The Wagner Group (Russian: Группа Вагнера, tr. Gruppa Vagnera), officially known as PMC Wagner (Russian: ЧВК «Вагнер», tr. ChVK «Vagner»; lit. 'Wagner Private Military Company'), is a Russian state-funded paramilitary organization. It is a private military company (PMC) composed of mercenaries, and has been described as a de facto private army of Russian President Vladimir Putin's former close ally Yevgeny Prigozhin. The group operates beyond the law in Russia, where private military companies are officially forbidden. There is evidence that Wagner was used as a proxy by the Russian government, allowing the Russian state to have plausible deniability for military operations abroad, and allowing it to hide the true casualties of Russia's foreign interventions. Wagner used Russian Armed Forces infrastructure and was secretly funded by the Russian state until 2023. While the group is not ideologically driven, elements of Wagner are linked to neo-Nazism and far-right extremism. The group was founded in 2014 by former GRU officer Dmitry Utkin and businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin. It came to prominence during the Donbas War in Ukraine, where it helped pro-Russian separatist forces from 2014 to 2015. Its contractors have reportedly taken part in conflicts around the world, including the civil wars in Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic and Mali, often fighting on the side of forces aligned with the Russian government. Wagner operatives are accused of committing war crimes including murder, torture, rape and robbery of civilians, as well as torturing accused deserters. Wagner played a significant role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, for which it recruited prison inmates from Russia for frontline combat. By the end of 2022, its strength had grown from 1,000 to between 20,000 and 50,000. In 2023, Russia granted combat veteran status to Wagner contractors who took part in the invasion. Prigozhin admitted being the leader of Wagner in September 2022. He began openly criticizing the Russian MoD for mishandling the war against Ukraine. On 23 June 2023, Prigozhin launched an armed rebellion after accusing the Russian MoD of killing Wagner soldiers. Wagner units withdrew from Ukraine and seized the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, while a Wagner convoy headed towards Moscow. The mutiny was halted the next day when a deal was brokered by Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko.

Wagner Group - Wikipedia