From hot dog seller to mercenary leader: The rise of Wagner’s Yevgeny Prigozhin

Originally, the Wagner Group was offering services [such as intelligence gathering, training, and support for logistics] that were more related to the ones that private security companies provide”, Joana de Deus Pereira Ph.D told Sky News’s Niall Paterson. The Wagner Group became more visible when “Prigozhin had this big window of opportunity during the annexation of Crimea. (…) There was always this blurriness between what they did, and what the Russian military did”, Joana de Deus Pereira added. However, “we cannot say that the Russian military are using the mercenaries, this would be an acknowledgement that they recognise them as partners on the ground”, Joana de Deus Pereira noted.