The Kremlin says Russian President Vladimir Putin has met with Andrei Troshev, the former chief of staff of the Wagner mercenary group, and handed him the responsibility for establishing new volunteer fighting units.
“At our last meeting, we talked about the fact that you will be engaged in the formation of volunteer units that can perform various combat tasks," Putin said at a meeting with Troshev and Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov on September 28, according to a transcript of the conversation published a day later.
Putin stressed that Troshev "is aware of issues that need to be solved beforehand to secure better and successful combat activities."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on September 29 that Wagner's former chief of staff is now working at the Defense Ministry.
SEE ALSO: Russia's Harsh Prison System Is 'A Bottomless Reservoir Of Mercenaries,' Says Rights AdvocateIn August, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said Wagner's commanders had accused Troshev and other top officials of the mercenary group of "betraying Wagner for the Russian Defense Ministry-affiliated Redut private military company."
Redut, a combination of several minor veteran groupings of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Russian Air Force, and units of the Russian Defense Ministry, has been active in the war in Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The ISW report came three days before a plane linked to Wagner founder and leader Yevgeny Prigozhin crashed between Moscow and St. Petersburg on August 23, killing all 10 people on board.
On August 27, Russian authorities said Prigozhin’s body had been identified by medical examiners, along with those of nine other people on board the Embraer 600 jet that crashed in the Tver region in suspicious circumstances.
Two months before his death, on June 23-24, Prigozhin sent thousands of his fighters in a short-lived rebellion against the military command fighting in Ukraine, imposing one of the biggest challenges to Putin in his more than two decades in power.
The insurrection came on the heels of months of intense public infighting with Russia’s military leadership over the war strategy in Ukraine and ammunition supplies, as Wagner's fighters played the major role in heavy fighting for the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine's east.
In mid-September, the British government added Wagner group to its list of terrorist organizations, saying it remains a threat to global security even after Prigozhin's death.
Earlier in January, Washington designated Wagner a transnational criminal organization.