Why did the Wagner group turn on Russia? Number of soldiers, name origin, and all we know

The head of Russian paramilitary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said his troops were returning after they had marched toward Moscow against Russian President Vladimir Putin in an attempt to test his authority. As per USA Today, the statement was announced via audio on June 24, 2023, which said:

"We will turn around our columns and leave in the opposite direction to the field camps, according to the plan."

On Saturday, the mercenary group was within 200 km of the Russian capital after the group's leader accused Moscow of launching an attack on them. However, as per Prigozhin, in the evening, they decided to turn back due to concerns that Russian lives could be lost.

Even though Prigozhin-led Wagner had been supporting Russia in its crisis with Ukraine, the group leader's stance has taken a turn as he has become more vocal in criticizing the country's Defense Ministry and its attempts to support the situation.

After the Russia-Ukraine crisis began in 2022, Prigozhin sent the private mercenary group troops to the forefront of the war. He has also gone to Russian bars to find people to join the group, offering prisoners between the ages of 22 and 50 the chance to get out of jail if they serve in the military group for six months.

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Wagner group's name first appeared in Ukraine in 2014

As per news outlet Foreign Policy, Wagner group's name first appeared in Ukraine in 2014 when it aided the Russian military in the invasion of Crimea. The publication also suggests that there is a possibility that the group does not exist since there is no single registered business of the same name.

After Ukraine, several businesses and paramilitaries have been established in Syria, Madagascar, Central African Republic, Libya, Mozambique, and Sudan. As per Sky News, White House officials estimate that the paramilitary group hire about 50,000 men, and majority of them are sent to Ukraine.

It is believed that 40,000 of these individuals have been recruited from Russian prisons. According to US estimates, up to 9,000 paramilitary forces from the group are believed to have been killed in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, with approximately 20,000 injured.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, a 61-year-old ex-convict, is frequently referred to as "Putin's chef" because his catering company has provided food for the Kremlin's armed forces and served meals for the Russian president. He had denied any association with the organization until September 2022, when he said he was "proud" to be the group's founder.

Reportedly, he said he founded the group to back the Russian-backed rebels in the Donbas conflict.

“I cleaned the old weapons myself, sorted out the bulletproof vests myself and found specialists who could help me with this. From that moment, on 1 May 2014, a group of patriots was born, which later came to be called the Wagner Battalion.”

As per news publication Foreign Policy, the name Wagner was an alias of one of the Wagner group's early commanders, Dmitry Utkin, who was fighting in eastern Ukraine. Utkin was reportedly an ex-lieutenant colonel in the GRU, the Russian military service.

Allegedly, Utkin was impressed with Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler's favorite composer, Richard Wagner. He was last seen in public in 2016 at a ceremony in the Kremlin that happened to pay tribute to military soldiers and civilians.

Prigozhin's choice of the term "Wagner" is somewhat of a mystery at this point. However, he reportedly funded three action films that glorified the paramilitary group's functions in the Central African Republic and Libya.