Wagner Is Coming Back: What It Means for the World

The Wagner Group is not dead — it is evolving. From Rosgvardia integration to the new Africa Corps, Russia's mercenary force is reshaping global power.

Simon Whistler March 4, 2026

As they marched on Moscow, it seemed as if the entire world hung in the balance. After years spent as Vladimir Putin’s shadow hand around the world, after months distinguishing themselves as the most brutal and bloodthirsty combatants of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Wagner Group had set its sights on Russia itself, and there was no guarantee that they could be stopped. In the months since, the world might have felt as if it watched the collapse of a rising empire, nearly as quickly as it had risen from nothing. First, the advance on Moscow was brought to a decisive end; then, after months of questions and speculation, their leaders were sent plummeting from the sky in a trail of ash and fire. Their command was dismantled, their soldiers were scattered to the wind, and it seemed as if the Wagner Group was gone for good. But now, the sun rises on a new era for what remains of the Wagner Group: scattered to the wind, certainly, and with as much of its future still unclear as ever. But one thing is certain: Wagner is not dead — it is evolving. Cut one head from the hydra, and two more take its place.

Key Takeaways

Anton Yelizarov, callsign Lotus, born 1981 in Rostov Oblast, has emerged as Wagner’s highest known authority after the deaths of Prigozhin and Utkin in August 2023.
Yelizarov confirmed in early February 2024 that Wagner continues operations in Africa and Belarus and is building the Cossack Camps training facility in Rostov Oblast.
Wagner is being absorbed into Rosgvardia, Russia’s National Guard, which reports directly to Putin and is separate from the Ministry of Defense.
British intelligence reports three former Wagner assault units will integrate into the first Rosgvardia Volunteer Corps unit trained at Cossack Camps.
The Africa Corps, created by Russia’s Ministry of Defense, is assuming direct control of Wagner operations in Mali, Libya, Burkina Faso, and the Central African Republic.
Wagner contract terms differ by theater: nine months for African deployments versus six months in Ukraine.

Anton Yelizarov: The Man Known as Lotus

Born in 1981 in the Rostov Oblast of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Anton Yelizarov has been part of a military for all of his adult life. By the time he was eighteen, he had graduated from military school; by the time he was twenty-three, he had become commander of an airborne platoon. After more than a decade of service to modern-day Russia, Yelizarov was booted from the ranks of the Russian military on charges of crimes against property — but that was not the end. From Russia’s military proper, he joined a rising underground force in his nation: the nascent Wagner Group, then just getting its start under its military commander Dmitry Utkin and its public sponsor Yevgeny Prigozhin. Under their command, Yelizarov served in Syria, trained troops in the Central African Republic, commanded elite stormtrooper units in Libya, and led the assault on the Ukrainian city of Soledar and the now-ravaged town of Bakhmut. For his work, he earned the title of Hero of the Russian Federation, and another distinction he prized perhaps even more dearly: his callsign, Lotus. After the Wagner Group got its world rocked in August of 2023, with the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin in a fiery plane crash, it was Lotus who was suspected to have assumed command of the organization. For their part, the remnants of Wagner denied that claim — perhaps because it was false, or perhaps because it served Yelizarov more to lead from the shadows, especially after the fate that had befallen the organization’s last publicly known commanders. According to official Wagner sources, Yelizarov had, indeed, taken over both the role of Wagner’s top commander in combat, and its lead position in training. Who he might answer to, then as now, remained unclear, but his is the highest known authority among Wagner today.

