The Wagner boss is dead and his private army is in shambles.
But in Russia they fear Prigozhin’s soldiers returning to their Russian hometowns.
– It was meant that most of them would die. Now you don’t know what to do.
Even before the plane crash that killed Yevgeny Prigozhin and his closest man Dmitry Utkin, the Wagner Group was greatly weakened.
After the aborted coup attempt and the retreat to Belarus, the Wagner chief’s days were considered numbered.
With Prigozhin gone, Putin has lost a dangerous enemy.
Brutal acts of violence
But for many in the Russian population, private army soldiers are an ongoing threat. Especially the convicted serious criminals who participated in the war in Ukraine.
According to estimates, as many as 80,000 ex-prisoners may have been recruited to fight on the Russian side since the invasion.
The majority of them ended up with Prigozhin.
The prisoners who survived the fighting were pardoned after their time at the front.
Prigozhin stated before his death that about 32,000 prisoners returned to freedom in Russia after serving in the Wagner Group.
And the return of several soldiers has ended in brutal acts of violence. For the residents, it has meant constant fear.
“Horrible time for everyone”
In addition to murder and rape, there have been repeated reports of drunkenness, fights and disorder among returning soldiers from the Wagner group.
– How many come back with destroyed psyches? It will be a terrible time for everyone, says a despairing woman according to The Moscow Times.
The paper has gone through some of the most notable cases.
• Wagner soldier Ivan Rossomahin was released last spring from a robbery-murder sentence after serving in Ukraine.
He then had ten years left on his sentence.
Spread terror with an axe
Immediately, he created fear among the villagers of the community of the Kirov region. Among other things, he walked around the streets with an ax in his hand.
– We can’t sleep at night, pensioner Galina Sapozhnikova told a local TV channel.
A few days later, Rossomahin was arrested on suspicion of killing an 85-year-old in the village.
• Demyan Kevorkyan, 31, was recruited by the Wagner group while serving an 18-year sentence for arms smuggling, robbery and theft.
He then had more than eleven years left on his sentence. He too was pardoned after some time in Ukraine.
Crashed when changing tires
Together with two cronies, he is suspected of killing two people who had stopped on the highway in the Krasnodar region in his Hyundai after suffering a puncture.
The victims, two colleagues on their way home from performing at a sesterces facility, were robbed, killed and buried in the woods.
The Wagner soldier and his accomplices had no connections to the victims, but are believed to have acted spontaneously when they saw the car standing on the side of the road.
• Pardoned prisoner Alexei Khlebnikov, who also served in the Wagner group, is being hunted for raping a 13-year-old girl in the Volgograd region.
According to Russian site V1 the 36-year-old should have been sentenced to prison as recently as 2018 for stealing a car and killing the owner.
And the examples are more.
“Worse than expected”
Olga Romanova, who works for prisoners’ rights, believes that the problem is “much worse than thought”.
– It was meant that most of them would die. Now you don’t know what to do, she tells The Moscow Times about the returning ex-prisoners.
She states that Russia continues with the secret pardon processes in order to recruit serious criminals to the war in Ukraine.
– If you kill someone, you can claim extenuating circumstances as a war hero. Even if you are sent to prison, you can enlist in the military again, says Romanova.
– It has opened a Pandora’s box that will affect generations.
However, none of this is a major problem according to Putin.
– The negative consequences are minimal, the president said this summer when he confirmed that he signed pardons for prisoners of war.
FACTS The Wagner group • Prigozhin • The rebellion against Putin
The Wagner Group is a Russian paramilitary organization, a private mercenary company founded around the year 2013.
The group was founded by a former GRU chief, Dimitry Utkin, and is led by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman and former restaurateur from St. Petersburg with close ties to Vladimir Putin.
Wagner has long had unofficial connections with the Russian state leadership. The group is believed to have been allowed to carry out missions that the Russian state or the army, for various reasons, did not want to take responsibility for.
Prigozhin has been called “Putin’s chef” and is said to have earned millions on behalf of the Russian state.
The first time the Wagner Army received international attention was during Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, when it was noted that some of the Russian soldiers who entered there lacked insignia.
Later, the Wagner Army has appeared in many countries where Russia seeks influence, including Syria, Libya, Sudan, Venezuela and the Central African Republic. The efforts have been marred by accusations of war crimes.
The Wagner Group led a shadowy existence for a long time, but during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it took on a more formal role, alongside and in some competition with the Russian army. In October 2022, a formal Wagner headquarters was opened in St. Petersburg.
In the spring of 2023, a conflict flared up between Prigozhin and Putin’s military leadership, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. The Wagner leader accused the Russian High Command of corruption and incompetence, and of deliberately withholding weapons from the Wagner forces in Ukraine – thereby indirectly causing the deaths of thousands of Wagner soldiers.
On June 23, Prigozhin announced that 25,000 Wagnerian soldiers would march through Russia—armed. The next day, Wagner forces took over the city of Rostov-on-Don, then continued north towards Moscow.
The column reportedly came as close as 20 miles from Moscow before a showdown with Belarus’ Russia-allied leader Aleksandr Lukashenko caused them to turn back.
The settlement meant that Prigozhin and his soldiers would receive impunity and security guarantees, as well as free passage to Belarus. The war crimes charges were dropped.
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