The story, which still includes many gray areas, stretches from 2015 in the Donbass to recent events that have shaken the Kremlin. What does this story tell us about the workings of Vladimir Putin’s power? What remains of militants today since Prigozhin’s death?
The first rumours
Ilya Parabanov, co-authored with the BBC’s Russian special correspondent Denis Korodkov “Death is our business. The true story of the Wagner Group and its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin” published in French by Flammarion. In this work, the journalist describes his discovery of the existence of this group: “In 2014 and 2015, I worked a lot in eastern Ukraine, and at that time the war had started. We first heard rumors about a group operating in the Luhansk “People’s Republic” called the Wagner group.
International issues
14 min
Wagner, a company?
Ilya Parabanov Explains that Wagner’s system can be compared to a business, but not to a private enterprise. “A private company runs on its own and the Wagner Group could not operate without the support of the Russian government to transport them to Syria or different African countries. They used Russian resources, including the Ministry of Defense. “The Kremlin helped the Wagner Group during these years and helped Prigozhin.” Like a business, Prigozhin thought about making money and making a profit: “In all the countries visited by Russian mercenaries, they were not always looking for the possibility of solving military problems, but making money. In Syria and Libya, it was the oil complex, in the Central African Republic, it was gold, precious stones or exotic trees. So in all the countries where Wagner worked, this economic element was
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