Yelizarov Resurfaces: The Cossack Camps Statement

When Yelizarov went missing, speculation rightly ran wild. For days after Russian sources first noted his disappearance, it was unclear just what, if anything, had happened to him. Perhaps he had fallen out of favor with Putin; perhaps he had shipped off to command Wagner forces directly in some quiet, backwater conflict somewhere; or perhaps he was already dead, knocked off by the next ambitious Wagner leader who thought he deserved a crack at the top job. Regardless, it would be almost impossible to catch sight of him in the future, if he did not want to be found, and instead chose to — or had to — disappear into the darkest corners of Russia’s paramilitary scene. As it turned out, the real answer was none of the above. In early February of 2024, Yelizarov did the one thing nobody expected: he got on camera for the first time since the deaths of Prigozhin and Utkin, and delivered a statement that pulled back the curtain on Wagner’s current state. In his own words, translated to English: “We continue to work. We continue to work on the African continent and we continue to work in Belarus. For the good of Russia, we are working successfully. I am located at the group’s headquarters in Cossack Camps. We are building a camp, so that the new units that will be formed — which will become part of the volunteer corps of Russia’s National Guard — can arrive and settle. The camp continues to grow and be built. We are moving towards our goal.” He continued: “I want to say to the people of the Russian Federation: We have always defended, are defending and will defend the people of the Russian Federation and the interests of the Russian Federation, and we will do this anywhere in the world. We are moving towards our goals with big steps and with our head held high.” Yelizarov’s statement provides the clearest look, by far, into the current state of the Wagner Group since the group’s attempted mutiny took place. His admission that Wagner has continued its work, both in Africa and Belarus, is not necessarily a surprise, but with those groups in Africa now operating largely on their own, it is telling that Yelizarov still seems to consider Wagner’s African detachments as part of the same command structure. Even more important is the confirmation of what Western intelligence has suspected for months: that Wagner was on its way back to operations in Russia, and possibly even in Ukraine, under a new banner.

Wagner’s Absorption into Rosgvardia and the Return to Rostov

Yelizarov explained that his training camp — apparently under the name of Cossack Camps, in reference to the fiercely independent and militarily elite Cossacks of Russia’s past — would be sending volunteers to fight alongside Russia’s National Guard. Wagner itself is believed to have begun the process of absorbing itself into the National Guard, known as Rosgvardia. The decision to incorporate Wagner into Rosgvardia is a move that both allows the group’s fighters to continue fighting in Russia’s interest, and should, in theory, allay Moscow’s fears that Wagner might one day repeat the affairs of July and August 2023. By making Wagner directly subsidiary to Rosgvardia, Putin ensures that there will be no Prigozhin-style uprising without a whole lot of very obvious organizational changes preceding it. He also allows Wagner fighters to continue their work without subordinating themselves to the Russian Ministry of Defense, or MoD, directly; Rosgvardia is, at least on paper, separate from the Russian Armed Forces, and reports directly to Vladimir Putin himself. That separation from the MoD matters a great deal, because Wagner and the MoD have serious beef. Finally, the move ensures that Russia will continue to benefit from Wagner’s combat prowess, as its experienced troops are in high demand on the front lines in Ukraine, and its mass numbers of prison convicts are a lot easier for Moscow to use if the actual Russian government is not the one having to recruit and train them. According to British intelligence, three former Wagner assault units will now be integrated into the first Volunteer Corps unit — be it a regiment, a brigade, or whatever else — that Yelizarov and his forces are apparently going to train. These Wagner fighters are copy-pasted directly into Rosgvardia’s volunteer units, and sent back to the front lines in Ukraine where they are desperately needed. Some of those fighters and their fellow volunteers will also be headed to Africa, for contract periods of nine months on the African continent versus six months in Ukraine. Just as interesting as Wagner’s new place in the Russian military architecture is the physical place where these Cossack Camps appear to be set up: not in Belarus, where Wagner was banished for a time after Prigozhin’s failed mutiny, but in Russia itself. Specifically, they are believed to be in the oblast of Rostov, in a facility shared with or next to the barracks of Russia’s 150th Motor Rifle Division. Wagner is believed to be popular in Rostov Oblast, where locals appeared cheering and taking pictures with Wagner troops in the regional capital, Rostov-on-Don, as the Wagner troops passed through on their march toward Moscow. The decision to allow Wagner to set up a base in Russia, let alone in Rostov specifically, should indicate at least some confidence on Russia’s part that Wagner and Yelizarov are now firmly under Russian control, and are considered safe enough to be welcomed back into Russia in force. The decision to incorporate Wagner into Rosgvardia also raises the importance of Vladimir Putin’s recent decision to equip Rosgvardia with heavier weaponry than it previously had. That decision was made in the wake of Wagner’s march on Moscow, when Rosgvardia proved unable or unwilling to intervene and try to slow them down — a choice that has since been explained to Putin as a result of the fact that Rosgvardia did not have the armored vehicles or other equipment it needed to go toe-to-toe with the mercenaries. Now, the mercenaries are on track to come into possession of much of that same equipment, as well as the other perks of full acceptance into the above-board Russian defense apparatus.

