Haphazardly, the Wagner Group projected Russian power into Ukraine and Syria. In Africa, it did not operate with the ideological zeal and the hope for economic development that the Soviet Union had once championed, gaining the U.S.S.R. networks of loyalty and cooperation. Instead, the Wagner Group erected a vast criminal enterprise, a protection racket on a continental scale, offering security to amenable dictators and warlords. In return Wagner acquired access to resources, which it used to enrich itself. This was not the application of hard power or soft power. It was the application of criminal power.
Prigozhin’s professional star rose further with Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. After repeated setbacks for the conventional Russian military, the Wagner Group pushed forward around the city of Bakhmut in one of the war’s set-piece battles. It did so by literally employing Russian criminals, who were let out of jail so they could be thrown en masse into the fray. The curious culmination of Prigozhin’s career was the mutiny he led in late June. He preceded it by denouncing the entire Russian general staff, touching at times on the questionable judgment of Putin himself. The Wagner uprising advanced unopposed until Prigozhin was convinced to abort it, consigning himself to political purgatory. His death, two months after the mutiny, may have been an accident, but U.S. intelligence agencies don’t think so.