2023-06-24 23:30:01
BBC News World newsroom
June 24, 2023
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The group also operates in Syria and other countries.
The Wagner mercenary group posed a clear challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday.
Led by its boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, this private army entered Russia from its base camp in the Ukraine, seized the military installations in the city of Rostov-on-Don, in the southwest of the country, and advanced towards Moscow, coming to be 200 km from the Russian capital.
Prigozhin’s actions aroused the fury of President Putin, who called the group’s moves “a stab in the back” and vowed to punish those who had “betrayed” Russia.
Prigozhin said his aim was not “a military coup but a march of justice” which he decided to undertake after the exchange of accusations with Russian military chiefs escalated dramatically.
Hours later, after mediation by the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, the leader of the Wagner Group announced the withdrawal of his troops and the Kremlin said it was dropping the charges against him.
What exactly is the Wagner Group and how many mercenaries does it have?
The Wagner Group is a private mercenary army that has been fighting alongside the Russian regular army in the Ukraine. It is estimated that there are tens of thousands of Wagner troops there.
They played an important role in the long and costly fight to take the city of Bakhmut from the Ukrainian forces.
The group describes itself as a “private military company,” but the Russian government has been taking steps recently that were seen as an attempt to control it.
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Russia accused the leader of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, of inciting an “armed rebellion”.
And, on June 23, Prigozhin claimed that Russia’s justification for its war in Ukraine was a lie and just an excuse for Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to promote himself.
The Wagner Group (officially called PMC Wagner) was first identified in 2014, when it backed pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine.
At the time it was a secret organization, operating mainly in Africa and the Middle East, and is believed to have numbered only around 5,000 fighters, mostly veterans of Russia’s elite regiments and special forces.
Since then, it has grown considerably.
“Wagner now almost certainly commands 50,000 fighters in Ukraine and has become a key component of the invasion,” Britain’s Defense Ministry said in January.
He added that the organization began recruiting large numbers of mercenaries in 2022 because Russia was having trouble recruiting men for the regular army.
However, the number of soldiers cited by Prigozhin on Friday was close to 25,000, as around 20,000 were killed during the conflict in Ukraine.
By comparison, the Russian military is estimated to number close to 800,000 active soldiers. This force is estimated to have once numbered over a million soldiers, but is believed to have lost around 220,000 during the war. Russia is believed to have another 250,000 troops in reserve.
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The group’s offices are located in Saint Petersburg.
About 80% of Wagner’s troops in Ukraine have been released from prison, the US National Security Council said earlier this year.
Although mercenary forces are illegal in Russia, the Wagner Group registered as a company in 2022 and opened a new headquarters in St. Petersburg.
“It is recruiting openly in Russian cities, on billboards, and the Russian media brand it as a ‘patriotic organisation,'” says Samuel Ramani of the Royal United Services Institute think tank.
What does the Wagner Group do in Ukraine?
The Wagner Group was heavily involved in the Russian capture of the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian troops say Wagner’s soldiers were sent to attack en masse in the open field, and many were killed as a result.
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A Wagner member in the Donbas region.
How was the Wagner Group born?
At first, the Russian Defense Ministry did not mention that the Wagner Group was involved in the fighting.
However, he later praised his mercenaries for playing a “brave and selfless” role.
A BBC investigation into the Wagner Group highlighted the alleged involvement of a former Russian army officer, Dmitri Utkin.
A veteran of Russia’s wars in Chechnya, he is believed to have been Wagner’s first field commander and to have named the group after its old radio callsign.
“Putin’s Cook”
The current boss is Yevgeny Prigozhin, a wealthy businessman nicknamed “Putin’s cook” because before he came to run the Wagner Group his companies were in charge of providing catering to the Kremlin.
“The Wagner Group’s first operation was helping Russia annex Crimea in 2014,” says Tracey German, a professor of conflict and security at King’s College London.
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The Wagner Group has been described as a private military company.
In the weeks leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Wagner is believed to have carried out “false flag” attacks to give the Kremlin a pretext to invade.
What is Wagner’s standoff with Russia’s military commanders?
In recent months, Prigozhin has repeatedly accused Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Ukraine Army Chief Valery Gerasimov of incompetence and deliberately undersupplying Wagner units fighting in Ukraine.
Recently, the Russian Defense Ministry said that “volunteer formations” in Ukraine must sign direct contracts with it.
A move that is seen as an attempt by the government to gain more control over it.
Prigozhin issued an angry statement declaring that his forces would boycott the contracts.
Where else does the Wagner Group operate?
Since 2015, mercenaries from the Wagner Group have been in Syria, fighting alongside pro-government forces and protecting oil fields.
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It was reported that the Wagner Group was involved in the armed conflict in Libya.
There are also mercenaries from the Wagner Group in Libya, supporting forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar.
Wagner has been invited by the Central African Republic (CAR) to protect diamond mines, and is believed to also defend gold mines in Sudan.
All these countries have a common element, they are places where Moscow has interests.
Experts say that its mercenaries can be hired for deployments in war zones or more specific actions such as providing security or carrying out targeted attacks.
How does the group operate?
Videos that circulate especially in Russia and different reports from investigative teams show the brutality that the methods used by their mercenaries can reach.
As seen in a home film, its members can torture for hours and even decapitate their victim.
Russian media and analyst investigations have portrayed participants in the group’s actions as far-right ultranationalists with brutal methods.
Paul Stronski, director of the Russia and Eurasia program of the Carnegie Fund for International Peace, told BBC Mundo that these groups “act as multipliers of combat forces, arms dealers, trainers of military and local security personnel.”
image copyrightGetty Images
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The Wagner Group was reported to have carried out operations in combat zones where Russia has interests.
The expert indicates that although the Wagner Group is not the only private military company originating in Russia with these characteristics, it is the best known.
And he finds precedents for his model in the Balkan War at the end of the last century and even in the Russian volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.
He adds that their military deployment capacity fluctuates between hundreds and thousands when they are in combat zones.
The researcher indicates that Russia has a long experience in the use of these groups in recent decades.
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