The Wagner Group Legacy: Reshaping Russia’s Shadow Armies

The Wagner Group Legacy: Reshaping Russia's Shadow Armies

Brief

Russia's deputy defense minister Yunus-Bek Yevkorov shows a pistol to Libyan general Khalifa Haftar during a visit to Benghazi after the June 2023 Wagner Group mutiny. Source: Media Office of Khalifa Haftar/Facebook

By

Ben Dalton

and

Candace Rondeaux

At a Glance

• Russia's Ministry of Defense has absorbed the Wagner Group's personnel and structure, incorporating most of its operational framework into the newly formed Africa Corps, reflecting more continuity than significant change.
• The Kremlin purged senior Wagner Group patrons within the Russian security apparatus to quell the threat of mutiny, many of whom had facilitated Wagner's operations and were implicated in graft.
• Russia continues to use expeditionary forces like the Africa Corps to secure its stake in resource extraction and arms trade, focusing on high-value commodities like gold, diamonds, and hydrocarbons. This strategy is designed to offset the impact of sanctions on the Russian economy, while helping client states circumvent arms embargoes, fostering mutual dependency between Russia and its security partners on paramilitaries.
• Russia faces a strategic dilemma: whether to deploy seasoned expeditionary forces to Ukraine or use them abroad to finance its war economy. Following the formation of the Africa Corps, the Kremlin has recalled these detachments for redeployment to Ukraine, signaling manpower shortfalls.
• The General Staff and GRU's more aggressive approach in asserting command over Russia's expeditionary forces has made the chain of command and state ties more explicit, increasing the potential for Russia's direct responsibility and criminal liability for atrocities and breaches of international law.
• Russia's plans to open a gold refinery in Mali, combined with tightened control over its expeditionary forces, could enhance Russia's ability to bypass restrictions on its gold exports, securing financial resources critical to offsetting the economic impact of sanctions and prolonging its capacity to fund military operations, including the war in Ukraine.

The Gold Game: Moscow's War Machine Reloaded

The video was brutal yet typical of Russia's paramilitary operations in Mali. Scattered across the white sands of the country's northern expanse lay dozens of corpses, many of them Russian. Their assailants, a squadron of armed men with heads and faces swathed in the Tuareg tagelmust scarves, methodically searched the bodies for pocket litter. Suddenly, one of the corpses sprang to life. Seizing a rock, he lunged at his attackers. Within seconds, the victors gunned him down-this time, definitively.

This grim tableau arose from a July 2024 rebel ambush on a convoy of Mali government forces and Russian expeditionary troops that capped a series of skirmishes near the remote outpost of Tinzaouaten with a rebel coalition, the Permanent Strategic Framework for the Defense of the People of Azawad (CSP-DPA). Composed primarily of Tuareg separatist groups, the CSP-DPA has attracted support from an al-Qaeda affiliate known as JNIM (Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin). The clash in Mali marked one of the most deadly involving Wagner Group forces in Africa, with as many as 84 Russians reportedly killed and several taken captive.

The Russians in the video, however, were no longer mercenary Wagnerovtsy. In the wake of Yevgeny Prigozhin's mutiny and subsequent death in the summer of 2023, Russia's defense ministry folded remnants of the Wagner Group into the newly formed Expeditionary Corps, or Africa Corps, as it is better known. Many Africa Corps fighters listed as killed in the attack were indeed ex-Wagner, but others were new recruits drawn from across Russia's paramilitary communities.

Mali exemplifies the trends following Prigozhin's mutiny and death, where continuity has outweighed change. Many of the same fighters who served under Wagner's late commander Dmitry Utkin have joined the Africa Corps, which deploys similar assault detachment groups to carry out the same missions: equipment deliveries, training, site protection, and counterinsurgency across Africa. In essence, the Kremlin's core strategy has remained in place: proffering security assistance to unstable governments in exchange for access to lucrative extractive sites, simultaneously funding Russia's war economy and blunting the impact of Western sanctions.

