Putin's admission of backing Wagner confirms years of Kremlin abuses worldwide

MOSCOW -- In a stunning but not surprising reversal, Russian President Vladimir Putin last week admitted that the Wagner mercenary group was "fully funded" by the Kremlin.

For years, the Wagner Group has operated as "one of Moscow's worst kept secrets".

The group has two primary goals: "to provide the Kremlin with plausible deniability when deploying fighters in war zones" and to offer "a ready-made capability for building influence with receptive states", the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think-tank said in 2019.

By revealing the huge scale of official spending on Wagner's services, Putin has confirmed that it has effectively been acting as an arm of the state.

Wagner mercenaries first deployed to Ukraine in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. In subsequent years, they have been involved in conflicts around the world, including in Syria, Mozambique, Sudan, Venezuela, Libya, the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad and Mali.

In Africa and the Middle East, Wagner mercenaries are charged with protecting gold and diamond mines, oil fields and other lucrative resources.

In many cases Wagnerites have usurped or undermined local security forces, and the mercenaries are accused of human rights abuses and war crimes wherever they are deployed.

Since its start, the evidence has pointed to Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin as the money and the power behind the Wagner Group.

Connecting the dots between Prigozhin and Russian President Vladimir Putin was easy -- both men are from St. Petersburg and have long-established business and personal ties.

But both had denied involvement in the Wagner Group, as private armies are illegal in Russia.

Tensions simmer over

That changed last September, when Prigozhin finally admitted to leading the group as part of Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine.

Once a shadowy figure who seemed to prefer to remain out of the limelight, Prigozhin in recent months became increasingly visible and critical of Moscow's approach, blaming Russian generals for thousands of Russian losses.

The feud came to a breaking point at the weekend when Prigozhin led a short-lived mutiny that analysts say will have lasting repercussions.

On Saturday, Wagner launched a revolt -- ostensibly to resist efforts to fold it into the Defence Ministry structure -- seized the headquarters of the Southern Military District and marched on Moscow.

Putin has condemned this as a betrayal, and ordered Wagner to surrender its heavy weaponry to the Defence Ministry, while its fighters either join the regular army or accept exile in Belarus.

Putin has not mentioned Prigozhin by name since the revolt, referring to rebelling forces only as "the mutineers".

"You de facto stopped civil war," Putin told troops from the Defence Ministry, National Guard, Federal Security Service (FSB) and Interior Ministry gathered in a Kremlin courtyard to hold a minute's silence for airmen slain by Wagner.

Counts vary, but some sources say the mercenaries shot down six Russian helicopters and a warplane.

Putin insisted that Wagner's mercenaries had seen that "the army and the people were not with them".

But Prigozhin has boasted -- with some support from news footage -- that his men were cheered by civilians during his short-lived revolt.

Kremlin 'fully financed' Wagner

Prigozhin's attempted "coup", as some are calling it, forced Putin to lay his cards on the table regarding Wagner.

"The state paid to the Wagner Group 86.262 billion RUB [around $1 billion] for salaries for fighters and incentive rewards between May 2022 and May 2023 alone," Putin said Tuesday.

He was speaking to defence officials in televised remarks at the start of a meeting.

"I want to note, and I want everyone to know that the financing of the entire Wagner Group was fully ensured by the state," he said, according to TASS. "We fully financed this group from the Defence Ministry, from the state budget."

That Wagner's leaders now are portrayed as traitors represents a turnaround for Russian state messaging. Previously the group enjoyed heroic status as part of the Ukraine offensive.

Even while criticising Wagner in the wake of Saturday's revolt, Putin was clear not to attack its rank-and-file members, whom he has praised before for "courage and heroism" in Ukraine.

Some observers believe Putin's admission was meant to send a message to the rank-and-file members of Wagner to ensure they know where their salaries come from.

Belarus welcomed Prigozhin into exile on Tuesday, with Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka seeking credit for stepping in to mediate Wagner's turnaround on the road to Moscow.

Talking to his own military officials, Lukashenka said he had urged Putin not to kill Prigozhin. He also criticised Russia's handling of the issue.

In the Hague, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said it was still too early to draw conclusions from the move to Belarus of Prigozhin and, likely, some of his forces, but he vowed that the alliance was ready to defend its members.

"What is absolutely clear is that we have sent a clear message to Moscow and to Minsk that NATO is there to protect every ally and every inch of NATO territory," Stoltenberg said.

More sanctions

Also on Tuesday, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions aimed at disrupting gold mining activities that fund the Wagner Group in Africa, vowing to hold the mercenaries accountable for abuses.

The measures against the Wagner Group had been previously planned but were briefly put on hold as US officials sought to avoid appearing to favour either Prigozhin or Putin.

"The Wagner Group funds its brutal operations in part by exploiting natural resources in countries like the Central African Republic and Mali," US Treasury Department sanctions official Brian Nelson said in a statement.

"The United States will continue to target the Wagner Group's revenue streams to degrade its expansion and violence in Africa, Ukraine and anywhere else."

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, previewing the sanctions earlier Tuesday, renewed his criticism of the Wagner mercenaries.

"We believe that everywhere that Wagner goes, they bring death and destruction in their wake," he told reporters. "They hurt local populations; they extract minerals and extract money from the communities where they operate."

"And so we would continue to urge governments in Africa and elsewhere to cease any co-operation with Wagner," he said.

Lukashenka's decision to welcome Prigozhin marks "another example of him choosing the interests of Vladimir Putin and choosing the interests of the Kremlin over the interests of the Belarusian people", Miller added.

The 68-year-old dictator of Belarus is also subject to Western sanctions for cracking down on opposition figures and allowing Russia to attack Ukraine last year from Belarusian territory.

In January, the US government designated the Wagner Group as a "transnational criminal organisation", allowing for the wider application of sanctions on the group's sprawling global network.