A person from Russia says that it is not true that Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is a warlord called Wagner, died in a plane crash last month. Instead, the person says that he is living a fancy life on an island in the Caribbean.
Dr Valery Solovey thinks that Prigozhin was told about the upcoming airplane crash on August 23rd and managed to avoid dying.
Russia says that all 10 individuals on the plane were killed and they have confirmed this by conducting genetic tests.
However, Ukrainian military intelligence recently mentioned that there is a chance that Prigozhin is still alive. They also mentioned that they could not verify if he has actually passed away.
Dr Solovey, who some people think is a conspiracy theorist, thinks he is hiding on an island called Margarita, near Venezuela.
He has also said before that Vladimir Putin is very sick and all of the times we see him recently are actually impersonators.
Both Putin and Prigozhin are thought to use look-alikes and costumes.
Dr Solovey claimed that Prigozhin made a deal with Nikolai Patrushev to escape from his trick, but he did not provide any proof for his claims.
He told me “I promised to say where Yevgeny Prigozhin is. ”
‘He is currently in Venezuela. ‘ From what I know, he is on an island called Margarita.
Yevgeny Prigozhin was given a warning that someone might try to kill him by destroying his airplane.
‘They figured out the clever method that we saw. ‘
‘After Wagner’s main leaders passed away in the airplane accident, Yevgeny Prigozhin was still alive and in good health. ‘
Dr Solovey believes that Prigozhin may have around 5,000 hired soldiers who follow his orders. If Putin were to pass away, Prigozhin could potentially employ these troops to compete for authority in Russia.
Dr Solovey, who used to be a professor at MGIMO, a well-known school for spies and diplomats in Moscow, stated that Prigozhin is currently having a great time at a luxurious vacation destination.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, GUR, said it can confirm that military commander Dmitry Utkin and other members of a mercenary army died in a plane crash. However, they did not mention anything about Prigozhin.
A person speaking for the group said: “We need to make decisions based on true information, so we have to be patient and wait. ”
I will just talk about how we know for sure that Utkin and some people who work with Prigozhin have died.
Tag: Yevgeny Prigozhin
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Prigozhin, said to be ‘hiding in Caribbean, ‘managed to avoid death’
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Prigozhin’s jet crash might have been ‘intentional’
Russian investigators are currently examining a plane crash that caused the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin. They have recognized the idea that the crash may have been intentional as a possible explanation.
The leader of the Wagner Group died when his own plane was shot down on August 23rd. He and nine other people on the plane died.
Now, the Kremlin has admitted that Prigozhin might have been killed, which is the first time they acknowledge this possibility.
Dmitry Peskov, the person who speaks for the Kremlin, said that they are looking at different possibilities, like the idea that someone purposely caused a terrible event.
When asked if the International Civil Aviation Organization will look into the crash, Mr. Peskov said that the situation is unique, but he mentioned that investigators have not reached any official conclusions about what exactly happened.
Mr Peskov said that we should wait for the results of our investigation about Russia.
Brazil’s aircraft investigation authority was informed by Russia that they will not currently investigate the crash of the Brazilian-made Embraer jet according to international rules.
Mr Peskov said that the investigation is currently happening and the Investigative Committee is involved in it.
“In this situation, there is no discussion about any international aspect. ”The Kremlin has rejected the accusations that Russian president Vladimir Putin gave orders to kill Prigozhin, stating that these claims are completely false. They have also denied any connection to the accident.
The plane was flying from St Petersburg to Moscow when it had an accident and all seven passengers and three crew members lost their lives. Two more important people from the Wagner Group and four bodyguards of Prigozhin were also on the plane.
The reason for it is not yet known, but people who live near where it happened said they heard a loud sound and then saw the plane fall down.
The plane crashed two months after Prigozhin took control of the city of Rostov. This event caused a rebellion that made Putin feel overwhelmed and unable to act.
The day after the accident, Putin expressed his sympathy to the families of the people who died. He mentioned that he has known Prigozhin for a long time, since the disorderly years of the early 1990s.
Putin said that the man had a tough life and made big errors, but was also very skilled in business.
Prigozhin strongly disagreed with Russia’s military, openly criticizing their war leaders and strategies that he believed would cause them to lose the war against Ukraine.
But many people think he might still be alive because he, like Putin, had body doubles and would often change his travel plans suddenly.
Some people believe that one of Prigozhin’s look-alikes may have died in the accident. This speculation is based on the fact that the wife of his main doppelganger visited his grave the day after the funeral. -
Warmongers may keep Wagner Group alive despite its ‘decapitation’
In the event of Yevgeny Prigozhin‘s demise in a plane crash, the Wagner Group could potentially continue operating under a leadership team that is not clearly defined.
According to an intelligence analyst, other important people might join the efforts of the Kremlin to bring the formation under its control.
The large size of the group’s violent operations in the Middle East and Africa might make it hard to fully control or stop the group.
Vladimir Putin seems to have gotten back at Prigozhin after the leader’s personal plane crashed near the city of Tver, north of Moscow, on Wednesday night. Sadly, everyone on the plane died in the accident.
The leader of the hired soldiers seemed to have died two months after his private army, which the US considered a criminal group that operates across multiple countries, failed in a planned attack on the capital. The leader of Russia called the group’s disobedience a “rebellion” and a “betrayal”.
The situation leading up to the rebellion involved the Russian government’s efforts to bring private military contractors (PMCs) under the control of the regular military. This required the PMCs to transfer their authority, a process that is believed to be ongoing.
Alec Bertina, who works as an analyst at the Grey Dynamics private intelligence firm, believes that even though Wagner has lost some important leaders or influence, it still exists and operates in different regions like Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.“He said that there are other important leaders from the Wagner Group who are still alive, or at least their death has not been confirmed. ”
We are discussing senior commander Andrei Troshev and people with nicknames like Ratibor, Zombie, and Lotus.
I think that even though a big part of Wagner is gone, there are still enough things left to keep the organization running.
It is believed that Prigozhin’s company airplane, with two other people on board, exploded near Tver, which is halfway between Moscow and St Petersburg.
Other Russian private military companies (PMCs), similar to Wagner, who have been responsible for committing atrocities and potentially war crimes, may take advantage of Putin’s catastrophic full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
But older members of the Wagnernites group can still have an impact, and this includes skilled individuals like Lotus, who was a commander in the Russian army named Anton Yelizarov. Another person is Alexander Kuznetsov, also known as Ratibor, who used to be in a special military group and received honors for it. However, he was also sent to jail in the past for committing the crimes of kidnapping and robbery.‘Bertina said that in the future, there may be other groups without government backing who want to fight for a portion of Wagner’s resources. ’ However, none of them are as skilled as Wagner and it will take a long time for them to reach his level. It’s not only about giving money to other groups to help them grow. It’s also about having experience and knowledge, which takes time to acquire.
Right now, it looks like the Wagner circles are not getting too worked up and are waiting to hear what the commanders have to say.
‘They might say that they want to ensure that the Kremlin doesn’t escape punishment, or, more likely, that it’s a fight not worth engaging in. ‘
‘They had a good chance to remove Putin from power when they were about to go towards Moscow, and I think Putin was more prepared than some people thought. ’
The most recent picture of Prigozhin shows him by himself, carrying a type of gun used for attacking, in a dry and sandy place, possibly in Africa.
The group has made its presence known in Libya, Mali, Sudan, and the Central African Republic, as well as the Middle East and Europe.Ivan Aleksandrovitch Maslov, who is claimed to have presided over a slaughter in Mali, is among a number of relatively low-profile people who appear on a list of sanctioned Wagnerites that the UK published this month.
“The signing-over process of fighters to the MoD [Ministry of Defence] was already underway, but it was having problems transferring a sizable number of people,” said Bertina.
It has been challenging to recruit those folks because the majority of Wagner’s members left the MoD because they were dissatisfied with it.
Dmitry Valeryevich Utkin, the Wagner leader, is one of the facilitators of the organisation who has received UK sanctions.
While the Russian military intelligence, known as the GRU, started controlling Wagner’s activities in Syria, the group continued its operations in Africa even after the rebellion.
The Wagner mercenaries were saying that everything was happening normally.
There could be a possibility of things changing soon. There are two questions to consider. One is about how much they can work without help from the Ministry of Defense, and the other is about how much control the Ministry of Defense has over them.
Many people think Putin might have planned the crash. Some people believe that the plane was brought down by a bomb that was hidden in a box of wine.
The president of Russia said sorry yesterday to the families of the 10 people who died, including three crew members.
Bertina thinks that Prigozhin, who used to work for Putin and is now known as his former chef, was able to travel easily to other countries after behaving defiantly because the Kremlin’s powerful security system stayed hidden and waited for the right moment.“He said that the Russian government and security services might have spent two months preparing to remove the leaders of the Wagner group and fooled Prigozhin into feeling safe. ” This could mean handling the consequences of getting rid of him and making backup plans.
Bertina says that information from Prigozhin’s social media accounts might suggest that the Kremlin is behind the attack.
He said that the accounts created by Wagner’s troll factories have become useful for the Russian government since Prigozhin’s death, which means they may have been taken control of by someone else. ‘They are accusing the Western countries of being responsible for the murder. This accusation started right after Prigozhin died, implying that the murder might have been premeditated. ‘Emily Ferris, from the Royal United Services Institute, believes that Africa is an important place for the mercenaries group after Prigozhin’s supposed murder.
The Research Fellow said ‘If this is true, it is a setback for Wagner’s top leaders and has the biggest impact on its activities in Africa.
The Wagner soldiers are either working with the MoD or waiting in Belarus since the rebellion. They haven’t been active for two months. The Kremlin cares a lot about the Africa branch of Wagner because it helps them with their foreign policy. They will probably try to make changes to the group and keep it going.
Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said today that the claims that the Kremlin ordered Prigozhin’s death are completely untrue.
He said that many people were guessing about the crash and he didn’t believe the Western idea that Putin caused it.
The president of Russia has stated that a complete investigation will be conducted regarding the incident, and it will be pursued until the very end. -
Wagner Group compelled to pledge allegiance to Russian government
Wagney Group soldiers have been asked to promise their loyalty after their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin supposedly passed away.
Anyone working for the military or supporting Russia’s military operation in Ukraine must promise to be loyal to Russia. After reaching a decision, Vladimir Putin officially announced it on the Kremlin website. The decision aimed to strengthen the values that protect Russia.
