A year and a half ago, the Wagner Group was still completely unknown to the general public, but the war in Ukraine gave wings to the fame of the notorious mercenaries. BNR has also written a lot about this dark shadow army. How Putin’s Cossacks finally turned against him. A selection of BNR’s best articles on the Wagner Group is available here.
What is the Wagner Group and how does this organization work? In the article This is Wagner Group: Extremely violent Russian mercenaries you can read the history of the group, how it operates, how much a mercenary earns and where this morbid multinational is active.
Fake mercenary romance
Wagner Group increasingly appeals to the imagination of the media and the public through the mix of secrecy the group initially surrounds itself with and its ruthless performance. The list of war crimes is long, first on the show far from our bed in Syria, Libya and Mali, but even closer after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Human rights violations become the club’s trademark, so much so that some Western governments have labeled the Wagner Group a criminal organization and sanctioned its leaders.
From sausage seller to Putin whisperer
Increasingly, the coverage revolves around two things: Yevgeny Prigozhin, the brutal leader of the gritty mercenaries, who has gone from robber and sausage seller to Putin’s whisperer and his increasingly escalating quarrels with Putin’s entourage. And in particular with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the former firefighter towards whom Prigozhin has managed to develop a very personal dislike. Prigozhin’s verbal abuses at the top of the Russian army are famous: ‘Scum, pig’
The Tsar and his cake
Putin has long presented himself as a tsar above the parties and pits everyone against each other at will. A divide and conquer pie that has now exploded convincingly in Putin’s face.
The battle for the Ukrainian Bachmut is ultimately the great catalyst for the enmity between Prigozhin and the rest of Putin’s entourage. Prigozhin expressly seeks publicity with his complaints to the Ministry of Defense and was initially supported in this by the leader of the Chechen militia Ramzan Kadyrov, also known as Putin’s dirty handyman. Kadyrov ultimately sides with the ministry and with Putin. The icing on the cake is the news that a high-ranking Chechen critic, Prigozhin, has been betrayed by the Wagner Group and eliminated by the Ukrainian armed forces.
Prigozhin for president
Rumors that Prigozhin has higher ambitions and is busy are also becoming more persistent pole position maneuvers for the presidency. It’s probably on Putin’s to-do list from now on. After the Wagner Group withdrew in anger and disappointment from Bachmut (the “military leaders screwed up,” he says), Prigozhin seems to be increasingly hinting at a coup. With hindsight and a little imagination, Wagner’s withdrawal from Bachmut is no more than a strategic realignment for Prigozhin’s march to power, as it is now in full swing.
Follow the developments of the violent escalation in Russia here in our live blog
Source: BNR
Sharon Rock is an author and journalist who writes for 24 News Globe. She has a passion for learning about different cultures and understanding the complexities of the world. With a talent for explaining complex global issues in an accessible and engaging way, Sharon has become a respected voice in the field of world news journalism.
