Wagner Group, Russia Pays The Price
The Wagner Group
founded by Prigozhin, is a privately run Russian militia accused of killing its own fighters for disobeying orders.
He is a former convict and self-help oligarch who is thought by some to be eyeing President Putin's post.
Prigozhin himself spent most of the 1980s in prison for theft and assault.
At the age of 18, he strangled a woman until she passed out before he robbed her.
Reporting from Aljazeera on Saturday (24/6/2023), the origin of his own business empire dates back to the early 1990s, which was very simple.
Prigozhin runs a hot dog stand in St. Petersburg.
By 1995, he had turned his modest business into a fine-dining restaurant frequented by Vladimir Putin, the future president of Russia at the time.
From there, the business thrived. In 2014, Prigozhin diversified his substantial capital into the military sector by making Wagner the first to appear in the struggle to defend eastern Ukraine.
Since then, Wagner has provided "muscle" throughout Africa.
Meanwhile, in Syria, they are accused of torturing and killing prisoners with sledgehammers.
The sledgehammer is a terrible and recurring "theme."
A video uploaded in late 2022 allegedly shows someone being asked to beat a Wagner defector to death.
Today, Prigozhin's popularity alongside Wagner is seen by many as a threat to Putin, which may be why the Russian president recently promoted three of Prigozhin's rivals.
The owner of the private military contractor Wagner Group, Yevgeny Progozhin, led his mercenaries into the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don today, Saturday, June 24, 2023, while waging an armed uprising to overthrow the Russian Defense Minister.
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Prigozhin accused Defense Minister Serger Shoigu of having ordered a rocket attack on the Wagner war camp in Ukraine, which killed 2,000 of his soldiers.
Prigozhin said his troops would punish Shoigu and appealed to Russian troops not to put up a fight, threatening to destroy anyone who tried to stop them.
"Those who destroyed our men, who destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, will be punished. I ask that no one put up a fight," Prigozhin said in the recording.
The Russian Defense Ministry has denied carrying out the rocket attack.
The Russian generals accuse Progozhin of orchestrating the coup.
Wagner
first became involved in a separatist conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea.
Russia can deny sending military personnel or supplies by hiring private contract fighters to do their dirty work.
Wagner quickly earned a reputation for his brutality around the world.
In January, the United States Undersecretary of State, Victoria Nuland, reported that Prigozhin was using his position to secure mining contracts that were then used to finance the war in Ukraine.
Wagner played a key role in the war in Ukraine after Russia suffered losses and setbacks against Ukrainian forces, which were backed by Western allies.
Prigozhin toured Russian prisons, recruiting Wagner fighters.
He offered them a pardon for their crimes if they agreed to serve half a month on the Ukrainian front.
In May, Prigozhin claimed in an interview that he was recruiting 50,000 fighters.
About 10,000 of them died during the grueling and bloody conquest of the city of Bakhmut.
Nearly half of the 20,000 Russian soldiers who have died in Ukraine since December were Wagner troops in Bakhmut.
The US estimates Wagner has about 50,000 personnel fighting in Ukraine, including 10,000 contractors and 40,000 convicts.
According to US officials, the Wagner Group is spending around $100 million per month on the war in Ukraine.
With Russia's presidential election coming up in 2024, many have speculated that Prigozhin will become Putin's replacement if Putin chooses not to seek re-election.
Wagner Group, a mercenary company in Russia involved in the conflict in Ukraine, Libya, and Syria, reportedly carried out a coup against the Russian government on Saturday (24/6/2023).
Leader of The Wagner Group
Yevgeny Prigozhin, announced that his troops would attack the Russian military, which he said had carried out a deadly missile attack on the Wagner camp in Ukraine.
The Russian military was ordered on alert and deployed tanks, armored vehicles, and armed troops in cities such as Moscow, Rostov, and Voronezh to deal with the Wagner Group threat.
The Russian Ministry of Defense accused Prigozhin of staging a coup and described it as a "provocation".
Russia's counter-terrorism committee also opened a criminal investigation against Prigozhin for calling for an armed uprising.
The Wagner Group is a mercenary company that allegedly has close ties to the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin.
This company is known to operate in various countries experiencing armed conflict with the support of the Russian military or intelligence.
However, the Russian government has always denied any official involvement with the Wagner Group and considers it an illegal organization.
The motives behind the Wagner Group coup remain unclear.
Some analysts think that Prigozhin may be dissatisfied with Putin's policies towards Ukraine and wants to trigger a full-blown war between the two countries.
Prigozhin was also accused of having political and economic ambitions that were not in line with those of the Kremlin.
Former Russian military commander Igor Strelkov even accused the Wagner Group of being agents of the West who wanted to overthrow Putin.
Meanwhile, the Wagner Group is a Russian paramilitary organization operating in various conflicts around the world, including in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Mali, and Mozambique.
The group has been described as a private military company (PMC), a network of mercenaries, or Russian President Vladimir Putin's de facto private army.
The Wagner Group
was founded by former Russian military officer Dmitry Utkin, also known by the nickname "Wagner".
Utkin is a veteran of the Chechen War and a former member of Russia's special forces and military intelligence agency, the GRU.
The Wagner Group first emerged during Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, where it helped Russian forces and pro-Russian separatists gain control of the region.
Later, they also became involved in the war in the Donbass, supporting pro-Russian militias fighting against the Ukrainian government.
The Wagner Group allegedly has support and oversight from the GRU and the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), although the Russian government officially denies their involvement.
The Wagner Group gives the Kremlin an advantage in that it can operate outside the law and gives undeniable power to Russian interests abroad.
The Wagner Group is also funded by a Russian oligarch named Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is a close ally of Putin and an ex-con who turned caterer for the Kremlin.
Prigozhin is often referred to as "Putin's cook" because of his association with the president.
Prigozhin is also accused of being involved in political influence operations and disinformation campaigns through his company, the Internet Research Agency (IRA).
The Wagner Group is accused of various war crimes and human rights violations in the areas where it operates, such as raping and robbing civilians, torturing and killing prisoners, and massacring hundreds of unarmed people.
The Wagner Group is also associated with neo-Nazism and right-wing extremism, as some of its members have tattoos of Nazi symbols or are affiliated with Russian nationalist groups.
Currently, the Wagner Group is reported to have deployed around 1,000 mercenaries to eastern Ukraine amid increasing tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
The Wagner Group
is also involved in the conflict in Syria, where it supports the Bashar al-Assad regime against rebels and jihadist groups.
In Libya
they are supporting Khalifa Haftar's forces against the internationally recognized national government.
In Central Africa
they provide training and security for governments facing armed rebellion.
In Sudan
they helped transition power after the popular revolution that overthrew Omar al-Bashir.
In Mozambique
they are fighting against the Islamist militant group Ansar al-Sunna.
In Mali
they supported the military government that overthrew the elected president.
The Wagner Group is one example of the modern mercenary phenomenon, which is being increasingly used by major powers to expand their influence without being politically or legally responsible.
The Wagner Group
also shows how Russia seeks to capitalize on chaos and instability in various regions to strengthen its position as a global force to be reckoned with.