Private Military Companies (PMCs) Subject Bibliography No. 1: Wagner Group (Africa Corps)
Editor’s note: This annotated bibliography is the product of a contract between the authors and the Department of Defense’s Irregular Warfare Center (IWC). 
Authors’ note: This subject bibliography is a selection of top resources on Wagner Group, and includes journal articles, books, and online discussion groups. The dates of the material range from 2019 to 2025, encompassing Wagner’s origins to its breakup and Russian state replacement strategies. The purpose is to provide ready-access resources for the study of Wagner Group and its successor organization Africa Corps.
The Wagner Group is a recent iteration of Russia’s historical use of proxy forces abroad. In 2013, the Syrian government contracted Slavonic Corps, a front organization and sub-contractor for the Russian private security company Moran Security Group to secure selected oilfields in eastern Syria. Although its first and only mission was considered both a test and a failure, the concept of Slavonic Corps gave rise to the Wagner Group, which emerged soon after. The leadership of Wagner Group included Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dimitry Utkin; Prigozhin was a successful convict-turned-businessman with close ties to President Putin while Utkin was a former member of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) and commander of a Spetsnaz unit. The unique and timely characteristics of these leaders, as well as Wagner’s direct ties to the Russian state, were key to the organization’s success. Operating mostly in the grey zone, the Wagner Group fulfilled Russian strategic objectives and sought to secure funding by both licit and illicit means. Russian offerings to state leaders via Wagner Group ranged from single issue solutions to “regime survival packages” in exchange for resource extraction, business enterprise contracts, and other forms of payment.
The Wagner Group gained notoriety worldwide with its use of extreme tactics, its enhanced military and economic capabilities, and the locations where it operated. Wagner’s engagements in Africa included providing services to weak authoritarian governments, often post-coup juntas or nations in conflict. Such clients required hybrid warfare support for self-preservation, wealth acquisition, land recapture, counterinsurgency and/or counterterrorism operations. These governments tended to accept Wagner’s operational methods, which fell well below Western and international legal and moral thresholds. Wagner conducted attacks on civilian populations that ranged from hit-and-run style to orchestrated mass atrocities utilizing air support. Furthermore, Wagner set itself apart from other PMCs and Western and UN forces by willingly engaging in combat operations abroad, often fighting alongside indigenous military troops. To ensure strategic success for the Russian state, Wagner prioritized disinformation campaigns, influence operations and other soft power plays. Robust efforts with these campaigns have contributed to recent geopolitical shifts towards anti-West, pro-Russian sentiment and cooperation.
In the post-Prigozhin era, the organization was reconfigured. Following the attempted mutiny, the Russian government pressed forward with splitting up the Wagner Group. Russia openly acknowledges Wagner’s replacement, ‘Africa Corps,’ now under tight control of the Ministry of Defense, while it retains nominal vestiges of the original group. Africa Corps is still being established, thus its success in comparison with Wagner is speculative, but the proven value of such PMCs to Russia likely far outweighs any perceived drawbacks. The potential threat that these groups pose to the United States—creating an arena for great power competition in Africa and potential path there to proxy warfare with Russia—is of particular concern. The recent US withdrawal from Niger, a former strategic partner in the Sahel is likely the result of Russia-Wagner influence. Additional at-risk US partnerships in West Africa and elsewhere on the continent may depend on the success or failure of Post-Prigozhin Russian PMCs.
Allesandro Arduino, Money for Mayhem: Mercenaries, Private Military Companies, Drones, and the Future of War. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2023, pp. 1-302.
Annotation: While the work has about forty pages dedicated to the Wagner Group (and allied groups), its true value lies in placing that private military company (PMC) within the context of contemporary mercenary use proliferation, specifically regarding the Chinese state and their utilization of weaponized drones and cyberspace operations. Given that the author is a Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Chinese private security specialist, the treatment of Wagner in the work can be considered a basic primer on the topic and is well researched. For additional context, refer to Sean McFate’s previous book The Modern Mercenary (OUP, 2015).
Olivia Allison et. al, Wagner’s Business Model in Syria and Africa Profit and Patronage. Occasional Paper. London: Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), February 2025, pp. 1-39.
Annotation: This unique paper delves into the underlying economics—the cost and profitability—of the Wagner Group’s activities in Syria, Central African Republic (CAR), and Mali, with the financial data tabled out. Prigozhin’s Russian state capital (via domestic contract plus ups) and the key vulnerabilities of Wagner’s business model are also discussed. It draws upon the extensive use of primary source interviews and secondary documents. The revenue streams generated by Wagner appear much lower than previously projected. The paper is written by a RUSI team with intelligence and financial investigative backgrounds, with a PhD researcher providing methodological oversight.
