- Russian regional media reported this week that the Wagner Group is hiring again in two oblasts.
- One report also said that Yevgeny Prigozhin’s son, Pavel, has assumed command of remnants of Wagner.
- The reports follow months of speculation that Pavel Prigozhin would lead Wagner under the Russian Guard.
Russian mercenary company Wagner Group is starting to recruit fighters again three months after its disgraced founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in a plane crash, two Russian media outlets reported.
And the fighters are led by the young son of Prigozhin himself, Pavel Prigozhin, reported 59.RU, a regional news outlet based in Perm.
The outlet wrote on Tuesday that it confirmed the resumption of recruitment with a Wagner representative in Perm.
Novosibirsk-based outlet NGS.RU also reported on Wednesday that Wagner has started recruiting fighters, citing a source in the mercenary organization’s local branch.
However, the outlet did not mention Pavel Prigozhin in its report.
Social media accounts promoting Wagner’s Perm office on VKontakte and Telegram listed several requirements for prospective recruits on Tuesday.
In posts titled “We’re coming back,” they said those hoping to sign a contract will need a Russian passport for operations outside the country, records of their families and close relatives, and vaccination certificates.
Notably, the recruitment posts said applicants have to provide documents showing that they have no criminal record or history of drug abuse — a reversal of when Wagner hired Russian inmates to reinforce its troops in Ukraine.
However, recruitment was suspended on Wednesday evening, according to the accounts, which did not specify why.
Questions have hung over the Wagner Group’s fate since its short-lived mutiny against the Kremlin in June. Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was exiled for leading the march against Moscow, died in a plane crash on August 23.
NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP via Getty Images)
Pavel Prigozhin, 25, now stands to inherit much of the oligarch’s wealth and has been rumored for several months among Russian military bloggers to be the successor to the Wagner Group.
A Telegram channel affiliated with Wagner, Prigozhin 2023, has also been touting Pavel Prigozhin as the organization’s future leader.
Since Prigozhin’s downfall, observers have suspected that the Russian Defense Ministry would assume control of Wagner’s men and resources, with Western intelligence officials telling The New York Times in August that the ministry is trying to restructure the mercenary company.
The Defense Ministry has also established other private military companies to recruit Wagner’s men, particularly in Africa or the Middle East, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank.
Some of the mercenary company’s former troops appeared to be fighting in Ukraine under the Russian military, the ISW also reported.
But both NGS.RU and 59.RU reported that the Wagner Group has been absorbed into the Russian National Guard, otherwise known as the Russian Guard or Rosgvardiya. The branch deals with internal security threats and reports directly to Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
The Russian news site Military Review also reported on Sunday that Wagner would continue operations as a division of the Russian Guard. Additionally, the Wagner Perm office’s social media accounts wrote the same in their recruitment posts.
The reports and posts come after Russian military bloggers speculated for several months that whatever is left of Wagner might be absorbed by the Russian Guard, not the Defense Ministry, per the ISW.
A spokesperson for the Kremlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.