Although battlefield setbacks have resulted in casualties and reorganization has seen an injection of new recruits, many recognizable faces persist in the fight. Within days, researchers had identified one of the fallen in the battle in Mali as Nikita Fedyanin, administrator of GREY ZONE-a prominent Wagner Group-linked Telegram channel. Reuters analysis in September 2024 confirmed that at least 23 of those killed previously fought in Wagner detachments in Libya, Syria, and Donbas. However, initial reports that top Wagner field commander Anton "Lotus" Yelizarov was among those killed or captured appear to be unfounded.

Russian paramilitaries hired by the Malian government to quell the rebellion have employed scorched earth tactics to achieve their goals. Throughout 2023 and 2024, Russian paramilitary-affiliated Telegram channels published disturbing imagery: beheadings, mutilations, and the recurring motif of burning straw-thatched villages-stark evidence of the Russians and their Malian client's counterinsurgency campaign.

Since Prigozhin's death, violence linked to Russia's paramilitary Expeditionary Corps, the official name of Wagner's successor unit, has escalated, according to an August 2024 ACLED report. Under this new banner, the Russians spearheaded the capture of Kidal, a city in the far north of Mali that had been under separatist control since 2012, and seized the country's largest artisanal gold mine near the village of Intahaka.

Mali has emerged as the bellwether of Russia's post-Prigozhin paramilitary strategy. Here, the Africa Corps has experienced its most significant recent successes and failures. Outside Ukraine, Mali is Russia's most active combat zone, with an estimated 1,000 irregulars-down from 2,000 in early 2023. As the Africa Corps engages in large-scale, offensive missions, Mali serves as a test case for the Ministry of Defense's efforts to reassert control over its paramilitaries, ensuring they never again threaten the state.

In the wake of the Wagner mutiny, Russia has exerted its influence across the continent-and nowhere more so than in Mali-to reassure its clients of its ongoing commitment to provide agreed-upon security assistance. This effort has taken the form of frequent high-level delegations to Bamako and other capitals in an intensive campaign of military diplomacy. These diplomatic overtures are also entangled with a broader purge within Russia's Ministry of Defense following Prigozhin's death; officials sent to Bamako have faced dismissal and arrest mere months after their visits. Yet, the impact of the defense ministry purge and efficacy and sustainability of Russia's irregular warfare strategy across Africa remain uncertain, particularly as Moscow grapples with the competing demand for experienced combatants closer to home.

As in other countries, Russia is leveraging its military investment in Mali to secure economic advantages. At the Atomexpo-2024 International Forum in Krasnoyarsk, Mali's minister of mines said that Krastsvetmet, Russia's largest gold refiner and state-owned precious metals producer, will construct a gold refinery in Mali to process ore from the country and surrounding region.

A product of the Soviet-era gulag industrial production system erected under Josef Stalin, Krastsvetmet is the same company that produced the gold bars found in Prigozhin's residence following the Wagner Group mutiny. In November 2023, the United Kingdom added Krastsvetmet to its sanctions list along with 28 other entities and individuals linked to Russia's gold trade.

Western sanctions on Russia's finance sector and bans on Russian gold exports have created perverse incentives for Russia to expand its military footprint in Africa. Russian plans to establish a refinery build on a similar business model employed in Sudan and could allow Russia to exert more direct control over Mali's gold production and exports. The temporary closure of the Wagner-controlled mine in Sudan in September 2023 amid the country's intensifying civil war could explain the aggressive tack Russia has since taken in Mali.

By refining gold locally, Russia could expand its capacity to bypass international sanctions that prevent direct exports of Russian gold to Western markets. Such an outcome would have significant ramifications for the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, potentially prolonging the war, raising barriers to a negotiated settlement on terms favorable to Kyiv, and imperiling European security in the longer term.

In a similar vein, the state-owned giant Rosatom inked an agreement with Mali in late 2023 for mineral exploration and nuclear energy production. These deals, requiring significant infrastructure investment and long-term planning, underscore Russia's intention to maintain a lasting presence in the country.

