What is the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary outfit led by Yevgeniy Prigozhin?

Russian authorities have accused Yevgeniy Prigozhin - the head of the Kremlin-linked Wagner Group, a network of private security contractors key to Russia’s war in Ukraine - of “incitement to armed rebellion.” He claimed early Saturday to have taken control of a pivotal Russian military command center in Rostov-on-Don, in southern Russia.

The group’s seizure of Russian military sites sowed chaos, appearing to verge on open war with military authorities. The moves sparked heightened security in Moscow and drew condemnation from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The United States estimated earlier this year that about 50,000 of Prigozhin’s Wagner fighters had deployed to Ukraine, the majority of them recruited from inside Russian prisons. Long seen as a close ally of Putin, Prigozhin, joined his men on the front lines in Ukraine’s east.

During the course of the protracted, bloody battle over the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, he came into increasing conflict with Russia’s military leadership, railing against generals for failing to supply his forces. On Friday, he accused the Russian military of conducting a strike on a Wagner camp.

[Mercenary chief’s forces advance toward Moscow as Putin vows harsh punishment for rebellion leaders]

Here are some facts about the Wagner Group.

Who is Yevgeniy Prigozhin?

As head of the Wagner mercenary outfit, Prigozhin has emerged as a key figure in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, especially in the battle for Bakhmut, which raged through the winter and spring. During the conflict, he often criticized Russian military leaders, saying they were not equipping his men properly or conducting the war effectively. He gained a reputation for outspoken, flamboyant threats and candid diatribes on social media.

[More: Who is Yevgeniy Prighozin, Wagner chief accused by Putin of ‘armed rebellion’?]

Prigozhin rose to wealth and prominence through contracts with the Russian state, including military food-service deals that earned him the nickname “Putin’s chef.” He has also boasted of operating “troll farms” and meddling in foreign elections, including in the United States.

He has often expressed loyalty to Putin and blamed other leaders and elites for Russia’s problems.

What is the Wagner Group?

The Wagner Group is not a single, traditional company, but a network of organizations providing fighters for hire - with the approval of the Kremlin.

According to research by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, the group has probably operated in as many as 30 countries and has two training camps in Russia.

It is ostensibly private, but according to CSIS, “its management and operations are deeply intertwined with the Russian military and intelligence community” under Putin.

One of Wagner’s key functions, according to the Soufan Center, a nonprofit think tank based in New York, is providing Russia with “a thin veneer of plausible deniability as it engages in the pursuit of finance, influence, and vigilantism not in keeping with international norms.”

In September, Prigozhin acknowledged for the first time publicly that he founded the Wagner Group, in a statement posted by his press service on the Russian social media site VK.

He said he had done so to assist Russian forces in Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014, and to help pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

“I flew to one of the training grounds and did it myself. I myself cleaned the old weapons, figured out the bulletproof vests, and found specialists who could help me with this,” he said. “From that moment, on May 1, 2014, a group of patriots was born, which later acquired the name . . . ‘Wagner.’”

The United States has imposed rounds of sanctions on the group and designated it a “significant transnational criminal organization.” The mercenary outfit has been accused of “mass executions, rape, child abductions, and physical abuse in the Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali,” Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in a statement earlier this year.

What is the Wagner Group doing in Ukraine?

In 2014, the Wagner Group helped train, organize and arm Russian-backed militias fighting for control of Ukraine’s Donbas region. Wagner operatives also participated in the fighting and in intelligence-gathering, according to CSIS, and were reportedly part of Russia’s seizure and annexation of Crimea.

Wagner returned to Ukraine last year after Russia invaded. Russia’s military suffered significant losses, forcing it to rely on the group for help on the battlefield. Wagner in turn began recruiting from Russian prisons to bolster its ranks.

Beginning last summer, the group has played a major role in Russian efforts to capture the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. Analysts say that while the town has little strategic value, Prigozhin has pushed the policy to show the Kremlin that Wagner is capable of gaining new territory.

“Wagner is becoming a rival power center to the Russian military and other Russian ministries,” John Kirby, communications coordinator for the U.S. National Security Council, told reporters in January. But the organization, he said, has been making “military decisions based largely on what they will generate for Prigozhin in terms of positive publicity.”

Kirby also said North Korea has been sending arms to Wagner for use in Ukraine, including via rail over the small border Pyongyang shares with Russia.

Where else has the Wagner Group operated?

In the past eight years, the presence of Wagner forces have been reported in Syria, Libya, Sudan, Mali, the Central African Republic, Madagascar, Mozambique and Venezuela, according to CSIS. Often, they are employed as security for Russian assets or the host governments; other times, they have been engaged on battlefields.

Soon after the Wagner Group first popped up in Ukraine, mercenaries tied to the group were also reported in Syria, where in 2015 Putin intervened on the side of President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s civil war. In Syria, the paramilitary group provided security to Russian and Syrian military facilities and participated in some fighting, such as Assad’s campaign to recapture the city of Palmyra.

Wagner forces there also were part of the deadliest U.S.-Russian confrontation since the Cold War, in 2018, when U.S. troops and their allies near Syria’s Deir al-Zour responded to an attack by fighters loyal to Assad with a counterattack that killed about 100 people - Russian mercenaries among them.

In oil-rich Libya, Wagner operatives have been fighting on the side of the renegade Libyan commander Khalifa Hifter in his battle to oust a U.N.-backed government, set up in 2015 to end the country’s civil war. As with the Syrian war, the fighting in Libya has become a front for regional proxy battles - and the presence of Wagner fighters has signaled that Russia is seeking a stronger hand in the Middle East and North Africa.

Wagner and Russia also are expanding their political and financial reach in Africa. So far, the paramilitary group has been in 18 African countries, a number that represents more than half the nations where it has worked, according to CSIS.

“Wagner comes in, further destabilizes the country, ravages the mineral resources and makes as much money as they can before they choose to leave,” U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Milton Sands, head of Special Operations Command Africa, told The Washington Post in early March. “The country is left poorer, weaker and less secure. Every time.”

In recent months in Mali, whose relations with the West are at a low point, Wagner mercenaries have guarded the presidential palace and helped track extremists.

In the Central African Republic, Wagner has been helping to prop up the country’s embattled government - and in exchange, a company linked to Prigozhin been awarded licenses to mine gold and diamonds.

The Washington Post’s Robyn Dixon contributed to this report.