With private military companies (PMCs) multiplying in Russia, on the model of the Wagner Group, the billionaire Rotenberg brothers, friends of Putin, are creating their own private army of football fans.
Tag: yevgeny prigozhin
Look back over the past two decades, and you’ll see Vladimir Putin has always been the man revealed by the Ukraine invasion, an evil and sinister dictator. The Russian leader just manages to mask it well.
They were offered high salaries, promises of honor, and state welfare. But Wagner Group fighters say Russia treated them like pariahs after they returned from the war in Ukraine.
After celebrated Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash, following his attempted coup against Russian President Vladimir Putin, some Wagner adherents are convinced Prigozhin is not dead. A video from Africa is adding fuel to the fire.
He was buried in an expensive coffin in a closed ceremony on Tuesday. By the next day, supporters were coming to the graveside to pay their respects.
Veterans of Wagner PMC, the mercenary group run by now-deceased Yevgeny Prigozhin, are scattered all over Russia. Many are now threatening to exact their revenge. But it is Russian President Vladimir Putin who wields the power, and there are plenty inside and outside Wagner who may be in his sights.
The post-coup mystery continues with reports that Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin is not, in fact, in Belarus, but in Russia. A look at what it says about Vladimir Putin’s hold on power.
The Wagner mercenaries, who came to the world’s attention for their involvement in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and more recently in the coup attempt, have been operating in Africa and elsewhere for years with a profitable formula to cash in on ongoing conflict.
After Wagner’s aborted coup and relocation to Belarus come the first reports and images of military camps, including one in Asipovichi, a town south of Minsk. What does this mean for the still unstable situation in Russia? For the war in Ukraine? And the role of Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko?
A rebel chief in exile, a top General arrested, a President waving at the crowd. While Putin is putting on a show in public, a large- scale investigation is cleaning house among the Russian military, one week after the Wagner group’s attempted coup.
After relatively in-depth coverage beginning last weekend, Russian state-owned TV channels have suddenly stopped reporting on the consequences of the Wagner mutiny.
Yevhen Mezhevikin, a battle-hardened veteran with nine years of experience in the Ukraine war, sheds light on why the area around the war’s longest battle still matters in the ongoing counteroffensive.
Prigozhin’s brief insurrection will be watched closely in many African countries, where Wagner mercenaries have largely been the beachhead for Russian foreign policy. Keep an eye on a key African-Russian summit next month.
The aborted Wagner coup in Russia shows how a “war of all against all” might begin, and there are plenty of other militia factions opposed to the Kremlin, including separatist groups. Though it may appear to solve some big problems, including the war in Ukraine, history has shown that Russia exploding into civil war is unlikely to end well.
The recent revolt led by Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has opened the door to what Russia could become after Vladimir Putin is deposed.
The fate of Prigozhin, Putin and Ukraine hang in the balance. And though much is still not clear, Russia is simply no longer under the reign of an all-powerful Vladimir Putin.
The owner of the Wagner mercenary group says he will refuse an order from Russia’s defense ministry to fold his fighters into the regular military — but it may be a sign that the Russian government finally wants to get rid of the increasingly powerful mercenary chief.
Having claimed conquest over Bakhmut, Wagner Boss Yevgeny Prigozhin says his troops will begin to leave the city Thursday and hand control over to the official Russian army. But there are plenty, especially inside of Russia, who have no interest in seeing Wagner go. A showdown with the Kremlin looms.
Head of the Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin’s furious videos have been aimed in the past at Putin’s deputies and generals. Now, he’s taking aim at the tsar himself.
Desperate to supply depleting forces in Ukraine, Russia’s defense ministry has taken up the dubious recruiting method of offering prisoners freedom in exchange for going off to war. The same technique was begun but then halted in February by the Wagner Group mercenaries. It’s Putin’s latest attempt to avoid a nationwide mobilization.
The Ukrainian and Russian presidents made separate visits to the frontline recently, in closer physical proximity than anytime since the war began. It was a sign that we should not expect negotiations anytime soon.
Even as Ukraine struggles to hold onto the last remaining bits of the eastern city, military experts say the official Russian military apparatus may have decided to rid itself of the Wagner mercenaries and bury them all in Bakhmut.
Returning from this weekend’s Munich Security Conference, French President told France Inter public radio: “I do not think that Russia should be defeated completely, or attacked on its soil. These observers want above all to crush Russia. This has never been the position of France and it never will be.”
Many of the convicts that the Wagner Group mercenary outfit enlisted to fight in Ukraine are dead or missing, which has created a major recruitment problem for the paramilitary group headed by Putin confidante Yevgeny Prigozhin.
The Russian army is fighting fiercely for every kilometer in the Donbas, amid reports of new masses of troops arriving in Ukraine. By most accounts, it looks like Putin has moved up the calendar on a major assault that was originally planned after the winter thaw.
The choice of General Valery Gerasimov to replace General Sergey Surovikin is a political defeat for Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov — and a sign that Putin may be getting skittish on the home front.
The killing of likely hundreds of Russian troops has set of a spiral of recriminations that could change the way Moscow approaches its 10-month-old invasion of Ukraine
Putin used to keep his respectable and criminal circles of friends separate. But the increasing power of Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former prisoner and head of the Wagner paramilitary group, has many inside and outside the Kremlin worried.