African leaders allied with Russia had grown used to dealing with Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the swaggering, profane mercenary leader who traveled the continent by private jet, offering to prop up shaky regimes with guns and propaganda in return for gold and diamonds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the Russian delegation that toured three African countries last week was led by a very different figure, the starchy deputy defense minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov. Dressed in a khaki uniform and a \u201ctelnyashka\u201d \u2014 the horizontally striped undergarment of Russian armed forces \u2014 he signaled conformity and restraint, giving assurances wrapped in polite language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe will do our best to help you,\u201d he said at a news conference in Burkina Faso.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The contrast with the flamboyant Mr. Prigozhin could not have been sharper, and it aligned with the message the Kremlin was delivering: After Mr. Prigozhin\u2019s death in a plane crash last month, Russia\u2019s operations in Africa were coming under new management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a glimpse of a shadowy battle now playing out on three continents: the fight for the lucrative paramilitary and propaganda empire that enriched Mr. Prigozhin and served Russia\u2019s military and diplomatic ambitions \u2014 until the Wagner leader staged a failed mutiny against the Kremlin in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Interviews with more than a dozen current and former officials in Washington, Europe, Africa and Russia \u2014 as well as four Russians who worked for Mr. Prigozhin \u2014 portray a tug of war over his assets among major players in Russia\u2019s power structure, including two different intelligence agencies. Many of those interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity, to discuss sensitive diplomatic and intelligence issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fight is complicated, these people said, by the lingering allegiance to Mr. Prigozhin in his private army, where some are bridling at being subsumed within Russia\u2019s defense ministry and instead backing a transfer of power to Mr. Prigozhin\u2019s son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWagner is not just about the money \u2014 it\u2019s a kind of religion,\u201d said Maksim Shugalei, a political consultant for Mr. Prigozhin, adding that he was proud to be part of the mercenary force. \u201cIt\u2019s unlikely that this structure will totally disappear. For me, this is impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The interviews also revealed more about President Vladimir V. Putin\u2019s campaign to discredit Mr. Prigozhin after the rebellion, including his declaration to a group of media figures that the Wagner leader was a profiteer who had made billions from \u201cgold and bling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The accounts suggest that even in death, Mr. Prigozhin remains a defining figure of Mr. Putin\u2019s Russia \u2014 encapsulating the secrecy, infighting and contradictory tactics of the Kremlin as it wages war against Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was \u201ca sign of dysfunction, a screaming thermometer,\u201d said Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin analyst in Moscow who said he knew Mr. Prigozhin. \u201cIf you take away the thermometer, it doesn\u2019t change the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scramble for Mr. Prigozhin\u2019s assets \u2014 which he assembled as he traded on his multifaceted ability to serve Mr. Putin in return for government contracts \u2014 has far-reaching implications. His paramilitary group was Russia\u2019s most effective fighting force in Ukraine in the last year, and its dissipation raises questions about Russia\u2019s ability to mount new offensives. His media group, complete with an online \u201ctroll farm,\u201d was instrumental in undercutting democratic institutions around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nowhere does Wagner\u2019s operation now carry more value for Russia than in African countries including Libya and the Central African Republic, where its mercenaries have gained trust and wealth by propping up strongmen and autocrats. Those efforts helped increase Russia\u2019s influence on the continent while weakening Western powers like France and the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Western officials briefed on confidential intelligence assessments say two Russian spy agencies \u2014 the foreign intelligence service, the S.V.R., and the military intelligence agency, the G.R.U. \u2014 are vying to take over key aspects of Mr. Prigozhin\u2019s operations. Two officials, from different governments, said that the S.V.R. was likely to absorb Wagner\u2019s propaganda and online disinformation outlets targeting foreign countries, while the Defense Ministry and the G.R.U. could take in Wagner\u2019s mercenary operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were signs on Mr. Yevkurov\u2019s swing through Africa that the military intelligence branch will play a key role in whatever happens next: the delegation included one of Russia\u2019s top spies, Gen. Andrei V. Averyanov, known