The situation in Mali is intricately linked to Russia's war effort in Ukraine, extending beyond calculations of security assistance costs and benefits. Africa Corps forces have been redeployed to support Russian operations in Ukraine, such as the spring 2024 Kharkiv offensive. The surprise Ukrainian offensive in the Russian region of Kursk in early August 2024 increased the pressure, prompting Russia to recall Africa Corps units based in Burkina Faso for redeployment to the Ukrainian front.

Meanwhile, Ukraine appears to be stirring the pot. Unverified reports suggest that Ukrainian operatives may be supporting CSP-DPA attacks on Africa Corps forces in Mali. These claims echo consistent reports of Ukrainian special forces potentially orchestrating similar attacks in Sudan and Syria. While the veracity of these reports remains unproven, Ukraine is capitalizing on the psychological effects of propaganda about a shadow war, conveying the message that Ukraine retains the capability to challenge Russia thousands of miles from its own borders.

At the same time, Ukraine's suspected support for anti-Russian forces in Mali and elsewhere has already generated blowback that could reshape Kyiv's relations in Africa and other parts of the Global South. In August 2024, Niger and Mali cut diplomatic ties with Ukraine in response to reports that Ukraine's intelligence service (GUR) provided support to Tuareg insurgents during the skirmish with Russian forces in northeast Mali on the border with Algeria.

Moscow, meanwhile, has continued to pitch the Africa Corps as a new and improved source of security. Trusted operatives from the Prigozhin-era Wagner Group have been formally integrated into the Ministry of Defense, where they perform largely identical duties. In some instances, Wagner Group branding persists for recruitment purposes and to maintain esprit de corps. Nevertheless, the operational autonomy of Russian irregulars has been significantly curtailed, with fewer intermediaries between paramilitary operations on the ground and defense ministry leadership.

Concurrently, the Kremlin initiated an aggressive purge of the defense ministry, replacing its top leader, Sergey Shoigu, with Putin loyalist Andrey Belousov in May 2024 and removing figures deemed corrupt, incompetent, or affiliated with Prigozhin-characteristics that sometimes converged in those targeted. Mali's trajectory pulls back the curtain further on Russia's irregular warfare strategy, serving as a strong indicator of how this evolving approach might unfold on a global scale and highlights the potential impact on Russia's staying power as it continues its war of aggression against Ukraine.

The Africa Corps: An Africa Rebrand

Prigozhin's Wagner Group began operating across Africa in mid-2017, if not earlier, establishing strong relationships with leaders in Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR), Libya, and other nations. In the aftermath of the 2023 mutiny, the Kremlin was keen to assure these leaders that Prigozhin was merely a dispensable frontman and general manager and that Russia remained both committed to and capable of fulfilling existing security agreements. To this end, Russia's security strategists pursued a dual approach: intensive military diplomacy and consolidation of control over paramilitary operations on the continent under the new Africa Corps brand.

To manage the job, the Kremlin tapped Yunus-bek Yevkurov, a deputy minister of defense and colonel general who had played a highly visible role in negotiating during Prigozhin's mutiny. Yevkurov's appointment was strategic: As a deputy defense minister, he had overseen operations out of Rostov, where the 78th Intelligence Center-a primary channel for defense ministry supplies to the Wagner Group-is located. Yevkurov, a former leader of a turbulent North Caucasus republic who had successfully quelled a regional insurgency, brought both operational knowledge and a reputation as a skilled negotiator. The Kremlin tasked him with leading a diplomatic offensive to reassure African partners and overseeing the restructuring of Wagner Group missions across the continent into the new Africa Corps.

From August 2023 to January 2024, Yevkurov led eight delegations to Russia's African partners, often visiting multiple countries on the same trip. He traveled first and most frequently to Libya: once in late August, twice in September, once in December, and once again in January, each time meeting with General Khalifa Haftar, a key Russian ally and leader of the Libyan National Army, which controls much of the country's eastern and southern regions. Mali and Burkina Faso were also high on Yevkurov's itinerary, each receiving three visits, along with the Central African Republic and Niger.

The decision to establish an Africa Corps may have come after one of Yevkurov's meetings with Haftar in Libya, as a popular Russian military blogger reported, or after the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg in July 2023, as the Africa Corps' English-language Telegram channel claimed. Regardless of the timing, the Africa Corps strategy was clear: to consolidate Russia's irregular forces on the continent under a new, more tightly controlled brand and command structure. For personnel, this meant signing new contracts with the Ministry of Defense; those who refused were ordered to leave the country.

Yevkurov's delegations included mid- and high-level officials from the Ministry of Defense, as well as members of the Russian military intelligence agency (GRU) and high-level operatives of other Russian paramilitary formations, including:

• Andrei Averyanov: Deputy Chief of the GRU and more recently appointed director of the Expeditionary Corps. Notorious for his leading role in spearheading the operations of GRU Unit 29155, a covert sabotage and assassination force, Averyanov traveled to Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, the CAR, and Libya. Closed-source data examined by RUSI suggests that Averyanov established the Service for Special Activities, a relatively new foreign operations division of the GRU, to manage the Africa Corps.
• Konstantin Mirzayants: The longtime executive director of the Redut paramilitary formation and a critical player in security for energy projects backed by Gennady Timchenko's constellation of engineering and commodities firms, Mirzayants traveled to Libya, Burkina Faso, and the CAR. In November 2023, the reliably unreliable Telegram channel VChK-OGPU claimed that Mirzayants was leading the Africa Corps out of the Wagner Group's former training camp in Molkino.
• Konstantin Pikalov: A former Prigozhin-linked private security operative turned volunteer military unit commander, Pikalov is the head of the private military company Konvoy and was allegedly present in some of Yevkurov's African delegations. The Africa Corps uses Konvoy as a front for recruitment, according to RUSI analysis based on closed-source documents.
• Timur Ivanov: Deputy Defense Minister Ivanov appeared alongside Yevkurov on delegations in 2023, before his April 2024 arrest, when he became a high-ranking target of the Kremlin's military purge. Ivanov joined Yevkurov on trips to Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Libya from October and December 2023.

Partly in response to intelligence failures leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian intelligence services abandoned clear divisions of labor and now pursue common and often overlapping goals. While initially it seemed that Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and the GRU were dividing Prigozhin's operations in Africa along propaganda and paramilitary lines, the boundaries between their responsibilities have blurred. This distribution of oversight across multiple agencies likely serves, in part, as a safeguard against another loss of control over paramilitary forces-a response to the vulnerabilities exposed during Prigozhin's mutiny.

The Federal Security Service (FSB), a nominally domestic intelligence and counterintelligence agency with a history of foreign-facing operations, appears to remain active in paramilitary activities in Africa. According to an investigation by The Insider, the editor-in-chief of the African Initiative, an African-facing Russian propaganda outlet launched shortly after Prigozhin's death, is a longtime operative of the FSB's Fifth Service, the intelligence agency's foreign operations division. In addition to operating offices in the same geographic regions as Russian paramilitaries, notably in Mali, Burkina Faso, and the Central African Republic, and managing information warfare campaigns in other theaters where Wagner Group remnants operate, the African Initiative was possibly the earliest booster of open recruitment campaigns for Africa Corps candidates.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, hundreds of Russian spies under diplomatic cover in Europe were expelled; some operatives seem to have been reassigned to Africa, and many are allegedly serving Russia's foreign intelligence agency, the SVR. Among the most prominent examples was Denis Pavlov, an alleged Russian diplomat to the CAR exposed as an SVR operator by RFE/RL and All Eyes on Wagner. First seen in Yevkurov's delegation to the CAR in September 2023, Pavlov allegedly replaced the high-profile Wagner Group commander Vitaly Perfilev, who had served as a security advisor and military coordinator for the country's president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra.

