Ukraine says it killed Wagner mercenaries, who are they?

Controversial armed group emerged from being a murky guns-for-hire enterprise to a public extension of the Russian army.

The controversial non-public army firm Wagner Group is within the information once more as Ukrainian authorities say quite a lot of its fighters had been killed in an assault on a lodge within the metropolis of Kadiivka, within the Russian-occupied Luhansk area.

However who're Wagner Group?

• The non-public army firm emerged publicly for the primary time throughout Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014. There, Wagner fighters had been reportedly among the many so-called “little inexperienced males” – unidentified particular forces – who occupied the area.
• From 2015 onwards, Wagner appeared wherever Russia had an curiosity: first in Syria’s civil warfare on the facet of President Bashar al-Assad, then Libya, the Central African Republic (CAR), and Mali, amongst different nations.
• In Syria, Wagner fighters have been accused of torturing, capturing and beheading a deserting soldier. These claims haven't been investigated by Russia.
• Within the CAR, Wagner repelled a insurgent advance on Bangui in January 2021. A statue of a Russian soldier defending a household was constructed within the capital, and an motion film, The Vacationer, glorified the group’s exploits. Human Rights Watch has accused the mercenaries of torturing, executing and kidnapping civilians within the CAR.
• In Sudan, it reportedly oversees gold mining operations, working with Sudan’s army authorities. Activists and bloggers accuse Russia of supporting the army coup in Sudan and stealing the nation’s gold.
• The European Union has accused the Wagner Group, whose members are principally former army personnel, of human rights abuses. The US and EU have sanctioned Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin over his function within the group.

• The group is managed by Prigozhin who's referred to as “Putin’s chef” for his many catering contracts by means of a community of entrance corporations.
• For a very long time, Prigozhin denied any involvement with Wagner, he even filed complaints to the authorities after being requested about it by journalists. However as Wagner’s function within the warfare in Ukraine grew since February, he stepped into the highlight.
• In a web based assertion on September 26, Prigozhin acknowledged he based the Wagner Group and recruited a gaggle of mercenaries in 2014 who “would go and shield Russians” when “the genocide of the Russian inhabitants of Donbas started”.
• In November, he opened its first official headquarters within the Russian metropolis of St Petersburg.

• As soon as its existence develop into public, so did its recruitment efforts: Job postings reportedly provide wages of 240,000 Russian roubles ($4,000) per thirty days, far larger than the pay of a typical soldier.
• “Wagner has now develop into so public exactly due to the change in its standing,” Mark Galeotti, an professional on Russian safety issues, advised Al Jazeera. “Whereas it was as soon as an arm’s size, deniable instrument of the Russian state … now it's little greater than an extension of the army. It's an alternate supply of fight manpower, vital exactly as a result of that is only a ‘particular army operation’ and thus the Kremlin can’t merely mobilise the lads it wants.”