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A mercenary group controlled by Russian military intelligence is among the most likely successors to Wagner as Yevgeny Prigozhin\u2019s group has been left leaderless.<\/p>\n
Wagner occupied a unique position among Russia\u2019s private \u201csecurity\u201d firms.<\/p>\n
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Gennady Timchenko.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Wikicommons\/Kremlin.ru<\/cite><\/p>\n Although bankrolled by the Russian state and reliant on the ministry of defence for ammunition, it swelled to an enormous size and achieved a degree of autonomy, notoriety, and battlefield success that few private armies can boast of.<\/p>\n Under Yevgeny Prigozhin it also amassed a considerable business portfolio, taking over oil, gold, and other mineral exploitation concessions in almost every country it operated in.<\/p>\n With Prigozhin dead, a host of rival Russian mercenary groups will seek to take over its combat missions and its business assets.<\/p>\n The most prominent of all is Redut, or Redoubt – a military intelligence-controlled group that started life as a cosy arrangement between Kremlin-linked oligarchs and senior army officers.<\/p>\n Vladimir Alekseev, a leading officer of the GRU – Russia\u2019s military intelligence directorate – is thought to have planned 2018 poisoning of former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cRedut was created to protect the factories transferred to the management of [Gennadiy] Timchenko [a Russian oligarch and former KGB officer close to Putin\u2019s structures],\u201d a former senior Russian army officer and Wagner operative wrote in evidence submitted to the House of Commons foreign affairs committee last month. \u201cThe godfather for this project, Timchenko, was proposed by the Russian military.\u201d<\/p>\n The operation was not a large one. In Syria, the source said, Redut is represented by two detachments of 55 and 65 men, and relied on the Russian armed forces for weapons, equipment, ammunition, and transport.<\/p>\n That changed when the military decided they would need a mercenary force of their own to ease reliance on Prigozhin during the invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n In the run-up to war, General Vladimir Alexeev, deputy head of the GRU, drew up a plan for Redut to play a key role in the assault, including the assassination of Volodymyr Zelensky.<\/p>\n He hired Anatoly Karazi, a former former head of Wagner intelligence, to poach fighters from Prigozhin\u2019s company to bolster the ranks, the Insider<\/em>, a Russian investigative outlet, reported in a joint investigation with Bellingcat and Der Spiegel<\/em> in May.<\/p>\n The move reportedly provoked a physical confrontation between Alexeev and Prigozhin, who was forced to back down.<\/p>\n When the invasion went wrong and Redut took crippling casualties, the Kremlin was forced to call in Prigozhin and Wagner.<\/p>\n But Alexeev\u2019s ambition never went away. Redut resumed recruiting Wagner fighters in the wake of Prigozhin\u2019s mutiny two months ago.<\/p>\n There are reports that Andrei Troshev, the most prominent surviving Wagner commander after Prigozhin\u2019s air crash, has already taken a job at the rival outfit.<\/p>\n Redut are not the only ambitious players on the scene.<\/p>\n Sometime in 2022, Sergei Aksyonov, the Kremlin-appointed governor of annexed Crimea, set up his own private military company called Convoy.<\/p>\n The group\u2019s existence came to light in March, when it emerged with an aggressive social media game emphasising Cossack symbolism.<\/p>\n It takes its name from the Imperial Convoy, a Cossack bodyguard for the Tsars.<\/p>\n It has fought in Ukraine\u2019s Kherson region and is led by Konstantin \u201cMazai\u201d Pikalov, a former henchman of Prigozhin, who was deeply involved in Wagner\u2019s operations in the Central African Republic.<\/p>\n It is believed to be relatively small, fielding 200-300 men, and some accounts describe it as the elite \u201creconnaissance company\u201d of a larger volunteer battalion called Livadia, which Mr Aksyonov is believed to bankroll and is linked to a Russian army unit.<\/p>\n Although theoretically raised to defend Crimea, Convoy recently began advertising on its Telegram channel for work in Africa.<\/p>\n \u201cRussia is opening a second front in order to deprive the West of resources. Unprecedented measures have been developed to liberate African countries from colonial dependence,\u201d Pikalov told iStories, a Russian outlet, when asked about the advertisements.<\/p>\n \u201cThe era of bare-assed Zulus with a Kalashnikov assault rifle is over. We will give African soldiers new weapons and teach them how to use them,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n On August 21, two days before Prigozhin died, it said on its Telegram channel that it was recruiting \u201cpilot navigators\u201d to fly drones in Africa.<\/p>\n Portraits of Wagner\u2019s Yevgeny Prigozhin (right) and Dmitry Utkin at a makeshift memorial on August 24.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Reuters<\/cite><\/p>\n Convoy\u2019s origins make it difficult to tell whether it is a private enterprise, a GRU front, a rival to Wagner, or an offshoot of it. It is possible it is all at once.<\/p>\n The Dossier Centre, an investigative organisation funded by the former oligarch and political prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, earlier this year traced financial donations to Convoy back to VTB bank and Arkady Rotenberg, a close associate of Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n Those payments are channelled through a St Petersburg company called the Cossack Association Convoy, which was set up in 2009 and is part owned by the same Pikalov who now commands the reconnaissance company.<\/p>\n Pikalov himself has been linked to several apparent Russian covert operations in Bosnia, Ukraine, and Africa.<\/p>\n In 2018 he arrived in the Central African Republic three weeks before Russian journalists investigating Wagner\u2019s activities there were murdered, Bellingcat established in a 2020 investigation.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is Aksyonov\u2019s PMC, but all the commanders are ex-Wagner. They\u2019ve all known each other a long time,\u201d a former Convoy member told iStories.<\/p>\n Then there are the corporate battalions.<\/p>\n Gazprom, Russia\u2019s state-owned hydrocarbons giant, is known to bankroll at least two battalions called Fakel (\u201ctorch\u201d) and Potok (\u201cstream\u201d).<\/p>\n Independent Russian media reports suggest the battalions recruit existing Gazprom staff and security guards, with the promise of being able to return to their staff jobs after the war. The company also pays a bonus on top of regular army pay.<\/p>\n Some reports say Gazprom\u2019s battalions, which the company does not acknowledge the existence of, have been folded into Redut as part of that company\u2019s expansion.<\/p>\n The corporate units may have been part of a Kremlin strategy to shift the costs of the war onto businesses and regional governments, and to raise more manpower without formally declaring a general mobilisation.<\/p>\n There are even units linked to specific cities and regions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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