Russia’s Private Army: Wagner’s Rise and Reckoning

Russia’s Private Army: Wagner’s Rise and Reckoning

In the summer of 2023, after engaging in a brutal battle of attrition against Ukrainian forces over the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, where thousands of drugged up Russian convicts employed by the private military company the Wagner Group had been thrown at Ukranian defenses, taking the city inch by tiny inch, Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin announced via Telegram that he was starting a “March for Justice.”Enraged by what he saw as t…