In the aftermath of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s “march on Moscow” two months ago, CIA chief William Burns predicted that Russian president Vladimir Putin would take his time exacting his revenge.
“What we are seeing is a very complicated dance,” Burns suggested at the Aspen Security Forum in July. “Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback.”
And while details of exactly what occurred remain murky in the immediate aftermath of the mercenary boss’s reported death in a plane crash, what is clear is that Wagner – the mercenary organisation that Prigozhin built – has essentially been first quartered and then dramatically decapitated.
With Wagner’s prominent role in Russia’s military operations in Ukraine already heavily curtailed in the aftermath of his march on Moscow, which embarrassed Putin and the Kremlin, it had seemed – if only for a moment – that Prigozhin was trying to claw back some of the influence he had acquired through his operation in Africa at the Kremlin’s behest.
Prigozhin had put out a statement backing the coup in Niger, seen by some analysts as a reminder of how Wagner had once served the Kremlin’s ends. This week he had posted a video from somewhere in Africa, in his trademark combats, suggesting that, perhaps, he had found a new role, and that his actions had been forgiven.
In that video, Prigozhin insisted he was recruiting for operations in Africa, while also inviting investors from Russia to put money in the Central African Republic through Russian House, a cultural centre in the African country’s capital.
He was flying over the Tver region near Moscow with other senior Wagner leaders when his private jet fell from the sky over Russia – according to some reports shot down by Russian air defences.
It was not only Prigozhin who perished in the incident. With him on the flight was Dmitry Utkin, one of his closest allies another key figure in Wagner. A former GRU officer and a mercenary who had been active in Syria guarding oilfields, he had been implicated in organising the Wagner convoy that tried to drive to Moscow.
Reports from Russian social media channels associated with Wagner suggest other members of Wagner’s leadership may also have been on the flight.
What is clear is that Wagner, as it was once constituted, is no more.
According to recent reports, hundreds of Wagner fighters who had been exiled to bases in Belarus had begun to leave that country, some dissatisfied with the lower levels of pay in that country, others relocating to work in west Africa. The force there reduced in numbers from over 5,000 by around a quarter.
In Russia itself, Wagner’s operations had been on something of a hiatus during the past two months as it appeared Prigozhin and his allies looked for a new role in the shadow of Putin’s displeasure.
And with Wagner out of Ukraine after deploying its fighters as cannon fodder in the battle for Bakhmut, perhaps the biggest question is whether it can continue in any viable form in the African states where it has been active.
Although names had been mentioned speculatively as possible replacements for Prigozhin who would meet with Kremlin approval, whether any of them will be capable of filling his shoes is far from certain.
Much of Wagner’s African empire, combining disinformation operations, murky commercial interests and mercenary work, relied on the unscrupulous connections that Prigozhin and his close associates had forged over the years. There were suggestions, for example, that Wagner came to the aid of the military junta in Mali, a move that contributed to France’s decision to end an almost decade-long military operation there.
And while the Kremlin recently has been more directly courting the military leaders of countries in the Sahel itself, Prigozhin assiduously developed personal relationships with warlords, military coup leaders and corrupt politicians and businessmen on the make.
As former air vice-marshal Sean Bell, now a military analyst, suggested presciently to Sky news in June in the aftermath of Wagner’s march on Moscow, without Prigozhin, Wagner is nothing.
“If the Wagner group is Yevgeny Prigozhin, then it’s difficult to see how it will survive. It’s the end of it as we know it.”