Using facial recognition apps and reverse image searches, New America and other open-source researchers have identified a number of delegation members who appear to have links to Russia's intelligence services:

• Bagrat Shinkuba: A Russian diplomat based in Mali, Shinkuba is alleged to be an SVR officer.
• Maxim Efimov: Another Russian Mali-based diplomat, Efimov reportedly works closely with Shinkuba and previously replaced Pavlov as Russia's permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva.
• Viktor Boyarkin: An ex-GRU officer and former security head of oligarch Oleg Deripaska's United Company Rusal, Boyarkin has experience in political consulting in Guinea and Libya.
• Alexander Alekseevich Makeev: A defense establishment powerbroker-Chairman of the Commission of the Public Council under the Ministry of Defense, Deputy Chairman of the Voluntary Society for Assistance to the Army, Air Force, and Navy (DOSAAF), and General Director of the Regional Public Fund for Assistance to the Airborne Forces-Makeev accompanied a delegation that visited the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali, and Niger in early December 2023.
• V. V. Uhanov: Previously seen at the Istanbul grain deal negotiations with ex-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and GRU chief Igor Kostyukov, Uhanov appeared in several meetings beside Deputy Minister of Defense AlexanderFomin regarding state-to-state military technical agreements and also formed part of the December 2023 delegation that visited the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali, and Niger.

After the years of denials, subterfuge, and front companies that defined Russia's paramilitary strategy, the Africa Corps initiative stands out for its remarkable public visibility. From a public Telegram channel created on the day of Prigozhin's death to widely-covered state visits featuring multiple deputy ministers of defense, Russia has abandoned all pretense of deniability in its African paramilitary operations. Yet, despite this reorientation toward more emphasis on unity of command over expeditionary forces, Russian contract soldiers continue to commit, glorify and memorialize atrocity crimes on camera in virtually every theater of operation.

The explicit links between these forces and the state make Russia's potential responsibility for atrocities and breaches of international law more evident, opening the way for action on accountability under universal jurisdiction and other international legal principles. The fact that these ties arise out of pre-existing organizational structures managed primarily by the GRU also holds implications for atrocities committed before the mutiny and Wagner commanders who have since joined Africa Corps.

The Great Purge

In the aftermath of the mutiny, Putin methodically purged Russia's military establishment, targeting officials who were linked to Prigozhin, implicated in large-scale graft, tainted by the mishandling of the Wagner mutiny, or all of the above. Many had longstanding ties to Prigozhin and the Wagner Group, often dating to the group's early operations in Syria. Some were accused of self-dealing and taking kickbacks on defense contracts, potentially undermining Russia's military readiness. This purge reached the highest levels of the Ministry of Defense, including a deputy minister of defense, Timur Ivanov, who had joined Yevkurov's delegations to client states across Africa.

The impact of the purge varied: Loyalists like Sergei Shoigu were reassigned to comparable government posts, while others faced rigorous FSB investigations, including some among the 42 or more high-ranking military and government officials who were, according to leaked documents, given honorary VIP status by the Wagner Group. This purge, however, was not solely a reaction to the Wagner mutiny but part of a longer process that Putin had already set in motion. For instance, Rustam Muradov, a Wagner VIP who likely first connected with the group through his previous role as Russia's liaison to the Donbas ceasefire coordinating body, was removed from his Eastern Military District command in April 2023, two months before the mutiny. This suggests that Putin was already working to address both military ineffectiveness and potential threats within the ranks.

The Wagner mutiny in June 2023, then, accelerated the reshuffling of military leadership, particularly affecting those with close ties to the group. At least two other Wagner VIPs faced significant consequences. Sergei Surovikin, a close Prigozhin ally nicknamed "General Armageddon" for the devastating air campaign he led in Syria, had already been demoted in January 2023 from his role as overall commander in Ukraine. Following the mutiny, he was suspected of complicity, detained, and disappeared from public view.

