The head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has accused Russia’s military leadership of striking his fighters and vowed to retaliate. The threat, made over his official Telegram channel, has sparked a crisis in Russia, with the country’s security service FSB calling on Prigozhin’s own Wagner Group private army to refuse orders and detain him. The FSB has also opened a criminal investigation for “organizing an armed rebellion.” Russian Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseev has called it a “stab in the back,” calling it “a coup d’état.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has been informed, and “necessary measures are being taken,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
The Wagner Group is a “private military company” according to Russia, but U.S. officials and others call it a proxy force while others label it a mercenary group. It was founded in 2014 and is owned by Prigozhin, a 61-year-old who has previously been known as “Putin’s chef” for catering state events with his catering business. In December, the U.S. believed that the Wagner Group had an estimated 50,000 personnel inside Ukraine, around 10,000 contractors, and 40,000 convicts from Russian prisons, according to U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
The Wagner Group has denied its involvement in Russia’s official military operations, but the Washington think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies says it is often directly connected to the Russian state. It played a role in Russia’s operations in Ukraine in 2014 and 2015, it said. The group has also been involved in other parts of the world, including Africa. It has operated in the civil conflict in Libya, and Russia sent it military equipment including fighter aircraft and armored vehicles, so that Russia could get a foothold in the country, the U.S. Department of Defense said in 2020.
Wagner Group was also sent to Central African Republic in its civil war, where the group was accused of executing civilians, attacking U.N. peacekeepers, and targeting predominantly Muslim communities. Senior Western diplomats have said that the Wagner Group took control of a gold mine there. The U.S. in January designated the Wagner Group a transnational criminal organization. In Africa, it destabilized countries, committed “widespread human rights abuses and extorting natural resources from their people,” the U.S. Treasury Department said then in imposing sanctions.
The war in Ukraine has helped the Wagner Group grow in influence, Kirby, the U.S. National Security Council spokesman, has said. “His influence is expanding. Wagner’s independence from the Russian Defense Ministry has increased and elevated over the course of the 10 months of this war,” Kirby said at the December briefing. The Russian military has been relying on Wagner fighters in Ukraine, and in some cases, Russia’s military officials have been subordinate to the commands of the Wagner Group, he said.
The Allegation and Its Consequences
Prigozhin has accused Russia’s military leadership of incompetence in Ukraine, but he publicly accused them of striking his forces on Friday. He claimed there was a missile attack at its rear camps. Prigozhin said, without providing evidence, that Russia’s military leadership was responsible for the deaths of 2,000 fighters. “Those who destroyed our lads, who destroyed the lives of many tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, will be punished. I ask that no one offers resistance,” Prigozhin said in a series of audio messages on his official Telegram channel.
The FSB has responded by starting a criminal case against him for what it said was a call for an armed rebellion. The FSB said that “his actions are a ‘stab in the back’ of Russian servicemen” and called on Wagner fighters to refuse orders and take Prigozhin into custody. Russia has denied Prigozhin’s claims. Security was increased in Moscow, Russian state news agency TASS reported, and video distributed by the Reuters news agency showed military vehicles near Russia’s Parliament early Saturday local time.
Prigozhin denied it was an armed rebellion, but called it “a march of justice.” He claimed that his forces entered Russia, and that “Right now we are entering Rostov,” referring to a city in the south of Russia. The situation is still developing, and it is unclear what the outcome will be. However, the allegations and the FSB’s response have exposed the tensions between the Wagner Group and Russia’s military leadership, which could have significant consequences for both parties.
Leave a Reply