The promise includes a part where people agree to obey the instructions of their commanders and leaders.
Prigozhin died in a Russian plane accident on Wednesday, August 23.
For weeks, security experts have been calling the Wagner boss a “dead man walking” since his failed mutiny in June.
There has been a lot of guessing about what happened, but we still don’t have many details about the plane crash in Russia. We do know that the flight was going from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Petersburg is a city.Vladimir Putin seemed to confirm that the warlord was killed in the incident and honored him in a speech on TV from the Kremlin.
The plane did not show any sign of a problem until it suddenly dropped in its final 30 seconds, as shown by flight-tracking data.
On Friday, Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for the Kremlin, talked about the rumors that Putin was responsible for the death.
He said: ‘Many people are guessing and wondering about this plane crash and the sad deaths of the passengers, including Yevgeny Prigozhin. ‘ In the West, everyone is talking about this topic from a popular perspective.
This is a complete lie. When talking about this issue, it’s important to rely on the truth. There are very few pieces of information available. This means they have to be set up during investigations.
The Russian government is looking into what occurred. They haven’t told us yet what they think made the plane suddenly drop.
The 10 bodies found in the crash have not been officially recognized yet.
The aviation authority of the country said that the people on the plane were Prigozhin, Sergey Propustin, Evgeniy Makaryan, Aleksandr Totmin, Valeriy Chekalov, Nikolay Matuseev, and Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Dmitry Utkin, who helped start the Wagner Group and is closely associated with Prigozhin, was believed to be one of the people who died.There were three people on the crew. Their names were commander Aleksei Levshin, co-pilot Rustam Karimov, and Kristina.
British military intelligence said on Friday that they did not have definite proof that Prigozhin was on the ship, but they strongly believe that he is most likely dead.
Putin has not said if he will go to Prigozhin’s funeral. But Peskov said that the president is very busy right now.
According to Nigel Gould-Davies, a former British ambassador to Belarus, if Putin wants to show that Prigozhin was a traitor, he will choose to ignore his funeral.
Mr Gould-Davies thinks it will be an important event no matter what happens. Prigozhin’s followers might use it to praise him and his criticism of the Kremlin’s actions in the war.
This could make some Wagner loyalists even more hostile towards the Kremlin, he said.
After Prigozhin died, many graves of the Wagner Group were completely destroyed without a clear reason.
The local news says that they will cover the area where the Wagner fighters were buried with concrete.
The government of Samara Oblast has not made an official statement yet. -
Genetic test confirms Wagner leader Prigozhin had died in plane crash
Investigators from the Russian government reported that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the fiery leader of the mutinous mercenary group Wagner, perished in the crash of a jet.
Earlier today, the Investigative Committee of Russia said via Telegram that it had finished conducting forensic examinations on the 10 deceased passengers.
Svetlana Petrenko, the committee’s spokesperson, said that molecular genetic tests have been finished as part of the investigation into the jet crash in the Tver area.
All ten fatalities have had their identities confirmed based on their findings, and they all match the list provided on the flight sheet.
Prigozhin’s name was found on a passenger list for a flight that crashed earlier in the evening, according to the Russian aviation regulator on Wednesday.
The plane took off from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport around 6pm, heading to St. Petersburg is a city.
But it fell down about 100 miles to the northeast, near the city of Tver.
A video that has not been confirmed shows a plane, called an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet, that looks like the one Prigozhin was on, falling from the sky with smoke coming out.
According to local news, 10 people died in the crash. This includes 3 crew members and 7 passengers.
The Russian Federal Agency for Air Transport announced that they have started an investigation into the plane crash of an Embraer aircraft that occurred in the Tver Region tonight, according to a statement reported by Tass.
According to the list of passengers, the full name of Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the list.
This is the first time it has been officially confirmed that Prigozhin has died. Initially, there were reports that caused a lot of excitement and speculation about whether he was on the plane and if he had died.
It happened just two months after the wealthy businessperson made a big challenge to Vladimir Putin’s long-time leadership.
Prigozhin was seen as a close friend of the president and got paid well by the government. During the war between Russia and Ukraine, he spoke out against the military leaders in the Kremlin.
He talked tough for many months on Telegram posts and this led to a full-on coup on June 24th.
Wagner fighters took control of Rostov-on-Don, a city about 60 miles from Ukraine, and quickly headed towards the capital.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko stopped Prigozhin’s rebellion quickly by making a sudden agreement. The deal involved removing any accusations against Prigozhin and sending Wagner to Belarus.
It is not clear what happened next. Photos, videos, and rumors show that Prigozhin will be in Belarus, Russia, and somewhere in Africa in the next two months.
Some people think that the plane crash might have happened because there was a bomb on the plane. They believe that the Russian government might have planned the bomb as a way to get back at the people who rebelled against them.
The Kremlin said that the accusations were not true and were complete lies.
Prigozhin, who is 62 years old, began his career by selling hot dogs with his mother, Vilotta. Prigozhin was born in 1961 in St. Petersburg, which is also Putin’s hometown. He went to jail multiple times for stealing before he started his own company called Concord Catering.The company has won many reliable government contracts over the years, including providing food for officials and schools.
It is still unclear how Wagner began his journey. The private armed group started causing trouble in 2014 after the Crimean peninsula was taken over, but it is believed that the group actually formed back in 2005.
Dmity Utkin, who had Nazi SS tattoos and was a close associate of Prigozhin (a person), died on the same plane. It was believed for a long time that he was the one who started the group. Prigozhin is the rich owner of the company.
Wagner fighters are usually connected to Putin’s powerful government, but they can work for any government in the world. Soldiers have been spotted fighting in wars in the Middle East, Africa, and Ukraine.
However, Prigozhin didn’t only focus on food and violence. American intelligence officials have discovered that a group in St. Petersburg called the Internet Research Agency, also known as the “troll factory,” attempted to influence the 2016 US presidential election to benefit Donald Trump.
After the accident happened, Putin talked about Prigozhin as if he had already died, but Russian authorities had not yet confirmed it.
The leader of Russia mentioned that he had met the person who used to provide food services in the 1990s.
“Putin said on TV that this person had a difficult life. ”
‘He messed up a lot in life, but he also accomplished what he needed to. ’ -
Putin finally speaks out about Wagner plane accident
The leader of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in a plane crash near Moscow, was mentioned by Vladimir Putin for the first time.
It took the Russian president a whole day to speak up about the incident where the person who led a rebellion against him was killed.
Officials have confirmed that all 10 individuals aboard the private jet perished when it crashed to the ground yesterday. Among the passengers were the leader and his closest associate Dmitry Utkin.
During a TV meeting at the Kremlin, Putin said he was informed about the crash only this morning.
The leader of the war expressed sadness for the families of the seven passengers and three crew members on the plane.
He praised the mercenary chief and called him a skilled businessman. He has known him since the 1990s.
Putin said that he had known Prigozhin for a long time, since the early 1990s. He was someone who had a difficult past.
He was very skilled and successful in business. He not only worked in our country and did well, but he also worked in other countries, especially in Africa.
Putin said that Prigozhin made a lot of mistakes in his life, but he still accomplished what was needed, possibly referring to the war in Ukraine and Wagner’s actions in Bakhmut.
‘The president said that he made big mistakes in his life and he achieved the expected outcomes, both for himself and for the common cause, when I asked him, in the past few months. ‘
He worked with oil, gas, valuable metals, and stones at that place. He came back from Africa just yesterday. He saw some important people here.
Russian state media did not talk much about the crash. Instead, they focused on what Putin said at the BRICS summit in Johannesburg through a video link, and the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
At the moment, the police have blocked off the area where the airplane crashed in the village called Kuzhenkino. This village is about 185 miles northwest of the capital city. -
There is “no doubt” that Putin is to blame for Prigozhin’s demise – Former Russian PM
Mikhail Kasyanov, an ex-Russia prime minister, holds a strong belief that Putin should be held accountable for the plane tragedy that is widely believed to have resulted in the fatality of Yevgeny Prigozhin.
‘I believe that Mr Putin is unable to forgive,’ Mr Kasyanov told Sky News.
Mr Kasyanov, I believe that Prigozhin betrayed the country after his unsuccessful rebellion in June.
This shows that any traitor would be killed in a unique manner, according to Mr. Kasyanov
Mr Putin has shown his anger in wanting to have control.
Prigozhin’s rebellion showed that Mr. Putin was not strong, so he needed to find a way to become powerful. -
African activities of Wagner put to test for toughness
The alleged death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner company, will potentially challenge the activities of numerous private military groups in Mali, the Central African Republic (CAR), and Libya.
Wagner is in charge of maintaining security for certain African leaders and in return, they receive valuable minerals and other economic and military benefits.
The group has also played a significant role in using media campaigns to spread Russian influence by mainly discrediting the West.
In the Central African Republic (CAR), the Wagner forces that were invited by President Faustin-Archange Touadéra in 2018 have expanded their influence into different industries like media, timber, and vodka. This is to strengthen their control over the country’s valuable minerals.
Earlier this week, a cultural center called the Russia House in Bangui, which is the capital of the Central African Republic, said that they will have a three-month trade fair. This fair is for Russian businesses that want to grow their operations in the region.
This could potentially allow companies connected to Wagner to work in the CAR and avoid Western punishments.
Yet, the soldiers for hire working in CAR have been blamed for committing terrible acts of violence while battling against rebel groups, which has contributed to the ongoing problems and instability in the country.
Mali’s government, which is led by the military, has started relying a lot on Wagner. Before this, they had stopped making agreements with France and the UN peacekeeping force for security.
In late 2021, around 1,000 hired fighters went to that place, but the authorities say they are not there.
In May, the US punished Wagner’s unofficial leader, Ivan Maslov, for using Mali to get weapons for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The different activities clearly show how important Africa is to Russia’s foreign policy.
But, it is important for Moscow to have loyal Wagner operatives on the continent to strengthen its future control/power. -
Wagner suspends hiring as Putin introduces shadowy new mercenary regime
After Putin approved plans for a vast network of private militias on domestic turf, the leader of the Wagner mercenary company halted recruiting.
The creation of “specialised companies” to “ensure public safety” and defend Russia’s borders is now permitted thanks to new rules that the Kremlin discreetly approved last week.
