Wagner Group: A State-Backed Russian Paramilitary Cartel

“Wagner Group: A State-Backed Russian Paramilitary Cartel” goes deep inside the lethal global expansion of the Russian private military company Wagner — tracing the group’s evolution from a small, guns-for-hire operation into a sprawling network of businesses that has been active on four continents. Wagner Group: A State-Backed Russian Paramilitary Cartel

Through interviews with current and former Wagner fighters, government insiders, victims of attacks and war crimes investigators, we reveal how the group is hiding the flow of riches and resources through a complex network of front companies that ultimately connect to the Kremlin.

* What Is Wagner And Who Is Yevgeny Prigozhin?

* How The Wagner Group Operates

* Wagner’s Origins

* A New Business Model In Syria

* Wagner’s Expansion Into Africa

* Wagner’s Africa Playbook: Guns And Gold

* The War In Ukraine, Wagner Steps Out Of The Shadows

* Wagner’s Future

Updated: 6-23-2023

Prigozhin Accused Of Uprising In Challenge To Kremlin Grip

* Putin Getting Round-The-Clock Updates On Prigozhin Case

* Mercenary’s Threats Are New Escalation In Feud With Military

Russia accused the powerful head of the Wagner mercenary group of mounting an armed uprising as the growing animosity between rival Kremlin camps over the war in Ukraine spilled into open conflict.

President Vladimir Putin was getting round-the-clock updates from security officials on their efforts to counter “the attempt at an armed mutiny” by Yevgeny Prigozhin, Tass reported early Saturday morning in Moscow, citing Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

The mercenary chief said early Saturday he and his fighters had entered Rostov-on-Don, a southern city close to the border with Ukraine, but that couldn’t be independently confirmed.

Social media carried videos from the city showing armored vehicles and troops surrounding military headquarters and security buildings without firing their weapons but it wasn’t immediately clear if they were from Wagner or the Russian army.

The videos couldn’t immediately be authenticated. Local officials told residents to avoid the center of the city, citing the “existing situation.”

The showdown with Prigozhin marked the most dramatic escalation in a long-running feud between the mercenary leader and Russia’s defense establishment that’s spiraled into what is the biggest challenge to Putin’s authority since he sent troops into Ukraine 16 months ago.

The Kremlin was taking no chances. Authorities tightened security in the capital, including around government buildings, and put riot police on alert, Tass said. Early Saturday, Moscow’s mayor said city authorities were conducting unspecified “anti-terrorist actions.”

Regulators also blocked access to Google’s news aggregator on major platforms in Russia, according to NetBlocks, an Internet-monitoring group.

In Washington, President Joe Biden has been briefed on the situation while the top two members of the Senate Intelligence said “we are closely monitoring what appears to be a significant internal conflict among Russian forces.”

Tensions erupted Friday when the mercenary chief posted a series of audio messages on his Telegram channel vowing to “punish” Russia’s military leaders for what he alleged attack was a missile attack on a Wagner base and the losses of “tens of thousands” of Russian troops in the war. He accused Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of overseeing an operation to “destroy” Wagner.

The Defense Ministry denied Prigozhin’s claims. Prosecutors opened a criminal probe into the mercenary chief under the laws banning “armed uprising” and the Federal Security Service said it was seeking to detain him and appealed to his troops not to obey his “criminal orders.”

In an audio message posted early Saturday, Prigozhin said he and his fighters had crossed the border back into Russia and had shot down a helicopter that challenged them. However, there was no independent confirmation of his claims.

“There are 25,000 of us and we are going to figure out why there is lawlessness happening in the country,” Prigozhin said.

“Everyone who wants to join us, we need to end this mess.”

Though he threatened to destroy “anyone who will try to resist,” Prigozhin said “this is not a military coup. This is a march of justice.”

Authorities in Voronezh, a region on the way from Rostov-on-Don to Moscow, advised residents to stay off the main highway linking the two because a military convoy was on the road.

Putin’s Position

Putin had long appeared to tolerate the mercenary’s outbursts, relying on his troops to fight in key parts of the front. But his high profile rankled with the military brass, which regularly sought to undermine and sideline him.

Prigozhin, 62, has for months accused Shoigu and the Defense Ministry of failing to adequately support Wagner forces fighting in Ukraine, particularly during battles for the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Prigozhin in May threatened to pull his troops out of the operation if they didn’t get supplies but later backed down.

While it’s not certain yet whether Prigozhin will follow through on his threats, said Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of R.Politik, a political consulting firm, “the authorities’ reaction is clear – they’re putting down the mutiny.”

“In my view, this is the end of Wagner,” she said. “The system can’t tolerate his activeness any longer.”

Russia’s top anti-terror body demanded Prigozhin stop illegal actions, Tass said. Two top generals who had in the past worked closely with Wagner publicly appealed to the group’s fighters to ignore Prigozhin’s appeals.

The country’s largest social network blocked access to at least one of his audio messages on its platform following orders from regulators, Tass reported.

The main state television channel showed a rare late-night special news update, recounting the official charges against Prigozhin and dismissing his allegations.

Frictions had been rising again in recent weeks after Shoigu set a July 1 deadline for all volunteer units to sign a formal contract with the Defense Ministry — an order so far bluntly rejected by Prigozhin. Putin backed the ministry’s demand during a meeting with Russian journalists and military bloggers last week.

