Wagner mercenaries register as ‘management consultancy’ in latest attempt to normalise image
Nataliya Vasilyeva
Tue, January 17, 2023
Visitors wearing military camouflage stand at the entrance of the 'PMC Wagner Centre' - Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images
The Wagner Group, a once shadowy Russian militia that now plays a leading role in the Ukraine war, has registered as a legal entity for the first time, posing as management consultants.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman and former petty criminal, long denied founding and bankrolling the private mercenary group that was first used in Syria, before finally acknowledging it last year.
The organisation has emerged as a key power broker in recent months, openly recruiting convicts for the Ukraine war from inside Russian prisons.
Its fighters, some of whom have been implicated in killings of civilians, have made rare battlefield gains for Russia while the Kremlin’s army has been suffering embarrassing defeats in southern and eastern Ukraine.
Yevgeny Prigozhin - AP Photo
On Tuesday, it was revealed that the ChVK Wagner Centre has been officially registered as a company in Russia, the first legal entity linked to the militia.
The company officially lists “management consulting” as its core activity and a variety of business endeavours from book publishing to aircraft leasing as possible secondary activities. Registering a militia in Russia remains illegal.
While its owner is not listed, the company’s director is identified as Alexei Tensin who served as an executive at the Russian state-controlled arms maker Kalashnikov that makes the iconic AK-47 rifles.
The appointment of a prominent and experienced chief executive further legitimises Wagner, a violent organisation operating well outside the law.
The mercenary group, whose fighters filmed themselves killing a defector with a sledgehammer last November, was registered at the address of a new office tower called Wagner Centre that Mr Prigozhin opened in October, saying at the time it would host IT workers willing to “shore up Russia’s defence and security”.
The new company profile was identified by the BBC Russian service, citing a corporate registry.
The move raises further questions about the growing power of Wagner, which has openly challenged Putin’s authority.
People wearing military camouflage look at drones on display in an exhibition in the 'PMC Wagner Centre' - Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images
Meanwhile, Aleksandr Vucic, the pro-Russian president of Serbia, has voiced concern about Wagner recruitment in his country.
Mr Vucic, who has a good personal relationship with Vladimir Putin, told local television on Tuesday that it was “not fair” of Serbia’s “Russian friends” to call Serbs to go fight in Ukraine.
“Why are you doing this to Serbia? Why is Wagner calling everyone from Serbia when you know that’s against the law?” he said.
Mr Prigozhin, known as Putin’s chef for his previous catering contracts with the Kremlin, insisted in a statement published by his office on Tuesday that there were no Serbian nationals serving in the Wagner militia.
While there are no reports of how many fighters Wagner may have hired in Serbia, the Balkan nation, which still bears the scars of the devastating wars in the 1990s, has been a fertile ground for Wagner recruitment ever since the group first surfaced in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
Russia destroys Wagner tank
It came as reports emerged on Tuesday that Russian troops had accidentally blown up a tank of Wagner mercenaries in friendly fire, according to an intercepted phone call from the front lines.
Ukraine’s military intelligence published what it said was a conversation between a Russian soldier and his father in which the soldier described confusion on the battlefield in Ukraine.
“We were shooting at them. We blew up their tank and [an armoured vehicle] before we realised it’s our guys,” the unidentified soldier was heard saying.
The man also claimed that Wagner had sustained heavy casualties in Ukraine but the defence ministry “is not even counting them”.
It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the call, but Ukraine regularly intercepts Russian communications on unsecured lines.
Nataliya Vasilyeva
Tue, January 17, 2023
Visitors wearing military camouflage stand at the entrance of the 'PMC Wagner Centre' - Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images
The Wagner Group, a once shadowy Russian militia that now plays a leading role in the Ukraine war, has registered as a legal entity for the first time, posing as management consultants.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman and former petty criminal, long denied founding and bankrolling the private mercenary group that was first used in Syria, before finally acknowledging it last year.
The organisation has emerged as a key power broker in recent months, openly recruiting convicts for the Ukraine war from inside Russian prisons.
Its fighters, some of whom have been implicated in killings of civilians, have made rare battlefield gains for Russia while the Kremlin’s army has been suffering embarrassing defeats in southern and eastern Ukraine.