Officials have not specified what responsibilities specifically will be assigned to mercenaries or why they are required in addition to Russia‘s territorial army and national guard.
However, the Russian president recently made a suggestion that he wants to alter the status of the numerous private military firms that operate in Russia but are not “legally existing.”
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Wagner who led thousands of his men on a failed mutiny march against Moscow last month, has not publicly replied to the proposals.
However, he seemed to go out of his way in an audio message shared on Telegram to make it clear that Wagner is not beefing up its soldiers in the wake of the incident.
The 62-year-old oligarch acknowledged that the majority of the Wagner forces are currently “on vacation” and that the remainder will train in Belarus or participate in ongoing projects in Africa.
He emphasised that Wagner is moving on to its “next tasks,” which are “becoming more and more clearly drawn,” although he made no mention of any new contracts.
Prigozhin continued, “We do not want to conduct a new recruiting as long as we do not have a shortfall in employees.
However, if you stay in touch with us, we’ll be very thankful, and we’ll start recruiting as soon as the Motherland needs to form a new (extra) group to be able to defend our nation’s interests.
The greatness of Russia “will be upheld” in the execution of any future Wagner missions, he continued.
Wagner’s military skill and Prigozhin’s popularity among his men have provided Putin, who is often ruthless in putting down dissent, with a difficult issue.
The remarks made by Prigozhin might have been an attempt to reassure Putin that he is no longer a danger.
However, they could also be a subliminal attempt to signal to Moscow that he still has the support of both his troops and the Russian people more than the president.
Only a few of his soldiers chose to enlist in the regular Russian army, a choice that was provided to them as part of the agreement to put an end to the coup, according to Prigozhin.
He described the situation as “unfortunate,” although this may have been little more than lip service to avoid upsetting the Kremlin.
According to reports, the mutineers were motivated by a string of military gaffes attributed to inept Russian generals, including rumours of unintentional friendly-fire missile strikes against Wagner outposts close to the front line.
After Russia’s military leaders’ progress in Ukraine stalled, Prigozhin criticised them more and more harshly.
He made the ouster of Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the military staff, and Sergei Shoigu, the minister of defence, the centrepiece of his uprising.
Prigozhin may be implying that Wagner still rules the mercenary world in Russia by publicly stating that Wagner warriors are still averse to fighting for Putin’s generals.
Putin claimed earlier this month that because Russia lacks a legislation governing private military enterprises, Wagner “does not exist” legally. He made this claim to a reporter for the Russian newspaper Kommersant on Thursday.
His ministries and the Duma, the Russian parliament, would discuss new legislation on the subject.
The Duma’s defence committee said on Tuesday that new regulations raising the military service age include “amendments” that “provide for a legal mechanism” on private military firms controlled by state officials.
The action is intended to strengthen Russia’s domestic security without producing another Wagner, claims Karolina Hird, a Russia researcher at the Institute for the Study of War.
According to Ms. Hird, “They’re trying to balance these two competing but extremely crucial security requirements.”
And that’s why it’s necessary to develop a militarised entity similar to Wagner but architecturally extremely different from Wagner, as Wagner’s design was essentially a byproduct of the security threat it ultimately posed to the Russian state.
However, these organisations cannot be so centralised and strong that they develop into their own Wagner organisation and then represent a threat to the Russian state similar to what Wagner did during the uprising. “They need these kinds of entities to fill certain law enforcement and security roles in Russian regions.”
Experts have warned that if the Kremlin tries to enlist additional reserve soldiers or civilians for its invasion, the new armed organisations may also put an end to protests by regular Russian citizens.
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Wagner leader Prigozhin applauds Niger coup and offers his support
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, praised the recent military coup in Niger as wonderful news and offered the help of his men to restore order to the area.
A audio message purportedly sent by Prigozhin on Telegram channels connected to Wagner denied his involvement in the coup but hailed it as a long-overdue moment of independence from Western colonisers.
“What happened in Niger was nothing more than the struggle of the Niger people against their colonisers,” said one observer. The statement was uploaded on Thursday night. It said, “With colonisers who are trying to impose their way of life and conditions on them and keep them in the state that Africa was in hundreds of years ago.”
Today, they are acquiring freedom in this manner. ‘They have gotten rid of the colonisers,’ he continued. “The rest will undoubtedly depend on the people of Niger and how efficient administration will be.
The leader of Wagner, who attempted to overthrow Vladimir Putin last month but was unsuccessful, is still active today and is believed to be operating his organisation from exile in Belarus.
At this week’s Russia-Africa meeting in St. Petersburg, he was seen shaking hands with a representative from the Central African Republic (CAR), suggesting that he still has some formal ties to the Kremlin.
After claiming to have overthrown President Mohamed Bazoum in the sixth military coup in West and Central Africa in less than three years, coup leaders in Niger announced General Abdourahamane Tiani as the new head of state on Friday.
The nation, which is among the world’s poorest but has some of the largest uranium deposits, formally declared its independence from erstwhile colonial power France in 1960.
The Wagner organisation is still active in Africa, where they still hold security contracts in various nations, including Mali, Libya, Sudan, and the CAR. The most recent indication of this is Prigozhin’s voicemail.
For Western nations, including as France and the US, Wagner’s activities in Africa continue to be of concern. Although Prigozhin has asserted the group operates legally, Washington has accused it of perpetrating crimes and slapped sanctions on it.
In his voicemail, Prigozhin bragged about how effective Wagner was at stabilising and developing African countries, and in a video that was made public earlier this month, Prigozhin was heard ordering his soldiers in Belarus to prepare their energies for a “new journey to Africa.”
On Friday night, Prigozhin praised the success of the Africa summit in remarks made to the Cameroonian-based Afrique Media programme. He praised Putin for developing what he called trust-based one-on-one working ties with African leaders.
According to a transcript that was published on Wagner Telegram channels, he claimed that “Russia today offers both…economic relations and security exports, without which Africa today cannot exist.”
Mali, CAR, and Niger were mentioned as nations becoming “more and more independent” and he concluded, “The forum went well and we should see the results of it in the near future.”
The restoration of constitutional order in Niger, according to Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, was stated on Thursday.
The Prigozhin visits, according to analysts, showed that Wagner will continue to support the Kremlin’s foreign policy objectives in Africa and were intended to reassure African allies following the turmoil of the unsuccessful mercenary rebellion inside Russia.
Catrina Doxsee, a specialist at the American CSIS think tank, commented on messaging platform X, “Yes, it’s wild that Prigozhin is back in Russia, and apparently has been several times.”
But projecting normalcy and business as usual is also consistent with Wagner’s and Russia’s objectives.
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Wagner chief Prigozhin spotted in Russia first time since uprising
The founder of the Wagner private military firm, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was last seen inside Russia last month when he oversaw an armed uprising against the Russian military.
Prigozhin was reportedly seen in St. Petersburg meeting with an African dignitary outside of the Russia Africa summit, according to reports from the mercenary organisation.
The representative from the Central African Republic is a summit participant. As previously reported by CNN, Wagner has a presence in the Central African Republic.
The image of Prigozhin with the dignitary was geolocated to the Trezzini Palace Hotel in St. Petersburg, which is where, according to Russian media, the founder of Wagner has maintained an office. On July 6, following the uprising, Russian officials searched a number of places, including the hotel.
Since then, Prigozhin has only been captured on camera once, on July 19, when he appears to be in Belarus and appears to be introducing Wagner warriors at a facility in Asipovichy.
Longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, claimed to have persuaded Putin not to “destroy” Wagner and Prigozhin during the uprising.
In a video, Prigozhin appears to be out in public for the first time since the revolt.
One of Putin’s long-lasting obstacles came from Prigozhin’s uprising.
Prigozhin, who typically prefers to work in the shadows, was propelled into the public eye after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, with Wagner mercenaries playing a crucial part in numerous fights.
Since the 1990s, Prigozhin and Putin have been friends. By gaining large catering contracts with the Kremlin, Prigozhin amassed fortune and earned the title of “Putin’s chef.”
It was after the 2014 Russian-backed separatist struggle in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine that he allegedly changed into a vicious warlord.
Wagner was established by Prigozhin as a shady mercenary group that fought in Ukraine and, increasingly, for causes supported by Russia throughout the world.
In the Central African Republic, Sudan, Libya, Mozambique, Ukraine, and Syria, CNN has traced Wagner mercenaries. They have established a terrible reputation through time and have been connected to several violations of human rights.
Wagner soldiers played a significant role in capturing the Ukrainian cities of Soledar and Bakhmut following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The Wagner forces occasionally appeared to be the only ones defeating the Ukrainians on the Russian side.
However, Prigozhin frequently criticised the support the Russian military establishment provided for his forces.
In one particularly gruesome video from the beginning of May, Prigozhin pointed a gun directly at Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the head of the Russian armed forces.
As he gestures towards the bodies behind him and remarks, “The blood is still fresh,” They are perishing so you can sit like fat cats in your opulent offices because they came here as volunteers.
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Our activities in Africa to continue – Wagner Group chief says
Founder of Russia’s private military company Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, stated in an interview with Afrique Media TV that his mercenaries intend to maintain their operations in African countries where they are currently deployed.
We continue to work in all the countries where we started or are now doing this work of co-operation and development,” he said in an interview published on the pro-Kremlin TV’s Facebook page.
“If the assistance of the Wagner Group is needed anywhere to combat gangs and terrorists and to protect the interests of the people of these countries, we are ready to begin immediately to fulfil this task after agreeing on the conditions.”
He added that “there was no, and there will be no reduction in our programmes in Africa”.
After rumors surfaced regarding the potential withdrawal of Wagner mercenaries from Mali and the Central African Republic, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the private military company, addressed the speculation. His statements came in the aftermath of a brief mutiny he staged in Russia on 24 June.
It is worth noting that rights groups have accused Wagner mercenaries of committing human rights abuses in both Mali and the Central African Republic.
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Crucial bridge connecting Crimea and Russia damaged – Russian Transport Ministry
Several Telegram channels reported strikes on the bridge, and a local authority verified at least two fatalities. On Monday, Russia’s Transport Ministry announced that the spans of the Crimean Bridge, the only connection between the annexed peninsula and Russia, had been damaged.
The Transport Ministry posted on Telegram that the roadway on some of the spans of the Crimean Bridge had been damaged.
The distances between the piers that support a bridge are known as its spans.
