SUMMARY
Wagner, officially PMC Wagner, was a Russian armed group involved in a short uprising against the Russian government in 2023. Prior to the mutiny, the Wagner group acted on behalf of the Russian government in the war in Ukraine. Wagner has also been working as mercenaries in several countries around the world, many of them in Africa, where it has supported state forces.
Wagner was founded in 2014 as a private military company and first became known when it was involved in the Russian seizure of Crimea. During the 2010s, Wagner was involved in the conflict in eastern Ukraine and in Syria, acting as proxies for the Russian government. In the late 2010s, the group established itself in several African countries, including Central African Republic, Mali, Sudan, and Libya. The group became infamous for abusing the civilian population in its areas of operation, including massacres, rape, and torture.
For a long time, the leadership of Wagner was not officially stated. Yevgeny Prigozhin denied leading the group until 2022, when he finally admitted that he had founded and funded the organization. Prigozhin was an ex-convict who became a businessperson with connections to the Russian top leadership. Having provided catering to the Kremlin, he got the nickname “Putin’s chef”. Special Forces veteran Dmitry Utkin functioned as the group’s first military commander. The group got its name, Wagner, from Utkin’s former radio call sign.
Wagner establishing itself as one of the few forces capable of capturing territory as the Russian advance stagnated during the invasion of Ukraine in April 2022. This was often achieved by using forcibly recruited locals of the Donbass and from July onward prisoners recruited from jails in Russia as cannon fodder in continuous infantry assaults to draw enemy fire, reveal their positions and tire out the defenders, while the contracted, professional mercenaries followed up and captured the position. In the early days, Wagner controlled around 5000 soldiers, mostly recruited from Russian military elite units. From July 2022 onward, the group started to recruit prisoners from jails in Russia to fight in Ukraine in exchange for release. In contrast to the contracted, professional mercenaries, the newly recruited convicts were poorly trained and equipped. Most of them were deployed to fight in Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, a battle described as a ‘meat grinder’ due to its heavy death tolls. White House spokesperson John Kirby estimated in January 2023 that the group had 50 000 fighters, including around 40 000 convicts. Prigozhin himself referred to 25 000 fighters in June 2023, in connection to the mutiny against Russia, and had previously claimed that a total of 50 000 convicts in total had been recruited. By the end on January, only 10 000 convicts were estimated to be in fighting shape, with the rest having been killed, wounded or deserted. An estimated 22 000 Wagner troops, at least half of whom were convicts, were killed in the Battle of Bakhmut, before finally capturing the city in May 2023.
During the battle of Bakhmut, Prigozhin frequently criticized the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu and army chief Valery Gerasimov, for failing to supply his forces with enough supplies and ammunition, causing substantial losses. These tensions escalated and on 24 June 2023, Wagner declared war on the Russian Defense Ministry and started marching on Moscow. Following a deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Wagner halted its rebellion and relocated to Belarus. Prigozhin kept a low profile the following months but appeared on a recruitment video from an African country, most likely Mali, in August. Two days later, 23 August 2024, a plane that was carrying the Wagner leadership, including Prigozhin and Utkin, crashed north of Moscow, killing all ten passengers and crew. Although officially denying involvement, Russia was blamed for the crash.
After the death of the Wagner leadership, operations continued in Africa, whereas the group’s presence in Ukraine was limited. From August 26, the groups members were required to swear allegiance to the Russian state and most of the the group's operations were gradually folded into a semi-official military group under the Russian Defense Ministry, called Africa Corps.