Friday, Prigozhin posted a video on Telegram accusing the Defense Ministry of “deceiving” Russians and Putin about the war as he challenged Kremlin justifications for the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The mercenary leader has increasingly put himself at odds with the Kremlin narrative about the war, while warning Russians that full mobilization and martial law are necessary to avoid defeat in Ukraine.

In an interview with a local journalist last month, he heaped praise on the performance of Ukraine’s military and scorned the “denazification and demilitarization” goals that Putin and top Kremlin officials used as justification for the war. “How did we demilitarize it? We actually militarized it,” he said. “It’s now one of the strongest armies.”

He also accused Russia’s top defense officials of using the war to enrich themselves and leaving the country unprotected following a border incursion by attackers who crossed from Ukraine.

Updated: 6-24-2023

Wagner Group: A State-Backed Russian Paramilitary Cartel

Putin is facing the most serious threat since he took power in 2000 as Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin turns on Russia’s military establishment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his forces to put down what he called an armed rebellion after the founder of the Wagner mercenary group turned on Russia’s military command.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, a one-time Putin confidant, took over the military headquarters for southern Russia in the city of Rostov, saying the Russian military had killed “an enormous amount” of his troops in airstrikes at Wagner camps.

Prigozhin has now threatened to lead what he called a march of justice to Moscow, prompting Putin to warn of the danger of a civil war resembling the upheaval of 1917, when the Bolsheviks rose to power.

Who Is Prigozhin?

Yevgeny Prigozhin, 62 years old, is among the more unlikely figures to have risen to prominence under Putin’s rule. A former convict who grew up in the same impoverished St. Petersburg neighborhoods where Putin was raised, he developed a close relationship with the Russian leader after working as a restaurateur and caterer.

He hosted banquets for Putin, personally pouring wine for guests such as then-President George W. Bush, and later earned lucrative catering contracts for the Russian military.

Prigozhin built a unit of armed men to protect his business interests and provide him some leverage against some of Putin’s other acolytes in Russia’s almost-feudal political system.

This group later evolved into Wagner, which allowed the Kremlin to extend its military influence in Ukraine and parts of Africa and the Middle East, while still retaining the ability to deny that the Russian state was involved in any of these conflict zones.

He also directed resources toward building a so-called bot farm to try to influence social media in the West in an attempt to swing elections.

His Internet Research Agency interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The U.S. issued an arrest warrant for him in 2018.

How Important Is Wagner?

Wagner has turned into a significant commercial and military operation. Its forces are on the ground in several African nations, providing security to leaders in exchange for access to valuable resources including diamond and gold mines, American officials say, while boosting host nations’ diplomatic ties to Moscow.

In Syria, Wagner troops played an important role in securing territory for the country’s leader, President Bashar al-Assad, another Putin ally.

Prigozhin’s forces also played a role in Moscow’s seizure of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

Wagner stepped up a level in 2022 with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both in the early days of the war and, more important, during the fight to secure Bakhmut, a crossroads city in eastern Ukraine.

Prigozhin personally recruited fighters from the Russian prison system, sometimes flying to penal colonies in a helicopter to pitch his offer—fight for six months and receive generous payment, but risk death at the front lines. Ukrainian officials say he recruited more than 30,000 men in this manner.

Wagner’s intervention was decisive when Russia finally took Bakhmut this spring, but Prigozhin’s success was colored by a worsening feud with Russia’s military establishment, which he accuses of skimping on supplies of vital munitions and other equipment.

At times, he threatened to withdraw from Bakhmut, exposing weaknesses in Putin’s method of pitting his subordinates against each other.

On Friday, the feud spilled over, with Prigozhin accusing Russia’s top brass of shelling Wagner troops and sending his own forces over the border to Russia to seize the southern military command center in Rostov.

Significantly, Prigozhin challenged the justification for the war in Ukraine, saying it was launched under false pretenses to further the interests of Russia’s defense establishment.

While he didn’t target Putin by name, he undermined the Russian leader’s argument that the invasion was vital to defend Russia against growing Western influence across Eastern Europe.

Wagner units have since been sighted heading north to Moscow.

How Has Putin Responded?

Putin on Saturday ordered the Russian military to take action against the Wagner contingent occupying Rostov, describing its actions as treason. In a televised speech, Putin didn’t mention Prigozhin by name but called his moves a “criminal adventure, a grave crime, an armed mutiny.”

The Russian leader compared them to the 1917 revolution that ultimately destroyed the old Russian Empire, leading to the loss of swaths of land at a time when Moscow was fighting World War I.

“We will not let this be repeated. We will defend our people and our state against any threats, including internal treason. And what we are facing is precisely treason,” Putin said. “Any internal strife will be a mortal threat for our statehood, for us as a nation. Our actions to defend the motherland against this danger will be harsh.”

Political analysts have described Prigozhin’s actions as the biggest challenge to Putin’s rule since he assumed power in 2000 and a visceral expression of the mounting cost and strain of the war in Ukraine.

What Are Ukrainian Forces Doing?

Ukrainian officials say they are keeping a close eye on events as they unfold. Posting on Twitter, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said the splits between the Russian fighting forces are now obvious and that someone will have to win, and someone will have to lose. “Everything is just beginning in Russia,” he posted.

Wagner Group: A State-Backed Russian Paramilitary Cartel

Related Articles:

Vast Troves of Classified Info Undermine National Security, Spy Chief Says

Your Questions And Comments Are Greatly Appreciated.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply