Russia has a big problem in Ukraine, and its name is Wagner group.
The Wagner group has been growing in infamy after first making it to the forefront of
the media spotlight for its involvement in the 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea.
Since then the group's activities has come into clearer focus, and so has the long list
of atrocities that the group has committed in the name of its own, and Russia's national
interests.
Connected all the way to the very top of the Kremlin, the Wagner group has taken a leading
role in the war for Ukraine.
Mostly because its forces are just slightly more effective than the regular Russian army,
and now its leader- leading candidate for Lurch in a Russian Adams Family reboot, Yevgeny
Prigozhin is threatening to pull Wagner out of Ukraine altogether, though we're confident
by time you see this he'll have changed his mind because it's all naturally just for show.
But how did Russia's most effective asset in Ukraine turn into one of its biggest headaches?
Wagner's shadow origins trace back to around 2008, allegedly founded by Dmitry Utkin who
like any good Russian hates Nazism and is most definitely not a neo-Nazi himself.
Dmitry was born in Ukraine and joined the Russian GRU, becoming a Lieutenant Colonel
in the Russian special forces before retiring to join the Slavonic Corps in 2013 to fight
on the side of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, because also like a good Russian, Dmitry often finds
himself on the right side of history.
Apparently fighting for the Slavonic Corps wasn't profitable enough for Dmitry, as he
left just a few months later and returned to Moscow to found the Wagner group.
Allegedly fascinated with all things German, the group was apparently named after Richard
Wagner, a composer and conductor who was perhaps unsurprisingly wildly racist and had a lot
to say about minorities and their influence on both society and music.
Naturally Wagner was one of Hitler's favorite composers.l Dmitry- a good Russian that stands
against all things Nazi- absolutely loved that and adopted Wagner as his own call sign,
and later the name of his mercenary company.
Dmitry was spotted in Crimea in February 2014, and shortly after supporting the Donbas seperatists.
Apparently though some of the Luhansk People's Republic's commanders weren't up to his standards,
and he is alleged to have murdered several of them.
He'd return to Syria with his mercenaries in 2015, but Dmitry would disappear from the
public eye by 2016.
The real question all along was where did Dmitry get the money to start Wagner group,
and this is where Prigozhin comes in.
After spending 12 years in prison for robbery, Prigozhin got his humble start to supervillainhood
by selling hot dogs alongside his mother in a flea market of Leningrad.
Apparently his mom made good hot dogs, because their small stand brought in enough rubles
for Prigozhin to invest in several businesses following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Naturally, this is obviously complete crap- Prigozhin almost certainly returned to robbing
and stealing, investing ill gotten funds into legal enterprises.
Eventually Prigozhin would go all Ratatouille and open a restaurant, then a second restaurant
on the Saint Petersburg waterfront which became a hit.
Putin himself would end up dining there, and from the moment that the two laid eyes on
each other, it was a match made in the eighth circle of hell, the one with the poop river
where flatterers spend eternity drowning in excrement.
Prigozhin would go on to deny any involvement with Wagner until September 2022, when Wagner
was pretty much the only part of the Russian military not actively being routed by Ukraine.
Like a bad rash, Wagner has shown up all over the world and always in support of Russia's
interests.
The mercenary group was confirmed to be operating in Syria by 2015, one month after Russia decided
to join in support of Assad.
Despite private military companies being illegal in Russia, Wagner was curiously free to operate
wherever it wanted and build bases and training facilities inside Russia itself.
It even shared some facilities directly with the Russian military, and recruited straight
from its ranks.
When sent to Syria, Wagner fought directly under the instruction of the Russian government,
a neat trick for what would basically be a criminal enterprise.
But Wagner's legality was handwaved away by Putin and anyone who dared to question it
would find themselves suffering an accident while peering out a high window.
Wagner suited Putin perfectly, as it allowed him to directly intervene in conflicts around
the world while maintaining plausible deniability.
Also, getting your own military killed is bad for press- even in such a repressive country
as Russia- and dead mercenaries don't receive state funerals.