On August 22, 2023, just one day before Prigozhin's death, the defense minister fired Surovikin from his position as Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces, setting the stage for a broader reshuffling of Russia's top brass. Yet another Wagner VIP, Andrei Serdyukov, who had played a decisive role in Wagner's early history by directing troop movements to Crimea in 2014, also saw a significant career shift. In November 2023, he was shuffled from his position as commander of the Russian Armed Forces Group in Syria to chief of staff for the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

In 2024, Putin's purge expanded, targeting the upper echelons of defense leadership. In April, Russian authorities arrested deputy defense minister Timur Ivanov, a close ally of Shoigu who had recently traveled to Africa with Yevkurov's military delegations. Investigators alleged that Ivanov, known for his lavish lifestyle, received the ruble equivalent of a $12.2 million bribe from defense contractors. According to Dossier Center reporting, Ivanov played a significant role in approving most of Prigozhin's companies' official government procurement contracts, which were diverted to fund the Wagner Group. Ivanov was reportedly involved in negotiations with Prigozhin's son Pavel in November 2023 about a quid pro quo exchange involving control of oil and gas fields in Syria and diamond mines in the Central African Republic secured by Wagner in exchange for Ministry of Defense support for Wagner Group veterans.

The purge intensified in May 2024, marking a significant shift in the Kremlin's power structure. Defense Minister Shoigu was appointed Security Council chief. While not a demotion per se, the move signaled not just a reorganization but a reorientation of Russia's war strategy. In the following days, a wave of departures, dismissals, and arrests swept through the upper ranks of the military leadership.

Ruslan Tsalikov, deputy minister of defense for housing, construction, and medical services, a longtime close confidant of Shoigu and, according to leaked memos, deeply involved in guiding the Wagner Group enterprise, stepped down to pursue a career in local politics in the remote region of Tuva.

Yuri Kuznetsov, head of the Main Personnel Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, was detained on suspicion of accepting bribes. Ivan Popov, the former commander of the 58th Army who had criticized Shoigu and Gerasimov for "treacherous and backstabbing decapitation of the army at the most difficult and grueling moment," was detained on charges of fraud. Vadim Shamarin, Deputy Chief of General Staff and head of military communications, was arrested on charges of bribery. Hours after Shamarin's arrest, Vladimir Verteletsky, a senior procurement officer, was also arrested on charges of abuse of power and bribery.

The targets of the purge signaled that the Kremlin was not only targeting those with ties to Prigozhin but also streamlining the war effort and addressing systemic challenges that had plagued Russia's military performance in Ukraine. Shoigu's replacement as Minister of Defense was Andrei Belousov, an economist by training who, in prior roles, had reportedly overseen Prigozhin's management of the Wagner Group, acting as a channel for communication between Prigozhin and Putin. His appointment signaled that the Wagner Group strategy of irregular warfare was coming under new management by a tested Putin loyalist.

Reshuffling the Deck to Contain the Threat

Deputy defense minister Timur Ivanov's arrest in April 2024 re-exposed the sinews of a larger network of political and economic interests linked to Russia's irregular forces. Ivanov's connections extended beyond Shoigu to Gennady Timchenko, a commodities trading magnate with close ties to Putin who has been under sanction since the 2014 invasion of Crimea.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, Timchenko holds a substantial stake in Stroytransgaz Holding, a Russian energy construction company named in a leaked document as a facilitator of Redut, a corporate hub for Russian irregular forces. Russian media are rife with speculation that Timchenko and Oleg Deripaska, another commodities trading titan linked to Wagner's competitor Redut in a leaked recording, may also fall victim to the shakeup.

Timchenko's businesses benefited handsomely in recent years from the success of Russia's Middle East strategy. In Syria, Stroytransgaz played a pivotal role in constructing and operating hydrocarbon extraction and transportation infrastructure, and their profits soared in 2017 during Surovikin's command of Russian forces in the country: Stroytransgaz reaped millions from phosphate mines and oil and gas facilities captured from ISIS by Russian forces, including Wagner. Meanwhile, Redut, a Wagner Group rival with close ties to Russian military intelligence, provided security at Stroytransgaz facilities in the country.