The bridge was partially damaged and collapsed last October as a result of a large explosion.
Sergey Aksenov, the Russia-appointed head of Crimea, said an “emergency incident” had been reported, halting traffic on the bridge, which serves as a vital logistical node for Moscow’s military in its war against Ukraine.
Two strikes were allegedly carried out on the bridge around 3 a.m. local time, damaging part of the bridge, according to the Telegram channel Grey Zone, which supports the Wagner mercenary group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Explosions were heard around 3:04 a.m. and 3:20 a.m. local time, Grey Zone and popular Crimean blogger ‘TalipoV Online Z’ said on Telegram.
CNN is unable to verify the reports.
Videos posted on Telegram by Baza, Grey Zone and other Crimean news outlets appeared to show part of the bridge collapsed and a vehicle damaged in the latest incident.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, confirmed that two people were killed and a third person was injured in the incident.
Gladkov said a girl was injured and her parents were killed while traveling in the car that was damaged in the incident.
Emergency responders and law enforcement have been dispatched to the scene, said Aksenov, the head of Crimea. The Transport Ministry said an inspection of the bridge was underway.
Aksenov urged residents and those traveling to and from Crimea to choose an alternative land route.
The nearly 12-mile bridge, also known as the Kerch Bridge, is the longest in Europe and carries both road and rail traffic.
The bridge was severely damaged on October 8 when a fuel tanker exploded and destroyed a large section of the road.
It holds huge strategic and symbolic importance for Russia, which built the 19-kilometer bridge at a cost of around $3.7 billion after Moscow illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. It was the physical expression of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s objective to take over Ukraine and bind it to Russia forever.
It is a critical artery for supplying Crimea with both its daily needs and supplies for the military, in addition to fuel and goods for civilians.
A Russian-backed official of the peninsula, Elena Elekchyan, said Crimea is well supplied with fuel, food and industrial goods.
After the October 8 blast, Russia quickly set about repairs to the span. It was fully reopened to traffic in February.
Earlier this month, Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar made what appeared to be the clearest admission yet that Ukrainian forces were responsible for the October attack.
This is a developing story, more to follow.
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Wagner spotted in Belarus as Minsk confirms ‘road map’ for cooperative military training
On Saturday morning, early entry into Belarus was observed by Wagner fighters, according to a monitoring group.
The mercenaries and Minsk’s own armed forces would engage in combined military training exercises, according to the Belarusian Defence Ministry.
At least 60 trucks, buses, and other huge vehicles entered the country in eastern Europe with police present, according to the independent monitoring organisation Belaruski Hajun, which keeps tabs on military operations.
The group did not immediately provide photos or videos of the vehicles but said they had license plates from Russian-occupied areas of eastern Ukraine.
Wagner mercenaries fought alongside Russian troops in Ukraine until a short-lived mutiny by leader Yevgeny Prigozhin last month.
Prigozhin was forced into exile in Belarus, where president Aleksandr Lukashenko also offered to station some of the mercenary fighters.
The convoy headed toward a military base outside Osipovichi, a town 230 kilometers (142 miles) north of the Ukrainian border.
Satellite images analyzed this month showed rows of tent-like structures that appeared to have been built at the base between June 15 and June 30.
A TV channel affiliated with the ministry showed footage of fighters in black masks instructing soldiers on how to shoot and provide first aid (Picture: AP) The president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, said at the time that Minsk could use Wagner’s experience and expertise, and that he had offered the fighters an ‘abandoned military unit’ to set up camp.
That same week, a leader of an anti-Lukashenko guerrilla group said construction of a site for the mercenaries was underway near Osipovichi.
A spokesperson for Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service the force also had observed ‘some groups’ of Wagner fighters crossing from Russia into Belarus.
Wagner mercenaries fought alongside Russian troops in Ukraine until a short-lived mutiny by leader Yevgeny Prigozhin last month (Picture: AP) The Belarusian Defense Ministry said in an online statement late Friday that it had developed a ‘road map’ with Wagner’s management for joint training exercises drills by the nation’s military personnel and the private mercenaries.
Earlier Friday, the Defense Ministry said Wagner fighters had begun training Belarusian soldiers.
A TV channel affiliated with the ministry showed footage of fighters in black masks instructing soldiers on how to shoot and provide first aid.
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Controversial US cluster munitions currently in Ukraine – Ukrainian general
Per the Ukrainian general and the Pentagon, the much debated and much-anticipated American-made cluster munitions that Washington decided to send to Kyiv are now in the country.
Brig. Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavsky told CNN in an interview conducted in central Ukraine on Thursday morning: “We just got them, we haven’t used them yet, but it can radically change (the battlefield).”
There are currently cluster munitions in Ukraine, the Pentagon announced on Thursday afternoon, confirming the weapons’ existence in the nation.
Tarnavsky is commander of the “Tavria” Joint Forces Operation, which is operating on a large section of the southern Ukraine front.
Tarnavsky added: “The enemy also understands that with getting this ammunition, we will have an advantage… the Russians think that we will use it on all areas of the front. This is very wrong. But they are very worried.”
Eyebrows were raised at the US delivery of these cluster munitions, which are banned in over 100 countries. Ukrainian forces, battling for every inch of territory taken by Russian forces over the past 504 days, are grateful amid low supplies of the 155mm standard artillery round.
High ranking officials have sought to assuage concern. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday that the Ukrainians will only use cluster munitions in “appropriate places.”
Kyiv has already committed “in writing” to make sure that these munitions are not used in populated areas, Austin added.
“They will record the places that they use them and they will prioritize de-mining efforts,” he said. A line echoed by the Pentagon who reiterated that Ukraine, does not have “any interest in using the cluster munitions anywhere near the civilian population, unlike the Russians.”
In Tarnavsky’s interview with CNN, a rare appearance with Western media, he covered a lot of ground in his limited time between meetings with his staff and inspecting troops across the front line.
The general says Ukraine is carrying out “large scale offensives,” while also admitting Ukrainian troops have made modest gains, especially in the south.
The expectation was that the counter offensive “should be fast, lightning-speed movement, the destruction of the enemy, capturing some frontiers, some objects, objects of attack and as a result achieve some goal.”
“It is successful, but not as much as each of us would like,” Tarnavsky said.
There is a simple reason for Ukraine’s lagging counteroffensive, he continued, explaining that “the Russians prepared quite powerfully for this event.”
Russian preparations centered around huge, elaborately sown minefields, making movement difficult and turning Ukrainian de-mining hardware into targets for Russian attacks. Manual demining is laborious and dangerous.
“They made very dense complex mining using minefields, high-explosive warheads, and the direct laying of powerful landmines, which are now located in the areas where equipment and personnel will pass.”
Making progress along the southern front is central to Ukraine’s summer plans, Kyiv has had to start to fight smart, at least in the short term, by economizing on artillery usage.
As Ukrainian soldiers try to pick a path through the minefields, near constant barrages of artillery from both sides have pummeled each other for weeks.
Tarnavsky uses a metaphor for the current state of the fighting: “It’s like in boxing, we hold the opponent at arm’s length. We don’t let them get close. Why? Because close combat is a completely different thing. So, at long distances, we defeat (them) effectively.”
Ukraine is trying to reach well beyond frontlines to hit command and control nodes, as they did successfully this week.
A rising star in the Russian military, Lt. Gen. Oleg Tsokov, was injured and killed in the Russian-occupied city of Berdyansk, on the Azov Sea.
According to a Russian Telegram channel, Military Informer, Tsokov died as a result of a strike by a long-range British Storm Shadow cruise missiles on the 58th Army’s reserve command post in a hotel.
Tarnavskiy refused to be drawn on the exact details of Tsokov’s death, but flatly said, “it turned out that this was the appropriate military commander who suffered the punishment he had to suffer.”
Battlefield victories like these can have a strategically destabilizing nature, he said. “When personnel receive information that their commander has died, it is not known who will lead them. This will definitely have a negative impact.”
He’s not the only high-profile figure to vanish recently, to Ukraine’s battlefield benefit.
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin appears to have incurred the wrath of Russian President Vladimir Putin after staging a short-lived rebellion last month. Tarnavsky called Wagner “a powerful and serious organization,” but was quick to highlight the confusion and chaos that has reigned on the Russian side since then.
“The more such events or such splits occur, the more positively it affects both the conduct of [Ukrainian] active actions and success, and directly on their state,” he added.
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Chief of Wagner group Prigozhin ‘probably dead or in jail’ – Ex-US military official
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group that attempted to overthrow Vladimir Putin, is either dead or imprisoned, according to a former US military commander.
In a botched uprising against the Kremlin in late June, the mercenary leader directed his troops to advance on Moscow.
Experts now believe that Prigozhin has passed away since the Russian president described his former caterer’s acts as a “armed mutiny.”
He has not been seen in public since, and there has been speculation as to whether he is still in Russia, or in neighbouring country Belarus.
Retired General Robert Abrams told ABC News: ‘My personal assessment is that I doubt we’ll see Prigozhin ever again publicly.
‘I think he’ll either be put in hiding, or sent to prison, or dealt with some other way, but I doubt we’ll ever see him again.’
When asked if he thought the former caterer to the Russian premier was still alive, Mr Abrams said: ‘I personally don’t think he is, and if he is, he’s in a prison somewhere.’
Putin allegedly met Prigozhin five days after the failed coup in Moscow, but Mr Abrams believes this was staged.
‘I would be surprised if we actually see proof of life that Putin met with Prigozhin, and I think it’s highly staged,’ he said.
During the meeting Putin ‘listened to the explanations of the commanders and offered them options for further employment’, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
But this did not stop Putin calling his former comrade a traitor, saying he ‘betrayed the Russian people’.
Charges against Prigozhin and the Wagner forces were dropped by the Kremlin to avoid ‘bloodshed’ – but the Wagner Group leader was forced to exile to Belarus.
Yet Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko has said Prigozhin is not in ‘his territory’.
He told reporters : ‘As for Prigozhin, he is in St Petersburg. He is not on the territory of Belarus.’
A business jet linked to Prigozhin left St Petersburg for Moscow, and was heading for southern Russia, according to flight tracking data.
But it was not clear if the mercenary chief was on board the plane.
Lukashenko said an offer for Wagner to station some of its fighters in Belarus – a prospect that has alarmed neighbouring Nato countries – still stands.
