https://www.foxnews.com/world/wagner-group-russian-paramilitary-group-ukraine
After a report indicated the Russian-backed Wagner Group deployed more than 400 mercenaries to Kyiv with the mission of assassinating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the private military company is receiving renewed attention from its past atrocities carried out at the behest of the Kremlin.
Russian businessman and Putin’s close ally, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, has claimed credit for founding and running the Wagner group since its inception in 2014. The Wagner Group articipated in the Russian annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has been considered a proxy group of the Russian state abroad, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
The group rose to prominence during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, deploying around 50,000 personnel to the front over the fifteen months of conflict, including 10,000 contractors and 40,000 convicts. Russian President Vladimir Putin increasingly relied on Wagner for results in Ukraine as the Russian military's own efforts produced minimal results and the conflict dragged on far beyond the initial projected timeline