This is a neat trick the US figured out years ago in the Middle East when it basically resurrected
mercenaries as a full-time profession.
Wagner's role in Syria was to supplement Assad's poorly trained forces.
Wagner mercenaries would serve as shock troops or fill combat specialist roles lacking in
the Syrian army such as forward air controllers for loitering Russian planes.
In a turn of events that should make you question if you're living in an alternate universe,
Wagner even fought on the side of the good guys against ISIS, developing a specialized
unit known as ISIS Hunters to take down key ISIS leadership.
However, it wasn't a shared respect for law and order that motivated Wagner, it was Russia's
desire for ISIS to stop tearing Syria apart long enough for the country to exploit its
resources and expand its naval bases there.
By all accounts Wagner did pretty well for itself- but on at least one occasion it forgot
for a moment that it wasn't actually an elite military force, when it went into combat against
an actual elite military force.
In what would be known as the Battle of Khasham, Wagner led a force of approximately 500 in
an assault on a position held by Syrian Democratic Forces and about a dozen US special forces.
The presence of US service members was well known to the Russians, who directly oversaw
Wagner's every move via the GRU, and was meant to send a message for the US to get out of
town.
Instead, Wagner and its Syrian allies got absolutely rocked by apocalyptic levels of
American firepower delivered via F-22s, F-15s, B-52s, AC-130 gunships, Apache helicopters,
Reaper and Shadow drones, and in a taste of things to come: M777 howitzers and Himars
batteries.
The only casualty on the friendly side was one SDF soldier wounded, with Russia suffering
so many Wagner casualties that the bodies had to be flown to Russia in secret.
There would be no further direct confrontations between Wagner and the US military in Syria.
In Syria though the world would get a taste of Wagner's now famous brutality.
The PMC specifically targeted civilians in order to sow fear and panic, assisting the
official Russian military campaign striking city centers such as Aleppo.
Wagner's on the ground brutality included a now infamous video of its mercenaries using
a sledge hammer on an old Syrian man, breaking his various extremities one by one before
delivering a fatal blow to the head.
This was par for the course for Wagner, and Prigozhin would later send sledge hammers
to news organizations and reporters he wished to intimidate.
In Sudan, Wagner has been working at the behest of Sudan's presdient, Omar al-Bashir to assist
in the ongoing civil war.
Their presence was rumored by the return of Russian mercenaries to Russia in 2013 for
treatment for a severe form of malaria.
In December 2017 a video of Wagner PMCs training Sudanese forces surfaced confirming the group's
presence in the country.
There the group helped train regime forces, but also directly secured gold, uranium, and
diamond mines, with Wagner often using force to secure better deals for Russian companies
exporting the extracted minerals.
Likewise, Wagner would be deployed to the Central African Republic where it protected
lucrative mining prospects.
The company is alleged to control multiple mines directly, earning billions in profits
in work conditions that are rumored to be brutal for the miners.
UN efforts to gain video evidence of Wagner's brutality have met with failure as the company
has shot down every UN surveillance drone dispatched to overfly the mining sites.
The company would also use its famous internet troll farm that interfered in the 2016 US
election on behalf of Vladimir Putin to directly attack the French in the Central African Republic.
Using social media, Wagner helped spread a deep anti-french sentiment across the country,
which would be one of multiple factors leading to France's exit.
Wagner took full advantage of the power vacuum in the country to insert itself and promote
Russian interests.
Wagner's brutality would be exposed once more as survivors of a Wagner massacre spoke to
international media about Wagner mercenaries torturing, killing, and disemboweling women,
including several pregnant ones.
In Madagascar, Wagner was dispatched in April 2018 to guard political consultants hired
by Prigozhin sent to help the up coming campaign of president Heri Raj-o-na-ra-ma-piana Hery
Rajaonarimampianina.
Playing both sides against the middle, Prigozhin was simply looking for a win and it's alleged
that the advisors he dispatched were secretly helping multiple candidates.
Before leaving office, President Rajaonarimampianina would facilitate the takeover of Madagascar's
national chromite producer by a Russian firm, and soon after Wagner PMCs were sent to guard
local chrome mines.
