Wagner Group: At a Glance
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The Wagner Group is a Russian mercenary company that has conducted military operations around the world on behalf of the Russian government. Although private military companies are illegal in Russia, there are extensive ties between Wagner and the Russian government.
The Wagner Group was officially created on May 1, 2014. The group’s founding document named Dmitry Utkin as commander, responsible for training, recruitment, and discipline, and named Yevgeny Prigozhin as director. Utkin was a mercenary and a former Russian military intelligence officer, and his radio call sign—Wagner—would give the group its name. Prigozhin was an oligarch and restaurant owner with a criminal past whose close association with Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin earned him the nickname “Putin’s chef.”
Wagner fighters were initially used in Russia’s proxy war in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine in 2014. By 2015 Wagner’s activities expanded to Syria, where the mercenaries backed the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Wagner garrisons were also established in several African countries.
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine bogged down in late 2022, Prigozhin vastly expanded Wagner’s ranks by recruiting prisoners from Russian jails. Wagner troops launched bloody wave attacks that captured the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, delivering one of the few Russian successes since the early days of the war.
Prigozhin complained of a lack of support from the Russian military, and on June 24, 2023, he launched a mutiny against the Russian army leadership, which was abandoned days later. On August 23, 2023, Prigozhin’s business jet crashed under highly suspicious circumstances; Prigozhin, Utkin, and other Wagner officers were killed.