for having led an elite unit specializing in subversion, sabotage and assassination abroad<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Videos released by Burkina Faso and Mali showed General Averyanov next to Mr. Yevkurov as they courted the countries\u2019 leaders. Western officials see the general as a leading candidate to oversee at least some of the former Wagner operations as part of an evolving system featuring multiple private military companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Kremlin declined to comment on the future of Mr. Prigozhin\u2019s empire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is none of our business at all, and we are not dealing with it in any way,\u201d said Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin\u2019s spokesman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By this spring, Mr. Prigozhin had morphed from a secretive oligarch enriched by government catering and construction contracts to a populist warlord and politician. He recruited tens of thousands of prisoners to swell Wagner\u2019s ranks and harangued Russia\u2019s military leadership for alleged corruption and incompetence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was just as busy making enemies in the Russian Defense Ministry behind the scenes. He held his own prisoner-exchange negotiations with Ukraine\u2019s military intelligence agency, separate from the regular army, leveraging his personal relationship with Mr. Putin to bring Wagner fighters home instead of enlisted Russian service members, according to several people with knowledge of the talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All the while, members of Russia\u2019s ruling elite puzzled over why the Kremlin was allowing Mr. Prigozhin to attack the country\u2019s top brass so viciously and publicly. Two people close to the Kremlin said that Mr. Putin appeared to have his own vision of how to manage the warlord, and his aides seemed powerless to influence it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, on June 23, Mr. Prigozhin launched his mutiny, seizing the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and marching on Moscow. Andrei Krasnobayev, the editor of one Prigozhin news site, said he didn\u2019t see Mr. Prigozhin\u2019s rebellion coming, despite the Wagner leader\u2019s increasingly vitriolic diatribes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMany colleagues call him a psychopath,\u201d he said, referring to other journalists. \u201cI didn\u2019t get that sense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Mr. Prigozhin aborted his uprising, accepting a deal with the Kremlin, it appeared his career was finished, even if he was lucky to have escaped with his life. For the next several weeks, he receded into the background, his whereabouts a mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A key question was what would happen to his mercenary fighters. As Kremlin officials mulled their future, they sent several thousand to Belarus \u201cto park them there,\u201d according to a Western official, providing time to sort out which senior officers were complicit in Mr. Prigozhin\u2019s rebellion and to reinforce Moscow\u2019s defenses against any future attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As it planned the fate of Wagner\u2019s fighters, the Kremlin also embarked on a multipronged effort to knock down Mr. Prigozhin\u2019s reputation as an anti-establishment truth-teller, portraying him as a self-centered entrepreneur motivated by greed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On June 27, Mr. Putin held a closed-door meeting with senior Russian media figures at the Kremlin. According to a person present, Mr. Putin claimed that Mr. Prigozhin had made $4 billion in Africa on \u201cgold and bling.\u201d Mr. Putin\u2019s point, the person said, appeared to be that Mr. Prigozhin had enriched himself and had no reason to complain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n State television began to tarnish Mr. Prigozhin\u2019s image; one outlet, for instance, showed a van stuffed with boxes of cash and a lavish residence, complete with a helicopter \u2014 all said to belong to Mr. Prigozhin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After working to discredit Mr. Prigozhin, the Kremlin tried to get the Russian public to forget about him. On June 30, Mr. Prigozhin\u2019s media conglomerate, the Patriot Media Group, announced it was shutting down, days after its websites were blocked by Russia\u2019s internet censor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, according to a New York Times analysis of Russian television transcripts compiled<\/a> by a nonprofit called the GDELT Project, Mr. Prigozhin virtually disappeared from the airwaves. On most days between July 13 and Aug. 22, his name was not mentioned at all on any of the four leading state-controlled channels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But even as the Kremlin sought to minimize him, Mr. Prigozhin still had one roll of the dice left \u2014 on the continent where his interests still lay intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The war in Ukraine made remarkably little difference to Mr. Prigozhin\u2019s sprawling interests in Africa. While some Wagner forces in Africa were redeployed to Ukraine in the early weeks of the