The Rise of the Africa Corps

The re-emergence of Anton Yelizarov is not the only notable piece of Wagner news to emerge in recent weeks. As the Cossack Camp sets itself up in Rostov, a new force appears to be rising several thousand kilometers away: the Africa Corps. If the name sounds familiar, it is no accident; the German Afrika Korps were an elite Nazi desert warfare force under the command of Erwin Rommel, and this new Russian organization appears to have adopted that same title. Unlike the Nazi army of old, today’s Africa Corps are firmly under the command of Vladimir Putin, and they are actively recruiting in hopes of spreading Russian influence across the continent. Traditionally, operations in Africa have been considered pretty firmly as the Wagner Group’s domain. Because the mercenary force was technically not part of the Russian military, they gave Russia quite a bit of plausible deniability for their operations in the region, even though Wagner was there on Russia’s orders, protecting Russia’s interests. Among those interests are oil fields, mines for precious metals and gems, and friendly ruling regimes in a range of African nations, all of which Russia wants to protect, but none of which Russia wants to be outright responsible for. In the wake of Wagner’s march on Moscow, significant portions of Wagner were punished and even booted out of Russia, but the group’s African contingents kept up their work, leading some experts to speculate on whether they were really part of a cohesive Wagner Group anymore, or had become local warlords paying tribute to Moscow. The arrival of the Africa Corps changes that calculus in a big way. The name is only semi-official, but the paramilitary organization itself is a creation of the Russian Ministry of Defense, and while it is still technically a paramilitary operation, it is much more clearly under Russia’s command than Wagner ever was. Like Russia’s decision to sublimate Wagner to Rosgvardia domestically, Putin appears willing to make the trade-off between less plausible deniability and more confidence that there will not be a repeat of the incident Russia got from Wagner in 2023. The Africa Corps appears to be taking direct control of Wagner’s operations in Mali, Libya, Burkina Faso, and, at least to an extent, the Central African Republic. The former Wagner employees there have been given the option to join the Africa Corps or quit, and they are free to wear their Wagner insignia, keep their internal traditions, and fight in the same units under the same commanders as they had done before.

Wagner’s Footprint Across Africa: Country by Country

What Wagner was doing in each of those countries depends on where the focus falls. In Burkina Faso, a force of about 100 fighters, set to rise to around 300 soon, is setting up shop with the intent of safeguarding the country’s ruling military junta. In Libya, they have committed war crimes and served on the front lines in service to warlord Khalifa Haftar, who, despite not technically being at war with the Libyan government at this moment, nonetheless maintains one side of a low-grade conflict that has not really stopped since the end of Libya’s Second Civil War. In Mali, Wagner has been working overtime to support a ruling military junta against insurgents in the Sahel region, and the group is suspected to have been involved with some highly questionable activities there, including a mass summary execution of Malians just weeks before reporting. And in the Central African Republic, they prop up the regime of President Faustin-Archange Touadera, and maintain a strong military presence watching over gold mines and extracting precious metals via mining companies they own or control. With each of those sub-groups now coming under the command of the Africa Corps, it is likely that Russia’s presence on the continent is not going away anytime soon — and that, in fact, Russia may be willing to drop some of its secrecy and illusion around its support of authoritarian and often violent leaders there. While the Wagner forces in the Central African Republic may prove difficult to control, on account of their size and wealth, the others appear to be falling in line rather neatly. With a sustained, strategically organized Russian presence there, Africa has no shortage of countries that might want an Africa Corps detachment of their own. Alongside Mali and Burkina Faso, the nations of Guinea, Niger, and Gabon are each ruled by military junta after a series of recent coups, and like Mali and Burkina Faso, those coup leaders might be willing to pay extra for their own protection. The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s leader Felix Tshisekedi is believed to be shopping around for a potential partnership with Wagner. Chad’s leader Mahamat Deby has had recent meetings with Vladimir Putin and subsequently promised that “many things will change.” Several other nations on the continent are actively engaged in war or dealing with violent insurgencies that the Africa Corps could help to suppress.

