On August 1st, 2022
this small mining town of Soledar in Ukraine
had apartments, buildings, houses...
Fast forward to January 10th, 2023
and it had turned to rubble.
That same afternoon, a statement on the app Telegram surfaced
claiming Wagner "took control of this entire territory of Soledar."
But even though the Russian army
has been fighting across Ukraine for months...
this message didn't come from them.
It came from Yevgeny Prigozhin
a Russian oligarch with close ties
to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He started out as a Kremlin caterer
where he got the nickname Putin chef.
But in 2014, he became the head of the Wagner Group
a covert Russian network with mining companies
political influence operations and a brutal private military force.
Until recently, the Wagner Group was a secret operation...
and claiming a public victory like this was rare.
But things are starting to change.
And the playbook of this dangerous group
is becoming much, much clearer.
In 2014, Russian forces annexed Crimea
and began fighting in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region.
A year later, soldiers in unmarked green uniforms
showed up on the ground to support Russian troops.
They were called Little Green Men.
But we now know this was likely the first time
Wagner soldiers were deployed on the ground.
These soldiers have become Prighozin's frontline agents
for Russia's global strategy.
They serve multiple purposes for the Russian government.
But chief among them is to divert attention
from activities that the Russian government
and the Kremlin in particular
doesn't want the world to pay attention to.
That's Candace Rondeau
a journalist who investigates the Wagner Group
and Russia's strategy for proxy warfare.
One of the main functions of the Wagner Group serves
is to deliver weapons and military services...
to countries with which Russia has a military technical agreement.
Russian law technically prohibits its citizens
from fighting for money in foreign countries.
But the opaque nature of the Wagner Group
has allowed it to recruit
tens of thousands of soldiers, mainly from Russia.
Generally speaking, these are hardened...
military veterans at the command level.
And then kind of at the sort of rank-and-file level
those who were not recruited from prisons...
tend to come from elite backgrounds.
In the beginning, you couldn't really distinguish them
but today the Wagner Group brand is completely recognizable
by their emblems, their insignia, and their online brand.
These guys now are basically kind of like
the McDonald's of the Russian way of war.
And this new visibility has given us a better look
at the 3 strategies they employ
to do Russia's dirty work around the world.
The Wagner Group targets countries experiencing long conflicts
or that are weakly governed or corrupt.
Take Syria, which has been under authoritarian rule
for more than 50 years and in 2011
saw a civil war break out between the Syrian government
and anti-government rebel groups.
To fight the rebels, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad
turned his Russian ally for help.
Shortly after, Wagner mercenaries appeared in Syria
to support the government forces.
Since then,
all these countries have seen Wagner troops on the ground.
Most of them while going through periods of instability.
This has allowed the Wagner Group — and by extension — Russia
to expand its reach to at least 4 different continents.
In particular, in Africa, where at least 18 different countries
have seen Wagner forces on the ground in the past decade.
In these client states where Wagner is operating
a lot of the work is teaching local militaries
how to do kind of reconnaissance
and counterinsurgency
but often in a very rough way.
The Wagner Group generally does this by spearheading
brutal military incursions.
Like in Mali, another prime target for Wagner.
Since 2012, Mali has been fighting a jihadist insurgency
and has experienced 3 coups in just 9 years.
2 of the 3 coups brought Assimi Goïta to power
a Russian-backed president that remains in power today.
For nearly a decade, Mali had military support
from France — its former colonizer.
But in 2021, when France started to withdraw its army
it's widely believed Mali contracted Wagner troops
to help them fight against the rebels and secure power.
Mali denies the deployment of Russian mercenaries
from the Wagner group.
But satellite imagery analyzed by
the Center for Strategic and International Studies suggest
they arrived quietly in December of 2021
and built a military base and access roads by the airport
to facilitate their deployment.
One of the biggest motivations for standing up a ghost army...
that nobody can quite describe or define.
The main purpose of that is to make sure
that the activities that the people do are not seen...
and cannot be traced and tracked.
But that doesn't always work.
In April of 2022, a mass grave in the Malian desert
was traced back to the Wagner Group.
They've also been linked
to other violent incidents in Mali, including here:
Where they killed about 350 men in March of 2022.
A UN report shows that, since Wagner's arrival in Mali
the number of civilian deaths has increased by 324%...
and thousands more have been displaced.
Once the Wagner Group arrives in a fragile country
and intervenes militarily to help local dictators backed by Russia
the big question is: What's in it for them?
Because they're so integral
to the military technical agreements.
They're also part of a cycle of...
debts and loans that are incurred...
when client states of Russia want to
you know, improve their armies in exchange for those loans.
Typically, the Wagner Group, through a series of shell companies
will get payment in the form of oil...
or gold or uranium even.
Which is exactly what happened in Sudan.
A country that's been under autocratic rule for 3 decades
went through a series of coups
and is now ruled by Sudan's military.
Sudan's relationship with the Wagner Group began in 2017.
At the time, Sudan's then president Omar al-Bashir
felt his grip on power slipping
and met with Putin to establish a new alliance with Russia.
Transcripts show he presented Sudan as Russia's key to Africa.
Soon after, they met Russian military vehicles like this one
were spotted on the ground.
And videos of Wagner troops training Sudanese soldiers
surfaced on social media.
In 2019, when al-Bashir was overthrown in a military coup
the arrangement persisted.
Proving just how enmeshed Wagner troops
and the Sudanese army have become.
And that's because the Wagner Group has a lot to gain.
In exchange for providing weapons and training.
The Wagner Group operates gold plants like this one
where they exploit Sudan's natural resources.
Getting that kind of high value commodity
that can be quickly turned into cash
through a money laundering enterprise
is a big part of the Wagner Group playbook.
But all of it is illicit and illegal.
And Sudan is only one example.
The Wagner Group's illegal mining activities
span the whole continent.
The Wagner Group's playbook
has reportedly made Prigozhin a billionaire.
And the group is now also a legal entity
with headquarters in St. Petersburg.
Putin has often denied links to Wagner group activity
but in recent months, Prigozhin has started
speaking publicly about his role.
Like when he claimed that victory in Soledar.
It's drawn new sanctions
and increased scrutiny from around the world.
And that poses a serious challenge for Putin's regime
and military influence across continents.