war, most stayed in place. But the failed mutiny in June placed \u200cMr. Prigozhin\u2019s African operations\u200c under immense pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through July and August, he traversed the continent at a frenzied pace, seeking to assure his allies and shore up his business interests, according to Western officials and others tracking his movements. He instructed Wagner troops in Belarus to prepare for a \u201cnew journey to Africa<\/a>\u201d \u2014 where, French intelligence estimated, about 4,000 Wagner mercenaries were already stationed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n American officials said Mr. Prigozhin also sought to squeeze new profits from his extensive African ventures, which have included military, commercial and propaganda activities in numerous countries. Wagner\u2019s operations bolstered tottering military regimes, traded in diamonds, gold and lumber, spread disinformation and even made schlock movies to glorify their exploits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Even so, Mr. Putin\u2019s claim that Mr. Prigozhin\u2019s African operations had made him $4 billion seemed greatly exaggerated, the officials added.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the months leading up to his rebellion, Mr. Prigozhin had grown increasingly bold. This spring he tried to tilt the balance in Sudan\u2019s civil war by smuggling surface-to-air missiles to a notorious paramilitary group, Western and United Nations officials said. In February, U.S. officials warned the president of Chad<\/a> that Mr. Prigozhin was plotting to kill him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Days after the mutiny, in late June, senior Wagner officials flew to eastern Libya to meet with the strongman Khalifa Hifter, whom they had helped to assault Tripoli in 2019. Their message, according to Mohamed Eljarh, a security analyst who speaks regularly to Mr. Hifter\u2019s inner circle: despite the drama in Russia, it was business as usual in Libya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, things were about to get more worrisome. On June 30, a mysterious drone strike hit Wagner\u2019s main base in eastern Libya, raising questions about Wagner\u2019s vulnerability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then senior Kremlin officials began to make their own trips to Africa, offering the message that Russia was reshaping its business there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leading the charge was Mr. Yevkurov, whose past experience as an airborne commander and a regional governor gave him military and political bona fides. Mr. Prigozhin had publicly humiliated him during the mutiny, holding him hostage and berating him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now Mr. Yevkurov had an opportunity to take revenge. Traveling through Syria, another major Wagner outpost, and several African countries, he sought to bring Wagner forces more firmly under Moscow\u2019s control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was a high-wire act: The minister had to convince not only African and Syrian leaders to switch loyalties, but also Wagner veterans who were faithful to Mr. Prigozhin and might chafe at the Defense Ministry\u2019s rigid command, experts said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The competition heated up. In late July, coordinated rallies in favor of Wagner erupted in Mali, Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic. \u201cThank you Russia! Thank you Wagner!\u201d some demonstrators cheered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few weeks later, Mr. Prigozhin flew back to Africa for a quick tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Bangui, the capital of Central African Republic, he visited his fighters and met with President Faustin-Archange Touad\u00e9ra at his riverside palace to discuss new business deals, a Western diplomat and a senior European military official said. A day later, he received a delegation from Sudan \u2014 the same paramilitaries Wagner had supplied with missiles \u2014 who presented Mr. Prigozhin with a crate of gold bars, The Wall Street Journal reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Libya, his plane made two stops, French officials said. And he paused to film a video address, his first since the mutiny, that showed him in a desert \u2014 analysts said it was in Mali \u2014 dressed in camouflage and hoisting an assault rifle. Wagner was expanding in Africa, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Mr. Yevkurov was also making fresh rounds. On Aug. 22, a day after Mr. Prigozhin\u2019s video was released<\/a>, the Russian minister arrived in Libya for his own talks with Mr. Hifter<\/a>. The relationship was being reset, he told the Libyan commander, according to Mr. Eljarh, the analyst. Wagner fighters would stay on but Russian military intelligence would be in charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before leaving, Mr. Yevkurov presented Mr. Hifter with a pistol \u2014 a symbolically charged gift in a country where the ousted Libyan dictator, Muammar el-Qaddafi, famously had a gold-plated pistol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The following day, Mr. Prigozhin flew back to Moscow, where he held meetings with Russian officials, Mr. Putin later said in televised remarks. Then