groundwork for the invasion of eastern Ukraine have been accused of some of the worst atrocities around the world.
In 2017, hired guns from Russia’s Wagner Group, a private paramilitary outfit, were reportedly behind the savage mutilation and beheading of a Syrian army deserter.
They have also been linked to widespread rapes and robberies of civilians in the Central African Republic last year, according to human rights groups.
In recent weeks, some 300 Russian operatives from Wagner arrived in the separatist enclaves of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine wearing civilian clothes.
While it’s not clear what their purpose is in the region, Wagner’s paramilitaries, who are largely made up of former Russian soldiers, have, allegedly, increasingly been involved in some of the bloodiest conflicts in the world where Russia has an interest.
In 2018, US-led coalition forces in Syria injured and killed 300 Wagner-linked operatives, according to reports. Russia has aligned itself with Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad in the country’s nearly 11-year civil war.
The Wagner Group was reportedly founded by Dmitry Utkin, a former special forces colonel and veteran of the two wars in Chechnya. The company is named after Utkin’s call sign (“Wagner”), itself said to be an homage to Adolf Hitler’s favorite opera composer, Richard Wagner. The firm is believed to be owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch with close ties to the Kremlin who is also known as “Putin’s cook” because restaurants and catering companies he owns have hosted lavish dinner parties for the country’s political elite." NYP
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