Russia has a big problem in Ukraine, and its
name is Wagner group. The Wagner group has been growing in infamy
after first making it to the forefront of the media spotlight for its involvement in
the 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea. Since then the group's activities has come
into clearer focus, and so has the long list of atrocities that the group has committed
in the name of its own, and Russia's national interests. Connected all the way to the very top of the
Kremlin, the Wagner group has taken a leading role in the war for Ukraine. Mostly because its forces are just slightly
more effective than the regular Russian army, and now its leader- leading candidate for
Lurch in a Russian Adams Family reboot, Yevgeny Prigozhin is threatening to pull Wagner out
of Ukraine altogether, though we're confident by time you see this he'll have changed his
mind because it's all naturally just for show. But how did Russia's most effective asset
in Ukraine turn into one of its biggest headaches? Wagner's shadow origins trace back to around
2008, allegedly founded by Dmitry Utkin who like any good Russian hates Nazism and is
most definitely not a neo-Nazi himself. Dmitry was born in Ukraine and joined the
Russian GRU, becoming a Lieutenant Colonel in the Russian special forces before retiring
to join the Slavonic Corps in 2013 to fight on the side of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, because
also like a good Russian, Dmitry often finds himself on the right side of history. Apparently fighting for the Slavonic Corps
wasn't profitable enough for Dmitry, as he left just a few months later and returned
to Moscow to found the Wagner group. Allegedly fascinated with all things German,
the group was apparently named after Richard Wagner, a composer and conductor who was perhaps
unsurprisingly wildly racist and had a lot to say about minorities and their influence
on both society and music. Naturally Wagner was one of Hitler's favorite
composers.l Dmitry- a good Russian that stands against all things Nazi- absolutely loved
that and adopted Wagner as his own call sign, and later the name of his mercenary company. Dmitry was spotted in Crimea in February 2014,
and shortly after supporting the Donbas seperatists. Apparently though some of the Luhansk People's
Republic's commanders weren't up to his standards, and he is alleged to have murdered several
of them. He'd return to Syria with his mercenaries
in 2015, but Dmitry would disappear from the public eye by 2016. The real question all along was where did
Dmitry get the money to start Wagner group, and this is where Prigozhin comes in. After spending 12 years in prison for robbery,
Prigozhin got his humble start to supervillainhood by selling hot dogs alongside his mother in
a flea market of Leningrad. Apparently his mom made good hot dogs, because
their small stand brought in enough rubles for Prigozhin to invest in several businesses
following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Naturally, this is obviously complete crap-
Prigozhin almost certainly returned to robbing and stealing, investing ill gotten funds into
legal enterprises. Eventually Prigozhin would go all Ratatouille
and open a restaurant, then a second restaurant on the Saint Petersburg waterfront which became
a hit. Putin himself would end up dining there, and
from the moment that the two laid eyes on each other, it was a match made in the eighth
circle of hell, the one with the poop river where flatterers spend eternity drowning in
excrement. Prigozhin would go on to deny any involvement
with Wagner until September 2022, when Wagner was pretty much the only part of the Russian
military not actively being routed by Ukraine. Like a bad rash, Wagner has shown up all over
the world and always in support of Russia's interests. The mercenary group was confirmed to be operating
in Syria by 2015, one month after Russia decided to join in support of Assad. Despite private military companies being illegal
in Russia, Wagner was curiously free to operate wherever it wanted and build bases and training
facilities inside Russia itself. It even shared some facilities directly with
the Russian military, and recruited straight from its ranks. When sent to Syria, Wagner fought directly
under the instruction of the Russian government, a neat trick for what would basically be a
criminal enterprise. But Wagner's legality was handwaved away by
Putin and anyone who dared to question it would find themselves suffering an accident
while peering out a high window. Wagner suited Putin perfectly, as it allowed
him to directly intervene in conflicts around the world while maintaining plausible deniability. Also, getting your own military killed is
bad for press- even in such a repressive country as Russia- and dead mercenaries don't receive
