One Life’s Next Rebellion, Russia Controls Remnants of Workforce

Russia has effectively dismantled and replaced the Wagner team as mercenaries shocked the world by launching an insurgency against President Vladimir Putin’s government, experts have told the BBC.

Yevgeny Prigozhin – the late head of the paramilitary force – arrived from Ukraine on 23 June 2023 and seized the southern city of Rostov the following month amid rising tensions with army leaders in Moscow.

His forces then launched a temporary campaign against the capital, refusing resistance. The “March for Justice”, as Prigozhin called it, he stopped traveling after the sudden end of his life.

Just two months later, Prigozhin’s plane crashed He was killed along with several senior members of Wagner’sPutting the lives of the crowd in uncertainty.

Dr. Sorcha MacLeod, a member of the United Nations Operational Task Force on Mercenaries and a teacher at Copenhagen College, noted that former Wagner soldiers were scattered around the Russian system.

“(Wagner) probably doesn’t exist in the form it once did, but a version of it – or even variants – will continue to exist,” he told the BBC. “There is such dispersion within the Russian state that there is no overall controller.”

He said, “The Wagner Group was incredibly important geopolitically and economically to Russia, so it was never going to disappear, as some people had suggested.”

Over the years, Prigozhin’s forces have been a worthy and unassailable instrument of Russian operations across Africa and Syria. However, it was in Ukraine – when Moscow’s conventional forces were struggling to breach Kiev’s defenses – that Prigozhin and Wagner became worth watching.

During late 2022 and early 2023, Wagner was once key in some of Russia’s battlefield victories. Its forces – most of which were composed of former prisoners – managed to recapture the Japanese town of Soledar, before being trapped in months of intense fighting at the meat-mill of Bakhmut.

According to the United States National Security Council, at his peak Wagner had approximately 50,000 mercenaries in Ukraine.

Now, Mavens says Wagner’s operations in Ukraine were contained through alternative Russian orders and paramilitary tools. A former Wagner commander recently informed BBC Russian that the mercenaries have been ordered to “join the Defense Ministry” or move on.

British Insigt officials have suggested that one of the main task force’s infantry units be incorporated into the Rosgvardia, or Nationwide Shield. The unit, established in 2016, has been described as Mr Putin’s “private army” and is managed through his former bodyguard Viktor Zolotov.

The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense (MOD) has stated that parts of the Wagner team are due to come under the control of National Shield in October 2023. Ex-Wagner troops, known as “volunteer formations”, were to be deployed to Ukraine. It mentions a six-month agreement and a nine-month agreement with Africa.

Anton Yelizarov – a long-term Wagner operator accused of commanding the mercenaries’ bloody operations in Bakhmut – seemed as if it would verify the combination days later. In a video posted on a Telegram channel associated with Wagner, he said he was working on building a camp where Wagner soldiers would “work for the good of Russia” and be protected by National Shield equipment in an ancient structure.

UK officials noted that “the inclusion of former Wagner assault troops in the Rosgvardia’s Volunteer Corps indicates that Wagner has been successfully subordinated to the Rosgvardia, thereby increasing Russian state control over the Wagner group”. .

Alternative former Wagner forces have signed up to a conflict with Vladimir Putin’s strongman in Chechnya – Ramzan Kadyrov – and his Akhmat forces, a BBC Russian investigation has revealed.

A real-life example of crowd loss occurred when its brand was reportedly removed from a tower in Russia’s second city, St. Petersburg.

In the days after the rebellion, Prigozhin was said to have cut business with Mr Putin to focus on operating his workforce in Africa, propping up the regime and securing resources for Russia .

Following Prigozhin’s death, Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov reportedly visited African capitals, assuring officials that services provided by the mob would not go to waste.

Ahead of the occasion, the Polish Institute of World Affairs (PISM) think tank observed that after Prigozhin’s death “the Russian state’s attention to (Africa) not only not weakened, but also strengthened”.

In February, BBC received documents revealing this Moscow was once providing a “regime survival package” In exchange for gaining access to strategically targeted herbal sources – by far the preferred method by the Wagner workforce.

The plan was being presented by the so-called Russian “Expeditionary Group” – codenamed Afrika Korps – and commanded by former GRU general Andrey Averyanov. He oversaw covert operations focused on assassinations and destabilizing international governments.

Mavens informed the BBC that the Afrika Korps had successfully replaced Wagner in West Africa. On Telegram, the unit claimed to provide recruits with a salary of 110,000 rubles ($1,250; £990) per opportunity and reparations “under the leadership of capable commanders with extensive combat experience”.

In January, it began its first deployment of 100 troops to Burkina Faso. Another 100 each reportedly arrived in Niger in April.

Ruslan Trad, a security analyst at the Atlantic Council, informed the BBC that, in effect, Wagner “became Africa Corps and now serves the full purposes of military intelligence” and the Ministry of Defence.

“In Africa, these troops are doing much the same thing – protecting trade routes, securing resources that Moscow uses to evade sanctions, and even more – serving local junta and guarding the borders of migrants.” Directing the flow,” he observed.

PISM noted that the Africa Corps aimed to be “more openly” weaker than Wagner, who was in the continent with the goal of replacing Western – and especially French – influence in Africa.

BBC Russian reported that only in the Central African Republic (CAR) does Wagner still operate in any form of its former state, which is reportedly controlled by Prigozhin’s son Pavel.

A source who worked with Yevgeny Prigozhin told BBC Russian: “Moscow has given the heir apparent permission to continue the work that his father did in Africa, on the condition that it does not conflict with Russia’s interests “

On the final day, Le Monde reported that about 1,500 Wagner soldiers had assisted local security forces in attacks on rebel-held positions.

However, PISM observed that the CAR’s overall value is “declining” in Moscow’s strategic thinking.

Dr. MacLeod suggested that Wagner’s new objective in CAR was to create a “proof of concept” that mercenary groups “could also be used as a successful counter-terrorism actor”, an objective which Moscow now presumably expects to have accomplished. Will see in form.

However he added that Wagner was once “fully entrenched” inside the CAR, making it more difficult to replace it with the ancient one, leading to the creation of the Afrika Korps.

Despite the ultimatum given by Prigozhin’s rebellion, Russia’s annual celebration of Sunday passed largely without incident.

Dan Storiev of the OVD-data tracking taskforce told the BBC that Prigozhin’s legacy is usually associated with Kremlin-linked people.

He said, “Generally speaking, the Wagner Uprising has not had real grassroots support for the anniversary mass rallies – perhaps because there was no real anti-war message.”

“There are people who organize protests in Russia, but they are focused on anti-war activism and have nothing to do with (Prigozin).”