According to experts, Russia has managed to effectively dismantle and replace the Wagner Group in the year since that paramilitary group shocked the world by launching a mutiny against the government of President Vladimir Putin.
On June 23, 2023, the deceased Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was the leader of the Wagner Group, crossed from Ukraine and took the Russian city of Rostov with his fighters.
This takeover occurred after months of growing tensions between the paramilitary group and leaders in Moscow.
His forces headed towards the Russian capital, without encountering any resistance.
The “march of justice,” as Prigozhin called it, ended abruptly the next day when he himself decided to end the military advance.
And just two months later, the plane carrying Prigozhin and other leaders of the Wagner Group crashed, killing all its occupants.
That put the group’s future in a state of uncertainty.
Sorcha Macleod, a professor at the University of Copenhagen and an expert on mercenary groups, notes that Wagner members were dispersed around Russia.
“The group may not exist in the exact form in which we knew it, but a version, or even several versions of the group, continue to exist,” he told the BBC.
“What has been seen is a kind of dispersion within the Russian state that no one is really controlling,” he added.
For Macleod, the Wagner Group was very important for Russia in geopolitical and economic terms “so it is impossible for it to disappear overnight as some suggest.”
For years, Prigozhin’s forces played a key role in Russian operations in Africa and Syria.
fundamental force
But it was in Ukraine – as Russia’s conventional forces struggled to break through the Ukrainian defense – where the group led by Prigozhin came into play the strongest.
Throughout 2022 and early 2023, the Wagner Group was key to achieving some victories.
His forces – made up mainly of former prisoners – managed to take the Ukrainian city of Soledar, before being entrenched for months in the fight for the city of Bakhmut.
At his peak, Wagner had nearly 50,000 mercenaries in Ukraine, according to the UN Security Council.
Now, experts point out that operations in Ukraine were taken over by other paramilitary units.
A commander who belonged to the Wagner Group told the BBC that the mercenaries were ordered to “join the Ministry of Defense” or flee.
British intelligence suggests that some infantry units were absorbed into the Rosgvardia or Russian National Guard, which was established in 2016 and has been described as Putin’s “private army.” He is controlled by his former bodyguard Viktor Zolotov.
The UK Ministry of Defense said elements of the Wagner Group came under the control of the National Guard in October 2023.
Called “voluntary formations,” the former Wagner troops were deployed with six-month contracts in Ukraine and nine months in Africa, he added.
Anton Yelizarov, a longtime Wagner operator who is accused of carrying out bloody operations in Bakhmut, appeared in a video confirming his integration into the Russian National Guard.
In the video, which was published on the Telegram channel of an entity close to the Wagner group, Yelizarov said that he had been present at the construction of a camp where the Wagner Group troops “are going to work for the good of Russia” and were They are going to join with the National Guard in a new formation.
British officials stated that “the incorporation of important elements of the Wagner Group into the National Guard volunteer corps is a great indicator that Wagner successfully subordinated himself to the control of the Russian government.”
A BBC investigation found that other elements of the Wagner Group had joined Putin’s ally in Chechnya, President Ramzan Kadyrov, and his Kadyrovtsi forces.
Slope
A tangible example that shows what is happening with the group is that their logo was torn from a tower they had occupied in the city of Saint Petersburg.
In the days after the mutiny, Prigozhin was said to have made a deal with Putin to focus the group’s operations in Africa on supporting regimes and securing resources for Russia.
After Prigozhin’s death, Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov traveled to several African countries, where he assured officials in these nations that the services the group provided would not disappear.
Earlier this month, the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) noted that following Prigozhin’s death, “Russia’s state attention to Africa not only did not weaken, but rather strengthened.”
In February, the BBC obtained documents revealing that Moscow was offering a “regime survival package” in exchange for access to important and strategic natural resources, an approach previously favored by the Wagner Group.
The plan was being offered by the so-called Russian “expeditionary group” – nicknamed Africa Corps – and commanded by former Russian military intelligence general Andrey Averyanov.
Previously, he had overseen covert operations specializing in targeted assassinations and destabilization of foreign governments.
Experts told the BBC that the Africa Corps effectively replaced Wagner in West Africa.
On Telegram, that unit boasted of offering recruits salaries of up to 110,000 rubles a month (about $1,250) and service “under the leadership of competent commanders with extensive combat experience.”
In January, it announced its first deployment of 100 troops to Burkina Faso. Another 100 reportedly arrived in Niger in April.
Ruslan Trad, a security analyst at the Atlantic Council, told the BBC that, in effect, Wagner became the Africa Corps and now serves all military intelligence and Ministry of Defense purposes.
“In Africa, these soldiers are doing much the same thing: protecting trade routes, securing resources that Moscow uses to circumvent sanctions, as well as serving local governments and directing the flow of migrants,” Trad said.
Africa Corps
The PISM noted that the Africa Corps is intended to be used “more openly” than Wagner on the continent with the intention of replacing Western – and particularly French – influence in Africa.
BBC Russian reported that only in the Central African Republic does Wagner still operate with some of its previous model, supposedly controlled by Prigozhin’s son Pavel.
“Moscow gave the heir the go-ahead to continue doing what his father did in Africa, on the condition that it does not contradict Russia’s interests,” a source who used to work with Yevgeny Prigozhin told BBC Russian.
Last week, French newspaper Le Monde reported that around 1,500 Wagner soldiers had assisted local (Central African Republic) security forces in attacks on rebel-held areas.
However, the PISM noted that the importance of the Central African Republic in Moscow’s strategic thinking “is declining.”
For his part, MacLeod suggested that Wagner’s original goal in the Central African Republic had been to show “proof of concept” that mercenary groups can “be used as successful counterterrorism actors,” a goal Moscow may now consider he achieved.
But he added that Wagner was “fully involved” within the Central African Republic, making it more difficult to replace him with the new Africa Corps.
Despite the threat posed by the Prigozhin mutiny, the anniversary passed without incident this Sunday in Russia.
Dan Storyev of the monitoring group OVD-Info told the BBC that Prigozhin’s legacy falls mainly on those aligned with the Kremlin.
“Generally speaking, the Wagner mutiny has not had much real popular support for there to be, say, mass demonstrations to mark the anniversary, perhaps because it did not have a genuine anti-war message,” he said.
“There are people who organize protests in Russia, but they focus on anti-war activism and have nothing to do with it.”
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