I must admit: I haven't been moved to tears by the apparent death by plane crash of
Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin in Russia on the 23rd of this month. Some people were, obviously. Apart from his family, whom we have not seen in TV news, there have been reports of his employees in the Wagner Group creating makeshift shrines in Russian cities, as well as accounts of Wagner troops in uniform weeping publicly for their lost leader. Our old friend, Vladimir Putin, denies having ordered Prigozhin's assassination, as he has done so often for so many other
murders of his critics and opponents. Prigozhin, as we know, led a Wagner mutiny against the Russian government in June this year, and, as everyone knows, Putin does not forgive what he sees as treachery. Very few people believe Putin had nothing to do with Prigozhin's death, and I'm not one of them. Still, the Russian authorities are investigating the incident. No prizes for guessing the outcome of that inquiry.
Yes, I did write "apparent death" of Prigozhin. That is because some people think - with no evidence - that his death has been faked somehow (why?) and Yevgenny is alive and well somewhere. Whether he has perished, or simply disappeared, I want to look more closely at the activities of his employees: The Wagner Group (WG).
I had a vague idea of the activities of the Wagners, but only now that Prigozhin has met his demise, I think it of interest to assess his "legacy", some of whom are seen above. Only now, after research, am I aware of the full range of WG's activities and its terrible record of atrocities.
Founded in 2014, WG was active in the Donbas War in Ukraine. Mercenary firms are "illegal" in Russia, but Prigozhin registered it as a "private military company" in 2022 - what's in a name?
WG has been a valuable asset to Putin's government as proxies abroad, allowing it to be seen as providing some distance between it and WG's activities - to which we will come later. Deaths of WG operatives serve the very useful purpose of keeping official Russian military casualty figures low, especially in Ukraine. WG is said to be ideologically free, but the first field commander, Dmitry Utkin, who was on the same plane as Prigozhin, was known to be a neo-Nazi, and, as Hitler's favourite composer was Gustav Wagner, Utkin insisted on naming the Wagner Group after him. Wagner mercenaries initially came from Russia's best regular troops, and the group was thought to be about 5,000 strong .However, in 2022, Prigozhin recruited convicts to fight for Wagner in Ukraine, in exchange for pardons. At the time of the mutiny, in June, there were thought to be 25 000 in the WG. The group has also been operating in Syria, Mali, the Central African Republic, Sudan and Libya - and it is these operations we will examine.
There are roughly 1000 WG operatives in Mali, The BBC says:
"They were hired to combat armed Islamist groups, replacing the UN and French peacekeeping forces which had previously operated there. Wagner forces have clashed several times with a group linked to al-Qaeda called Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin".
On 5 April last year, Human Rights Watch published a report accusing Malian soldiers and Russian PMCs (Private Military Companies, i.e. Wagner) of executing around 300 civilians between 27 and 31 March, during an army offensive in the Mopti region, known as a hotspot of Islamic militants.
In the Central African Republic (CAR), WG operatives have conducted similar actions, leading a US-based anti-corruption organisation The Sentry to launch an investigation which found that the Wagner Group has been "perfecting a nightmarish blueprint for state capture" in the CAR to enable it to plunder the country's national resources, particularly gold and diamonds. The mineral wealth of the CAR and other African countries, you see, is helping to sustain Russia's war effort in Ukraine. As Sky.com says:
"Over the past five years, soldiers and militiamen have reportedly undergone Wagner training that has involved "ultraviolent" techniques of torture and killing, including how to cut fingers and legs, remove nails, strangle, throw fuel and burn people alive.In close cooperation with CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, the Wagner Group has significant control over the nation's political and military leadership, as well as huge sway over its economy." In September 2022, The Daily Beast interviewed survivors and witnesses of a massacre committed by the Wagner Group in Bèzèrè village in December 2021, which involved torture, killing and disembowelment of a number of women, including pregnant ones. Nothing of course, to do with the Russian government, which has full deniability rights in such matters.
WG has a presence in other African countries, including Libya, Sudan, Mozambique, Madagascar, and Burkina Faso.
They are also present in
Syria and Venezuela.
But, of course, the best-known arena for WG activities has been in Ukraine, following the Russian invasion. It is difficult to focus upon WG atrocities, as such crimes have been committed by Russian troops and WG. Wikipedia reports that about 300 WG operatives were sent into Ukraine in 2022 to liquidate President Zelensky and members of his government. While WG operatives were in from the beginning of the invasion, they were forced to boost their numbers and replenish casualties by recruiting convicts, direct from Russian jails.
Associated Press comments:
While this may have helped the Russian manpower problem, it has created problems on the Home Front. The offer to convicts was for them to serve six months, then, if they survived, their convictions would be quashed and they would be released -
whatever their offence.
CBS News comment:
And, say CBS News, there are many others.
Of course, amnesty for convicts in the WG depends upon survival, and that is uncertain. Wikipedia comments:
" An interviewed former Wagner mercenary who deserted reports a high mortality rate for the prisoners recruited to fight for Wagner in Ukraine: "Once we started using prisoners, it was like a conveyor belt. A group comes—that's it, they're dead." He stopped remembering their names or call signs. "A new person shows up, survives for five minutes, and he's killed. It was like that day after day."Andrey Medvedev, who deserted the WG in January, (it might be he in the Wikipedia quote) forecast problems for Prigozhin. Speaking to France 24, he said:
"Asked about Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, Medvedev said he saw him in a training centre, where he was encouraging his men by saying that the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut had already been almost conquered. The former mercenary explained that he himself expressed his disagreement and was subsequently locked up in a container for several days. Medvedev called Prigozhin "mad", saying the Wagner chief "thinks that he can do anything he wants". "Once this whole display, spectacle is over, I think that his own men will kill him," he predicted".Now, this opens up a new possible line of inquiry! Perhaps Putin didn't order the hit on Prigozhin. Perhaps the mutinous WG chief was liquidated by his own disaffected troops?
Perhaps, perhaps not, but one thing is clear: if the Wagner group is Prigozhin's legacy for humanity, there is little need to mourn his passing, whoever may have arranged it.
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