Russia Faces New Challenge From Wagner Group And Its Boss Yevgeny Prigozhin. Who Are They? — Explained

The secret Russian military group, Wagner, that aided its operation in Ukraine has now vowed to topple Moscow's military leadership. Yevgeny Prigozhin is leading the agenda giving headache to Putin.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Wagner group.

Russian mercenary group Wagner, which has helped Moscow in its war against Ukraine, has now become a pain for President Vladimir Putin and its military. The 61-year-old chief of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, recently vowed to "go to the end" to topple the Russian military leadership. President Putin has called the armed rebellion a ‘stab in the back’ and threatened punishment for the ‘traitors’.  Responding to this, Prigozhin said that Putin was "deeply mistaken" in calling rebelling Wagner fighters "traitors" and ruled out surrender, reported AFP. 

Wagner, a shadow force that helped Russia capture key Ukraine areas is now challenging Russian forces after it took control of the first city since it declared to topple Moscow’s military leadership. What is Wagner and who is Yevgeny Prigozhin, that have risen as fresh concern for Putin in its ‘military operation’ against Ukraine. 

Who Is Yevgeny Prigozhin? 

Prigozhin – a 61-year-old ex-convict had denied all links with the military group Wagner until September last year when he announced he was “proud” to be its founder, as per Independent. He was popularly known as “Putin’s chef” because his catering business earlier hosted dinners for the Russian president and fed the Kremlin’s armed forces.  

He was a hotdog seller from a modest background and a native of Putin's hometown, Saint Petersburg. During the Soviet-era, he was jailed for nearly a decade after being convicted of fraud and theft. In the 1990s, he began a moderately successful fast-food company. Prigozhin opened a luxury location in Saint Petersburg, whose customers included Putin.  

As per a TOI report, Prigozhin is also believed to be behind the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a troll farm that was accused of meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. The IRA used social media to spread pro-Trump propaganda and to sow discord among American voters.  

The United States and the European Union have sanctioned Prigozhin for his activities and he is currently under investigation by the US Department of Justice for possible criminal charges, the TOI report said.  

Prigozhin is a controversial and powerful figure. He has close ties to Putin and controls a vast network of businesses.  He is said to have hired fighters for Wagner from Russian prisons promising them pardons If they survive half-year tour of front-line duty with Wagner. 

After denying for years about his relationship with Wagner, he said that he founded Wagner to support Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas conflict. 

“I cleaned the old weapons myself, sorted out the bulletproof vests myself and found specialists who could help me with this,” Prigozhin said, as quoted by Independent “From that moment, on 1 May 2014, a group of patriots was born, which later came to be called the Wagner Battalion.” 

A former Russian intelligence officer, namely Dmitry Utkin, is alleged to be a co-founder who remains near the top of the group’s command. 

Prigozhin had a history of suing Russian and Western news outlets that alleged his ties to the group. He earlier claimed that his secretive stance was to protect the Wagner soldiers. 

A report from the Independent says that British intelligence puts the number of Wagner troops active in Ukraine at 50,000, comprising a quarter of Russia’s total strength. 

War contractors are nothing new but military analysts say the Kremlin has been heavily reliant on Wagner due to the heavy losses incurred by official Russian forces during the war, along with difficulties in recruitment. 

 

What Is Mercenary Group ‘Wagner’? 

The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) first reported that Wagner had been deployed in Ukraine on 28 March 2022. Independent reported that since its formation, Wagner has been accused of committing human rights abuses in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, Sudan, Mali and Mozambique. 

NBC News stated that the Wagner group was a “private military company” by Russia, while others label it a mercenary group. It was founded in 2014, and is owned by Prigozhin. 

In December, the report stated, the US believed that the Wagner Group had an estimated 50,000 personnel inside Ukraine — around 10,000 contractors and 40,000 convicts from Russian prisons, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. 

Russia, for long, denied the involvement of the Wagner Group in its official military operations, but the Washington think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies says it is often directly connected to the Russian state. It played a role in Russia's operations in Ukraine in 2014 and 2015, it said. 

“Instead of using the Russian narrative, according to which Wagner is a private military company, Wagner should be viewed as a classic proxy organization,” it said, as quoted by NBC news. Media reports suggest that the Wagner Group has also been involved in other parts of the world, including Africa. 

Wagner Group was also sent to the Central African Republic in its civil war, where the group was accused of executing civilians, attacking UN peacekeepers and targeting predominantly Muslim communities, the report added. 

The US in January designated the Wagner Group a transnational criminal organization. NBC mentioned that in Africa, Wagner destabilised countries and committed "widespread human rights abuses and extorting natural resources from their people," the US Treasury Department said then in imposing sanctions. 

Wagner took an increasingly visible role in the war as regular Russian troops suffered heavy attrition and lost territory in humiliating setbacks.