Separately, Russia has said the for-hire soldiers can go to Belarus, sign up with its regular armed forces or demobilise.
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Wagner leader captured in odd wigs and disguises
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner company, has been seen wearing a variety of odd disguises after Russian security authorities raided his St. Petersburg mansion and discovered a wardrobe full of wigs.
In addition, FSB agents discovered a stuffed alligator, fake beards, falsified passports, firearms and ammo, a sledgehammer, gold bars, and a framed image supposedly depicting the decapitated heads of his adversaries.
The pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia, whose parent firm is run by Vladimir Putin’s long-rumored ex-gym mate Alina Kabaeva, then leaked and published photos of the raid.
The revelations are seen as a direct attempt to humiliate the ‘treacherous’ mercenary boss after Prigozhin led his guns for hire on what appeared to be an insurrection aimed at toppling the regime.
He later backed down, insisting his ‘march for justice’ was not a military coup, and was exiled to Belarus as part of a deal brokered by its strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko.
Prigozhin has not been seen since landing in Belarus on June 24 and reports suggest the Wagner boss has been travelling to and from Russia to collect an arsenal of weapons.
Lukashenko confirmed on Thursday he ‘may’ still be in Moscow or St Petersburg.
A Russian state TV channel attacked the mercenary chief and claimed the investigation into his rebellion for treason – closed as part of the deal ending the uprising – is still active.
Narrating footage of the raid, Rossiya-1 TV reporter Eduard Petrov called Prigozhin a hypocrite over his corruption allegations against the military leadership.
‘Nobody planned to close this case. The investigation is ongoing,’ Mr Petrov said.
‘We need to get to the bottom of who was on whose side [of the mutiny], we need to punish and prosecute them.’
Photos of Prigozhin donning the disguises show him posing as an employee of Sudan’s defence ministry, a diplomat from Abu Dhabi, and a senior Libyan lieutenant.
He also dressed up as a colonel from Tripoli, a ‘merchant from Syria’, and a field commander named Mohammed.
Security services also found a giant sledgehammer inscribed with the words ‘for use in important negotiations’ on display in a reception room.
Last November, footage posted to Telegram purportedly showed a former mercenary being executed with a sledgehammer blow to the head for defecting.
Prigozhin later sent a sledgehammer smeared in fake blood to the European Parliament after the Wagner Group was added to its terrorist list.
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Russia worries Wagner forces may blow up crucial bridge leading to Crimea
The Kerch bridge connecting the mainland to Crimea is under threat from dissatisfied Wagner fighters who have turned against Vladimir Putin, according to Russia.
Due to rigorous security checks, there were significant delays of up to seven hours for tourists seeking to pass the bridge to get to the Black Sea peninsula.
According to the citizen information agency InformNapalm, they went to great lengths, including sending kids to obtain x-rays and checking every component of the cars, even the glove compartments.
The 10-mile bridge, which was built at a cost of around £3 billion, links annexed Crimea to the Taman Peninsula of Krasnodar Krai on mainland Russia.
Delays also hit the nearby truck ferry service between the mainland and Crimea.
Concerns have been raised that angry Wagner fighters could be planning a violent bomb attack after Putin axed their army, according to a report.
The private army was central to one of the most dramatic days in recent Russian history last month, when Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin ordered it to march on Moscow as he raged about perceived mismanagement of the war in Ukraine.
Russians and governments around the world were preparing for the real possibility of a coup on June 23, before Prigozhin abruptly called off the march.
His soldiers left the southern military HQ at Rostov-on-Don, which they reportedly took over without much resistance, and he is believed to have left for Belarus under the terms of a deal brokered by Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko.
There are now worries Wagner mercenaries may attack the bridge, amid apparent anger that Putin may be reneging on the deal.
According to the Mirror, Telegram channel InformNapalm shared evidence for these fears.
The channel said: ‘Obviously, saboteurs are expected in Crimea.
‘It is possible that some attentive people passed information to the FSB that the Wagnerites are preparing to bring explosives and ammunition to Crimea, because the agreements on the part of the Kremlin have not been fully implemented.’
It is expected that some Wagner fighters will join Prigozhin in exile in Belarus while others will join the regular Russian army.
The delays over security checks for people crossing the Kerch bridge weren’t generally received well.
Nikolai Lukashenko, appointed by Putin to be in charge of transport in Crimea, said: ‘Staff numbers on the inspection lines have been increased and control over their work has been strengthened.
‘We apologise to citizens for the inconvenience.’
Many Russians are spending the summer in Crimea despite it being a possible target, because Western restrictions mean they can’t head to popular holiday destinations.
A bomb blast on a truck which was driving across the bridge in October last year also caused major damage to the Kerch Strait, and has been blamed on Ukraine.
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Putin to meet with other global leaders, including Xi Jinping
This week, Vladimir Putin will be the centre of attention as he is set to make his first public appearance since the Wagner rebellion put his iron grasp on power in jeopardy.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a broadly pro-Russian regional security organisation managed by Beijing and Moscow, will hold a virtual summit on Tuesday, and Putin is slated to participate.
While the assembled leaders have so far given Putin a favourable audience, Putin’s appearance – if remotely – could provide some insight into the level of their support following last weekend’s turmoil.
In the brief, chaotic insurrection, Wagner – a private mercenary group led by warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin – took control of key military facilities in two Russian cities. As thousands of fighters marched toward Moscow, where the Kremlin deployed heavily armed troops to the streets, it seemed as if civil war was on the verge of breaking out.
A secretive deal abruptly ended the rebellion, with Wagner fighters pulling back and Prigozhin sent to Belarus. But one week later, much remains unclear about the inner workings of the deal, the fate of Wagner, and what this means for Putin’s regime.
These questions will likely be on the minds of other leaders attending Tuesday’s virtual summit, including China’s Xi Jinping, and India’s Narendra Modi – whose country is hosting this year’s gathering – as well as representatives from Asian states including Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – many of whom, like Putin, are strongmen rulers.
Experts believe Putin will use the forum to project an image of power, and reassure Moscow’s partners – and by extension the world – that he remains firmly in control.
“It’s virtual, so they’re not going to be there in person, otherwise they would be standing alongside each other, fellow strongmen showing strength,” said Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, a US-based think tank.
According to Grossman, many of the leaders assembled at the summit look to Russia and China almost as models for how they want to run their societies as authoritarian regimes.
“If Putin is kind of shaken by this (insurrection) visibly, then that would tell them something – that even even the strongest of strongmen is not necessarily immune to potential insurgencies within their countries,” Grossman said.
Founded in 2001 by China, Russia and several former Soviet states in Central Asia to combat terrorism and promote border security, the SCO has grown in size and reach in recent years, amid efforts by Xi and Putin to counter Western influence.
Iran is expected to become a full member this year, after signing a memorandum of obligations at last year’s summit; Belarus, a close Russian partner that helped launch the initial invasion of Ukraine, is also invited as an observer state, and could soon seek full membership, experts say.
Xi and Putin, long the world’s two most powerful autocrats, have established close ties in recent years, declaring a friendship with “no limits” in February 2022, shortly before Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine.
China has since refused to condemn the war and instead provided much-needed diplomatic and economic support for Russia, while blaming NATO for provoking the conflict and amplifying Kremlin misinformation.
But Putin’s faltering war has placed pressure on the China-Russia partnership.
“(Xi) doesn’t want to completely spoil China’s relationships in Europe over this, he doesn’t want China to become a bigger target of NATO than it already was before the war,” said Grossman, though he noted the larger benefits of the Russia-China relationship outweigh whatever doubts Xi may have about the faltering war and its impact on China’s global image.
On Tuesday, Xi will deliver a keynote speech to the summit via video link, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. For Putin, a clear demonstration of support from Xi would be of significant value.
Yasuhiro Matsuda, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia at the University of Tokyo, suggested that Beijing was in a difficult position because “Russia is losing, and it’s not something that China can control.”
After Putin invaded, the ideal outcome for China was a quick victory for Russia, in which Zelensky’s administration collapsed and Europe and the US were powerless to act, said Matsuda.
“That was the best scenario for China – and its gone already,” Matsuda said.
On Tuesday, “Xi Jinping also has to show his authority and power to the domestic audience. So he will behave as he behaved before,” he added.
The insurrection against Moscow could be the biggest test of Russia-China relations
Western powers and observers in democratic countries have widely cast the failed insurrection in Russia as a moment of weakness for Putin. But it may be viewed very differently by fellow authoritarian leaders attending the summit, who have previously faced their own power struggles, experts noted.
SCO member Kazakhstan saw deadly protests in 2022, fueled by widespread discontent with the government. The ensuing violence saw more than 160 people killed and thousands detained, with authorities requesting troops from Russia to help contain the unrest.
By contrast, Putin managed to end the Wagner insurrection before it reached the capital, without bloodshed. He sent his challenger, Prigozhin, into exile and may even gain control over any Wagner fighters who agree to sign contracts with the Russian military.
“In the eyes of the Chinese and other members of (the SCO), this is an amazing achievement, because not many statesmen can do that,” said Alexander Korolev, a senior lecturer in politics and international relations at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
That’s not to say the other members won’t have questions about what happened, Korolev said.
“(But) I think they understand that (the insurrection) is not the end of Putin’s regime,” he said. “In authoritarian regimes, leaders do get challenged from time to time, and he has demonstrated to the world and to his elites that he can handle enormous challenges.”
In a sea of authoritarian leaders, India’s Modi remains something of an odd man out.
Democratically elected Modi, who attends this year’s SCO summit fresh from his meeting with US President Joe Biden during a state visit to Washington, has become a key figure in Western efforts to counter China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific.
“India stands apart from the rest in the SCO, but I don’t think they feel uncomfortable in the least because their foreign policy is really all about being friends to all, enemies to none. I don’t see them speaking up or anything like that,” said RAND’s Grossman.
This year’s summit, though virtual, is being hosted by India. The grouping’s defense and foreign ministers attended in-person meetings in the Indian state of Goa earlier this year.
India has strong ties with Russia, which remains India’s biggest arms supplier. New Delhi has not taken a definitive side on the Ukraine war, and its continued purchase of Russian oil has helped prop up Moscow’s economy – to the dismay of some Western partners.
Modi made headlines at last year’s in-person SCO summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, when he told Putin that now is not the time for war, appearing to directly rebuff the invasion. But India’s continued economic support of Russia has undermined that message of peace – and last year’s statement may be as far as Modi is willing to go, Grossman said.