Yevgeny Prigozhin - AP Photo
On Tuesday, it was revealed that the ChVK Wagner Centre has been officially registered as a company in Russia, the first legal entity linked to the militia.
The company officially lists “management consulting” as its core activity and a variety of business endeavours from book publishing to aircraft leasing as possible secondary activities. Registering a militia in Russia remains illegal.
While its owner is not listed, the company’s director is identified as Alexei Tensin who served as an executive at the Russian state-controlled arms maker Kalashnikov that makes the iconic AK-47 rifles.
The appointment of a prominent and experienced chief executive further legitimises Wagner, a violent organisation operating well outside the law.
The mercenary group, whose fighters filmed themselves killing a defector with a sledgehammer last November, was registered at the address of a new office tower called Wagner Centre that Mr Prigozhin opened in October, saying at the time it would host IT workers willing to “shore up Russia’s defence and security”.
The new company profile was identified by the BBC Russian service, citing a corporate registry.
The move raises further questions about the growing power of Wagner, which has openly challenged Putin’s authority.
People wearing military camouflage look at drones on display in an exhibition in the 'PMC Wagner Centre' - Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images
Meanwhile, Aleksandr Vucic, the pro-Russian president of Serbia, has voiced concern about Wagner recruitment in his country.
Mr Vucic, who has a good personal relationship with Vladimir Putin, told local television on Tuesday that it was “not fair” of Serbia’s “Russian friends” to call Serbs to go fight in Ukraine.
“Why are you doing this to Serbia? Why is Wagner calling everyone from Serbia when you know that’s against the law?” he said.
Mr Prigozhin, known as Putin’s chef for his previous catering contracts with the Kremlin, insisted in a statement published by his office on Tuesday that there were no Serbian nationals serving in the Wagner militia.
While there are no reports of how many fighters Wagner may have hired in Serbia, the Balkan nation, which still bears the scars of the devastating wars in the 1990s, has been a fertile ground for Wagner recruitment ever since the group first surfaced in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
Russia destroys Wagner tank
It came as reports emerged on Tuesday that Russian troops had accidentally blown up a tank of Wagner mercenaries in friendly fire, according to an intercepted phone call from the front lines.
Ukraine’s military intelligence published what it said was a conversation between a Russian soldier and his father in which the soldier described confusion on the battlefield in Ukraine.
“We were shooting at them. We blew up their tank and [an armoured vehicle] before we realised it’s our guys,” the unidentified soldier was heard saying.
The man also claimed that Wagner had sustained heavy casualties in Ukraine but the defence ministry “is not even counting them”.
It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the call, but Ukraine regularly intercepts Russian communications on unsecured lines.
Rogue Wagner Commander Throws Prigozhin Under the Bus
Allison Quinn
Tue, January 17, 2023
Concord/Handout via Reuters
A former commander of Russia’s notorious Wagner Group has fled to Norway and begun spilling the group’s most closely guarded secrets—a move that could ultimately be the downfall of mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Three days after Andrei Medvedev fled across the frozen Pasvik River into Norway—under gunfire from Russia’s FSB border guards, according to him—Prigozhin confirmed the former commander was one of his men.
But his response was both laughable and telling.
“Be careful, he’s very dangerous,” Prigozhin said through his press service.
He said Medvedev was wanted by Wagner’s in-house security service for “mistreatment of prisoners,” with the mercenary boss counting on assistance from “Russian law enforcement agencies” to hold the defector accountable.
The way Medvedev tells it, however, Wagner is only hunting him down to try and shut him up before he can reveal the group’s own battlefield executions. The former commander had been sounding the alarm over the group for weeks before his escape to Norway.
“If they catch me, I will be eliminated. There will either be an execution or shooting. I don’t know what will be enough in their imaginations, but in any case I will not be alive,” Medvedev told Gulagu.net founder Vladimir Osechkin.
Osechkin, whose human rights group works closely with defectors from Russian security services, announced over the weekend that Medvedev had made it into Norway and requested political asylum.
Norway’s National Criminal Investigation Service, in charge of investigating war crimes, said Tuesday it hopes to question the defector as a witness.
“He has himself explained that he was a part of the Wagner group and it is interesting for Kripos to have information about this period,” the agency said in a statement.
Russia’s Latest War ‘Hero’ Is Convict Who Beat Mom to Death
The former Wagner commander has confirmed that the mercenary group uses a special kill squad to execute its own recruits.
