meanwhile, Alexander Kuznetsov and Dmitry Utkin had reportedly won the Order of Courage four times. Family members of killed PMCs also received medals from Wagner itself, with the mother of one killed fighter being given two medals, one for "heroism and valour" and the other for "blood and bravery". A medal for conducting operations in Syria was also issued by Wagner to its PMCs. In mid-December 2017, a

powerlifting Powerlifting is a competitive strength athletics, strength sport that consists of three attempts at maximal weight on three lifts: Squat (exercise), squat, bench press, and deadlift. As in the sport of Olympic weightlifting, it involves the athle ...

tournament was held in

Ulan-Ude Ulan-Ude (; , ; , ) is the capital city of Buryatia, Russia, located about southeast of Lake Baikal on the Uda River, Buryatia, Uda River at its confluence with the Selenga River, Selenga. According to the Russian Census (2021), 2021 Census, 43 ...

, capital city of the Russian

Republic of Buryatia Buryatia, officially the Republic of Buryatia, is a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia located in the Russian Far East. Formerly part of the Siberian Federal District, it has been administered as part of the Far Eastern Federal District sin ...

, which was dedicated to the memory of Vyacheslav Leonov, a Wagner PMC who was killed during the campaign in Syria's Deir ez-Zor province. The same month, Russia's president signed a decree establishing

International Volunteer Day The International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development (5 December), more commonly referred to as International Volunteer Day (IVD), is an international observance mandated by the UN General Assembly in 1985. It offers an opportunity ...

in Russia, as per the UN resolution from 1985, which will be celebrated annually every 5 December. The Russian '' Poliksal'' news site associated the Russian celebration of Volunteer Day with honoring Wagner PMCs. In late January 2018, an image emerged of a monument in Syria, dedicated to "Russian volunteers". The inscription on the monument in

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

read: "To Russian volunteers, who died heroically in the liberation of Syrian oil fields from ISIL". The monument was located at the Haiyan plant, about 50 kilometers from Palmyra, where Wagner PMCs were deployed. An identical monument was also erected in Luhansk in February 2018. In late August 2018, a chapel was built near Goryachy Klyuch, Krasnodar Krai, in Russia in memory of Wagner PMCs killed in fighting against ISIL in Syria. For each of those killed a candle is lit in the chapel. Towards the end of November 2018, it was revealed that a third monument, also identical to the two in Syria and Luhansk, was erected in front of the chapel, which is a few dozen kilometers from the PMC's training facility at Molkin. The leadership of the Wagner Group and its military instructors were reportedly invited to attend the military parade on 9 May 2018, dedicated to Victory Day. On 14 May 2021, a Russian movie inspired by the Russian military instructors in the Central African Republic premiered at the national stadium in Bangui. Titled '' The Tourist'', it depicts a group of Russian military advisors sent to the CAR on the eve of presidential elections and, following a violent rebellion, they defend locals against the rebels. The movie was reportedly financed by Prigozhin to improve the Wagner Group's reputation and included some Wagner PMCs as extras. Six months later, a monument to the Russian military was erected in Bangui. In late January 2022, a second movie about the Russian PMCs had its premiere. The film, titled ''Granit'', showed the true story of the contractors' mission to the Cabo Delgado region of Mozambique in 2019, against Islamist militants.

Post Yevgeny Prigozhin's death

On 11 September 2023, Russian media reported that the National Guard, Rosgvardia, had begun recruiting former convicts who served in Ukraine as members of the Wagner Group. On 27 September 2023, the Ukrainian military reported that around 500 Wagner Group fighters returned to fight in Donetsk Oblast as part of the group's redeployment in Ukraine for the first time since its failed rebellion against the Russian military establishment in June. On 29 September 2023, President Putin appointed former Wagner Group commander and retired colonel Andrei Troshev (''

nom de guerre A ''nom de guerre'' (, 'war name') is a pseudonym chosen by someone to use when they are involved in a particular activity, especially fighting in a war. In Ancien régime, ''ancien régime'' Kingdom of France, France it would be adopted by each n ...

'' ''Sedoi'') to oversee volunteer fighter units in Ukraine. In October 2023, pro-Wagner groups reported that

, son of former leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, had been appointed as the new leader of the Wagner Group. On 6 November 2023, the ''

Kyiv Post The ''Kyiv Post'' is Ukraine’s first and most prominent English-language newspaper. It was founded in 1995 in Kyiv by American businessman Jed Sunden. In 2018, the publication was acquired by prominent Ukrainian businessman Adnan Kivan, foun ...

'' released drone footage of what it claimed was Ukrainian special forces attacking Wagner PMC soldiers in Sudan with an explosive projectile.

Nationalization of Wagner Group

On 13 November 2023, it was reported that four former inmates who fought for the Wagner Group in eastern Ukraine, have been receiving calls and text messages offering them military contracts. Three of the veterans reported that specifically Rosgvardia was trying to recruit them. A text message said: "Wagner is officially becoming a unit of Rosgvardia...The entire structure, methods of work and commanders remain the same." Other reports indicate that former Wagner fighters have joined Chechen Akhmat units, whilst still wearing Wagner patches.

Notable members

* Vladimir Andanov was wanted for a killing in Libya. Andanov was reportedly killed by a Ukrainian sniper in Ukraine. * Alexey Milchakov * Andrey Medvedev

Notes

Citations

External links

* {{Authority control 2014 establishments in Russia Military units and factions of the Mali War Military units and formations of Russia in the Russian invasion of Ukraine Organisations designated as terrorist by the United Kingdom Organizations designated as terrorist by Canada Organizations designated as terrorist by Lithuania Organizations designated as terrorist by Ukraine Paramilitary organizations based in Russia Private military contractors Pro-Russian militant groups Pro-Assad factions of the Syrian civil war Russian entities subject to U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctions Russian mercenaries Russian military intervention in the Syrian civil war Separatist forces of the war in Donbas Transnational organized crime Yevgeny Prigozhin