On June 23, 2023, a video by Yevgeny Prigozhin made the rounds. He warned: “There are 25,000 of us, and we are coming to sort things out. It’s time to finish with this mess.”

By the following morning, his forces had seized the Southern Military District Headquarters in Rostov-on-Don. By the afternoon, they had arrived less than 100 miles from Moscow, marching relatively unopposed.

Putin’s cries of betrayal seemed to be in vain. Then,  all of a sudden, Progizhin announced that the mercenaries would return to their bases to avoid shedding Russian blood; he would relocate to Belarus and not be prosecuted for any of his actions.

He denied that he intended to organise a coup and continued his business in Russia with relative ease, even attending a summit where Putin was in attendance.

Observers were baffled. Could Putin have found it in his heart to be magnanimous and forgive unconditionally?

This bafflement was to be exacerbated two months to the day of the attempted mutiny. Prigozhin’s Embraer Jet went down in flames, killing him and close collaborators. The circumstances of his death, as well as his life,  remain shrouded in mystery.

Born in June 1961 in St  Petersburg, Prigozhin had a chequered past and is reputed to have served time in jail for robbery. After being released from prison in 1990, he tried his luck at selling hot dogs.

Soon, however, he served a different clientele in his exclusive waterfront restaurant in the same city. Vladimir Putin was one of these famous clients, thus earning him the moniker of Putin’s chef.

Yet, what the two concocted went beyond exclusive culinary delights; Prigozhin became a lynchpin in Putin’s geopolitical ambitions and dirty tricks. As one of the co-founders of Wagner Group in 2014, Prigozhin was a crucial player in the Russian invasion of Crimea and the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

At one point, the US estimated that approximately 50,000 Wagner mercenaries were fighting in Ukraine. Most of them were recruited from Russian prisons – in other words, men who were expendable in the eyes of many.

Yet Prigozhin’s crimes go beyond Ukraine. In 2018, he was suspected of being behind a troll farm crucial in spreading misinformation over the internet to fuel political and social divisions. He went on record claiming that he has interfered in elections and will continue to do so.

The Wagner Group’s list of crimes is astounding

The Wagner Group has also committed several atrocities in Syria and Africa. They include mass executions, human rights abuses, abductions, sexual violence and torture of innocent civilians.

In the Central African  Republic, it has openly collaborated with President Faustin-Archange Touadéra – nicknamed “President Wagner” by detractors – and helped spearhead a terror campaign, which can be  described as a war crime and a crime against humanity.

The list of crimes is astounding. The Wagner Group has reportedly trained militias in torture techniques. This has resulted in mass “cleansing” of villages, the mutilation and wholesale burning of people. In turn, the group has plundered a considerable amount of the Central African Republic’s  resources, including gold  and diamonds. These actions were justified as being necessary to tackle rebel groups.

In Libya, the same group is reputed to have been in operation since 2018. Once again, much of its operations involve misinformation and the provision of militiamen. In 2020,  a UN report estimated that approximately 1,200 mercenaries from the Wagner Group were supporting the Russian-backed commander Khalifa Haftar in Libya. They offered specialist help in terms of sniper operations and combat.

In Syria, the Wagner Group is believed to have been in operation since 2015, with the mercenaries playing a pivotal role in the Palmyra offensive and securing Da­mascus and ridding it of rebel forces. The same group has also been linked to the plundering of oil resources.

In Mali, a UN report disclosed that approximately 500 people – primarily unarmed civilians – were massacred by Malian troops trained by Russian mercenaries. Others who were detained were subject to torture, including sexual violence and rape. After the toppling of an interim civilian government in August 2021, the Wagner Group was believed to have sent over 1,000 combatants armed with Russian weapons.

There are now fears that the Wagner Group may be active in Burkina Faso following the forced departure of French troops. Russian  instructors have been “invited” to train soldiers, leading observers to believe mercenaries from the Wagner Group may be involved.

Each of these incursions share some similarities. In all cases, the Wagner Group got involved as other regional  actors – mainly France and the US – baulked at the task in the region and reduced their involvement. In all cases, Russia matched the activities of the Wagner Group with a diplomatic charm offensive aimed at bolstering its geopolitical interests.

While Prigozhin’s death raises more questions, Putin’s expression of solidarity is worth noting. He acknowledges knowing him “since the early 90s” and, while admitting that he made “serious mistakes in his life” (presumably, the attempted mutiny is one of them), he goes on to praise him for achieving “the right results”. What these “right results” consist of is equally shrouded in mystery.

The extent to which Putin was involved in the death of Prigozhin will be debated at length in the months to come.

Yet, the barely disguised praise of this war criminal continues to reveal the true nature of President Putin.