“I witnessed several such incidents, the executions of convicts [recruited from Russian prisons], they were specially taken out in front of other prisoners and publicly executed in order to scare [the others],” Medvedev said.
He said those executed are buried on-site and officially deemed missing without a trace, presumably so the group can avoid paying family members the promised compensation.
Regardless of whatever headaches Medvedev’s testimony in Norway might cause for the group from Western authorities, his escape has reportedly already inflamed tensions between Prigozhin and Russia’s top military brass, who have increasingly been butting heads in recent days over who gets to claim credit for battlefield wins: Prigozhin’s shadow army of convicted murderers and rapists, or the regular Russian army tasked with bringing Vladimir Putin victory in Ukraine.
A source cited by Gulagu.net on Tuesday said Prigozhin’s team is already preparing to take that internal war up a notch by accusing Russia’s own Defense Ministry of orchestrating Medvedev’s defection.
“The General Staff of the Defense Ministry fast-tracked the ‘flight’ of A. Medvedev, who was initially under their patronage. The goal is to discredit Prigozhin against the backdrop of an attempt to ‘steal’ his victory,” the source said of Wagner’s purported version of events.
Prigozhin and his Wagner Group, who have largely been allowed to do as they please as long as their tactics bring the Kremlin closer to a battlefield victory, seem to finally be realizing they are as expendable to Putin as their own prison recruits are to Wagner leadership.
Prigozhin revealed as much last week, when he hit back at the Russian Defense Ministry taking credit for gains in Soledar as an attempt to “steal victory” from the Wagner Group.
Putin quickly responded with a shakeup of Russian military leaders that was seen as a “snub” to Prigozhin, and on Sunday, the Russian leader appeared to take another swipe by omitting Wagner altogether from his comments about the Russian Defense Ministry leading the charge in Soledar.
Gulagu.net, citing an unnamed source, reports there is already talk of “official investigations” into Wagner and Prigozhin in Russia as the Kremlin realizes that allowing Prigozhin to steal the spotlight in the war “works against Putin personally.”
“People from his team ... are giving testimony and a campaign to de-Wagnerize Russia is only a matter of time,” the group said.
The Daily Beast.
Former Wagner commander seeks asylum in Norway after fleeing Russia
Andrei Medvedev, a former commander of Russia's Wagner mercenary group, is seen in Oslo
Tue, January 17, 2023
MOSCOW (Reuters) -A former commander of Russia's Wagner mercenary group who fought in Ukraine said he has fled to Norway and is seeking asylum in fear for his life after witnessing the killing and mistreatment of Russian prisoners brought to front lines.
Andrei Medvedev, who joined Wagner on July 6, 2022 on a four-month contract, said in a video posted by the Gulagu.net rights group that he had crossed the northern Arctic border into Norway before being detained by Norwegian police.
Medvedev, an orphan who joined the Russian army and served time in prison before moving on to Wagner, said he had slipped away from the group after witnessing the killing of captured deserters from Wagner.
"I am afraid of dying in agony," Medvedev told Vladimir Osechkin, founder of the Gulagu.net rights group, which said it had helped Medvedev leave Russia after he approached the group in fear for his life.
He said he crossed the snowy border, climbing through barbed-wire fences and evading a border patrol with dogs, and heard guards firing shots as he ran through a forest and over thin and breaking ice into Norway.
Local Norwegian police said a foreign citizen had been arrested on the night of Thursday to Friday after illegally crossing the Russian-Norwegian frontier, north of the Arctic Circle, and was seeking asylum.
His Norwegian lawyer said Medvedev was now in the "Oslo area" but did not give details. "What is important for him (Medvedev) is that immigration authorities clarify his status as soon as possible," lawyer Brynjulf Risnes told Reuters.
Kripos, the Norwegian national criminal police service which has responsibility for investigating war crimes, said on Tuesday it wanted to question Medvedev.
"He has himself explained that he was a part of the Wagner group and it is interesting for Kripos to have information about this period," Kripos said in a statement.
"Medvedev has a status as a witness."
Risnes said Medvedev had not yet spoken with the Norwegian security police, PST, and no agreement for an interview had been reached. "I am sure that will be a question at some point," said Risnes, who declined to say where Medvedev fought in Ukraine.
"He says he has taken part in battle, which he says were clear battle situations ..., and that he has not been in contact with civilians," said Risnes.
Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Medvedev had worked in a Norwegian unit of Wagner and had "mistreated prisoners".
"Be careful, he's very dangerous," Prigozhin said in a statement released by his spokeswoman. He did not address the claims of killings or mistreatment of prisoners in the statement.
In interviews with Gulagu, Medvedev said he grew disaffected after his contract was repeatedly extended by Wagner without his consent. He said he had witnessed the killing and mistreatment of Russian prisoners who were brought to the front by Wagner.
Medvedev said losses were very high after Wagner began sending large numbers of prisoners to the Ukrainian front in the second half of 2022. Wagner's internal security service handed out extreme punishment, Medvedev said.
He said a man who was shown in November being executed with a sledgehammer had been part of his unit.
The Wagner statement did not address Medvedev's accounts of punishment and of battlefield losses, or that his contract was repeatedly extended.
Prigozhin has said Wagner is an effective fighting force because it had extensive battlefield experience, is well supplied, has a meritocratic command system in which all can contribute, and "the most severe discipline".
Russia sent tens of thousands of armed forces into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it calls a "special military operation" to "denazify" its neighbour and protect Russian security.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow and Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Editing by Andrew Heavens, Nick Macfie and Mark Heinrich)
Allison Quinn
Tue, January 17, 2023
Concord/Handout via Reuters
A former commander of Russia’s notorious Wagner Group has fled to Norway and begun spilling the group’s most closely guarded secrets—a move that could ultimately be the downfall of mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Three days after Andrei Medvedev fled across the frozen Pasvik River into Norway—under gunfire from Russia’s FSB border guards, according to him—Prigozhin confirmed the former commander was one of his men.
But his response was both laughable and telling.
“Be careful, he’s very dangerous,” Prigozhin said through his press service.
He said Medvedev was wanted by Wagner’s in-house security service for “mistreatment of prisoners,” with the mercenary boss counting on assistance from “Russian law enforcement agencies” to hold the defector accountable.
The way Medvedev tells it, however, Wagner is only hunting him down to try and shut him up before he can reveal the group’s own battlefield executions. The former commander had been sounding the alarm over the group for weeks before his escape to Norway.
“If they catch me, I will be eliminated. There will either be an execution or shooting. I don’t know what will be enough in their imaginations, but in any case I will not be alive,” Medvedev told Gulagu.net founder Vladimir Osechkin.
Osechkin, whose human rights group works closely with defectors from Russian security services, announced over the weekend that Medvedev had made it into Norway and requested political asylum.
Norway’s National Criminal Investigation Service, in charge of investigating war crimes, said Tuesday it hopes to question the defector as a witness.
“He has himself explained that he was a part of the Wagner group and it is interesting for Kripos to have information about this period,” the agency said in a statement.
Russia’s Latest War ‘Hero’ Is Convict Who Beat Mom to Death
The former Wagner commander has confirmed that the mercenary group uses a special kill squad to execute its own recruits.
“I witnessed several such incidents, the executions of convicts [recruited from Russian prisons], they were specially taken out in front of other prisoners and publicly executed in order to scare [the others],” Medvedev said.
He said those executed are buried on-site and officially deemed missing without a trace, presumably so the group can avoid paying family members the promised compensation.
Regardless of whatever headaches Medvedev’s testimony in Norway might cause for the group from Western authorities, his escape has reportedly already inflamed tensions between Prigozhin and Russia’s top military brass, who have increasingly been butting heads in recent days over who gets to claim credit for battlefield wins: Prigozhin’s shadow army of convicted murderers and rapists, or the regular Russian army tasked with bringing Vladimir Putin victory in Ukraine.
A source cited by Gulagu.net on Tuesday said Prigozhin’s team is already preparing to take that internal war up a notch by accusing Russia’s own Defense Ministry of orchestrating Medvedev’s defection.
“The General Staff of the Defense Ministry fast-tracked the ‘flight’ of A. Medvedev, who was initially under their patronage. The goal is to discredit Prigozhin against the backdrop of an attempt to ‘steal’ his victory,” the source said of Wagner’s purported version of events.
Prigozhin and his Wagner Group, who have largely been allowed to do as they please as long as their tactics bring the Kremlin closer to a battlefield victory, seem to finally be realizing they are as expendable to Putin as their own prison recruits are to Wagner leadership.