Anna Arutunyan and Mark Galeotti, Downfall: Putin, Prigozhin, and the fight for the future of Russia. London: Ebury Press, 2024, pp. 1-272.
Annotation: The work represents a popular press biography of the gangster-entrepreneur Yevgeny Prigozhin by two of the top contemporary Russian politico-military and organized crime experts in the field. It thematically chronicles his adult life as he takes on different personas (thug, entrepreneur, chef, et. al) and proves his usefulness to Vladimir Putin and the Russian state before engaging in a munity against his benefactor by marching on Moscow with his Wagner mercenary group. The book is an easy read and extensively utilizes primary Russian sources and insider cultural knowledge.
Jessica Berlin et. al, The Blood Gold Report: How the Kremlin is using Wagner to launder billions in African gold. Washington, DC: 21 Democracy, December 2023, pp. 1-62.
Annotation: The report focuses on the use of the Wagner group by the Russian state. It promotes a narrative which exposes the “Kremlin’s ‘blood gold’” activities of gold extraction from African countries to support its war against Ukraine and fund other global hybrid warfare activities. The work emphasizes Wagner’s African playbook, investigates Wagner’s blood-gold trail in Africa, and then provides information on how the Wagner blood-gold activities have been countered. The latter is done after providing an explanation of how global gold supply chains work. Six policy recommendations are then offered to further mitigate Wagner extractive activities taking place in Africa. Imagery and diagrams are included in the report.
János Besenyő, András István Türke, and Endre Szénási, Wagner Group Private Military Company: Volume 1: Establishment, Purpose, Profile and Historic Relevance 2013-2023. No. 42. Warwick: Helion & Company, 2024, pp. 1-54.
Annotation: The work provides information on historical mercenary antecedents, Wagner’s ties Slavonic Corps, a limited Wagner chronology, and an overview of the group’s activities in Syria and Africa along with a brief mention of its deployment to Venezuela. Imagery of its logos (patches), personnel, and vehicles (& aircraft) is provided along with a few maps of its deployments and an organizational chart of the group in Syria in 2017. This is a well-researched work useful for operational level analysis. A second larger follow-on volume is planned to be released in May 2025.
Jason Blazakis et. al, Wagner Group: The Evolution of a Private Army. Special Report. Washington, DC: The Soufan Group, June 2023, pp. 1-44.
Annotation: The Soufan Group—primarily known for its terrorism research—has, in this special report, produced a basic primer on the Wagner Group covering its emergence through its mutiny against the Putin regime in June 2023. About a third of the work provides a generalized overview concerning the organization and addresses questions such as who its key figures are, its activities, and where deployed. The report contains a listing of bulleted (•) key findings, three implications related to international peace and security concerning accountability, conflict prevention and resolution, and radicalization and mobilization, and eight recommendations to counter Wagner activities.
The legacy and future of the Wagner Group. Washington, DC: Brookings, 21 September 2023, 1:35 Minute Video.
Annotation: The Brookings Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors and the Center on the United States and Europe convened top experts to discuss Wagner’s military, political, economic, and misinformation operations, what restructuring of the group was being implemented by the Russian Ministry of Defense, and what the future of Russia’s proxy activities may look like. Participants were Vanda Felbab-Brown, Kimberly Marten, Candace Rondeaux, Jessica Brandt, and Wassim Nasr with Constanze Stelzenmüller acting as moderator of the event.
Filip Bryjka and Jędrzej Czerep, Africa Corps—A New Iteration of Russia’s Old Military Presence in Africa. PISM Report. Warsaw: Polish Institute of International Affairs, May 2024, pp. 1-46.
Annotation: The report provides a post-Prigozhin rebellion assessment of the Wagner Group, reorganized by the end of 2023 by the Russian Ministry of Defense, and now operationally subordinated to the GRU, under the rebranded name Africa Corps. With this reorganization came the Kremlin’s willingness to both institutionalize and expand its political, military, and resource-extractive activities in Africa to include new countries such as Burkina Faso and Niger with a particular emphasis on the Sahel. The establishment of Africa Corps, its activities, and futures are analyzed along with response recommendations provided.
Christopher Faulkner, Raphael Parens, and Marcel Plichta, “After Prigozhin: The Future of the Wagner Model in Africa.” CTC Sentinel. Vol. 16, Iss. 9, September 2023, pp. 13-21.