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West must take into account risk political breakdown in Russia
The prospect of a world without Russian President Vladimir Putin is tantalising, but it may also be riskier. This resulted in a huge increase in the stakes for the West in the Ukraine war.
The bloody history of revolutions and coups in Russia was brought to mind during a mutinous weekend in which mercenary head Yevgeny Prigozhin openly mocked the Kremlin before abandoning his march on Moscow. While this was going on, the White House and its friends abroad tried to figure out exactly what was going on, which highlighted how unstable a war could be that may change the course of modern history and the geography of Europe. In the end, a civil war that threatened to break out was stopped—at least temporarily.
The Kremlin strongman seemed to blink at a military confrontation with Prigozhin’s Wagner Group fighters – in an act that might preserve his grip on power. But Prigozhin’s defiance – and the retreat by Putin, who accused him of treason but then agreed to a deal to let him apparently escape to exile in Belarus hours later – punched the deepest holes in the Russian president’s authority in a generation in power. There’s now no doubt that the war Putin unleashed to wipe Ukraine off the map poses an existential threat to his political survival. The rest of the world must now deal with the implications.
“This is not a 24-hour blip. It’s like Prigozhin is the person who looked behind the screen at the Wizard of Oz and saw the great and terrible Oz was just this little frightened man,” former US ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “Putin has been diminished for all time by this affair.”
Schisms in Moscow and between the government and Prigozhin’s Wagner Group – the only Russian fighting force that has enjoyed much recent battlefield success – might also now conjure an opening for Ukraine, which wants breakthroughs against Moscow’s already demoralized and poorly led troops in its new counteroffensive. This would be good news for the West, which has bankrolled and armed the country’s fight for its life. And there’s no doubt that NATO leaders would love to see Putin gone since there’s no sign he will end the war by pulling his troops out of Ukraine.
For a time, it appeared that a teetering autocrat, Russia’s military and rival militia chiefs might end up in a civil war for control of a nation with a vast nuclear arsenal. Such instability and internal strife in Russia would send geopolitical shockwaves across the globe.
The West truly doesn’t have a side in the internal strife that erupted this weekend. This was a showdown between Prigozhin – whose men are accused of brutal human rights abuses in Ukraine, Syria and Africa – and Putin, who has revived World War II-style horror in Europe, who flouted international law by invading a sovereign neighbor and who faces an arrest warrant for alleged war crimes. Prigozhin also has been no friend to the US – he has admitted to interfering in American elections and pledged to do so again.
Statements by Western leaders that this was an internal Russian matter reflected a desire to deny Putin a pretext to renew his claims that he’s a victim of a Western plot to overthrow him and suppress Russia’s dignity as a major power and to trim its geopolitical sphere of influence. CNN’s Kevin Liptak reported that in telephone conversations with the leaders of France, Britain and Germany, Biden stressed the need to keep the temperature low and to allow whatever was happening in Russia to play out in keeping with his mantra to prevent “World War III.”
And while it’s possible a crack in the Putin regime could presage an eventual collapse that might remove one of Washington’s major foreign policy challenges – a new Cold War-style standoff with Russia – no one in Washington is betting on it.
“I don’t think we want a country that spans 11 time zones and includes republics in the Russian Federation of many different ethnic and sectarian groupings to come apart at the seams,” retired Gen. David Petraeus said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“Is this the beginning of the end of Putin? We don’t know. Whoever follows him, if that is the case, will he be even more dictatorial, which is what we feared might be the case if Prigozhin may have been successful? Could there actually be a pragmatic leader who steps in and realizes what a catastrophic error this whole Ukraine endeavor has been and realize that they need to somehow get a more rational approach to Europe and to the West?” asked Petraeus, a former CIA director.
“Many, many unknowns.”
It has long been clear that Ukrainian success in this war could pose a serious political threat to Putin’s rule. But it’s one thing to posit this in theory. After this weekend, this new reality will require the West to once again examine its balancing act to save Ukraine.
It’s possible that the Russian leader’s humiliation could cause him to demand an even more vicious push in a war that has already callously targeted Ukrainian civilians. If political strife in Russia further damages its troops’ morale and leads to battlefield losses, Putin’s position could become even more difficult. This will fuel fears that the Russian leader could threaten a catastrophic escalation of the war after months of nuclear saber rattling.
And if the weekend was a preview of a possible collapse of the Putin regime, if the war keeps going from terrible to worse for Russia, the West could have another headache.
The European Union’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said Monday that it was “not a good thing” when a nuclear power like Russia faces political instability, saying the nuclear threat was “something that has to be taken into account.” The US has said that there has so far been no change in Moscow’s nuclear posture.
After months of heavy losses on the battlefield and economic pain at home caused by Western sanctions, it was noticeable that the most potent resistance to Putin came not from a democratic movement that he spent years crushing. It was from a force even more right-wing and brutal than him – Prigozhin. And another extreme and bloodthirsty war lord, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, offered on Saturday to help suppress the Wagner rebellion on Putin’s behalf, which is one reason why there were fears of a bloodbath on the streets of Moscow.
Behind-the-scenes machinations of Moscow’s politics – a bear pit populated by thuggish militia chiefs, intelligence chieftains and oligarchs – are impossible to predict. But the weekend’s wild twists highlight the possibility that whoever leads Russia after Putin may be even more ruthless and hard for the West to deal with as its longtime nemesis. One of Prigozhin’s pet projects, for instance, was the Internet Research Agency, a troll farm used by Russia to send a torrent of misinformation across social media in an effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
“We’re all maybe excited to see that Putin’s hold on power is shakier and the state is more fragile than we thought, but we should also think as much about what would happen next,” said Robert English, an expert in Russia and eastern Europe who directs the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California.
“It probably will be somebody like a Prigozhin or another sort of military leader who pretends for power, not a liberal like an Alexei Navalny or these other liberal critics of Putin, but a populist from the right who appeals to the same anti-elite, anti-corrupt instincts but has brutal dictatorial tendencies of their own,” English said.
The assumption in Washington is that the hastily announced truce brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, which led to Prigozhin halting his advance on Moscow, is far from the end of the story. “It’s too soon to tell exactly where this is going to go,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “I suspect that this is a moving picture.”
At the same time, there is a sense that Putin – whose rule has long relied on his ability to keep various factions below him placated – has seen his credibility as a leader seriously wounded.
Blinken said that the fact that a strong figure inside Russia had questioned Putin’s authority directly was “something very, very powerful.” He added: “It adds cracks, where those go, when they get there, too soon to say, but it clearly raises new questions that Putin has to deal with.”
The possibility that a weakened Putin could seek more extreme ways to turn around a war that is threatening his hold on power is likely to preoccupy the US and its allies. Biden has been adamant about the need to avoid the conflict spilling over into a direct Russia-NATO conflict. But the fact that the war is now causing deep splits inside Russia in a way that could affect the integrity of its operations may be an argument for quickly escalating western help to Ukraine.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday that as Russia’s assault continues, it was “even more important” for the West to support Ukraine to allow it to retake more land and to strengthen its negotiating hand.
Putin’s apparent vulnerability is likely to embolden those who argue that Biden has been too timid, despite reviving the Western alliance to help Ukraine defend itself in the most sweeping transatlantic mobilization since the end of the Cold War and sending billions of dollars and advanced weapons. Critics complain that the West has given Ukraine enough to survive but not to expel Russian troops from all of its territory and even Crimea, which Putin illegally annexed in 2014.
Republican presidential candidate Will Hurd, a former CIA officer and Texas congressman, said Sunday that statements from the US and its allies that they were monitoring events in Russia sent a weak message to Putin. “There’s another word for that. That’s wringing your hands and doing nothing,” Hurd said. After intelligence reports suggesting potential action by Prigozhin, “we should have been planning with our allies, we should have been planning with the Ukrainians on how to take advantage of this opportunity,” Hurd said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.
Hurd – one of the handful of candidates to anchor his campaign to directly attacking the GOP frontrunner, former President Donald Trump – has only recently jumped into the presidential race. But his comments reflect the reality that while Biden’s premier responsibility is the foreign policy implications of the war in Ukraine, he must begin to consider the conflict’s implications for his political prospects.
Any worsening of already dire US relations with Moscow – or incidents that bring US and Russian forces into conflict – are likely to play into the hands of Republicans, especially Trump, who is warning that Biden’s support for Ukraine could cause World War III.
Trump’s claims that he could end the conflict in 24 hours are fatuous, and any solution he does propose is likely to benefit Putin, whom he has long admired. But while the war in Ukraine already dominates Biden’s legacy, a Russian collapse that leads to global chaos is unlikely to help him politically as an election year approaches.
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.
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Wagner’s leader “rushed mutiny” after learning of a plan to capture Russian military leaders
Western authorities claim that mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was forced to improvise his insurrection after security agents discovered his intention to capture Russian military leaders.
The Wall Street Journal says that the leader of the Wagner Group initially intended to kidnap both Valery Gerasimov, the army’s commander, and Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister, during a trip to the south.
However, it’s believed that he changed course after the FSB, the KGB’s successor, received a two-day warning and decided to target Rostov, the city where the Ukraine war is being fought.
Western analysts believe that might explain why the unprecedented uprising fizzled out 36 hours later.
However, his seizure of Rostov, a city of one million and home to a key military command point, suggests senior army officers could have been involved in the plot.
They are said to include General Armageddon, Sergei Surovikin, deputy commander of the ‘special military operation’.
He was replaced by Gerasimov earlier this year when his blitz of critical infrastructure targets failed to turn the tide of the conflict in Russia’s favour.
US intelligence suggests Surovikin could have ‘helped plan’ the rebellion, the biggest challenge to Vladimir Putin’s leadership in the two decades since he came to power.
The Kremlin dismissed the reports as ‘gossip’.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: ‘There will now be a lot of speculation, gossip and so on around these events. I think this is one such example.’
Despite the denial, Surovikin has not been seen in public since Saturday, when he came out and called for the mutiny to be halted.
Security in Moscow was ramped up and residents were warned to stay indoors on Saturday as a convoy of Wagner fighters rumbled towards the capital.
But a near-standoff at the gates was averted when Belarusian dictatorAleksandr Lukashenko, a staunch Putin ally, struck a last-minute deal with Prigozhin ending the unprecedented uprising.
