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Its chief is formally useless, as is its founding commander. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is claiming it doesn’t exist.
Wagner, the once-powerful Russian personal navy firm that fell out of favor with the Kremlin after an aborted mutiny in June, has been solid into even larger uncertainty since Wednesday, when its chief, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, died in a aircraft crash.
The Russian authorities mentioned Sunday that DNA assessments, performed on our bodies recovered from the positioning within the Tver area, confirmed that Mr. Prigozhin and 9 different folks listed on the aircraft’s manifest had died within the suspicious crash.
Now consideration is shifting as to if Wagner, which Mr. Prigozhin constructed over almost a decade into a worldwide empire that benefited Moscow in addition to his personal pockets, in the end will die, too.
U.S. and Western officers say that the Kremlin is contemplating methods to carry Wagner underneath extra direct management of the Russian state however hasn’t made any ultimate selections on what to do with the group.
It’s unlikely that Russia desires to squander the educated fighters, geopolitical inroads and enterprise pursuits that Mr. Prigozhin cultivated since Wagner’s founding in 2014. His outfit has operated in at the very least 10 nations.
However discovering a option to neutralize an armed group that posed one of many largest threats to Mr. Putin’s tenure in 23 years, whereas additionally retaining its combating energy and international hyperlinks, is a troublesome activity, notably given the longstanding enmity between fighters with the personal navy firm and the management of the Russian Protection Ministry.
“I believe that PMC Wagner, in itself, as a construction, probably received’t exist,” Aleksandr Borodai, a member of the Russian Parliament who briefly served as a Moscow-installed proxy chief in Donetsk, Ukraine, in 2014, mentioned in a cellphone interview.
Mr. Borodai mentioned Wagner fighters would proceed to combat and have been already becoming a member of volunteer formations, in addition to official items, underneath the Russian armed forces.
“There are lots of of them,” Mr. Borodai mentioned. “It’s a giant stream. The stream didn’t begin yesterday, and it received’t finish tomorrow. Persons are coming in, they may proceed to combat, they’ve expertise.”
“As for the way forward for PMC Wagner, I don’t know,” he mentioned. “However there most likely received’t be one.”
Mr. Putin has despatched combined indicators on his plans.
Throughout a gathering on the Kremlin after the mutiny in late June, Mr. Putin advised Wagner commanders they might proceed serving collectively underneath completely different management, he mentioned final month in an interview with the Russian newspaper Kommersant.
Mr. Putin recounted how he proposed that the commanders hold serving underneath a Kremlin-approved former Wagner member who makes use of the alias Grey Hair. Mr. Putin mentioned Mr. Prigozhin refused on his commanders’ behalf, regardless that some shook their heads in settlement.
In the identical interview, Mr. Putin additionally mentioned Wagner doesn’t exist, as a result of Russian regulation doesn’t allow personal navy corporations.
The Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov has made comparable remarks, which seem like aimed toward signaling that the group, because it stands, has no future in Russia.
Wagner theoretically may nonetheless perform with out Mr. Prigozhin and its founding commander, Dmitri V. Utkin, who the Russian authorities additionally confirmed died within the aircraft crash, alongside 5 different passengers related to Wagner and three crew members.
The mercenary group has what its affiliated Telegram channels describe as a “council of commanders,” who oversee operational issues day after day. A number of members of the council weren’t on Mr. Prigozhin’s aircraft.
None of these Wagner commanders has appeared in public or issued an announcement for the reason that crash, regardless of repeated guarantees of a coming announcement on Wagner-affiliated Telegram channels. It’s unclear whether or not these commanders would have the Russian political capital to spearhead the bigger Wagner operation, as different elites most likely start circling Mr. Prigozhin’s extra profitable property.
At a makeshift sidewalk memorial to the fallen Wagner leaders close to Purple Sq. in Moscow, fighters who went to pay their respects mentioned they have been certain that the personal navy firm would proceed working.
“Utkin and Prigozhin will not be the entire management,” a 36-year-old Wagner volunteer who gave solely his name signal, Adzhit, mentioned, after he positioned a bouquet of white lilies in a plastic vase on the memorial.
“If you understand the interior construction of Wagner, you possibly can perceive one factor: The lack of one, two, or three is not going to have an effect on the effectiveness of this formation in any method,” he mentioned.
Nonetheless, with out the Kremlin’s clear imprimatur, the group’s operations danger falling aside. Mr. Prigozhin’s private connection to Mr. Putin relationship to the Nineties in St. Petersburg, Russia, served as a calling card overseas, permitting the tycoon to hawk geopolitical energy alongside safety providers in Mali, the Central African Republic, Libya and different nations.
Even after the mutiny, Mr. Prigozhin, who dealt with the enterprise facet of the group, was flying to places in Africa attempting to reassure purchasers and proceed operations. His pursuits spanned oil, fuel, valuable metals and stones, Mr. Putin mentioned this previous week, noting that the tycoon returned from Africa to fulfill sure officers the day earlier than boarding the ill-fated personal jet in Moscow. His travels got here amid experiences that the Russian Protection Ministry was attempting to claim direct management over a few of his overseas operations.
Catrina Doxsee, an affiliate fellow on the Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research, mentioned she anticipated the mannequin that Mr. Prigozhin developed — utilizing a shadowy parastatal group to advance worldwide pursuits but in addition do enterprise — to proceed in some type in Russia. However she suspected that future such operations may be extra fractured.
“One of many huge issues the mutiny in June demonstrated was the issue for Putin in permitting one firm, and actually one man, to carry the monopoly of energy and of data over all of those completely different operations,” Ms. Doxsee mentioned.
She mentioned that going ahead there could possibly be “many various actors fulfilling these roles, reasonably than one monopoly.”
Mr. Putin can also be probably to make sure that any subsequent operations keep away from the form of enmity with the Russian navy management that Mr. Prigozhin cultivated.
Aleksei A. Venediktov, who headed the liberal radio station Echo of Moscow earlier than the Kremlin shut it down final yr, mentioned the occasions in current days represented a “crucial response to the Russian navy elite.”
He mentioned Mr. Putin was speaking, “You’re the ones most essential to me. You thought I’d let this man tear you aside. No,’” including that he was relaying, “I’m commander in chief, and also you’re my loyal troopers.”
Wagner constructed up a visual home model in Russia solely after Mr. Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine final yr. Wagner recruited closely from the Russian inhabitants, in addition to from Russian prisons, and was lauded on Russian state information throughout its marketing campaign to take the Ukrainian metropolis of Bakhmut.
The publicity got here alongside social media commentaries from Mr. Prigozhin, who beforehand operated largely in anonymity. The change fed the tycoon’s ego and gave him public standing, making it tougher for the Kremlin to eradicate the group utterly.
A trio of Wagner troopers in camouflage who visited the makeshift memorial in Moscow insisted that Wagner was not going to be disbanded.
“We’re all standing by, we now have not betrayed anybody, we now have not deserted anybody, and we’ll stand to the final,” mentioned one of many troopers, who gave his name signal as Prapor, brief for Ensign.
When requested if he would swap contracts from Wagner to the Russian Protection Ministry, Prapor didn’t reply.
“Now we have one contract,” he mentioned. “And that could be a contract with the motherland.”
Anton Troianovski, Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
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