One Wagner, Many Wagners: What Remains Unknown

In examining the strange, nebulous evolutions of the Wagner Group as they exist right now, it is important to point out that there is just as much still unknown as what is known. What will be the fate of Wagner’s troops in Belarus: to remain independent, to become contractors or even part of the Belarusian military, or to join Russian forces, either in Rosgvardia or somewhere else? What about the group believed to be under the command of Andrei Troshev, already fighting in Ukraine? And what will be the actual work of the Wagner fighters in the new Cossack Camps? Are they just there to give established Wagner mercenaries new uniform patches and send them back into combat? Or, if they train new Wagner-style fighters en masse, will they be elite models of what Wagner veterans have been in the past, or just another group of conscripts in an overwhelmingly conscripted army? If one thing is certain, it is that the Wagner Group will not be stepping out of Russia’s global military infrastructure anytime soon. Although the rise of the new Africa Corps is a change in name and organization for the former Wagner detachments there, the Africa Corps is only a somewhat altered version of the same overall strategic vision. Wagner, whether it is called Wagner or not, will remain active in protecting Russian interests abroad and propping up the few real allies that Russia still has left. Just as important is the news that Wagner will now be operating large-scale training camps in Russia again — and this time, with the backing, support, and authority of Rosgvardia.

Implications for Ukraine and the Specter of a Wagner-Led Rosgvardia

For all of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Wagner’s elite fighters have been among the best on the battlefield, and their apparent lack of hesitation to engage in all manner of crimes against humanity have granted them a fearsome reputation in the eyes of combatants from both sides. Now, with Russia’s military having apparently lost a sizeable proportion of the experienced soldiers it had before the war, Russia proper relies largely on conscripts to do its work — and any information that those conscripts have, beyond just the basics, is picked up desperately and with little proper instruction as they try to survive on the battlefield. Wagner, by contrast, appears to take quite a bit more time getting its recruits into fighting shape, and now, Russia is putting that training capability to work in service to its own interests. Then, there are the implications of a Wagner return to the battlefields of Ukraine. Those battlefields are frozen not just by the bitter post-Soviet winter, but by a long stalemate that has seen Ukraine unable to make much forward progress. The work that Ukraine did to slowly grind its way eastward, digging up ungodly numbers of landmines in the process, will likely have to repeat again — and that is if Ukraine can keep what little initiative it has left. With Western financial support and arms shipments drying up, F-16s and main battle tanks far from the front lines, and morale dipping lower and lower on the home front, Ukraine may be forced to pivot toward a long defense sooner than later. That is a defense that could probably hold out against the Russian forces it currently faces, but that story could be rewritten very quickly if experienced and highly knowledgeable ex-Wagner fighters begin to show up again in large numbers. Lastly, there is the potential, however long it would take to be realized, that Wagner could turn back toward Russia and begin its own takeover within Rosgvardia. Even attempting such a thing would require a leader with Yevgeny Prigozhin’s or Dmitry Utkin’s ambition, and conviction that their way to lead is the only way. Whether Yelizarov and his deputies even have that ambition remains unknown. It would also be extremely risky, as Putin, current leaders within Rosgvardia, and the rest of the Russian military would likely notice a Wagner leader climbing to the top and start ringing alarm bells. But with Wagner now incorporated into the ranks of Rosgvardia, a national guard with hundreds of thousands of soldiers and more power, influence, and resources than Wagner ever had, the path still exists for Rosgvardia to consume Wagner, only to be consumed by it, a few years or even a couple of decades down the road. In the short but complex history of the Wagner Group, the organization’s next moves have never truly been clear, but now, it appears that the remnants of Wagner are headed back toward the front lines across the globe. When they arrive, they will bring to bear the same ruthless, destructive, and utterly soulless violence that has become a hallmark of their operations, and the people forced to stand against them will have to hold back a hydra that simply will not stop growing new heads.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened to the Russian Wagner group?

