At the end of June, a paramilitary organization known as the Wagner Group made the Kremlin sweat. Yevgeny Prigozhin led an internal revolt and threatened a march on Moscow with a military caravan, which he stopped early thanks to negotiations facilitated by Aleksandr Lukashenko. While some claim that Prigozhin is "missing or dead," and others claim that he is still in Belarus, Vladimir Putin has reportedly chosen his successor.
According to the Kommersant newspaper. Putin met after the failed revolt attempt with dozens of Wagner Group leaders, and he reportedly offered them to remain operational but under the direction of a new leader. Nicknamed "Sedoy (gray hair)," Andrey Troshev has been chosen to lead.
He is a 61-year-old retired Russian colonel, a veteran of Chechnya and Afghanistan. According to the European Union, "he is directly involved in the Wagner Group's military operations in Syria. He was particularly involved in the Deir ez-Zor area. As such, he provides a crucial contribution to Bashar al-Assad's war effort and therefore supports and benefits from the Syrian regime."
For his service in Afghanistan, the former colonel was twice decorated with the Order of the Red Star. In 2016, he received Russia's highest medal, known as the Hero of Russia for the assault on Palmyra (Syria) against Islamic State militants.
According to CNN, the UK identified Troshev as the CEO of the Wagner Group, with ties to Syria. He was also an employee of the special rapid response detachment of the Northwestern Federal District of the Russian Interior Ministry, according to the media outlet, Fontanka.
Meanwhile, Prigozhin's whereabouts are unclear. While he first traveled to Belarus as part of the agreement in late June, Lukashenko acknowledged that he is now in Russia. The serviceman was last seen in public on June 2.
