In Prigozhin’s shadow, the Wagner Group leader who stays out of the spotlight – National | 24CA News
Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s tirades on social media and his rebellion towards Russian army leaders have made him the face of the Wagner Group.
But to get issues performed, he depends on Dmitry Utkin, the veteran army officer who oversees Wagner’s operations throughout the continents.
Prigozhin is an oligarch with political aspirations, however Utkin has the bio of a Soldier of Fortune cowl boy: Russian particular forces, each Chechen wars, and Syria.
“He’s in the background making the organization actually run,” mentioned Prof. Dani Belo of Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. “Prigozhin can’t deliver the actual operational and tactical level stuff.”
Indeed, the European Union sanctions towards the Wagner Group identify Utkin because the precise chief, whereas Prigozhin is described merely because the financier.
Tank with the flag of the Wagner Group, Rostov-on-Don, Russia, June 24, 2023. (AP Photo).
Despite his central function in Wagner and command of its subject operations, Utkin yields the highlight to Prighozin — and for good motive.
With the face of a horror film villain, Nazi SS tattoos on every shoulder and documented report of struggle crimes, he’s not precisely frontman materials.
“He’s a terrible optic,” mentioned Jason M. Blazakis, senior analysis fellow at The Soufan Center and the co-author of a latest report on Wagner.
Wagner faces an unsure future after turning towards Russia’s army leaders and sending tanks towards Moscow earlier than standing down on the weekend.
Russian President Vladimir Putin desires to soak up Wagner into his common forces, however from his exile in Belarus, Prigozhin will seemingly attempt to keep his management.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the proprietor of the Wagner Group in Moscow on April 8, 2023. (AP Photo).
To do this, he should depend on Utkin, mentioned Catrina Doxsee, an affiliate director on the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
“Utkin will be instrumental in trying to shore up different parts of the Wagner network so that it can remain under Prigozhin’s control,” Doxsee mentioned.
He should maintain Wagner personnel loyal to Prigozhin and reassure its companions around the globe that nothing has modified, that all the things is business as ordinary.
“Those are all things that broadly need to be done, and particularly given Utkin’s role as a trusted insider supporting Prigozhin right at the top, I would speculate that he will play a major role.”
Utkin, 53, is from Asbest, a city in Russia’s Ural mountains named after one other killer: the carcinogenic mineral asbestos that’s its essential business.
According to a report by the U.S. suppose tank the Soufan Group, he “is festooned with numerous Nazi tattoos, including a swastika, a Nazi eagle, and SS lightning bolts.”
Photo posted on Telegram channel linked to Dmitry Utkin.
Telegram
A lieutenant colonel within the GRU army intelligence service, he was deployed twice to Chechnya, the place Russia brutally quashed Islamist uprisings.
Wagner was shaped in 2014 and is alleged to have been named after Utkin’s military name signal, a tribute to one in every of Hitler’s favorite composers. Wagner additionally goes by the identify the Musicians.
The European Union lists Utkin as Wagner’s founder, “responsible for coordinating and planning operations for the deployment” of its mercenaries.
Wagner’s first mission was in Ukraine, the place it helped Putin swallow up elements of the east whereas Kyiv was in disarray as pro-democracy activists have been overthrowing their pro-Russian president.
Wagner went on to recruit and practice personal army operatives who have been despatched “to conflict zones around the world to fuel violence, loot natural resources and intimidate civilians,” in response to the EU.
Graphic from Special Report, Wagner Group: The Evolution of a Private Army, Soufan Center, June 2023.
Soufan Group
Like a warlord, Utkin used concern to keep up energy. In Homs, Syria, in June 2017, he gave the order to beat a deserter to dying, and to movie the act.
“The worst of the worst in terms of the kind of behaviour he demonstrates on the battlefield, in terms of not respecting things like the Geneva conventions,” Blazakis mentioned.
The tactic was repeated in Ukraine, the place a video confirmed a Wagner mercenary accused of switching sides within the struggle being killed with a sledgehammer.
In Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Mozambique, the Central African Republic and elsewhere, Wagner forces have been blamed for torture and executions.
Although a business on paper, Wagner is an arm of the Russian authorities, used to conduct operations, even because the Kremlin denied any involvement.
That fiction collapsed following the weekend rebellion when Putin reportedly admitted Russia had been financing Wagner to the tune of $1 billion simply prior to now 12 months.
Utkin’s function within the Wagner mutiny stays unknown — although there have been stories he was in a tank main the cost in direction of Moscow.
As one in every of Prigozhin’s most trusted and succesful loyalists, it stands to motive he was concerned, Blazakis mentioned. “He would have had to have played a role.”
His whereabouts stay unknown. He surfaced in a Telegram submit this week, boasting that Wagner was the world’s foremost personal military.
“We are ready for World War III,” he wrote.
With Prigozhin banished to Belarus, the place the pro-Russian president has provided a base to Wagner, Utkin is important to the survival of the mercenary pressure.
“Prigozhin needs Utkin if the Wagner group is going to remain relevant, particularly in places where it’s deployed overseas,” Blazakis mentioned.
But that can depend upon what occurs within the coming weeks, whether or not he’ll be part of Prigozhin in Minsk or disappear and maintain his trademark low profile, he mentioned.
“To me, he is an individual who has a big target on his back because he has been labelled a traitor, and he has to walk a very fine line,” Balazakis added.
A brand new Wagner base in Belarus could also be not more than a ruse designed to maintain the conspirators in a single place to allow them to be monitored, he mentioned.
Saddam Hussein did the identical with the Iranian Mujahedin-e-Kalq, assigning them to Camp Ashraf, which was extra of a jail than a headquarters.
“When you have a threat, it’s great to keep them in one spot,” mentioned Blazakis, who will talk about Wagner at an Organization for Security and Cooperation in European assembly in Vancouver subsequent week.
Barely per week after the rebellion, there are lots of unknowns, and the data popping out of Russia and Belarus isn’t essentially to be trusted, Doxsee mentioned.
“This could be some deception,” she mentioned. “We don’t know what Prigozhin’s ultimate objective is, how long he’ll even stay in Belarus. We don’t know if any of this could be kind of manufactured and misleading to hide other objectives.”
What occurs subsequent will depend upon whether or not Wagner personnel be part of Prigozhin in Belarus, be part of the Russian military or go dwelling. Whether Wagner even has a future is unsure.
“Even though this is over, it’s not over,” Belo mentioned.
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca
