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After months of heightened tensions between the Russian military and the mercenary Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner and head of the organisation, on Saturday said he had taken control of the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don as part of an attempt to oust the military leadership.
In an address to the nation, Russian President Vladimir Putin responded by describing Prigozhin’s actions as an “armed mutiny” and told the rebels they will face “inevitable punishment” for their “betrayal.”
Since Friday night, Prigozhin has posted a series of recordings on social media, accusing the Russian military of attacking Wagner encampments, killing “a huge number of fighters.” He has also claimed that the Russian generals lied to Putin about the reasons behind going to war against Ukraine.
Since the outbreak of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Wagner Group has played a pivotal role in advancing Moscow’s war efforts. Although the organisation came to the limelight only last year, it has been active for almost a decade. Apart from Ukraine, its footprint is spread across the African continent, where it has not only provided mercenaries to different governments but also led social media disinformation campaigns and deployed teams of fake election monitors.
Officially known as the PMC Wagner, the mercenary organisation was first identified in 2014, during Russia’s annexation of Crimea. It’s essentially a network of contractors that supply soldiers for hire and the group got registered as a company in 2022 and opened a new headquarters in St Petersburg, as per the BBC.
Initially, the Wagner Group remained mostly secretive and consisted of just 5,000 fighters, active particularly in Africa and West Asia. However, in the following years, it expanded to comprise “50,000 fighters” just in Ukraine, the UK Defence Ministry said in January. Reports suggest that 80 per cent of its troops in Ukraine have been recruited from prison.
Dr Samuel Ramani, of the Royal United Services Institute think tank, told the BBC: “It is openly recruiting in Russian cities, on billboards, and is being named in Russian media as a patriotic organisation”.
The organisation’s owner and head is Prigozhin. Born in 1961, the Russian oligarch spent his 20s in a Soviet jail, serving nine years for robbery and fraud. But once he was released and the Soviet Union collapsed, Prigozhin embarked on an “entrepreneurial path”, DW said in a report. He started by selling hot dogs but soon established a luxurious restaurant in his hometown, St Petersburg, which became a go-to place for all the Russian elites, including then-deputy mayor Vladimir Putin.
Close links to prominent people helped Prigozhin expand his business. And after Putin became president, he was awarded a host of government contracts. Prigozhin subsequently earned the nickname “Putin’s Chef”. The lucrative earnings in the food industry weren’t enough for the businessman though and he eventually got into the sector of providing private military service.
Besides Ukraine, Wagner Group has reportedly been active in a number of African and West Asian countries. According to media reports, it provides its services to different governments often in exchange for access to gold and diamond mines.
Syria
After the annexation of Crimea, the organisation’s fighters surfaced in Syria in 2015, where a bloody civil war had broken out four years ago, and Putin had decided to intervene. Fighting alongside the Russian and Syrian forces, the Wager Group, despite sustaining heavy casualties, helped President Bashar Assad gain significant ground.
In return, Moscow, in 2017, established a policy in Syria where companies that would seize oil, gas wells and mines from Islamic State (IS) forces, would get the rights to access those same sites. The New York Times reported that two Russian companies at the time got contracts under this policy, with one employing the Wagner Group to secure those sites from the militants.
Sudan
The organisation first entered the country in 2017 during the reign of former authoritarian President Omar al-Bashir, who was ousted two years later. The Wagner Group provided security and logistical support to al-Bashir and in exchange “Prigozhin received exclusive rights to gold mining in Sudan, channelled through his M-Invest company,” according to the Brookings Institution, an American research group. It currently is known to have stakes in Sudan’s vast gold and uranium reserves, diamond mines, and supplies fighters for hire to the restive region of Darfur.
Notably, days after a fierce battle broke out between Sudan’s military and paramilitary forces in April this year, Prigozhin issued a statement, offering to help mediate the conflict.
Central African Republic
The organisation arrived in the Central African Republic in 2018 to protect President Faustin-Archange Touadéra against various rebel groups. It has trained the country’s army and local security forces to help quell major Islamic offences. In return, the Wagner Group has received diamond and gold mining licences. According to a recent DW report, the government in Bangui (Capital of the Central African Republic) granted (the organisation) subsidiary unrestricted logging rights across 187,000 hectares (722 square miles).”
The Wagner Group has also been accused of committing severe human rights violations, killing civilians, looting homes and harassing activists, journalists and peacekeepers in the country. The NYT reported that the organisation mostly focused on regions where Prigozhin’s companies were mining for diamonds.
Mozambique
Mozambique’s government invited the Wagner Group in 2019 after the escalation of the al-Shabab insurgency in the northern region of the country. The organisation quickly deployed 160 of its fighters in the conflict zone but within weeks several of them were killed by the insurgents. As per the Brookings Institution, Wagner Group failed to understand “the local insurgency and the indigenous military forces with whom it had to collaborate” and had to ultimately pull out its troops.
The organisation still maintains its presence in Mozambique though. NYT said that it has left behind a small cyberwarfare cell that is employed by the government.
Mali
Experts believe that the pro-Russian, anti-Western military government, which seized power after the 2021 coup, has brought in hundreds of Wagner mercenaries to fight extremism in the Sahel region. The group, which has access to Mali’s uranium, diamond, and gold mines as likely payoffs, has been accused of perpetrating war crimes in the country, killing hundreds of innocent civilians in the numerous attacks that it carried out.
The recently leaked US intelligence documents revealed that there were more than 1,645 Wagner personnel in Mali and the organisation might use the country as a proxy and acquire the weapons from Turkey on its behalf.
Burkina Faso
As per a Wall Street Journal report, the Wagner Group is currently negotiating a new security contract with the military government of Burkina Faso, which recently asked soldiers from France to leave after they fought for around a decade against Islamic insurgents.
The report added that the organisation also coordinated “a monthslong social media campaign in Burkina Faso accusing France of failing to crack down on jihadists or even arming them.”
Libya
The Wagner fighters have been deployed in Libya since 2019 in support of warlord Khalifa Hifter. In exchange for providing advice, assistance and training to local troops, the organisation has received permission for mining in civilian areas.
The Brookings Institution also noted, “Like other foreign mercenaries and militia groups active in the country, the Wagner Group has disregarded the UN-sponsored Berlin Conference’s demand that they depart.”
