Candace Rondeaux & Ben Dalton
I. A Question of Control
From the moment the Wagner Group surfaced in Ukraine amid Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, two critical questions have persisted: Who was in charge of Wagner? How much control did the Kremlin have over the paramilitary? These questions are not just academic—they go to the heart of accountability for war crimes and atrocities committed by Wagner forces in Ukraine, Syria, and Africa.
It turns out that partial answers are encoded in leaked phone directory data, calendar entries, personnel records, and internal documents, which reveal that Wagner’s command structure was far more state-directed than previously thought. While Wagner was publicly framed as a private military company (PMC), evidence suggests that it functioned more like a Kremlin-directed paramilitary force, with its leadership coordinating with Russian officials at the highest levels. Andrei Troshev, Wagner’s director, was just as central to its operations as founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and commander Dmitry Utkin, orchestrating missions that aligned with the Kremlin’s strategic objectives.
In fact, Troshev sat at the very center of the Wagner Group’s long hidden command and control structure from 2014 to 2021, overseeing the hiring, firing, payment, injury and death benefits, deployment, and discipline of some 1,915 individuals categorized as commanders in Wagner’s personnel records. On Troshev’s watch, at least 13,100 men deployed to six countries across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Troshev continued to play a leading role in Wagner’s operations.
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