What is the Wagner Group?

The head of the Wagner Group of mercenaries has reportedly been killed in a plane crash, putting Russia’s internal security and the future of the controversial military unit in jeopardy.

Yevgeny Prigozhin was listed as one of seven passengers on a private aircraft flying from Moscow to St Petersburg when it came down near the city of Tver. The passengers and three crew all died, according to Russia’s emergencies ministry.

Prigozhin’s death has yet to be officially confirmed. The UK Ministry of Defence said it was “highly likely” he died in the crash, and Vladimir Putin paid tribute to his former ally in a speech but did not confirm his death.

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Speculation is widespread that the plane was brought down on Putin’s orders as belated revenge for the mutiny staged by the Wagner Group in June. Prigozhin and his fellow Wagner leaders were exiled to Belarus in the wake of the mutiny.

Prigozhin’s death would send an “unmistakable message”, said The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, suggesting that Putin has “conducted a public execution”. However, “plenty of questions” remain about the incident, and indeed the future of the Wagner Group as a whole.

Brutal tactics, human rights abuses

The Wagner Group is “a private mercenary operation that offers muscle to dictators around the world”, said the Financial Times’s Miles Johnson.

It “quickly began to gain notoriety” in 2014, as Wagner recruits fought alongside pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region of Ukraine, the paper continued.

Wagner mercenaries were known for their “brutal tactics”, said CNN. “In every combat zone” they have fought, “allegations have quickly surfaced of human rights abuses, including summary executions, torture, rape and the murder of journalists”, said the FT.

Progizhin’s forces were heavily involved in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that began in February 2022. “Putin gave Prigozhin permission to recruit inmates from Russian jails,” said The Telegraph. This new source of personnel meant that by the end last year, the Wagner Group “was reported to have grown from 5,000 to some 50,000”, the paper added. And as many as 80% of them were reportedly former convicts.

In the wake of Prigozhin’s 24-hour mutiny in June – he described it as a “march of justice” staged in protest at the way the war in Ukraine was being fought – his fighters were given an ultimatum: “they could join either the regular Russian army or to go to Belarus, a close ally of Russia”, the BBC said.

By the end of July, “thousands” of Wagner mercenaries had arrived in Belarus, according to The Associated Press. And “about 700 vehicles and construction equipment” have also been seen in the country via satellite images.

The news agency reported that Wagner forces were “continuing to work with Belarusian troops” close to the border with Poland. Belarus’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, has “goaded” Poland that the troops posed a threat to them as part of his and his ally Putin’s efforts to escalate tensions with Nato countries.

Russia has also used the Wagner Group to further its interests in Africa. A day before his apparent death, a seemingly pre-recorded Telegram post appeared to show Prigozhin, possibly in Africa, “standing in a desert area in camouflage and with a rifle in his hands”, The Guardian reported. Prigozhin claimed Wagner was conducting reconnaissance to make “Russia even greater on all continents, and African even more free”.

He also sought to use Wagner to sow discord in the United States during the 2016 presidential election by outsourcing work to “individuals in Ghana and Nigeria”, said the Council on Foreign Relations. He has also “sponsored ‘phony election monitoring’ in several African nations”, the think tank added.

However, the conduct of Wagner’s forces has long been questioned. Back in 2021, UN experts were “extremely concerned about intimidation and recent reports of violent harassment by private military and security contractors against individuals and communities” in the Central African Republic, specifically naming the Wagner Group.

What next for Wagner?

Prigozhin’s apparent death leaves many uncertainties, but “what is clear”, said The Guardian, is that “Wagner, as it was once constituted, is no more”.

“The most outside impact” of its demise will be felt in Africa, said The Wall Street Journal. Reports of Prigozhin’s death have “set off a flurry of calls from governments and factional leaders” who are worried about what this means for their nations.

Wagner’s involvement in Africa has brought major financial benefits for Russia. Wagner “has evolved into a larger network of businesses, including mining firms and political consultants who offer advice on political campaigning and social-media disinformation”, said the WSJ. Some of these enterprises “especially gold mines in Sudan and the Central African Republic, have been major profitmakers”, the newspaper added. The Kremlin has used these to help fund the war in Ukraine, so the stakes are high for Moscow.

But with Prigozhin and his second-in-command Dmitry Utkin, who was also on board the plane that crashed, now dead, Putin also has a problem regarding the group’s future. Russia’s alleged involvement in the downing of the plane could “make it more difficult to ensure the loyalty of existing Wagner troops”, said the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. And a “seamless transition of power” within the organisation may well not be possible.

Since the June mutiny, the Kremlin has been “destroying Wagner and weakening Prigozhin’s authority”, the Institute for the Study of War added. The alleged assassination is “likely the final step to eliminate Wagner as an independent organisation”.