“What do the world know about this group? What it does? Where it operates and who all are behind it?”

It is a secretive Russian mercenary group, a shadowy private security company that has ties with the Russia.

The founder of Wagner group is known to be Dmitry Utkin, a Russian army officer who served in Russia’s foreign intelligence agency for 20 years and retired from the rank of Lt. Colonel in 2013. After retiring, he joined the Slavonic Corps, fighting on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad forces. In 2014 he returned to Russia and reportedly formed the Wagner Group. Several veterans of the Slavonic Corps were seen both in Crimea in February 2014 and then in Donbas, where they fought for the pro-Russian separatists during the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.

The group’s name is in reference to the German composer “Richard Wagner”, who was Hitler’s favourite. Thus, does this indicate their orientation towards Neo-Nazi manifestation also, which is required to be kept in mind while analysing their role in Russia-Ukraine conflict.

In 2014, the fighters of this group putting on green face masks and camouflaged green uniform started showing up in conflict zones. People started calling them “Little Green Men” or “Russian Invaders”

Now, the world see the Russian Oligarch “Yevgeny Prigozhin”, known as “Putin’s Chef” as the face of wagner group. After years of denying his links to Wagner, he eventually confirmed that he has founded it in May 2014, to support Russian forces in the war in Donbas. This admission was prompted by a viral video in which Prigozhin has been seen in Mari El prison recruiting inmates, promising them freedom if they serve six months with the Wagner Group. He got the company registered as per the laws of Russian federation with its headquarters at St. Petersburg on 26th September 2022. The group is working in tandem and not as a part or under Ministry of Defence.

Prigozhin is believed to have special patronage of President Vladimir Putin. His relation with him goes back to 1990, the days in St. Petersburg where Prigozhin used to sell hot dogs in several restaurants and Putin was regular customer.

Subsequently, he has been seen around in parties as chief chef hosted for Tony Blair, former PM of UK and Jacques Chirac, former President of France.

During that period he picked up the nick name of “Putin’s Chef”. He soon started getting lucrative catering contracts, including in Russian military. He become super rich, politically influential and also a media giant.

The group being secretive and gets paid to send there armed personnels to different countries. Wagner being shadow private group and company, gets proxy amenity, evading war crimes and laid down international norms.

The insignia they wore on their arms shows “PMC Wagner Group”, PMC stands for Private Military Company. It is group of mercenaries, a loose network with financial intermediaries that are all linked together in as opaque as possible, so as to make it difficult to understand what their financial and organisational links are and to make it very difficult to hold them accountable for their actions.

After taking part in annexation of Crimea in Ukraine in 2014, it got involved in mercenary activities in Venezuela, Syria, Libya, Mali, Sudan, Central Asian Republic countries (CAR) and Mozambique. In 2019, it went to Venezuela as protection force of President Nicolas Maduro. In Mali, they are active since 2021. It is primarily operating in those African countries where there are huge natural resources. Diamond and gold mines and oil are its business model. It does hold gold and diamond mining licences. In these industries it is basically providing muscle power and protection.

In Ukraine, Wagner group is being used in different way, and in different scale. It is a good choice for Russia because there is a huge scope of deniability if things go differently on ground. It is now 50,000 strong force with 40,000 mercenaries of convicts, recruited from various Russian prisons and 10,000 mercenaries of contractors. It has been able to recruit small number U S trained Afghan commandos with help of Iran. Probably, 10,000 more former Afghan army personnel are willing to join the Wagner PMC. Reports are there that it has acquired weapons and equipments from countries like North Korea. In January 2023, it captured Solader, like any military unit. Now they are taking lead in Bakhmut.

It does throw many challenges for the Russian government. Some new rivalries have come to limelight in open, specially between Prigozhin and top Russian’s military commanders. Prigozhin has accused the Russian military commanders for not supplying the group and fighters with enough ammunitions and also regarding taking credit for success.

It seems that the ambitions of Prigozhin is growing and he is aiming for political power and influences. He and his group has gained tremendous attention of Putin, but Russian military leadership is able to control it to go rouge. Its role would remain relevant till Prigozhin is able to deliver in the battlefield and claims victory on ground. Thus far, he has been able to do in battle of Solader and now doing at Bukhmut