Lukashenko said he had to persuade Putin not to ‘wipe out’ the mercenary chief, after the Russian president vowed to crush the mutiny, likening it to events in 1917 which ended in civil war.
Prigozhin said he never intended to overthrow Russia’s leaders but had marched to save his militia and settle scores with Shoigu and Gerasimov.
He boasted about the speed of the march towards Moscow, saying it exposed serious security flaws in the country.
Under the reported terms of the deal, not all of which are known, Prigozhin was allowed to go into exile in Belarus and pardoned on charges of treason.
Speaking to MSNBC on Tuesday, the US intelligence official Mark Warner said Prigozhin was holed up in one of the only hotels in Minsk without windows in a bid to guard against assassination.
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Wagner fighters forced to disband and turn over weapons to Russia
Per the Kremlin’s defence ministry, the Wagner paramilitary group is handing over its combat equipment to the Russian Armed Forces amid rumours that it is being disbanded.
The private army played a key role in one of the most dramatic days in recent Russian history over the weekend when leader Yevgeny Prigozhin ordered it to march on Moscow in a fit of wrath over perceived mismanagement of the war in Ukraine.
Before Prigozhin abruptly called off the march on Saturday, Russians and nations all over the world were ready for the potential for a coup.
His soldiers left the southern military HQ at Rostov-on-Don, which they reportedly took over without much resistance, and he is believed to have left for Belarus under the terms of a deal brokered by Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko.
It now appears that the deal might also have involved the end of Wagner as a military force.
Russia’s RIA news agency reported that the country’s official army was taking possession of hardware used by the private military company (PMC) in the field.
The defence ministry was quoted saying: ‘Preparations are underway for the transfer of PMC Wagner heavy military equipment to the active units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.’
As for the group’s other valuable asset – its fighters, many of whom are violent criminals hired directly from prison – the future also looks to be unexpectedly free of serious consequences.
Under the deal, they could choose to either join the Russian army, return to their families or leave the country for Belarus.
The FSB, Russia’s top security agency, recently announced that nobody who took part in the armed insurrection would face prosecution because ‘the participants had ceased actions directly aimed at committing the crime’.
That is despite at least a dozen members of the Russian armed forces being killed by Wagner troops during the uprising, which took place over a period of less than 24 hours.
In a speech to his security services this morning, Vladimir Putin said the country’s military and law enforcement ‘essentially prevented a civil war’ by acting ‘clearly and coherently’.
The people of Russia were not on the side of the ‘mutineers’, he told the audience – although videos taken at the weekend showed crowds of people cheering on Wagner fighters as they moved north towards Moscow.
The president announced a minute’s silence for the pilots who were shot down and killed during Saturday’s mutiny.
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Russian Coup: Putin not our target – Wagner chief Prigozhin finally speaks
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the commander of the Wagner, has spoken out for the first time since the weekend’s aborted military coup.
In an 11-minute audio recording he posted, he claims that no one consented to a contract being signed with the defence ministry and that his mercenary organisation was obligated to suspend operations on July 1.
When he announced that his men would march on Moscow, Prigozhin made it plain that he wasn’t targeting Putin, saying: “We didn’t march to overthrow Russia’s leadership.”
In his video message, he says: ‘The aim of the march was to avoid destruction of Wagner and to hold to account the officials who through their unprofessional actions have committed a massive number of errors’.
He says Wagner regrets ‘they had to hit Russian aviation’ and they turned around ‘to avoid spilling blood of Russian soldiers.’
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Russian mercenaries allegedly in charge of 80% of Bakhmut – Wagner Group
Ukraine’s government has refuted Yevgeny Prigozhin’s assertion that Russia owns “80%” of Bakhmut.
One of the longest-running and deadliest battles in the Ukrainian War, Bakhmut, was about to be captured, according to Prigozhin’s Telegram post from today.
Despite not being a major strategic node, Bakhmut, a mid-sized mining city in eastern Afghanistan, has emerged as one of the conflict’s most emblematic locations.
Bakhmut is mostly in ruins after ten months of carnage and bombardment, but the battle “continues,” according to Prigozhin, who today displayed a map of the region.
‘In Bakhmut, the larger part, more than 80% is now under our control, including the whole administrative centre, factories, warehouses, the administration of the city,’ he said.
He used a red marker pen to highlight the relatively small, mainly residential area of the city that remained to be captured by Russian forces.
Ukrainian soldiers have been facing off against ‘human waves’ of Wagner mercenaries (Picture: Reuters) 
Bakhmut has become mostly ruins in the 10 months of battle (Picture: AP) 
Around 90% of the city’s pre-invasion population has fled (Picture: Anadolu) ‘There,’ Prigozhin said, ‘the war continues.’
Not quite, said Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for the eastern grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
‘This statement by Prigozhin is not true,’ Cherevatyi told CNN.
‘I’ve just been in touch with the commander of one of the brigades that are defending the city.
‘I can confidently state that the Ukrainian defence forces control a much larger percentage of the territory of Bakhmut.’
‘Prigozhin needs to show at least some victory in the city, which they have been trying to capture for nine months in a row, so he makes such statements,’ Cherevatyi added.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has said the ‘war continues’ in the city (Picture: AFP) Wagner, a private military force with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has sent wave after wave of recruits into Bakhmut to drag out the fight.
Prigozhin said he has handed some Wagner-dominated sections of the city to the Russian military.
‘We handed over the flanks to the Ministry of Defence. Units of the Ministry of Defence, including the airborne troops, have today taken over both the right and left flanks,’ he said.
‘That is why Zaliznyanskoye, Nikolaevka, and other settlements, which were stormed by units of the Wagner PMC in previous months, are in the area of responsibility of the airborne troops and other units of the Ministry of Defence.’
With Kyiv soldiers facing round-the-clock artillery bombardments, Moscow is now using ‘scorched earth’ tactics on Bakhmut, a Ukrainian commander said Monday.
‘The enemy switched to so-called scorched earth tactics from Syria. It is destroying buildings and positions with air strikes and artillery fire,’ the commander of Ukraine’s ground force, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said.
‘The situation is difficult,’ he added, ‘but controllable.’
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5,000 prisoners accused of fighting in Ukraine, pardoned – Head of Wagner Group
Following the completion of their contracts to fight for the Wagner Group, more than 5,000 former criminals in Russia received pardons, according to the group’s commander.
For the bloody fight in Ukraine, the private military organisation, which is closely associated with Russian President Vladimir Putin, recruited hundreds of prisoners.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Wagner, declared today that thousands of inmates have “finished their contracts” after untold numbers had perished.
‘At the present time, more than 5,000 people have been released on pardon after completing their contracts with Wagner,’ Prigozhin said on Telegram, per Reuters.
Analysis by the Institute for the Study of War, said Monday it expected Wagner to lose half of its prisoners in the coming weeks as their six-month contracts expire.
The American research group said thousands of prisoners were recruited in the Autumn of last year on the promise of freedom six months down the line.
Citing the UK Ministry of Defence, the report said: ‘The UK MoD forecasted that the exodus of convict forces would worsen Wagner personnel shortages as the Kremlin has also blocked Wagner from recruiting additional prisoners.’
British intelligence has placed the number of fighters Wagner commands at 50,000 – around 10,000 professional soldiers and 40,000 former inmates.
Prigozhin, himself a former inmate after serving nine years in Soviet times, said only 0.31% of its pardoned prisoners went on to commit another crime.
As Russia struggled during the early days of the war to recruit men, Wagner came to fill in the gaps by drawing troops out of prison cells.
Before the war, it was thought the group had only 5,000 fighters who were mostly veteran former soldiers often from Russia’s elite regiments and special forces.
Prigozhin, after spending years in secrecy, stepped on the public scene in the summer and contrasted his fighters with the failing Russian Army.
Wagner has since become the central fighting force for the city of Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, to end one of the war’s deadliest and longest battles.
Wagner defectors and rights advocates have claimed the recruits are given just two weeks of training before being thrown into the battlefield.
One analyst said Wagner sends prisoners in ‘human waves’ assaults to draw out the fire and gratingly push the front line closer to the enemy at the expense of their lives.
The group has suffered 80% losses as a result, the defence and security analyst Professor Michael Clarke told Sky News last month.
Prigozhin has for months been in a public stand-off with the Russian Defence Ministry as Putin has gradually distanced himself from the Wagner group and banned Wagner from recruiting any more prisoners.
‘Prigozhin has developed a brand consistently mocking the Russian MoD for its disregard for the troops’ wellbeing,’ the Institute for the Study of War added, ‘and is unlikely to anger a convict force by retaining them on the frontlines past the expiration of their contracts.’
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Russian warlord’s angry with Putin’s generals flares into the public
Using a mound of corpses to argue your point to the authorities has to rank as one of the oddest PR strategies in recent memory.
In an extraordinary public request for ammo for his Ukrainian warriors, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Russian mercenary outfit Wagner, appeared to have done just that this week.
On the eve of the anniversary of the whole invasion of Ukraine, he has also harshly exposed his ongoing dispute with the military leadership of Russia.On Wednesday, Prigozhin posted a picture on Telegram showing the bodies of several dozen slain Wagner fighters, piled unceremoniously in a courtyard. Alongside that shocking photo, he posted the image of a formal request from Wagner for more ammunition, pointing the finger of blame squarely at the Russian Ministry of Defense for squandering one of those lives.
“This is one of the gathering places of the dead,” Prigozhin said. “These are the guys who died yesterday due to the so-called ‘shell starvation’ [by the Russian MOD]. There should have been five times fewer of them. So mothers, wives and children will get their bodies.”
Apparently, the message got through to someone. In a message and voice note Thursday, Prigozhin said a shipment of ammunition was now on its way to his forces.
“Today at 6 am (local) it was reported that shipment of ammunition begins,” he said. “Most likely, the train has started moving … we are told that the main papers have already been signed.”
What was the rationale behind this ghoulish spectacle? Prigozhin already has a reputation for callousness and cruelty: Late last year, around the New Year’s holiday, he visited a morgue stacked withthe body bags of dead Wagner soldiers, many of whom had been recruited from prisons with a promise of amnesty.
“Their contracts are over,” he deadpanned. “They’re going home.”