state funerals. This is a neat trick the US figured out years
ago in the Middle East when it basically resurrected mercenaries as a full-time profession. Wagner's role in Syria was to supplement Assad's
poorly trained forces. Wagner mercenaries would serve as shock troops
or fill combat specialist roles lacking in the Syrian army such as forward air controllers
for loitering Russian planes. In a turn of events that should make you question
if you're living in an alternate universe, Wagner even fought on the side of the good
guys against ISIS, developing a specialized unit known as ISIS Hunters to take down key
ISIS leadership. However, it wasn't a shared respect for law
and order that motivated Wagner, it was Russia's desire for ISIS to stop tearing Syria apart
long enough for the country to exploit its resources and expand its naval bases there. By all accounts Wagner did pretty well for
itself- but on at least one occasion it forgot for a moment that it wasn't actually an elite
military force, when it went into combat against an actual elite military force. In what would be known as the Battle of Khasham,
Wagner led a force of approximately 500 in an assault on a position held by Syrian Democratic
Forces and about a dozen US special forces. The presence of US service members was well
known to the Russians, who directly oversaw Wagner's every move via the GRU, and was meant
to send a message for the US to get out of town. Instead, Wagner and its Syrian allies got
absolutely rocked by apocalyptic levels of American firepower delivered via F-22s, F-15s,
B-52s, AC-130 gunships, Apache helicopters, Reaper and Shadow drones, and in a taste of
things to come: M777 howitzers and Himars batteries. The only casualty on the friendly side was
one SDF soldier wounded, with Russia suffering so many Wagner casualties that the bodies
had to be flown to Russia in secret. There would be no further direct confrontations
between Wagner and the US military in Syria. In Syria though the world would get a taste
of Wagner's now famous brutality. The PMC specifically targeted civilians in
order to sow fear and panic, assisting the official Russian military campaign striking
city centers such as Aleppo. Wagner's on the ground brutality included
a now infamous video of its mercenaries using a sledge hammer on an old Syrian man, breaking
his various extremities one by one before delivering a fatal blow to the head. This was par for the course for Wagner, and
Prigozhin would later send sledge hammers to news organizations and reporters he wished
to intimidate. In Sudan, Wagner has been working at the behest
of Sudan's presdient, Omar al-Bashir to assist in the ongoing civil war. Their presence was rumored by the return of
Russian mercenaries to Russia in 2013 for treatment for a severe form of malaria. In December 2017 a video of Wagner PMCs training
Sudanese forces surfaced confirming the group's presence in the country. There the group helped train regime forces,
but also directly secured gold, uranium, and diamond mines, with Wagner often using force
to secure better deals for Russian companies exporting the extracted minerals. Likewise, Wagner would be deployed to the
Central African Republic where it protected lucrative mining prospects. The company is alleged to control multiple
mines directly, earning billions in profits in work conditions that are rumored to be
brutal for the miners. UN efforts to gain video evidence of Wagner's
brutality have met with failure as the company has shot down every UN surveillance drone
dispatched to overfly the mining sites. The company would also use its famous internet
troll farm that interfered in the 2016 US election on behalf of Vladimir Putin to directly
attack the French in the Central African Republic. Using social media, Wagner helped spread a
deep anti-french sentiment across the country, which would be one of multiple factors leading
to France's exit. Wagner took full advantage of the power vacuum
in the country to insert itself and promote Russian interests. Wagner's brutality would be exposed once more
as survivors of a Wagner massacre spoke to international media about Wagner mercenaries
torturing, killing, and disemboweling women, including several pregnant ones. In Madagascar, Wagner was dispatched in April
2018 to guard political consultants hired by Prigozhin sent to help the up coming campaign
of president Heri Raj-o-na-ra-ma-piana Hery Rajaonarimampianina. Playing both sides against the middle, Prigozhin
was simply looking for a win and it's alleged that the advisors he dispatched were secretly
helping multiple candidates. Before leaving office, President Rajaonarimampianina
would facilitate the takeover of Madagascar's national chromite producer by a Russian firm,
