Over a year after Wagner Group leader’s death, Russian mercenaries aren’t going away

FILE - Members of the Wagner Group military company sit atop a tank on a street in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, June 24, 2023. FILE - A fighter of the Wagner Group private military force places a sledgehammer, one of the symbols of Wagner, at an informal memorial next to the former PMC Wagner Centre in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Aug. 24, 2023.

When Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in an August 2023 plane crash, many analysts said his death could mark the end of the Wagner Group, the private military company he co-founded that provided thousands of Russian mercenaries for Moscow’s initiatives and other interests abroad.