Russia's Notorious Wagner Group Is Being Disbanded. Here's What That Means for Ukraine

Description

“The most battle hardened people, those diehard people in Prigozhin’s inner circle will not join the Ministry of Defense,” says Andreas Krieg, a professor of security studies at King’s College London. “They’re also the kinds of people who would make a difference on the battlefield.”

Wagner is structured like a special forces unit where there’s quite a lot of autonomy for boots on the ground to make decisions as they see fit,” Krieg says. “That makes them far more dynamic and agile than the Russian military, which is still a post-Soviet military and is very hierarchically structured.”

According to Krieg, Putin may try to compensate for any loss of Wagner forces by adding additional Chechen soldiers or finding other ways to integrate new forces. But Russian forces are still likely to suffer a setback in the long run from the loss of the highly mobile Wagner fighters, he adds.

Period	28 Jun 2023
Held at	TIME, United States