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The Wagner Group (Russian: Группа Вагнера, romanised: Gruppa Vagnera), often known simply as Wagner, is a Russian mercenary organisation with opaque links to country's defence forces' intelligence unit, GRU. It claims to be a private military contractor contracting to work for the Russian government or Russian-backed proxies. However, much of the staff are ex-military of the Russian defence forces and it is considered the unofficial private army of Vladimir Putin himself. If you thought Blackwater was awful, you haven't seen anything yet.

The organisation was founded and funded in 2014 by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, and Dmitry Utki, an ex-Lieutenant Colonel of the GRU and veteran of the Chechen War, known by his nom de guerre as Wagner. It was founded to provide unofficial military support to the "little green men" who invaded the Ukrainian region of Crimea and later provided support to the Russian-backed regimes of Donetsk & Luhansk People's Republics in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Further on, it provided Russian hard power support in Syria and parts of Africa for the regimes in those countries. Because it is a non-governmental organisation, Russia can easily deflect any criticism or responsibility of Wagner's actions.

Yevgeny Prigozhin
One man that connects Wagner to the Russian government is Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former criminal who was sentenced for twelve years in prison for fraud and robbery. After he was released, he founded several catering companies supplying service to the Russian government and created several high-class restaurants in Moscow which served many statemen including Putin, hence he gained the nickname of Putin's Chef. Not surprisingly, he got rich by corrupting the contracts by serving unfit food, while charging the authorities full price for the services. In 2013, he established the Internet Research Agency, his troll farm in St Petersburg which he uses to try and control the narrative. He later has used this money to start and finance Wagner, while at the same time gaining loyalty to Putin.

Crimea and Donbass
Wagner started as the little green men used by Russia to invade and occupy the Ukrainian region of Crimea, after the Euromaidan popular uprising. Because they came into Crimea without official insignia

Syria
In 2015 during the mist of the Syrian Civil War, which was caused by the Arab Spring between the Baathist regime of Bashar al-Assad, Islamic State fighters, Kurdish fighters and Free Syrian Army. Russia offered fighters to help Assad, in return for the strategic naval port of Tartus on its Mediterranean coast. To assist the Russians, they outsourced much of the defence and in particular much of the defence of the airports to Wagner. In February 2018, Wagner directly fire-fighted against American troops who were assisting the Free Syrian Army in the town of Deir al-Zour, making the first time Wagner directly attacking Western troops.

Africa
After getting involved in Ukraine, Wagner expanded to get involved in the armies of the Russian-backed government in the Libyan city of Benghazi in the eastern part of the country, allegedly assisting the war against Islamic militaries in the country. In 2016, it was involved in supporting the rebel government of the Central African Republic, claiming it was an anti-colonial force against the previous civilian government which previously was backed by the French army. Since that Wagner later used the country as a training base, while being funded by the country's large diamond reserves. During this time Wagner has been sponsoring various PR exercises in the country to give support to group including a radio station which pumps out popular music and Russian propaganda, a brand of vodka, and an action film called "Tourist", aimed at Central African locals to explain why they were there.

Since then, it has been involved in regime changes in Mali, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Guinea and Mozambique.

War in Ukraine
Wagner

Neo-Nazi links
The group is known for its schizofascistic Rashist [Russian fascist] philosophy and Slavic nationalism, often using the kolovrat, a Russian swastika-like symbol as secondary symbol. Plus, the group's leader Utki is a follower of a form of Russian paganism called and said to have a number of Nazi tattoos. The heads of Wagner sees themselves as fighters against Islamic extremism, this is despite Islam is the second biggest religion in Russia.

Terrorist group
In October 2022, the Estonian government declared Wagner a terrorist organisation. Later in November, the European Parliament passed a resolution declaring Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, and including that stating that the Wagner Group is a terrorist group. This makes the group have the same status as Al-Qaeda and Daesh. After it was declared a terrorist organisation, the parliament received from the organisation, a (fake) blood-stained Wagner-marked sledgehammer in a violin case. Charming.