The head has been cut off the snake. But what will Wagner do next?

The leaders of the most notorious mercenary group in the world are believed dead, downed in a suspicious plane crash over Russia exactly two months after staging a failed coup against the country’s military.

But, the fate of the Wagner Group itself, and its sprawling global apparatus of shell companies and guns-for-hire, is even less clear.

Portraits of Wagner’s Yevgeny Prigozhin (right) and Dmitry Utkin at a makeshift memorial on August 24.Credit: Reuters

After Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s shocking and short-lived coup attempt in June, Kremlin watchers attributed his relatively long survival to the power of the mercenary group.

Wagner had not only propped up President Vladimir Putin’s bloody and costly war in Ukraine, it re-established Russia’s old foothold in Africa, including seizing lucrative diamond and gold mines.

Though Putin – notoriously unforgiving of traitors – had denounced the Wagner march on Moscow as a “stab in the back”, Belarus brokered a remarkably generous deal for Prigozhin. If he accepted exile in the neighbouring Kremlin-ally Belarus, he’d remain a free man, presumably still in charge of Wagner’s operations. In the weeks since, Prigozhin was regularly spotted in Russia, mixing with dignitaries, and even appeared in a Wagner video claiming to be in the African desert to promote the group’s operations on the continent.

Now it appears Putin may have been biding his time to bring Wagner under his heel.

US officials say it’s likely Prigozhin fell foul of an assassination plot, possibly from a bomb on board his private jet.

While there are other private military outfits with more direct ties to the Kremlin already lining up to fill a void in its mercenary contracts, experts say Putin may not wish to cast off the fearsome Wagner brand altogether.

“This is not the first Kremlin-backed outfit to spin out of control that Putin had to crush and then relaunch under much stricter conditions,” says Robert Horvath, a Russia expert at La Trobe University.

Still, Wagner was perhaps the ultimate “Frankenstein’s monster” for Putin. Once an elite and shadowy force that carried out his unofficial dirty work around the globe, Prigozhin’s own rise as a figure in the Ukraine invasion helped it morph into a real alternative to Russian forces, and perhaps to Putin himself.

Now, even with the head of the snake cut off, it’s unclear whether Wagner mercenaries will accept Kremlin control.

It was a push to fold Wagner into the Russian military that sparked the coup in the first place.

And its founding commander, the neo-Nazi and former military intelligence officer Dmitry Utkin, was also among the 10 believed dead in the plane crash. Utkin’s call-sign, Wagner (after Hitler’s favourite composer), gave the group its name. He has been at the top since it emerged in the 2014 seizure of Crimea and war in the Donbas.

A Wagner-linked Telegram account, Grey Zone, has accused Russian forces of targeting Prigozhin’s jet and warned his death would have “catastrophic consequences”. “The people who gave the order do not understand the mood in the army and the morale at all,” a post read.

Other videos and threats claiming to be from Wagner have been circulating, including unverified footage of masked men warning Moscow to “get ready”, but the group itself has not formally responded, and it’s unclear who is in charge.

The pro-Kyiv Russian Volunteer Corps urged Wagner to switch sides and turn on the Kremlin in a video posted after Prigozhin’s death.Credit: Telegram

Meanwhile, a group of volunteer Russian paramilitary fighters who support Ukraine have called on Wagner to change sides and take revenge on the Kremlin.

Isabella Currie, a researcher on Wagner, says “there’s always a possibility that there may be a violent retaliation [...] The Kremlin [is] clearly taking threats quite seriously”. The question now is whether there is enough influence and resources left among Prigozhin’s followers for revenge.

Certainly, there is not much love lost for the hot dog seller turned warlord in Russia’s rank-and-file army, whose leadership he often criticised.

A Wagner mercenary with portraits of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and commander Dmitry Utkin at a memorial that sprung up outside a Wagner office in Novosibirsk.Credit: Reuters

Prigozhin still had his own connections in the security services, Horvath says. But Wagner is no longer one group.

The war transformed it from a seasoned force to a mix of mostly storm troopers recruited straight from Russian prisons for “meatgrinder” offensives in Ukraine. And those prisoners may not have the same loyalty to their old bosses Prigozhin and Utkin, he says.

The Institute for the Study of War says internal disputes in Wagner, including over finances, may have “sufficiently separated Prigozhin from Wagner” so that Putin “concluded ... he could kill him without” martyring him.