Annotation: Through open-source information and interviews with analysts, this article evaluates what the immediate aftermath of Prigozhin’s mutiny and subsequent death likely meant for Wagner operations in Africa. While taking the position that Wagner had more autonomy from Russia than others have implied, e.g. citing use of UAE aviation firms, it nonetheless recognizes that Russian use of this “mercenary diplomacy” model (now with less autonomy) will not fade away and will even nominally remain ‘Wagner’ where expedient. It postures that the U.S. and other Western nations should be proactive in response to the Russian drive for dominance in Africa but outlines how this may be problematic for a number of reasons.
Decoding the Wagner Group Shadow Network: An Inside Look at Russia’s Irregular Warfare Strategy. Washington, DC: Future Frontlines (New America), 2025, Website.
Annotation: This research and investigative program (based on a public intelligence approach) focuses on the Wagner Group and is managed by New America—a DC based think tank. It fuses OSINT and leverages qualitative and quantitative analysis to uncover obscured information related to this private army and the networks associated with it. Key components of the Wagner Ecosystem are accessible through this website and are illuminated by data visualizations, leadership dossiers, country insights, analysis (short reports), datasets, archived Wagner-linked VKontakte and Telegram channels, and a Wagner Group Personnel Dataset (with information on 13,000+ irregular fighters linked to the group which requires access vetting). The comprehensive program is directed by Wagner authority Candace Rondeaux.
Marat Gabidullin, et. al, Moi, Marat, ex-commandant de l’armée Wagner (I Marat, ex-Commander in the Wagner Army). Neuilly-sur-Seine: Michel Lafon, 2022, pp. 1-363.
Annotation: The author, Marat Gabidullin, is a former Wagner Group commander who was deployed to the Donbass, Ukraine in 2015 and to Syria as an ‘ISIS Hunter’ in 2016-2017. The work is a primary account of his experiences with the organization during its early years. He is the first member of the PMC to speak publicly about the group and is currently living in France where he has asked for asylum. His memoir has been published in French and earlier in Russian (under a different title) but has not yet been translated into English.
Antonio Giustozzi, Joana de Deus Pereira, and David Lewis, Did Wagner Succeed in the Eyes of its African and Middle Eastern Clients? Whitehall Report 4-24. London: Royal United Services Institute, January 2025, pp. 1-41.
Annotation: The main areas of the report focus on Wagner’s services provided, supporting local regime military forces and contracting as a combat force for hire, and its contracts in Syria, Mali, Central African Republic (CAR), and Mozambique. Wagner’s extensive use of disinformation (to promote itself, Russian interests, and the regimes it contracted) is also touched upon. The report engages in the novel question whether the regimes that contracted with it were satisfied with its performance. The score card is hit and miss in this regard, however, this was balanced out with governments realizing they could become overly dependent on Wagner services. In one situation with CAR, however, regime survival took precedence.
After the Fall: Russian influence on Africa’s illicit economies post-Wagner. Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), February 2025, pp. 1-50.
Annotation: This research report lays out Russia’s strategy in those African countries in which the Wagner group was operational prior to the 2023 death of Yevgeny Prigozhin. This strategy includes rebranding (as Africa Corps), maintaining (as Wagner where prudent), expanding (with overt Russian positioning, particularly where there is a Western vacuum), and diversifying (with new PMC groups). Challenges are said to include backlash against prior PMC atrocities and/or outside nation influence as well as the increasing presence of China in the region.
All Eyes On Wagner (AEOW). Virtual: INPACT (Open Collective), 2025, Website.
Annotation: The INPACT website supports ‘an OSINT accountability project’ focusing on the Wagner Group with the intent to research, investigate, and disrupt it. The project is staffed by volunteers who represent a European investigative collective and produces short reports in English and French on Wagner’s activities. Other components of Russian hybrid warfare, its partners, and strategic arms and disruptive technologies are also covered by the project. The project formed in 2021 is ongoing with regard to Wagner follow-ons, and represents a virtual collaboration focused on the Wagner Group’s activities and wrongdoing.
Matthew A. Lauder, State, non-state, or chimera? The rise and fall of the Wagner Group and recommendations for countering Russia’s employment of complex proxy networks. Hybrid CoE Working Paper 33. Helsinki: The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, June 2024, pp. 1-28.
Annotation: One of the newer and more comprehensive investigative books on the Wagner Groups, chronicling its inception, evolution, deployments, eventual downfall (post-Prigozhin mutiny), and eventual rebranding as Africa Corps directly under Russian state control. The work uses archetypes (soldiers, oil men, et. al) for its chapter themes tying into geographic activities (Ukraine, Syria, et. al). The author is a polyglot (including being fluent in Russian) who has interviewed many former Wagner mercenaries and engaged in field research in many of the conflict zones where the group operated including Ukraine, Mali, Libya, and Central African Republic (CAR). The work contains a color photo gallery of twenty-four Wagner related images and is considered one of the authoritative works on the subject.
