What is The Russian Wagner Group?

 

What is the Russian Wagner Group that topped the search engines after Russia declared war on Ukraine, and it is one of the groups that some media have described as military mercenary groups that carry out some combat operations for the benefit of the Russian state in secret, and it is worth noting that the Russian forces launched a military attack on The State of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 due to Ukraine’s desire to join NATO, and the war is still going on to this day, amid expectations of the start of a third world war, especially after Russia’s explicit threat to enter nuclear weapons in the war if it is forced to do so and more hot political events that We will get to know her on Since Few.

What is The Russian Wagner Group?

In 2014, after the Russian-Ukrainian crisis erupted, Russia supported some separatist movements in Ukraine, which led to some clashes between them and the Ukrainian forces.

• The Russian Wagner Group, one of the government-affiliated companies, was established in 2014 to fight alongside the separatists, and conduct some secret combat operations. Information about the company is still vague and its owner is not known, but some secret sources have confirmed that it is an opaque company.
• The Wagner Group kills any anti-Russian figure, and there are also some media outlets that have described them as mercenaries.
• The Wagner Group personnel are trained by the Russian Ministry of Defense, but the Russian government denied this information and explained that it is a company independent of the Russian government.
• There is some speculation by politicians that the company that trains the Wagner Group may not be officially affiliated with the Russian government but belong to a Russian businessman close to Vladimir Putin and befriended them.
• They first fought in February 2014 alongside separatists in Crimea.
• The European Union has imposed some sanctions on the Wagner Group for committing human rights violations in some countries, most notably the Central African Republic, Libya and Mozambique.

The Goals of The Russian Wagner Group

Despite the Russian government’s denial that the Wagner Group is not affiliated with them, the great possibilities are that the Russian Ministry of Defense has created this group in order to work in its favor and liquidate the anti-Russian personalities, and it is possible to extract the most prominent goals of the group in the following points:

• Carrying out some crimes, hostilities, looting and enforced disappearance..
• The liquidation of a number of non-Russian personalities or members of the Russian opposition who demand democracy or Putin's resignation and the transfer of power.
• Spreading some misinformation to calm Russian public opinion and polish Russia's image.
• It evaded the sanctions imposed on it by the European Union and committed some crimes against humanity.
• Committing rape crimes against unarmed civilians in some countries.
• Fighting alongside the parties affiliated with Russia and promoting defections, for example, fighting alongside Haftar’s forces in Libya and also alongside Russian forces and suppressing the opposition, and in Ukraine alongside the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Who is The Owner of The Russian Wagner Group?

• Gennady Timchenko, a Russian businessman and billionaire who is friendly with Vladimir Putin, and there is no confirmed information about this matter or its official status, but it is one of the guesses received by some politicians and intelligence sources.
• On the other hand, there are some expectations that the owner of the company is Prigozhin, one of the Russian businessmen also close to Putin, a man with a past in prisons before he collected his wealth from luxury restaurants, and since our time he has contracted with the Russian army to provide meals for them to increase His fortune is some of that, and newspapers describe him as one of the billionaires close to the Kremlin.
• There are some sources that have revealed the beginning of relations between Prigozhin and Putin since 2000, after he frequented his fine restaurants.
• In addition to his investment in the field of gas and oil in the African region, there are some accusations against him of influencing the 2016 US presidential elections and supporting Donald Trump.
• The third possibility is that Wagner is a paramilitary organization affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Defense and undertakes the training of personnel at the highest level and sends them to countries in which Russia supports defections.

Wagner's Crimes

It started its activity in 2014 when it helped the Crimea to separate from Ukraine to join Russia and carried out many crimes, most notably the following.

• She murdered three Russian journalists in the Central African Republic in 2018 after they tried to learn what the group was and the owner's relationship with Vladimir Putin personally.
• Journalist Maxim Borodin was killed on April 12, 2018, who had found him with wounds and fractures after he was thrown from his balcony on the fifth floor and after he was taken to the hospital, he died. The government claimed that the incident was a suicide because there were no indications that it was a murder.
• Violations in Central Africa since 2018, after the Russian army was sent on the pretext that it had trained the Central African Army, and it was later found that it was suppressing rebels and carrying out crimes of looting and rape of civilians in rural areas of the country.
• One of the defected soldiers from the Syrian army, called Muhammad Taha Ismail Al-Abdullah, was burned. In 2017, activists circulated some videos showing that he was beaten on the head and hands and burned alive by Wagner personnel.

Why is The Wagner Group Given This Name?

It is the name of one of the founders and the first who have participated in hostilities since the inception of the group. He is called Dmitry Utkin, who was known by the name Wagner, and he worked for the Russian intelligence previously under this name. to Hitler.

Russian Brigadier General Dmitry Utkin is subject to US sanctions because of his participation in the Wagner Group and his involvement in some combat operations.

Wagner planning to Assassinate The President of Ukraine in The Coming Days

Some press sources revealed that the Wagner Group intends to assassinate Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, after Russia invaded Ukraine on the 24th of last February.

• This is confirmed by the presence of 400 of them in the Russian capital, Kyiv, who have orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin to liquidate Zelensky and create chaos in Ukraine.
• Ukraine is trying so far to search for members of the group in order to arrest them, and for this a strict curfew was announced in the country for a period of 36 hours.
• A British newspaper also revealed that members of the professional Wagner forces who had previously fought in Libya and Syria infiltrated the Ukrainian lands last January while they were wearing civilian clothes. .

And here we have come to the end of our tour in which we got to know what the Russian Wagner Group is, and we also got to know the goals of the group for which it was established and who is the real owner of it according to conflicting sources.