Russia | “Everyone knows the big picture” – This is how the former Wagner forces operate now

Year then Yevgeny Prigozhin led by the Wagner group of mercenaries started rolling towards Moscow with tanks in the so-called Midsummer Uprising.

Rebellion left as a bird’s eye view. The leadership of the Russian armed forces did not fall, Prigozhin soon lost his life.

Wagner fighters were ordered by the state to sign the oath of allegiance and to operate directly under the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Wagner as an organization ceased to exist.

Wagner’s however, it was replaced by a network of organizations strictly controlled by the Russian military intelligence GRU, says a doctoral researcher at the University of Tampere who is familiar with mercenary armies Mikko Räkköläinen.

Wagner’s work is still being continued with the same means that support Russia’s foreign policy goals as before. Wagner has just lost its independence and rebranded, says Räkköläinen.

“It has changed how these tools are managed and how tightly controlled they are.”

Prigozhin died a couple of months after the coup attempt last August when his private plane crashed. After his death, Wagner was split up and merged into at least four, maybe five, different organizations.

Some of the Wagner fighters were merged under the Rosgvardija of the Russian National Guard. Politico-magazine’s anonymous official sources, these forces would have been transferred to Ukraine at the beginning of the year.

Wagner soldiers have also been merged into two groups operating under the Ministry of Defense and the Intelligence Service, Politico’s sources tell.

The fourth group that absorbed the Wagner fighters is known to be Chechnya’s Ahmat forces. The US authorities did not mention this earlier in the spring, but the leader of Chechnya, which is part of Russia Ramzan Kadyrov announced 3,000 Wagnerians joining in April.

The purpose is to ensure the obedience of the Wagner fighters, and that is why they are mixed with other groups loyal to Putin, believes Räkköläinen.

The same is also said by US officials who spoke to Politico anonymously.

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“There will be no more surprises like a year ago.”

Fifth the group to which the Wagner soldiers have been transferred is a group rebranded as Russia’s Africa Force. It operates within the framework of a mercenary network known as Redut, which in turn operates under the GRU, a military intelligence agency.

Prigožin owned numerous companies in several African countries that offered services tailored to the needs of the target countries, from mercenary services to information influence. In exchange for services, for example, valuable mining rights were granted.

The activity was useful for Russia’s foreign policy, Räkköläinen says, and we want to keep the benefits.

Just last fall, Russia’s deputy defense minister Junus-Bek Yevkurov traveled to reconfigure operations in Libya, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, and Mali. Among other things, the British Broadcasting Company reported on the trips BBC.

Now the management of Wagner’s Africa operations has been transferred to this new Africa force. The management in the target countries of the troops is partly the same as in the old Wagner, says Räkköläinen.

“But the structure has now been changed so that there will no longer be surprises like a year ago.”

Wagner’s There was a lot of commotion in the management positions last fall: there were positions in the division that had access to “big corruption money”, Räkköläinen believes.

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s then only 25-year-old son by Pavel Prigozhin was speculated to become Wagner’s formal manager.

According to Räkköläinen, there is no certainty about the role of the boy Prigožin.

According to US officials cited by Politico, it is likely that the younger Prigozhin leads some of the smaller mercenary forces in the Central African Republic and Mali.

Thence Räkköläinen is quite sure who leads the entire mercenary network: Deputy Defense Minister Junus-Bek Jevkurov.

In Räkköläinen’s opinion, the network’s day-to-day operational activities are run by someone using the pseudonym “Lotus” Anton Yelizarov. Yelizarov belonged to the management team of the old Wagner as well.

In some role, mercenaries are also led by a lieutenant general Vladimir Alekseev, a former special forces officer, says Räkköläinen. For example, a Russia expert Mark Galeotti referred to in April to Alekseev as head of all Russian mercenary operations.

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Wagner is now cementing Russia’s influence on the African continent.

In rough places Deputy Defense Minister Yevkurov’s subordinate responsible for African operations is – or at least was in the fall – also Andrei Averyanov.

Averjanov has led the GRU’s notorious secret operations unit 29155. Räkköläinen calls it the dirty tricks department.

Averjanov is suspected of involvement, for example Sergei and Yulia Skripal to the poisoning attempt in Salisbury, England in 2018, besides which he is also connected to the so-called Havana syndrome that plagued US diplomats.

In May, Czech police wanted notice About the 2014 explosion of Averjanov’s weapons depot in the Vrbětice area.

It was Averjanov who, after Prigozhin’s death, traveled with Deputy Defense Minister Yevkurov to reorganize Wagner’s Afrikan operations in several countries.

According to some sources, Averjanov would even have become Prigožin’s successor last fall, but Räkköläinen thinks there is no evidence of this.

The researcher speculates that Vladimir Alekseyev may have since replaced Averyanov. It is also possible that they share a common plot or are in the same chain of command, but at different levels.

Räkköläinen is quite convinced that Alekseyev is still involved in the leadership of the mercenary forces. Averjanov again – who knows.

To lead the state Transformed into the Africa force, Wagner is now cementing Russia’s influence on the African continent.

BBC said in February, that according to the internal documents of the Russian administration that it has seen, Russia is offering African countries a “regime survival package”. The Russian mercenaries it provides defend, for example, the military junta that seized power in Burkina Faso at the beginning of the year.

Also in Niger Russia has gained more political foothold through the Africa forces, Räkköläinen says.

Russian troops in Africa are essentially the security departments of the leaders of the respective governments against their own citizens, says Räkköläinen.

It is known that there are also Russian mercenaries in at least the Central African Republic, Libya and Sudan. Recruitment for the Afrika troops continues On the Telegram channel.

Mercenaries the transfer directly under the Russian Ministry of Defense has removed from Russia the smokescreen that private mercenary armies provided.

The use of mercenaries is still a lighter political tool than official activity. With a semi-secret operation, details can still be kept under wraps.

“Everyone knows this big picture, but the Russian state is still able to deny that it had anything to do with it,” says Räkköläinen.

“Informality makes the activity a little more embarrassing.”