But Prigozhin’s latest stunt appeared to raise the ante in the oligarch’s confrontation with Russia’s defense establishment, and with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
Before Russia’s February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Prigozhin was a shadowy figure. While the activities of Wagner were well documented – the mercenaries had appeared on battlefields in Syria and Libya as well as on training missions in the Central African Republic – the Russian government more or less denied its existence.
All that changed after Russia’s military suffered humiliating setbacks on the battlefield in Ukraine. Prigozhin – a canny political entrepreneur without any official government position – began openly taking credit for Wagner’s efforts to secure some territorial gains, particularly in the battles raging around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
He even began to acknowledge his role in Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 US presidential election, admitting that he had founded the Internet Research Agency, the notorious St. Petersburg troll farm that the US government has sanctioned for interfering in American elections.
His unexpected rise prompted speculation about possible elite infighting in Moscow as Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine sputtered. One of Prigozhin’s chief rivals has been Shoigu, who had clashed with the businessman over military contracts given to and then taken from one of the oligarch’s enterprises.
In one recent recording, Prigozhin railed against unnamed “functionaries” – a likely swipe against Shoigu – who “have breakfast, lunch and dinner on golden dishes and send your daughters, granddaughters and whoevers to vacation in Dubai, showing no shame at all, at the very same time that Russian soldiers are dying at the front.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has become a remote and isolated leader since the Covid-19 pandemic, has no clear successor, and some political insiders speculated that some opportunistic upstart – a Prigozhin, for instance – might sense a potential opening or chance to build a power base independent of Putin.
Certainly, Prigozhin’s outbursts would have been unthinkable before February 24, 2022, when open criticism of the defense leadership by a military contractor would not have been tolerated. Earlier this week, Prigozhin escalated his spat with Shoigu and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia’s General Staff, accusing them of “treason” for their alleged failures to support and supply the Wagner group in Ukraine.
“The Chief of the General Staff and the Minister of Defense are handing out commands right and left, that the Wagner PMC should not receive ammunition, they are also not helping with air transport,” Prigozhin claimed in a recording posted by his press service on Telegram. “This can be equated to high treason now when Wagner PMC are fighting for Bakhmut, losing hundreds of their fighters every day.”
Not everything Prigozhin says can be taken completely at face value. This is the man, after all, who helped bankroll one of Russia’s most notorious disinformation campaigns. And the complaints about ammunition starvation leave unanswered myriad questions about the precise nature of the relationship of Wagner to the Russian military, how its formations are supplied with equipment, and who ultimately exercises command and control over its forces.
In a recent report, Candace Rondeaux, the director of Future Frontlines at the Washington-based New America think tank observed, “Despite perceptions of the Wagner Group as an independent paramilitary organization, Wagner’s branding, communications, and operations are deeply intertwined with the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin, Putin’s oligarch allies, and the Russian military.”
And one of the unanswered questions remains how, exactly, Prigozhin manages to operate openly, when mercenary activity is technically proscribed by Russian law. The New America report says groups such as Wagner are part of a “cartel-like structure” that intertwines them with the Kremlin, Russia’s power ministries, large state-owned companies, and Putin himself.
“Although Russian citizens are prohibited by law from serving as mercenaries in foreign wars, a small number of Russia’s paramilitaries operate under a set of laws and executive decrees that allows them to provide services on contract to Russian state conglomerates that the Kremlin deems strategic in nature,” Rondeaux wrote. “These include Russia’s state arms conglomerate Rostec as well as energy industry giants Gazprom, Tatneft, Rosneft, and Stroytrangaz.
“All five state-owned firms are headed by Putin’s oldest friends from the days when he was a KGB agent. In effect, this schema allows Putin’s closest inner circle, through frontmen like Prigozhin, to manage the cartel-like structure that constitutes what many think of today as the Wagner Group.”
Whether the Wagner frontman will retain his usefulness to Putin after such crude public criticism, then, remains to be seen. He’s certainly shown little sign of dialing down his media campaign.
On Thursday, Prigozhin posted a video greeting on his Telegram channel to mark the Defender of the Fatherland Day, a Russian national holiday. In the video, Prigozhin is shown a building in the distance that Wagner fighters claim to have taken close to downtown Bakhmut.
Prigozhin gruffly responds: “OK, let’s go, otherwise this will be our last greeting.”
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Ukrainian prosecutors go after Wagner chief in file criminal charges against the
A mercenary force of thousands, including ex-convicts, is led by Putin ally Prigozhin in the conflict in Ukraine.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader and originator of the Wagner mercenary group from Russia, is the target of a criminal investigation by the general prosecutor of Ukraine.
According to a statement on Telegram, Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is accused of the “encroachment on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine” and “waging an aggressive war”.
The statement said fighters who fled the group “will not avoid responsibility”.
“Prosecutors have already interrogated two such fighters who are in the EU. An investigation into the involvement in war crimes of another PMK member, who is in Norway under way,” the statement said.
Norwegian police are currently interrogating former Wagner group commander Andrey Medvedev, who fled from Russia to Norway last month after fighting in Ukraine.
Earlier this week, Medvedev told the Reuters news agency that he was speaking out against the Wagner group to ensure perpetrators were brought to justice.
“Medvedev gives the impression that he wants to continue to say more” about his time with Wagner, the police have said.
Security arrangements have also been made for Medvedev’s safety, “both visible and non-visible” measures, they added, without giving specifics.
Another former Wagner fighter, Marat Gabidullin, is understood to be seeking asylum in France.
![Medvedev crossed into Norway from neighbouring Russia on January 13, looking for shelter in the Nordic nation [Gulagu.Net/Handout via Reuters] Published On 23 Jan 2023](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/wrgrebrgtbrtgbtgb.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C514&quality=80)
Medvedev crossed into Norway from neighbouring Russia on January 13, looking for shelter in the Nordic nation [Gulagu.Net/Handout via Reuters] The previously shadowy group has taken centre stage during the invasion of Ukraine and is associated with the bloody battle for Bakhmut in the east of the country.
Late in January, the United States designated Russia’s Wagner mercenary group as a “transnational criminal organisation”, piling pressure on the private army that has recruited tens of thousands of Russian prisoners to fight in Ukraine.
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CAR has 1,890 Russian ‘instructors’ – Russian envoy alleges
The Russian ambassador to the Central African Republic (CAR) says the Wagner Group, a mercenary organisation with ties to the Kremlin, has 1,890 “Russian instructors” working there.”
According to ambassador Alexander Bikantov, there are currently 1,890 Russian instructors in the C.A.R., according to a Friday interview with the Russian state-owned news agency RIA. The government wants to increase their population. Bangui just recently submitted the necessary application to the UN Security Council.
Yevgeny Prigozhin founded The Wagner Group, which has since grown to be a significant player in CAR, largely replacing former colonial power France.
The mineral-rich Central African country is one of the poorest countries in the world. Wagner initially intervened on the side of the government to quell a civil war which has raged since 2012.
Western countries and the United Nations have accused the mercenaries of committing human rights abuses in the country and elsewhere in the Sahel.
“They essentially run the Central African Republic” and are a growing force in Mali, General Stephen Townsend, the commander of US armed forces in Africa, told a Senate hearing in March 2022.
Wagner, which is deeply involved in the Ukraine war, has recruited extensively in Russia’s penal system and has previously deployed to Syria, Libya and Mali, among other countries.
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The founder of Russia’s Wagner Group admits to US election meddling
A day before the US elections, Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin says he will continue to meddle.A day before the midterm elections in the United States, the founder of Russia’s Wagner Group, a private mercenary force, admitted to meddling in US elections and promised to continue. “We have interfered, we are interfering and we will continue to interfere – carefully, accurately, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do,” Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Monday in comments posted by the press service of his Concord catering firm on Russian social media.
“During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once,” the Russian businessman wrote on VK, the Russian equivalent of Facebook.
He did not elaborate.
A 2018 US Justice Department indictment accused a Prigozhin-linked troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, of sowing divisions in the US electorate during the 2016 election campaign by using Facebook and Twitter.
Prigozhin usually keeps a low public profile but has become more outspoken in the course of the Ukraine war and has criticised Russian generals.
The Wagner Group, a private mercenary force, opened its first headquarters building on Friday in St Petersburg [Igor Russak/Reuters] In September, after years of secrecy, he admitted to founding the Wagner Group, which has been active in Syria, African nations and now Ukraine.
On Friday, the Wagner Group opened a defence technology centre in St Petersburg, a further step by Prigozhin to highlight his military credentials and take a more public role in Russia’s defence policy.
Prigozhin owns a network of companies and is often referred to as “Putin’s chef” because his catering company has Kremlin contracts.
In July, the US State Department offered a reward of up to $10m for information on Prigozhin in connection with “engagement in US election interference.”
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Putin’s ‘private army’ recruiting Russian convicts ‘with HIV and hepatitis C’
The Wagner Group – dubbed by some as Putin’s private army – is apparently lowering its standards and recruiting Russian convicts suffering from serious diseases including HIV and hepatitis C for the Ukraine war, according to UK intelligence, citing the organisation’s head, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
The Ministry of Defence says that in earlier conflicts the Wagner Group has maintained “relatively high recruitment standards” with many of its operators previously serving as professional soldiers.
But the MoD added on Twitter that the admission of prisoners with serious medical concerns highlights “an approach which now priorities numbers over experience or quality”.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 30 October 2022
Find out more about the UK government’s response: https://t.co/NnbL0SZv8W
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/pVG0B0CJXK
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) October 30, 2022
Source: Skynews.com
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Russia is “not making significant progress” on the front lines
In recent days, war analysts have painted a picture of Russian forces struggling to make significant gains across Ukraine.
According to the Institute for the Study of War in the United States, they are “not making significant progress around Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, or anywhere else along the front lines in Ukraine.”
However, it said Russia is still trying to push a narrative that it is making major progress in Bakhmut, a city in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
Analysts said the information operation is likely an attempt to “improve morale” and “possibly the personal standing” of Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is behind the Wagner mercenary group.
The notorious Wagner group is “largely responsible” for the minimal gains around Bakhmut, but the ISW said the advances have been “at a languid speed and a significant cost”.
Mr Prigozhin, who reportedly confronted Vladimir Putin over Russia’s stalling war effort, acknowledged the slow pace of the ground operations near Bakhmut last week.
He said his Wagner forces were advancing just 100 to 200m per day, which he absurdly claimed was a normal rate for modern advances.