In Libya, Wagner operative sightings were first initially reported in October 2018,
with bases in Benghazi and Tobruk.
The PMC directly supported the Libyan National Army, providing training and direct combat
assistance including operating Russian air defenses provided by the government.
The PMCs also acted as snipers, mine layers, and helped create IEDs, while providing artillery
support with their own privately owned howitzers.
Wagner soldiers were alos alleged to be utilizing hollow point ammunition, illegal under international
rules of war.
The group's brutality naturally persisted with the direct targeting of civilians such
as the murder of a family who had accidentally stumbled across one of their positions.
The PMC was specifically named in a UN report on the slavery, rape, and torture of migrants
within Libya.
After US congress announced it was preparing sanctions on Wagner and other PMCs inside
of Libya, a US military drone was shot down by Russian air defenses operated by mercenaries.
Shortly after, 25 Wagner mercenaries ceased to exist after a US drone strike on their
position- because Wagner has apparently not yet learned it's not a professional military
force and is instantly annihilated by a real military power.
In Mali and Mozambique, Wagner PMCs were accused of carrying out massacres of civilians.
However in Mozambique the group was forced to curtail its activities after getting its
nose seriously bloodied in fighting against Islamic extremists.
The French military would publicize images in April of 2022 of Wagner covering over a
mass grave in Mali that they filled with a dozen corpses, with plans to blame the massacre
on the French.
The PMC would be accused by refugees of robbing villages alongside the Malian military, as
well as killing civilians that they came across.
Wagner has also been operational across various other countries, though most of its focus
has been in Africa leading to a significant expansion of Russian influence in the continent.
However, it's Ukraine where Wagner has been most active, and what was once Putin's most
useful tool, is now a massive headache.
The Russian military is pretty terrible at its job, Wagner, having the capital to hire
some of the best, has performed much better.
The PMC has taken and defended objectives that the Russian regular forces have been
unable to, and the Battle of Bakhmut is largely being fought by Wagner.
Early on in what has become the longest battle of the war, Prigozhin bragged about securing
Bakhmut in a matter of weeks.
Ukraine had something to say about that and as of the writing of this script, Wagner and
the Russian military are still paying a blood price for the insignificant town who's only
strategic value is the absolutely stupid amount of casualties Ukraine has been able to inflict
on Russia.
But Wagner's successes have also been a problem for Russia, and it all has to do with the
way Vladimir Putin runs his government.
Like any good dictator, Putin knows that the biggest threat to his power is having a competent
subordinate, or even just having a small number of them band together against him.
That's why he has purposefully filled his government's senior most positions with loyal
yes men who absolutely hate each other.
Sergei Shoigu for instance is a Kremlin outsider, a no-name peasant who knew how to play the
corruption game and rose up the ranks, but is an absolute outsider to the Russian oligarchs
who control most of the country.
This is perfect for Putin, as it ensures Shoigu's loyalty to him and him alone, and thus despite
his truly brilliant levels of incompetence, Shoigu remains Russia's minister of defense.
But that incompetence has a very real battlefield cost, and Shoigu's military has been largely
unable to accomplish any of its strategic goals in Ukraine.
This is where Prigozhin comes in with his private military company that's not supposed
to legally exist.
Where the Russian army failed, Wagner has succeeded- or at least failed less- and this
has won Prigozhin favor in Putin's eyes.
Because Prigozhin and Shoigu absolutely hate each other, it also prevents the head of his
military and the leader of the most successful military force in Ukraine- that's not Ukrainian-
from banding together to topple Putin.
And Putin's been adding fuel to the fire in order to keep that rivalry lively and intense,
including giving Wagner access to the country's prisons in order to bolster its forces, as
well as directly supplying it from Russian military stocks.
But that same rivalry which is so good at keeping Putin in power, also directly sabotages
the Russian military effort in Ukraine.
Rather than operating under one unified command structure, Russian forces in Ukraine are actually
just a splintered group of factions all vying for their own interests.
Even Sergei Shoigu has his own PMC- Patriot- which is naturally direct at odds with Wagner.
