After Prigozhin’s presumed death, the Kremlin, internal Wagner factions and outside paramilitary forces are jockeying for control of a lucrative global empire.
, a shock to many of Moscow’s elites, who saw it as a sign of Putin’s weakness. But it bought time for the Kremlin to regroup and map out which of Prigozhin’s assets would be most useful.“The Kremlin was able to gauge the amenability of individual Wagner commanders to compromise; it turned out there was no longer any need for Prigozhin,” Stanovaya said.Wagner is Russia’s most well-known private military company, but it is hardly the only one.
Redut and Konvoi have not achieved any significant wins in Ukraine, are considered less professional outfits than Wagner and are not well-regarded by experienced Russian mercenaries, Korotkov said.But a fresh recruitment plan combining fighters from Wagner and other private military companies was possible, said Mardasov, the analyst.“It is clear that the backbone of Wagner will not be happy with the decision to mix the ranks, but they have no choice,” he said.
But his personal pitch to African leaders appears to have fallen short. In Mali and the Central African Republic, where Wagner is most prominent, officials have stressed continuity. Prigozhin had also been struggling to maintain his foothold in Libya, where Wagner served as guns-for-hire forEven before the mutiny, Hifter was growing disillusioned with Prigozhin, according to Anas El Gomati, director of the Sadeq Institute, a Tripoli-based think tank. The relationship between the two men had “broken down significantly over the past year,” he said, in part because Hifter withheld payments from Wagner in an effort to secure military equipment.
David Lewis, a professor at the University of Exeter who has researched Wagner’s illicit business networks, said Moscow had already demonstrated that it would maintain Wagner’s global footprint.
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