Prigozhin revealed as much last week, when he hit back at the Russian Defense Ministry taking credit for gains in Soledar as an attempt to “steal victory” from the Wagner Group.
Putin quickly responded with a shakeup of Russian military leaders that was seen as a “snub” to Prigozhin, and on Sunday, the Russian leader appeared to take another swipe by omitting Wagner altogether from his comments about the Russian Defense Ministry leading the charge in Soledar.
Gulagu.net, citing an unnamed source, reports there is already talk of “official investigations” into Wagner and Prigozhin in Russia as the Kremlin realizes that allowing Prigozhin to steal the spotlight in the war “works against Putin personally.”
“People from his team ... are giving testimony and a campaign to de-Wagnerize Russia is only a matter of time,” the group said.
The Daily Beast.
Former Wagner commander seeks asylum in Norway after fleeing Russia
Andrei Medvedev, a former commander of Russia's Wagner mercenary group, is seen in Oslo
Tue, January 17, 2023
MOSCOW (Reuters) -A former commander of Russia's Wagner mercenary group who fought in Ukraine said he has fled to Norway and is seeking asylum in fear for his life after witnessing the killing and mistreatment of Russian prisoners brought to front lines.
Andrei Medvedev, who joined Wagner on July 6, 2022 on a four-month contract, said in a video posted by the Gulagu.net rights group that he had crossed the northern Arctic border into Norway before being detained by Norwegian police.
Medvedev, an orphan who joined the Russian army and served time in prison before moving on to Wagner, said he had slipped away from the group after witnessing the killing of captured deserters from Wagner.
"I am afraid of dying in agony," Medvedev told Vladimir Osechkin, founder of the Gulagu.net rights group, which said it had helped Medvedev leave Russia after he approached the group in fear for his life.
He said he crossed the snowy border, climbing through barbed-wire fences and evading a border patrol with dogs, and heard guards firing shots as he ran through a forest and over thin and breaking ice into Norway.
Local Norwegian police said a foreign citizen had been arrested on the night of Thursday to Friday after illegally crossing the Russian-Norwegian frontier, north of the Arctic Circle, and was seeking asylum.
His Norwegian lawyer said Medvedev was now in the "Oslo area" but did not give details. "What is important for him (Medvedev) is that immigration authorities clarify his status as soon as possible," lawyer Brynjulf Risnes told Reuters.
Kripos, the Norwegian national criminal police service which has responsibility for investigating war crimes, said on Tuesday it wanted to question Medvedev.
"He has himself explained that he was a part of the Wagner group and it is interesting for Kripos to have information about this period," Kripos said in a statement.
"Medvedev has a status as a witness."
Risnes said Medvedev had not yet spoken with the Norwegian security police, PST, and no agreement for an interview had been reached. "I am sure that will be a question at some point," said Risnes, who declined to say where Medvedev fought in Ukraine.
"He says he has taken part in battle, which he says were clear battle situations ..., and that he has not been in contact with civilians," said Risnes.
Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Medvedev had worked in a Norwegian unit of Wagner and had "mistreated prisoners".
"Be careful, he's very dangerous," Prigozhin said in a statement released by his spokeswoman. He did not address the claims of killings or mistreatment of prisoners in the statement.
In interviews with Gulagu, Medvedev said he grew disaffected after his contract was repeatedly extended by Wagner without his consent. He said he had witnessed the killing and mistreatment of Russian prisoners who were brought to the front by Wagner.
Medvedev said losses were very high after Wagner began sending large numbers of prisoners to the Ukrainian front in the second half of 2022. Wagner's internal security service handed out extreme punishment, Medvedev said.
He said a man who was shown in November being executed with a sledgehammer had been part of his unit.
The Wagner statement did not address Medvedev's accounts of punishment and of battlefield losses, or that his contract was repeatedly extended.
Prigozhin has said Wagner is an effective fighting force because it had extensive battlefield experience, is well supplied, has a meritocratic command system in which all can contribute, and "the most severe discipline".
Russia sent tens of thousands of armed forces into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it calls a "special military operation" to "denazify" its neighbour and protect Russian security.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow and Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Editing by Andrew Heavens, Nick Macfie and Mark Heinrich)
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