The Wagner Group was a Russian private military company and the world's most notorious mercenary outfit. Founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, it was used by the Kremlin to wage shadow wars with plausible deniability.
Wagner was established in 2014 after Prigozhin learned that Russia's Ministry of Defence was funding mercenary groups to fight in eastern Ukraine. Though far from Russia's only paramilitary outfit, it was particularly well-funded by the state. In the year from May 2022, it received 86bn roubles (roughly $1bn) for fighters' salaries alone.
After Ukraine, Wagner concentrated on Africa, beginning with Sudan in 2017. Prigozhin operated without direct Kremlin supervision, taking bets on places such as the Central African Republic where there were mineral deposits to exploit. Before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Wagner had roughly 6,000 mercenaries in Africa, spread across the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali and Sudan. The group earned a reputation for extreme violence.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Wagner's men were brought in to help. Prigozhin recruited from Russian prisons, promising large sums and amnesty; some 40,000 convicts signed up, according to White House estimates. Wagner's fighters built a subculture of ultra-nationalist, neo-pagan and often fascistic symbols that were turned into merchandise.
On June 23rd 2023 Prigozhin staged an abortive mutiny, marching troops towards Moscow, before backing down and going into exile in Belarus. On August 23rd 2023 he was killed in a plane crash north-west of Moscow.
Since Prigozhin's death, Wagner's assets have ostensibly been under the control of his son, Pavel Prigozhin. The group's successor organisation is known as the Africa Corps. The market for mercenaries has grown increasingly competitive, with Russian volunteer battalions funded by private businessmen proliferating in Ukraine, and foreign outfits such as Turkey's Sadat challenging Wagner's African footprint.
Wagner arrived in Mali shortly after a military junta led by Assimi Goïta seized power in a coup in May 2021, and some 2,000 Russian fighters were stationed there by 2025. The group helped the army retake the northern city of Kidal in 2023 but proved unsuited to counter-terrorism. Deaths linked to jihadists averaged 3,135 per year from 2022 to 2024, compared with 736 over the previous decade, according to ACLED. In the past year 80% of civilian deaths were at the hands of Malian soldiers or Wagner, rather than JNIM, the Sahel's pre-eminent jihadist network. A report by the Sentry, an American investigative group, found that Wagner ran "open-air prisons" by blockading towns and supported a militia accused of ethnic cleansing. The group angered the Malian army by taking equipment without asking, defying commands, giving Russians priority in evacuations and behaving in ways soldiers described as racist. In one battle in 2024, 84 Russians were killed by separatist rebels after a sandstorm grounded air cover.
Unlike in other African countries, Wagner failed to enrich itself from Mali's minerals—Africa's second-largest gold producer. The junta resisted transferring large gold mines. Initially Wagner was paid out of Mali's security budget; by 2025 the Russian state may have been footing at least some of the bill. In June 2025 its presence in Mali was formally rebranded as Africa Corps, with a clearer line of responsibility to Moscow—a tacit admission of Wagner's shortcomings. Dozens of Malian soldiers, including generals who had criticised Wagner, were purged in August 2025.
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