Jack Margolin, The Wagner Group: Inside Russia’s Mercenary Army. London: Reaktion Books, 2024, pp. 1-328.
Annotation: This investigative journalism work focuses on the rise and fall of the Wagner Group, drawing upon primarily English and Russian language resources. It provides a solid overview of the group and its chronology of deployments and operational activities in Ukraine, Syria, and Africa. Both the ‘face’ of Wagner (its propaganda fueled mythos) and the actual enterprise (the hundreds of companies and their activities supporting it) are discussed and analyzed. The author is the director of the Conflict Affected States Program at C4ADS, a Washington, DC non-profit policy institute and has been studying the Wagner Group since its inception in 2014, providing an excellent depth of expertise.
Candace Rondeaux and Ben Dalton, “The Wagner Group’s Little Black Book: Decoding Command and Control of Russia’s Irregular Forces.” New America. 17 October 2024, pp. 1-36.
Annotation: Analyzing leaked records by means of document review and metadata and network analysis—including Prigozhin’s digital ‘phone book’ and 2012-2022 personal calendar—this article breaks open the tightly held ‘back office’ operations of the Wagner Group. Through statistical regression on key variables and with the help of AI, the authors uncover previously concealed relationships between core players in Wagner (esp. Prigozhin, Troshev, and Utkin) to reveal a structure which, while seemingly decentralized, can be unraveled through shell companies to reveal tight networking with central nodes of the Russian state. While preliminary in nature, the research offers further direction in holding accountable individuals in the PMC and the Russian government for atrocities committed over the course of Wagner’s tenure.
Candace Rondeaux, Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos. New York: PublicAffairs, 2025, pp, 1-464.
Annotation: This forthcoming and much anticipated work by a recognized subject matter expert (SME) on the Wagner Group is derived from the multiyear study—Decoding the Wagner Group Shadow Network—undertaken by Future Frontlines, New America’s public intelligence service which the author directs. The work chronicles the history and activities of this Russian PMC, the interactions between the major personalities involved—Yevgeny Prigozhin (the leader of the Wagner Group) and Vladimir Putin (the autocratic ruler of Russia and Prigozhin’s patron), explains why the group (and similar PMCs) have developed, and assesses their likely future relationship to and utilization by the Russian state.
Architects of Terror: The Wagner Group’s Blueprint for State Capture in the Central African Republic. Washington, DC: The Sentry, June 2023, pp. 1-75.
Annotation: This detailed independent investigative report relates how the Russian-backed PMC Wagner Group was, over a 5-year period, able to infiltrate all levels of the state system in the CAR, expanding Russia’s sphere of influence while enriching Wagner through exploitation of the country’s gold and diamond mining operations. It offers evidence that, under the pretense of supporting President Touadera against a mounting insurgency, the group along with CAR forces systematically engaged in campaigns of terror and ethnic cleansing against civilian populations. It concludes with policy recommendations for countering Wagner’s regional aspirations.
Ladd Serwart, Héni Nsaibia, and Nichita Gurcov, Moving Out of the Shadows: Shifts in Wagner Group Operations Around the World. Grafton: Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), 2023, pp. 1-46.
Joseph Siegle, “Russia’s Use of Private Military Contractors.” Washington, DC: Hearing on “Russia’s Use of Private Military Contractors, US House of Representatives, House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Subcommittee on National Security, 15 September 2022, pp. 1-10.
Annotation: This congressional testimony documents the positioning of the Wagner Group PMC in African states as of September 2022—encompassing CAR, Mali, and Chad with 6-10 other regimes in process—as a deliberate part of Russian strategic objectives in the region. These objectives included influence along the S. Mediterranean and Red Sea maritime transport corridors, displacement of Western influence, and undermining a rules-based international order. Their entry to these nations, as in Syria, was propping up autocratic rulers, in turn creating long-term instability and a need for ongoing involvement by Wagner (Russia). Rather than facing off with Wagner directly, Siegle suggests the US might best mitigate these outcomes by strengthening its own broader security and economic engagement in the region, supporting democratic leadership, sanctioning Russia, and working toward international prohibitions on mercenary groups.
Julia Smirnova and Francesca Visser, “Content glorifying the Wagner Group circulating on Meta platforms.” Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). 16 August 2023, pp. 1-22.