Another node in the Timchenko-Ivanov network was Aleksei Dyumin, appointed secretary of the State Council by Putin in May 2024. Dyumin's ties to Prigozhin dated to his appointment as Putin's head of security in 2000. Their business dealings accelerated after Dyumin was appointed deputy chief of the GRU in 2012, reportedly smoothing the way for several lucrative defense contract awards to Prigozhin's companies. During Dyumin's governorship of Tula Oblast, he oversaw construction of a local Patriot Park, which funneled substantial sums to Prigozhin's construction and cleaning businesses-mirroring a larger Patriot Park near Moscow, completed in 2015 under Ivanov's leadership at Oboronstroy (a defense ministry subsidiary), that similarly benefited Prigozhin's enterprises.

The Patriot Parks were reportedly just one facet of a larger network of lucrative construction projects benefiting the Timchenko-Ivanov faction. Ivanov held stakes in Capital Perform, which controlled Consortium Energoresurs LLC, a subcontractor to Timchenko's Stroytransgaz. This partnership secured contracts for bridge construction in Samara and Perm, projects that languished while draining billions of rubles from state coffers. Ivanov's role as a deputy minister of defense placed him in the catbird seat, overseeing military construction and procurement and allowing him to award contracts that benefited both himself and his allies.

Putin now appears to be targeting the network that powered Prigozhin's rise and facilitated the Wagner Group's operations, arresting those like Ivanov and reassigning figures like Dyumin who are too close to dispose of entirely. Putin's motivations seem rooted in a perceived need to curb blatant corruption, which could undermine the state during a long-term conflict with Ukraine and its Western backers. Prigozhin's mutiny exposed vulnerabilities in his regime, and so Putin is tightening the window of acceptable self-dealing. As he did upon assuming the presidency in the 2000s, Putin is sending a message: Wealth accumulation is permissible, but loyalty and subservience to the state are paramount.

A Ghost in Russia's Defense-Industrial Machine

The Wagner Group, as it existed under Prigozhin, is defunct. Initially conceived as a clandestine paramilitary, its function was to further Russia's interests globally, offering a cost-effective, deniable means of doing so. Leveraging his extensive network of businesses, Prigozhin managed logistics, financing, and public relations, diverting attention from the architects behind the scenes. Meanwhile, the Kremlin placed veterans of Russia's military and intelligence services in key roles in the state's security apparatus to oversee Wagner's military operations and maintain control. Much of that networked architecture remains, albeit with new labels and constraints.

Following Prigozhin's death, Russia's irregular forces have begun stepping into the light. The Africa Corps requires personnel to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense, a state entity, while deputy ministers of defense reaffirm Russia's commitment to the security of countries where Wagner Group affiliates were deployed. In Ukraine, the primary successor to the Wagner Group, Redut, hardly bothers to conceal its true nature as a front for a GRU-run recruitment network. Redut recruiters openly acknowledge its status as a "fake company" during phone conversations with potential recruits.

Two main elements of the Wagner Group remain: its people and its brand. Although Prigozhin and Wagner's legendary field commander Utkin are dead, the majority of the Wagner Group command structure continues in new roles, often with very similar mandates. Prigozhin's number two, Andrei Troshev, for example, continues to work behind the scenes within the Ministry of Defense to funnel men and supplies to the frontlines in Ukraine. Many of the Wagner Group rank-and-file have found their way to other irregular formations.

The Wagner Group brand lives on, a ghost in Russia's defense-industrial machine, an unofficial emblem allowed to continue existing thanks to its symbolic power and the ties to client states that Prigozhin and his men cultivated. The group's recruiting network remains active, with new mercenaries being sought for deployment to countries such as Mali. In the Central African Republic, crowds of youth still proudly sport Wagner Group t-shirts while staging motorcycle rallies in support of the organization.

For months after Prigozhin's death, a Wagner-linked Telegram channel posted user-submitted photos of people worldwide displaying Wagner badges and merchandise. Images poured in from Russia and dozens of countries, including South Korea, Germany, and the United States. The underlying message appears to be one of resilience: Despite setbacks, the Wagner Group remains a potent global force. Whether this implicit threat materializes may hinge on whether international efforts to expose and prosecute Russian paramilitaries for their extensive record of brutality and exploitation gain traction.