Mercenary leader Prigozhin lives on as a symbol of Putin’s fragility

Two years after his failed revolt, the mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin remains hugely popular among Russians, while his brand remains potent.

A makeshift memorial for Yevgeny Prigozhin in Moscow. Prigozhin died in a plane crash two months after marching on Moscow. Picture: AFP

A few months before he died in a plane crash after his aborted mutiny against Moscow in the summer of 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner group of Russian mercenaries, laughed when asked about his attitude to death. “We will all go to hell, but we will be the best in hell,” he said.

Two years later, if Prigozhin is observing from the underworld, he is unlikely to approve of the fate that has since befallen his private mercenary group, which was once praised by President Putin for its role in the war in Ukraine. It has been largely dismantled and brought under the control of the Kremlin, while any mention of Prigozhin’s name is now taboo on state television. Wagner’s headquarters in St Petersburg, Prigozhin’s home town, has also been closed down.

“What we understood as the Wagner Group ceased to exist at the very moment when the plane carrying Prigozhin crashed,” said Denis Korotkov, a Russian opposition journalist and co-author of Our Business is Death: The Story of the Wagner Group.

“All the scraps and fragments that remain from this organisation, what remains of its brand, are being used [by Moscow] for an array of purposes, but it can’t be compared in any respect to what it used to be: Wagner is no longer an independent entity. It was able to exist solely because of Prigozhin’s special relationship with Putin and with some others in power,” Korotkov said.

Wagner after Prigozhin

A catering tycoon who was once known as “Putin’s chef”, Prigozhin rose from owning hot dog stands in St Petersburg in the early 1990s to worldwide notoriety. He attempted to meddle in the 2016 US presidential elections that brought President Trump to power and his thugs targeted Kremlin critics. His Concord company provided dinners for schools and nurseries in Moscow as well as the Russian defence ministry. But it was Wagner that made him a household name in Russia.

Yevgeny Prigozhin shows Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin his school lunch factory outside Saint Petersburg on September 20, 2010. Picture: AFP

Tens of thousands of convicts were freed from Russian prisons to swell Wagner’s ranks at the front in Ukraine, often after a personal visit by Prigozhin, who served nine years for assault and robbery during the Soviet era. The group was instrumental in some of Russia’s biggest successes of the war, including the capture of Bakhmut, the town in eastern Ukraine that became known as the “meat grinder”.

Prigozhin’s armed rebellion in June 2023, during which his heavily armed mercenaries came within striking distance of Moscow, was sparked by a vicious row with Russian defence chiefs. It was an unprecedented challenge to Putin’s rule and one that signalled the beginning of the end for Prigozhin.

Members of Wagner group stand on the balcony of the circus building in the city of Rostov-on-Don, on June 24, 2023. Picture: AFP

After retreating from the Russian capital having made a deal with the Kremlin, thousands of Wagner fighters headed to neighbouring Belarus, where they were allowed to set up training camps for new operations in Africa. The camps are long gone, although some of Wagner’s former fighters are believed to be training the Belarusian security services as private contractors.

Wagner also said last year that it was no longer in action in Ukraine. However, many returned to the front as part of the regular Russian army after Putin urged them to swear an oath of allegiance to Moscow.

Pavel Prigozhin, the son of Yevgeny Prigozhin. Picture: Supplied

Pavel Prigozhin, the late Wagner leader’s 27-year-old son, was believed to have inherited the leadership of the mercenary group, as well as more than $208 million in assets, yet there are few, if any, indications that he plays an active role in its remaining operations.

A potent brand

While there is no direct evidence that Putin was involved in Prigozhin’s death, it is believed that his plane was blown up on the Kremlin’s orders as revenge for his rebellion. All ten people on board, including Dmitry Utkin, Prigozhin’s right-hand man, were killed when the plane plummeted to the ground in the Tver region, about 1.6 kilometres from Moscow in August 2023, exactly two months after the Wagner mutiny.

Putin has suggested that the crash was caused by Prigozhin and other commanders drinking and using drugs while handling grenades on board the luxury jet. However, Marat Gabidullin, a former Wagner commander, told The Times that he had never seen Prigozhin or Utkin drink or take drugs.

The site of the plane crash near the village of Kuzhenkino, Tver region. Picture: AFP

Despite the neutralisation of Wagner as an independent force, the group’s name remains a rallying symbol for supporters of the war in Ukraine, both in Russia and in the West, said Candace Rondeaux, the author of Putin’s Sledgehammer, a new book about Prigozhin and his mercenary group. “The [Wagner] brand remains very potent, especially for young men who are disaffected, who are looking for a way to prove themselves,” she told Times Radio. Russia’s GRU military intelligence service had sought to “rebrand and relabel the Wagner Group” as an instrument for recruiting disaffected westerners for sabotage attacks, she added.

This month two British men admitted setting fire to warehouses in London, that were holding aid for Ukraine, on behalf of the Wagner Group. Korotkov said, however, that it was extremely unlikely that there were any independent figures within Wagner who would be able to give the orders for such an operation. “It’s likely the brand is just being used by various [Russian] security structures,” he added.

The scramble for Africa

Prigozhin in a video posted to Telegram. Picture: Reuters

Three weeks before his death, Prigozhin shared a video address filmed - pointedly - in Africa, the jewel of the Wagner empire. Wearing camouflage and clutching a rifle, he told the camera: “We are working, the temperature is 50 degrees - everything we love.” Shared on Wagner-linked Telegram channels, the footage was both a recruitment pitch and a bullish statement of intent.

After Wagner’s arrival in Africa in 2017, beginning in Sudan, it became a powerful tool of Russian influence. It offered military training, regime protection and anti-western disinformation that often outpaced even Moscow’s ambitions. In return, Wagner was paid not just in cash but in gold and mining concessions - a model so lucrative it helped bankroll Russia’s war in Ukraine and prompted the US to designate it an organised crime group.

After Prigozhin’s death, Moscow moved quickly to replace his mercenaries with the newly minted Africa Corps, under GRU control. Commanders were ordered to swear loyalty to the state or face consequences. By January 2024, Africa Corps had boots on the ground - its first confirmed deployment was to Burkina Faso. The shift is more than cosmetic. Wagner offered deniability; Africa Corps signals a bolder, state-backed approach.

However, Russians show no sign of forgetting Prigozhin or Wagner: memorials and even statues have been unveiled across Russia, while online shops sell Wagner-themed children’s toys, pillows, cups and T-shirts. The memory of his rebellion, while unsuccessful, has also provided a shred of hope to Russia’s exiled opposition movement.

“As long as Putin is in power, we are unlikely to find out what exactly happened to Prigozhin. But does it really matter? The question of who and when someone will decide to follow in his footsteps is much more important,” said Daria Firyan, a presenter for the Khodorkovsky Live opposition media outlet. “Such rebellions are possible ... those people who were sent to Kyiv yesterday can turn around tomorrow and head to Moscow. And the authorities will not be able to do anything.”

The Times