“Over the past year, the Russian Mercenary Group Wagner has been severely fragmented, with many of its commanders leaving for other formations, taking their staff with them, resulting in its numbers falling by approximately 90 percent,” the British Ministry of Defense announced on Friday.
The latest intelligence update reminded that Friday marks one year since several key people at the Wagner Group, including its owner Yevgeny Prigozhin and founder Dmitry “Wagner” Utkin, died in a plane crash, almost certainly caused by an explosion on board.
Main representatives of the Wagner Group
Examples of prominent Wagner Group members who have since left the group were cited. Its former chief of staff, Andrei “Sedoi” Troshev, joined the Russian Defense Ministry, probably the private military formation Redut created by the ministry, and was entrusted with the task of creating a Volunteer Corps to fight in Ukraine. Aleksandr “Ratibor” Kuznetsov, former commander of the 1st Assault Detachment, joined the Chechen special forces unit Akhmat. Borys “Zombi” Nizhevenok, former commander of the 3rd Assault Unit, took command of the Vostok-V volunteer unit in May this year.
Many veterans of the Wagner Group followed these and other former Wagner commanders in leaving the group. Compared to the peak personnel number in 2023, which was approximately 50,000 fighters, the Wagner Group now probably has a total of around 5,000 fighters deployed in Belarus and Africa.
– it was written.
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NT/PAP
