For years, they’ve operated in the shadows. Now “Putin’s private army” is in the spotlight as Russia’s war in Ukraine grinds on. What’s the Wagner Group and what does it mean for the war (and Putin)? | Sherryn_G
There were about 40 American soldiers left at the dusty outpost in eastern Syria. With every hour, they watched the enemy advance. These were pro-Assad forces on the horizon, hundreds of them, here to seize territory from US-backed Kurdish fighters. And yet, when the Americans embedded with the Kurds eavesdropped on the enemy’s radio waves that day in February 2018, they heard Russian voices.
From seizing diamond mines in Africa to prowling the streets of Kyiv with alleged orders to murder Ukraine’s president, Wagner has been turning up more and more in conflicts across the globe as Russia seeks to expand its influence. Experts say the group is now largely propping up Vladimir Putin’s bloody and costly war in Ukraine.
“It’s about plausible deniability ... Russia says mercenaries aren’t permitted under law, so they can’t be doing that.”or “the orchestra”, known for “making noise” with brutal onslaughts. In Syria, they’ve backed Bashar al-Assad’s regime and guarded lucrative oil fields; in Libya, they joined the forces of rebel general Khalifa Haftar in 2019 after he attacked the UN-backed government in the capital, Tripoli.
“Of course, for an organisation like this that operates in the shadows, it suits them for there to be speculation about who they are, their size, where they are,” MacLeod says. “That adds to the mystique.”
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