and soon after Wagner PMCs were sent to guard local chrome mines. In Libya, Wagner operative sightings were
first initially reported in October 2018, with bases in Benghazi and Tobruk. The PMC directly supported the Libyan National
Army, providing training and direct combat assistance including operating Russian air
defenses provided by the government. The PMCs also acted as snipers, mine layers,
and helped create IEDs, while providing artillery support with their own privately owned howitzers. Wagner soldiers were alos alleged to be utilizing
hollow point ammunition, illegal under international rules of war. The group's brutality naturally persisted
with the direct targeting of civilians such as the murder of a family who had accidentally
stumbled across one of their positions. The PMC was specifically named in a UN report
on the slavery, rape, and torture of migrants within Libya. After US congress announced it was preparing
sanctions on Wagner and other PMCs inside of Libya, a US military drone was shot down
by Russian air defenses operated by mercenaries. Shortly after, 25 Wagner mercenaries ceased
to exist after a US drone strike on their position- because Wagner has apparently not
yet learned it's not a professional military force and is instantly annihilated by a real
military power. In Mali and Mozambique, Wagner PMCs were accused
of carrying out massacres of civilians. However in Mozambique the group was forced
to curtail its activities after getting its nose seriously bloodied in fighting against
Islamic extremists. The French military would publicize images
in April of 2022 of Wagner covering over a mass grave in Mali that they filled with a
dozen corpses, with plans to blame the massacre on the French. The PMC would be accused by refugees of robbing
villages alongside the Malian military, as well as killing civilians that they came across. Wagner has also been operational across various
other countries, though most of its focus has been in Africa leading to a significant
expansion of Russian influence in the continent. However, it's Ukraine where Wagner has been
most active, and what was once Putin's most useful tool, is now a massive headache. The Russian military is pretty terrible at
its job, Wagner, having the capital to hire some of the best, has performed much better. The PMC has taken and defended objectives
that the Russian regular forces have been unable to, and the Battle of Bakhmut is largely
being fought by Wagner. Early on in what has become the longest battle
of the war, Prigozhin bragged about securing Bakhmut in a matter of weeks. Ukraine had something to say about that and
as of the writing of this script, Wagner and the Russian military are still paying a blood
price for the insignificant town who's only strategic value is the absolutely stupid amount
of casualties Ukraine has been able to inflict on Russia. But Wagner's successes have also been a problem
for Russia, and it all has to do with the way Vladimir Putin runs his government. Like any good dictator, Putin knows that the
biggest threat to his power is having a competent subordinate, or even just having a small number
of them band together against him. That's why he has purposefully filled his
government's senior most positions with loyal yes men who absolutely hate each other. Sergei Shoigu for instance is a Kremlin outsider,
a no-name peasant who knew how to play the corruption game and rose up the ranks, but
is an absolute outsider to the Russian oligarchs who control most of the country. This is perfect for Putin, as it ensures Shoigu's
loyalty to him and him alone, and thus despite his truly brilliant levels of incompetence,
Shoigu remains Russia's minister of defense. But that incompetence has a very real battlefield
cost, and Shoigu's military has been largely unable to accomplish any of its strategic
goals in Ukraine. This is where Prigozhin comes in with his
private military company that's not supposed to legally exist. Where the Russian army failed, Wagner has
succeeded- or at least failed less- and this has won Prigozhin favor in Putin's eyes. Because Prigozhin and Shoigu absolutely hate
each other, it also prevents the head of his military and the leader of the most successful
military force in Ukraine- that's not Ukrainian- from banding together to topple Putin. And Putin's been adding fuel to the fire in
order to keep that rivalry lively and intense, including giving Wagner access to the country's
prisons in order to bolster its forces, as well as directly supplying it from Russian
military stocks. But that same rivalry which is so good at
keeping Putin in power, also directly sabotages the Russian military effort in Ukraine. Rather than operating under one unified command
