The founder of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is on the passenger list of a plane that crashed on Wednesday near the city of Tver, Russia, according to Russian news agency Interfax.
The founder of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is on the passenger list of the plane that crashed near the city of Tver, Russia, on Wednesday (23/08), according to Russian news agency Interfax.
The plane was Prigozhin’s private jet, according to information from the Russian Emergencies Ministry cited by the agency, and all 10 people on board – seven passengers and three crew members – died.
The ministry added that the plane crashed near the Kuzhenkono settlement in the Tver region.
A former ally of Putin, Prigozhin created the Wagner group and fought in the war in Ukraine on behalf of Russia.
However, in June, he was involved in a coup attempt after several disagreements with the government over supplies sent to his soldiers during the war.
About 5,000 Wagner soldiers marched on Moscow during the short-lived rebellion.
After the incident, the group’s mercenaries were given the option of going to Belarus or enlisting in the Russian army. Thousands of people are in Belarus today to help train the country’s soldiers.
The government of Poland, which borders Belarus, says it has sent 10,000 troops to the border to defend against invasions by Wagner fighters.
The BBC has learned that Russian prisoners recruited by the group to fight in Ukraine have been accused of committing serious crimes after returning to Russia.
What is the Wagner Group and how big is it?
Prigozhin is a wealthy Russian businessman with a criminal record. He became known as “Putin’s chef”, as his company provided catering for the Kremlin.
Prigozhin said he founded the Wagner Group in 2014. That year, the group began supporting pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine and is believed to have helped Russia annex Crimea.
However, a BBC investigation has revealed the alleged involvement of a former Russian army officer, 51-year-old Dmitri Utkin, in the group. It is believed that he founded Wagner and gave the group its name, based on his nom de guerre of him in the army.
Utkin is a veteran of the Chechen wars, a former special forces officer and a lieutenant colonel in the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency.
Mercenaries are also active in Africa and the Middle East.
Before the war in Ukraine, the Wagner group was estimated to have about 5,000 soldiers in the field, most of them veterans of the Russian military service.
However, Prigozhin said in June that the number of mercenaries in the group had grown after the war, now reaching 25,000 soldiers.
The number is not large in the Russian military universe. Russia has more than 1 million active duty military personnel, as well as 900,000 civilian employees working in defense. About 5,000 of Wagner’s soldiers marched to the Kremlin in the brief June uprising.
Although mercenary forces are technically illegal in Russia, in 2022 the group registered as a “private military company”.
What role did the Wagner group play in the war in Ukraine?
The Wagner group was deeply involved in the capture of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut for Russia.
Ukrainian troops say mercenaries were sent to the front in large numbers and many died.
It is believed that weeks before the Russian invasion, mercenaries were sent to carry out attacks in Ukraine under “false flag” (false flag, in English), i.e. whose authorship is disguised to blame the adversary. The purpose would be to provide a pretext for Russia to invade.
How many prisoners did the Wagner group recruit?
Wagner is one of the groups that have grown the most in recent years. This is because Wagner was able to recruit Russian prisoners to fight in the Ukraine. US sources say 80% of Wagner’s troops in Ukraine are former Russian prisoners.
Prigozhin said Wagner recruited 49,000 inmates from Russian prisons.
They were pardoned and paid to serve six months in Ukraine.
The leader said 32,000 prisoners have returned from the war, but independent researchers put the number of survivors at 20,000.
The BBC has learned that 20 former prisoners who fought with Wagner in Ukraine and returned to Russia are suspected of having since committed new crimes, including rape and murder.
Why did Wagner rebel against the Russian government?
Prigozhin has criticized Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Armed Forces Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov for their roles in the war in Ukraine.
It also failed to comply with the defense minister’s order to hand over control of the group to the government.
On June 24, some 5,000 men from Wagner stormed the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and marched on Moscow, with the stated goal of removing the military leadership from power.
However, the rebellion was stopped after negotiations with the Kremlin, brokered by the leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko.
Source: Terra
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