But it's also at odds with the Russian military, because Patriot's success means more money
in Shoigu's pocket.
Naturally, this completely disincentives the various forces from working together.
This was best on display in the Battle of Vuhledar, where Russian forces ran into the
exact same ambush repeatedly since none of the groups were sharing intelligence with
each other.
As has been famously said by an unnamed Ukrainian soldier, “We're very lucky they are so fucking
stupid.”.
The rivalry between Shoigu and Prigozhin, Wagner and the Russian military, has now become
Russia's biggest headache.
On the eve of taking Bakhmut, Prigozhin announced that his forces would be leaving the city.
This announcement came after comments for weeks that Wagner would leave all of Ukraine.
And the reason why Prigozhin was throwing a little princess temper tantrum?
Sergei Shoigu.
While the rivalry has been causing issues for nearly the entire length of the war, it
heated up after the fall of Soledar near Bakhmut.
After weeks of fighting, Russia captured the town and its lucrative salt mines, some of
the largest in Europe.
Wagner claimed credit, the Russian military refuted this, claiming it had been its forces
which had taken Soledar.
Prigozhin retorted by posting a photo of himself along with some of his goodest boys deep in
one of the salt mines.
The Russian MOD fired back that it had been it's forces that had actually taken Soledar,
with Wagner playing only a minor role.
It's likely that Shoigu desperately needed a public relations win for the beleagured
Russian military, which is why it seemed like Putin backed him up.
However it's also likely that Shoigu simply wanted to diminish Prigozhin so he didn't
threaten his own position as Putin's personal lap dog.
Inevitably, Prigozhin began to fire back.
Never shy about diminishing the efforts of the Russian military, Prigozhin began to directly
attack this statement on social media, along with his commanders.
Using his network of military commentators, Prigozhin fueled a series of attacks against
Shoigu's ministry of defense, always careful not to tread on the big man himself by questioning
the efficacy of the war itself.
Shoigu fired back by cutting Wagner off from Russian military supplies, which had an immediate
and severe impact on Wagner's ability to conduct operations.
A shell shortage was so critical that in some areas, Ukraine actually gained the shell advantage
against Russian forces for the first time in the war.
Prigozhin famously took to social media once more to publicly claim that the MOD was purposefully
sabotaging him and his forces.
But Shoigu wasn't done, as the Russian military moved to limit Wagner's ability to operate
by denying vehicles and even direct fire support while Wagner troops were engaged in combat.
All this came to a head at the start of May, with Prigozhin releasing a fiery tirade on
video pretending he cared about the dozens of corpses behind him while blaming Shoigu's
ministry of defense for their deaths.
The video was an appeal to every Babushka back home who had lost sons or grandsons in
the fighting, and to up the ante, Shoigu then stomped his little foot down and threatened
to take his ball and go home.
If the Russian MOD didn't open up its inventory, Wagner would withdraw from Bakhmut, a strategic
catastrophe that could have been exploited by Ukraine in the coming offensive.
Unsurprisingly, the Russian MOD relented and agreed to supply Wagner once more.
However, this is not the end of the story, as Shoigu has now in effect been humiliated
by Prigozhin and forced into concessions.
Inevitably, the two will continue their bitter rivalry that has in some cases resulted in
direct fratricide, with good reason to believe that Wagner and Russian forces have both fired
on each other, and Wagner has actually given targeting coordinates to Ukraine for positions
with senior Russian military officials.
Prigozhin has now set the stage for the coming Ukrainian offensive, going so far as to claim
on video for the first time that the war effort simply isn't going very well.
However he has been careful to pin the blame on the Russian military leadership itself,
and cleverly began to shape a narrative for what is expected to be a devastating Ukrainian
offensive.
However as the coming offensive goes, Prigozhin has set the stage to avoid blame for Russian
failures while setting Shoigu up as a fall guy, and the two's bitter rivalry is guaranteed
to heat up- at the cost of more Russian lives.
Now go check out Why Putin Has A Huge Weapons Problem, or click this other video instead.