structure, Russian forces in Ukraine are actually just a splintered group of factions all vying
for their own interests. Even Sergei Shoigu has his own PMC- Patriot-
which is naturally direct at odds with Wagner. But it's also at odds with the Russian military,
because Patriot's success means more money in Shoigu's pocket. Naturally, this completely disincentives the
various forces from working together. This was best on display in the Battle of
Vuhledar, where Russian forces ran into the exact same ambush repeatedly since none of
the groups were sharing intelligence with each other. As has been famously said by an unnamed Ukrainian
soldier, “We're very lucky they are so fucking stupid.”. The rivalry between Shoigu and Prigozhin,
Wagner and the Russian military, has now become Russia's biggest headache. On the eve of taking Bakhmut, Prigozhin announced
that his forces would be leaving the city. This announcement came after comments for
weeks that Wagner would leave all of Ukraine. And the reason why Prigozhin was throwing
a little princess temper tantrum? Sergei Shoigu. While the rivalry has been causing issues
for nearly the entire length of the war, it heated up after the fall of Soledar near Bakhmut. After weeks of fighting, Russia captured the
town and its lucrative salt mines, some of the largest in Europe. Wagner claimed credit, the Russian military
refuted this, claiming it had been its forces which had taken Soledar. Prigozhin retorted by posting a photo of himself
along with some of his goodest boys deep in one of the salt mines. The Russian MOD fired back that it had been
it's forces that had actually taken Soledar, with Wagner playing only a minor role. It's likely that Shoigu desperately needed
a public relations win for the beleagured Russian military, which is why it seemed like
Putin backed him up. However it's also likely that Shoigu simply
wanted to diminish Prigozhin so he didn't threaten his own position as Putin's personal
lap dog. Inevitably, Prigozhin began to fire back. Never shy about diminishing the efforts of
the Russian military, Prigozhin began to directly attack this statement on social media, along
with his commanders. Using his network of military commentators,
Prigozhin fueled a series of attacks against Shoigu's ministry of defense, always careful
not to tread on the big man himself by questioning the efficacy of the war itself. Shoigu fired back by cutting Wagner off from
Russian military supplies, which had an immediate and severe impact on Wagner's ability to conduct
operations. A shell shortage was so critical that in some
areas, Ukraine actually gained the shell advantage against Russian forces for the first time
in the war. Prigozhin famously took to social media once
more to publicly claim that the MOD was purposefully sabotaging him and his forces. But Shoigu wasn't done, as the Russian military
moved to limit Wagner's ability to operate by denying vehicles and even direct fire support
while Wagner troops were engaged in combat. All this came to a head at the start of May,
with Prigozhin releasing a fiery tirade on video pretending he cared about the dozens
of corpses behind him while blaming Shoigu's ministry of defense for their deaths. The video was an appeal to every Babushka
back home who had lost sons or grandsons in the fighting, and to up the ante, Shoigu then
stomped his little foot down and threatened to take his ball and go home. If the Russian MOD didn't open up its inventory,
Wagner would withdraw from Bakhmut, a strategic catastrophe that could have been exploited
by Ukraine in the coming offensive. Unsurprisingly, the Russian MOD relented and
agreed to supply Wagner once more. However, this is not the end of the story,
as Shoigu has now in effect been humiliated by Prigozhin and forced into concessions. Inevitably, the two will continue their bitter
rivalry that has in some cases resulted in direct fratricide, with good reason to believe
that Wagner and Russian forces have both fired on each other, and Wagner has actually given
targeting coordinates to Ukraine for positions with senior Russian military officials. Prigozhin has now set the stage for the coming
Ukrainian offensive, going so far as to claim on video for the first time that the war effort
simply isn't going very well. However he has been careful to pin the blame
on the Russian military leadership itself, and cleverly began to shape a narrative for
what is expected to be a devastating Ukrainian offensive. However as the coming offensive goes, Prigozhin
has set the stage to avoid blame for Russian failures while setting Shoigu up as a fall
guy, and the two's bitter rivalry is guaranteed to heat up- at the cost of more Russian lives. Now go check out Why Putin Has A Huge Weapons
Problem, or click this other video instead.
