Vladimir Putin needs Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of shadowy Russian militia group, ‘more than he needs anyone else’
The head of the shadowy Wagner Group of mercenary fighters allegedly offered to reveal Russian military positions to Ukraine in exchange for Kyiv withdrawing its troops from the city of Bakhmut.
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Based on leaked US intelligence documents, The Washington Post reported the “extraordinary offer” made by Wagner’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in January was rejected out of hand by Ukraine, fearing that it was not genuine.
Although a “close ally” of President Vladimir Putin, Prigozhin has “publicly threatened to withdraw his mercenaries from the area surrounding the city” unless they were provided with more ammunition by Moscow, The Times reported.
Standing among the bodies of dozens of his fighters earlier this month, Prigozhin recorded what The Economist described as an “extraordinary diatribe” against Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, and Valery Gerasimov, head of the country’s armed forces.
He also accused Russian army units of “fleeing” positions around the devastated city of Bakhmut, which has earned the nickname “the meatgrinder” after months of bloody fighting slowed to a stalemate. Last week he claimed his men had been warned they would be branded as traitors “against the motherland” if they abandoned the area.
“His outbursts are part of the latest episode in a long-running spat between Prigozhin and Russia’s top brass,” said The Economist.
Brutal tactics, overseas operations
The Wagner Group is “a private mercenary operation that offers muscle to dictators around the world”, said the Financial Times’s investigative reporter, Miles Johnson.
It “quickly began to gain notoriety” in 2014, as Wagner recruits fought alongside pro-Russian separatists in the conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine, the paper continued. The group has since been involved in South America, Africa and the Middle East.
The mercenaries are known for their “brutal tactics” and apparent “brutal indifference to casualties”, said CNN. “In every combat zone” Wagner members have fought, “allegations have quickly surfaced of human rights abuses, including summary executions, torture, rape and the murder of journalists”, said the FT.
Wagner is “loosely linked to the Russian military”, but operates “at a distance, which has allowed the Kremlin to try to deflect responsibility whenever the fighters’ behaviour comes under scrutiny”, said The New York Times last year.
UN experts have documented concerns about “unabated and unpunished” violations of “human rights and international humanitarian law violations” by the group’s mercenaries operating in the Central African Republic. A number of its fighters were also deployed in the Syrian Civil War, on the side of Bashar al-Assad’s government.
Earlier this year, the US National Security Council re-designated the group a “significant transnational criminal organization”, allowing further sanctions to be applied against the group’s global network, while the UK is reportedly planning to designate the group as a terrorist organisation.
The group’s origins
In September, after “years denying the group’s very existence”, oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed responsibility for founding the Wagner Group, said the FT. It is believed that veteran Dmitri Utkin was also involved in its creation.
Prigozhin “is an unlikely candidate to be running an international network of paramilitaries”, said Foreign Policy. He “began his career selling hot dogs” before setting up “a string of fashionable restaurants” that attracted the attention of the recently elected Vladimir Putin, said the FT. He went on to provide catering services for the Russian leader, earning the nickname “Putin’s chef”.
He is now “one of the most sanctioned individuals on the planet”. According to US officials, Prigozhin effectively “runs a mining multinational” that involves “gold, diamonds, oil and lumber operations across Syria, Sudan and the Central African Republic”, said the FT.
The US Department of Justice indicted Prigozhin in 2018 “for financing so-called troll farms used to interfere” in the US presidential election. In a statement shared by his catering company, Concord, in November last year, Prigozhin said: “We interfered, we are interfering and we will interfere.”
Wagner’s “murky nature presents an enormous challenge for victims, governments and international institutions seeking to hold the group to account for alleged atrocities”, said Foreign Policy in 2021.
An investigation by the FT has this week shed some light on the operation’s inner workings. For years, reporters found, Prigozhin has used a “string of shell companies” to obscure Wagner’s activities and “used leading corporate lawyers around the world to try to keep western governments at bay”.
Journalists have uncovered “a group of front companies connected to Prigozhin” that “have managed to operate unsanctioned up until this day”.
‘First wave of attack’
An “unofficial foreign policy tool of the Kremlin”, the Wagner Group has “become an increasingly important part” of Russia’s invasion, conducting “some of the bloodiest battles in eastern Ukraine”, said Axios. Within days of Moscow ordering its troops to invade, it was reported that 400 of its fighters had been sent to Kyiv with orders to kill President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The mercenary group was thought to have around 5,000 fighters before the war began, the BBC reported. The US National Security Council said last week it believes around 50,000 Wagner Group personnel have now been deployed. Around 80% of those fighters are thought to be former convicts.
According to CNN, a Ukrainian intelligence report published in December said that the group “represents a unique threat at close quarters”, and detailed “how difficult they are to fight against”. Its recruits “frequently form the first wave in an attack”, said the news site, incurring “the heaviest casualties” before “more experienced fighters… follow”.
The document also suggested that Russia’s military forces could be adopting “tactics to become more like Wagner”, which “would be a significant change” from “the Russians’ traditional reliance on larger, mechanised units” to “assault units”.
Tensions with the Kremlin
For many, Prigozhin has become the face of Russia’s war in Ukraine, quick to claim credit for Russian advances but also not afraid to criticise senior figures in the military. He has, however, so far refrained from directly criticising Putin.
In January, the White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby cited these growing tensions when he claimed that “Wagner is becoming a rival power centre to the Russian military and other Russian ministries”.
While both Prigozhin and the Kremlin have been quick to dismiss reports of a proposed back-channel deal between Wagner and Ukraine, Putin might well regard an offer “to trade the lives of Wagner fighters for Russian soldiers as a treasonous betrayal”, said The Washington Post.
Yet despite any reservations Putin may have, “Prigozhin – for the moment at least – is probably the safest Russian in the world”, said ABC News.
“He’s not in danger of being poisoned, imprisoned or thrown from a 20th floor window. As long as he keeps performing,” said the broadcaster. “The moment he ceases to be of use, he may face a bleak future – or no future at all. Right now, Putin needs Prigozhin more than he needs anyone else.”