The reactions of Russia’s elite suggest that the Kremlin is now seeking to smooth over anger about the Wagner deaths, Horvath says.

A closely Putin-aligned oligarch, Konstantin Malofeev, is among those now releasing statements lionising Prigozhin as a “true patriot”, even as they “thank God” the coup was unsuccessful.

Putin himself has since paid tribute to Prigozhin as “a talented businessman” of a “difficult fate”, who made many mistakes but got things done, including for Putin.

Whatever happens, Currie says Wagner is at a turning point. “With Prigozhin gone, Wagner will certainly change.”

Since the coup, its numbers have fallen, and it has reportedly handed back weapons to the Kremlin.

While some mercenaries are still in Russia, many are now in Belarus, training in military camps offered by the Belarussian government as part of the deal with Moscow. Wary neighbouring countries have been sending troops to their borders, including Poland which has said Wagner forces are moving towards it in the north-west.

Who else is believed dead in Wagner plane crash

• Dmitry Utkin, 53, a former special forces intelligence lieutenant who helped found Wagner with Prigozhin and lead forces in Syria, Ukraine in 2014 and elsewhere.
• Valeriy Yevgenyevich Chekalov, 47, a business tycoon in the upper ranks of Prigozhin’s empire and reportedly his other right-hand man who helped move weapons and run Wagner operations around the world.
• Evgeniy Makaryan, a reported long-time Wagner fighter and former police officer.
• Sergey Propustin, another mercenary who reportedly served among Prigozhin’s personal guards.

Little information is available about the remaining crash victims, named as Alexander Totmin and Nikolai Matuseyev. The crew members were identified as Captain Alexei Levshin, co-pilot Rustam Karimov and flight attendant Kristina Raspopova. - The Telegraph, London

In Syria, Wagner operations have been largely rolled up following the coup, Reuters reported, but in Africa they are still active, particularly in the Central African Republic, Mali, and now Niger during a coup against the country’s democratically elected government.

Reuters has reported that only the day before the plane crash, a Russian official visited Libya to reassure allies there that Wagner mercenaries would remain – but under Moscow’s control.

Russia expert Stephen Fortescue thinks the end of Prigozhin could well be the end for Wagner. “It’s an organisation that has outlived its usefulness,” he says.

But Horvath expects there is still value for the Kremlin in the model. “An African government calling in mercenaries is one thing,” he says. “Calling in a foreign government makes the politics much more complicated.”

Not to mention, the Wagner name is already feared all over the world, linked to a string of war crimes in Syria, Africa and Ukraine. One Russian military blogger called Wagner the second most famous Russian brand after the Kalashnikov rifle.

“You either keep that brand or you lose it and risk the people fighting against you taking it up,” Horvath says.

Firefighters work in the aircraft wreckage at the crash site in Russia’s Tver region.Credit: Reuters

It all depends, he thinks, on whether Putin has now decided that a private army under the control of someone else is a failed experiment.

He can see Putin installing a “more trustworthy” oligarch in Prigozhin’s place, someone perhaps to fund it, such as Malofeev, who financed the early Donbas war in Ukraine’s east, but who would stay out of the spotlight.

While it may no longer be such an attractive job, Currie says there have been rumours for weeks that two different private military outfits “more closely aligned with the Russian state” may already be replacing Wagner in Africa: Convoy and Redut.

Still, she expects governments who have been using Wagner to help “coup-proof their regimes” will be concerned by the oligarch’s apparent murder.

But back on Russian soil, Fortescue doubts anyone will be surprised about Prigozhin’s fate.

“Of course it’s Putin cleaning house.” He’s sending a clear message to his elites. “And that message isn’t new.”

As for how far the purge will go, Fortescue thinks Putin will temper his revenge with the need to restore stability. But all these bursts of “excitement”, they add up, he says.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. Prigozhin was known as Putin’s chef after gaining lucrative Kremlin catering contracts.Credit: AP

“At some point, maybe the place collapses, but it doesn’t feel like that yet, even if there are signs of strain.”

Horvath says it’s hard to know how the Russian people will view the latest “excitement”. While some cheered Wagner’s march on Moscow, others were terrified by the spectre of civil war it raised.

Still, he thinks “we are witnessing a terminal crisis” for the Putin regime. “How long it takes and what role Wagner will play are the questions now.”

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