The Wagner Group, a Russian private military company, staged an uprising against the Russian government on June 23, 2023. The group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and military commander, Dmitry Utkin, died in a plane crash in August 2023. In October 2023, elements of the Wagner Group started coming under the control of Russia’s National Guard (Rosgvardia). Despite this, the group has not disappeared and continues to operate, with Anton Yelizarov, known by the call sign ‘Lotus’, reportedly taking over as commander.

How many years of war did Russia and Ukraine have?

The Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, and as of 2023, the conflict has been ongoing for over 1 year. The Wagner Group has been involved in the conflict, distinguishing themselves as brutal combatants, particularly in the battles for Soledar and Bakhmut.

Who was the deceased leader of the Wagner Group?

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, died in a plane crash in August 2023, along with the group’s military commander, Dmitry Utkin. Prigozhin had been a key figure in the group and a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

What are the goals of the Wagner Group?

The Wagner Group’s goals are to defend the people and interests of the Russian Federation, both domestically and internationally. According to Anton Yelizarov, the group’s current commander, they continue to work on the African continent, in Belarus, and are building a camp for new units that will become part of the volunteer corps of Russia’s National Guard.

Who heads Wagner Group?

Anton Yelizarov, known by the call sign ‘Lotus’, is reportedly the current commander of the Wagner Group. Yelizarov has a long military background, having served in the Russian military and earned the title of Hero of the Russian Federation. He has been involved in various conflicts, including in Syria, Libya, and Ukraine.

What is the Russian uprising 2023?

The Russian uprising in 2023 refers to the Wagner Group’s rebellion against the Russian government, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, which began on June 23, 2023. The uprising was brought to a decisive end after Prigozhin’s march on Moscow was halted. The incident marked a significant challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authority.

What is the Wagner Uprising 2023?

The Wagner Uprising in 2023 was a rebellion staged by the Wagner Group against the Russian government, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin. The uprising began on June 23, 2023, and was characterized by the group’s march on Moscow, which was ultimately halted. The incident had significant implications for the Russian government and the Wagner Group’s future operations.

What do they call Putin?

There is no specific information provided on what the Wagner Group calls Vladimir Putin. However, it is known that Putin has been a longtime ally of Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Wagner Group, and has used the group for various shadow missions around the world.

Key Takeaways

Anton Yelizarov: The Man Known as Lotus

Yelizarov Resurfaces: The Cossack Camps Statement

Wagner’s Absorption into Rosgvardia and the Return to Rostov

The Rise of the Africa Corps

Wagner’s Footprint Across Africa: Country by Country

One Wagner, Many Wagners: What Remains Unknown

Implications for Ukraine and the Specter of a Wagner-Led Rosgvardia

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened to the Russian Wagner group?

How many years of war did Russia and Ukraine have?

Who was the deceased leader of the Wagner Group?

What are the goals of the Wagner Group?

Who heads Wagner Group?

What is the Russian uprising 2023?

What is the Wagner Uprising 2023?

What do they call Putin?

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Sources

Frequently Asked Questions