Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin was a Russian mercenary leader and oligarch. He led the Wagner Group private military company and was a close confidant of Russian president Vladimir Putin until launching a rebellion in June 2023. Prigozhin was sometimes referred to as "Putin's chef" because he owned restaurants and catering businesses that provided services to the Kremlin. Once a convict in the Soviet Union, Prigozhin controlled a network of influential companies whose operations, according to a 2020 investigation, were "tightly integrated with Russia's Defence Ministry and its intelligence arm, the GRU".
The Wagner Group, officially known as PMC Wagner is a Russian state-funded private military company (PMC) controlled until 2023 by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former close ally of Russia's president Vladimir Putin. The Wagner Group has used infrastructure of the Russian Armed Forces. Evidence suggests that Wagner has been used as a proxy by the Russian government, allowing it to have plausible deniability for military operations abroad, and hiding the true casualties of Russia's foreign interventions.
Dmitry Valerievich Utkin was a Russian military officer and mercenary. He served as a special forces officer in the GRU, where he held the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was allegedly the co-founder and military commander of the Russian state-funded Wagner Group, with his military alias reportedly being Wagner. Utkin was reportedly a neo-Nazi. He rarely made public appearances, but was allegedly the commander of the private military company, while Yevgeny Prigozhin was its owner and public face. Utkin was awarded four Orders of Courage of Russia.
The Georgian National Legion or Georgian Legion is a military unit formed by mostly ethnic Georgian volunteers fighting on the side of Ukraine in the war in Donbas and the Russo-Ukrainian War. The unit was organized in 2014, and in 2016 it was made part of the Ukrainian Army, under the 25th Mechanized Infantry Battalion "Kyiv Rus".
Casualties in the Russo-Ukrainian War included six deaths during the 2014 annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, 14,200–14,400 military and civilian deaths during the war in Donbas, and up to 500,000 estimated casualties during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The combatants of the war in Donbas included foreign and domestic forces.
As part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian state and state-controlled media have spread disinformation in an information war. Much of the news about military propaganda during Russia's invasion of Ukraine focused on Russian disinformation. Ukrainian media and politicians have also been accused of using propaganda and deception, although such efforts have been compared to the Russian disinformation campaign as more limited. Both Russia and Ukraine exaggerate the losses they claim to have inflicted on each other.
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that started in 2014. The invasion became the largest attack on a European country since World War II. It is estimated to have caused tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties and hundreds of thousands of military casualties. By June 2022, Russian troops occupied about 20% of Ukrainian territory. About 8 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced and more than 8.2 million had fled the country by April 2023, creating Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. Extensive environmental damage caused by the war, widely described as an ecocide, contributed to food crises worldwide.
The International Legion of Territorial Defence of Ukraine, or the Ukrainian Foreign Legion, is a foreign military unit of the Territorial Defense Forces of Ukraine. It was created on 27 February 2022 by the Ukrainian government at the request of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to fight against the Russian invasion of the country. In establishing the force, Ukraine joined more than 90 other nations that have recruited legionnaires and raised foreign legions over the past two centuries.
The Russo-Ukrainian War has seen foreign volunteers participate on both sides of the conflict. Most foreign fighters joined the conflict during one of two waves. The first wave happened from 2014 to 2019 during the War in the Donbas and consisted of approximately 17,241 foreign fighters. The second wave is considered by researchers to have been much larger and began in 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
According to Ukrainian government officials and news sources, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has survived a number of assassination and kidnapping attempts by Russian or pro-Russian agents during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Yavoriv military base was attacked by Russian forces on 13 March 2022 as part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The base is located near the city of Yavoriv, Lviv Oblast, less than 15 miles from the border with Poland. According to Ukrainian officials, the military facility was hit by 30 Russian missiles, 35 ukrainian soldiers were killed and at least 100 people from international legion. others were injured. According to Russian officials, '180 foreign mercenaries' were killed. Later, the Ukrainian police confirmed 61 people were killed and 160 were injured.
The battle of Popasna was a military engagement during the Eastern Ukraine campaign as part of the Battle of the Donbas, the battle began on 3 March 2022 and ended on 7 May 2022.
The battle of Bakhmut was a major battle in and around the city of Bakhmut between the Russian Armed Forces and Ukrainian defenders for capture of the city during the larger eastern Ukraine campaign. It was one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the war so far.
The battle of Soledar was a series of military engagements in and around the urban-type settlement of Soledar during the battle of Donbas in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Mozart Group was a private military company operating in Ukraine during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Mozart Group was composed of Western volunteers with military experience and provided military training, civilian evacuations and rescue, and humanitarian aid distribution.
The Wagner Group is a private military company (PMC) with ties to the Russian state under Vladimir Putin that has conducted operations in Syria since late 2015. Their presence in the country has been reported as late as 2021.
Igor Leonidovich Mangushev, also known by his radio call sign Bereg, was a Russian mercenary and political advisor.
The Wagner Group, also known as PMC Wagner, a Russian paramilitary organization also described as a private military company (PMC), a network of mercenaries, and a de facto unit of the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) or Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU, has conducted operations in Ukraine since early 2014.
The Wagner Group, also known as PMC Wagner, and as the Africa Corps in Africa, a Russian paramilitary organization also described as a private military company (PMC), a network of mercenaries, and a de facto unit of the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) or Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU, has conducted operations in various countries in the African continent since 2017.
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