Annotation: A study was conducted by the ISD out of London which identified one-hundred and fourteen Facebook and Instagram accounts posting in thirteen languages which glorified the Wagner Group on these Meta platforms. The data—much of which contained Wagner Group recruitment content such as videos and recruitment posters—was analyzed using the Method52 social media analysis tool. Numerous screen shots of website content and imagery are provided in these research findings. Large numbers of followers—over 136K for three Facebook pages alone—were noted along with many posts and one video having over 712K views. Concerns over Meta not mitigating these Wagner accounts were voiced in this research.
Julia Stanyard, Thierry Vircoulon, and Julian Rademeyer, The Grey Zone: Russia’s military, mercenary and criminal engagement in Africa. Research Report. Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), February 2023, pp. 1-92.
Annotation: This pre-Prigozhin mutiny report focuses on the Wagner Groups’ activities in Africa produced by a counter-transnational organized crime (C-TOC) think tank situated in Geneva. The major component of the report discusses Wagner’s strategy, Wagner and Russian organized crime, Russian business and political interests, and Wagner operations (as case studies) in Central African Republic (CAR), Sudan, Mozambique, Libya, Mali, Madagascar, Burkina Faso, Kenya, and Cameroon. Report conclusions and seven bulleted (•) recommendations to mitigate Wagner and Russian criminal activities are also provided. Useful information on the evolution of Russian organized crime and sanctioned businesses and individuals in Africa as well as a number of maps and figures are provided in the report.
Sergey Sukhankin, “Russian PMCs in the Syrian Civil War: From Slavonic Corps to Wagner Group and Beyond.” Washington, DC: The Jamestown Foundation, 18 December 2019, pp. 1-34.
Annotation: This early article focuses on the Russian private military company (PMC) experience in Syria, beginning with the Slavonic Corps which predated the Wagner Group by a couple of years yet later formed its nucleus as it emerged in Russia and was initially deployed to Ukraine. The piece goes on to discuss the Wagner Group’s redeployment to Syria in support of the al Asad regime with key personnel, training techniques, C2, payment policies, recruitment, logistics, and ownership information provided. Syria is viewed as a training ground for Russian PMCs and portrays the iron triangle that has developed between the military, government, and oligarchs which has allowed the state to both engage in power politics and extract resources in its overseas military-economic contracts.
Russia in Africa: The Wagner Group, Russia-Africa Summit and Beyond. Washington, DC: The United States Institute of Peace (USIP), 19 July 2023, 1:15 Minute Video.
Annotation: This United States Institute of Peace event focused on the growing expansion of Russian influence in Africa. In addition to a focus on Wagner Group activities in Africa, the gathering also highlighted the political context surrounding them and what may transpire from the then upcoming Russia-Africa Summit held 27-28 July 2023 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The speakers at the USIP event were Joseph Siegle, Amaka Anku, and Catrina Doxsee with Thomas Sheehy serving as the moderator. One very useful component of the activity was being provided with an African perspective related to the subject.
Jack Watling, Oleksandr V. Danylyuk, and Nick Reynolds, The Threat from Russia’s Unconventional Warfare Beyond Ukraine, 2022–24. RUSI Special Report. London: Royal United Services Institute, February 2024, pp. 1-38.
Annotation: The report focuses on three components of Russian unconventional warfare taking place during 2022-2024 outside of the Ukrainian theater of operations. These are GRU special forces training and recruitment restructuring and its ability to better infiltrate them into Europe, the use of Russia’s Muslim minority in Europe and the Middle East—spearheaded by the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov—for the subversion of Western interests, and the activities related to the Wagner Corps. The latter’s evolution, reorganization into the Expeditionary (Africa) Corps, and its relationship to the Kremlin’s strategy of expanding a network of relationships in Africa is discussed and analyzed.
Owen Wilson, The Wagner Group: Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Mercenaries and Their Ties to Vladimir Putin. London: Gibson Square, 2024, pp. 1-256.
Annotation: This journalistic work sets out to elaborate Yevgeny Prigozhin’s role as leader of the Wagner group and, more pointedly, as the non-acknowledged ‘business partner’ of Russian President Putin. It offers a readable overview of the Wagner Group’s origins in 2014, its support of Russian designs on oil and mineral resources in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, and its subsequent operations until Prigozhin’s death in 2023. It portrays the brutality of a group—and its leader—increasingly losing respectability in Russia as its losses in Ukraine forced it to turn to mass unvetted recruiting of civilians and prisoners, to be primarily cannon fodder in an undersupplied war against an underestimated opponent.