he boarded a flight to his home, St. Petersburg, along with his two top deputies: Dmitri V. Utkin, Wagner\u2019s main commander, and Valery Y. Chekalov, its logistics chief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nineteen minutes after takeoff the jet began to move erratically<\/a>before plunging 30,000 feet in about one minute, crashing into a field in a fireball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fact that the mercenary group\u2019s three top leaders had boarded the same flight stunned Mr. Shugalei, the political fixer for Mr. Prigozhin, who said that the men never traveled together to allow for an orderly succession after an attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThree key people who never gathered together for certain reasons \u2014 because each could replace the other if it came to it \u2014 got on the same plane,\u201d said Mr. Shugalei, who reported directly to Mr. Prigozhin, according to the European Union\u2019s decision<\/a> to impose sanctions against him. \u201cTo me, this is the main mystery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To many Ukrainians, Russians, Syrians and Africans, Mr. Prigozhin brought pain and suffering. His propaganda outlets and troll farms harassed Russian journalists and opposition figures. His forces were accused of gruesome war crimes in Syria, massacres in several African countries and torture of prisoners in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His mercenaries also failed to stem Islamist violence in countries where they deployed, like Mali, where on Thursday 49 civilians and 15 soldiers were killed in attacks<\/a>, the government said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Mr. Prigozhin also bred a devoted following, among them Mr. Shugalei, who spent more than a year in prison in Libya<\/a> while Mr. Prigozhin campaigned for his eventual release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Interviewed for this article, Mr. Shugalei, who is based in St. Petersburg, rejected the idea that the Russian government could fully take over Wagner, or operate as effectively as Wagner did, and described Mr. Prigozhin\u2019s little-known son, Pavel, as a potential heir to his empire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think he\u2019s got to take on some of the problems,\u201d he said, referring to Pavel Prigozhin. \u201cAs far as I know, he\u2019s prepared to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Washington, officials following the tug of war over Mr. Prigozhin\u2019s legacy say it is too soon to tell how it will shake out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some agree that Pavel Prigozhin, who is in his 20s, will indeed try to assert control over his father\u2019s company. The United States sanctioned<\/a> him last year and said he controls three St. Petersburg real estate companies. Last year, his father said that his son had fought in Syria and \u201cwas and is constantly in hot spots as part of the Wagner P.M.C.\u201d (private military company), a claim that could not be verified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He may be able to retain some of his father\u2019s domestic assets, which the independent Russian news outlet Agentstvo recently said made about $800 million in 2022, at the current exchange rate. But he would need the Kremlin\u2019s imprimatur to continue overseas, where governments are buying Moscow\u2019s geopolitical backing as much as local militia services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n American officials now say there are a dozen private companies that could also become involved in overseeing paramilitary operations. The leading candidate, perhaps, is P.M.C. Redut, which has close ties to the miliary intelligence agency and which one Wagner-linked Telegram account recently slammed<\/a> for not fulfilling \u201cthe original contract terms\u201d that it promised its recruits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is still a strong market in Africa\u2019s weakest countries for Wagner\u2019s central offering \u2014 regime protection. And the demise of Mr. Prigozhin has only whetted the appetite of some African countries for a stronger relationship with the Kremlin \u2014 especially those previously wary of Wagner, like Burkina Faso.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Mr. Yevkurov arrived there last week, he was greeted by Capt. Ibrahim Traor\u00e9, the country\u2019s 35-year-old leader, who seized power in a military coup last year. One of several West African leaders to sever ties with the former colonial power, France, in recent years, Mr. Traor\u00e9 had held a warm meeting with Mr. Putin at a Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg in July. \u201cRussia is part of Africa\u2019s family,\u201d he said then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Yevkurov\u2019s visit, with the spymaster General Averyanov by his side, solidified that relationship. Russia was open to strengthened cooperation \u201cin all spheres,\u201d the Burkina Faso presidency said in a statement. The following day, Mr. Yevkurov continued to Mali.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By then, Mr. Prigozhin had been buried in St. Petersburg\u2019s Porokhovskoye Cemetery \u2014 a graveyard built for an 18th-century ammunition factory. Riot police and national guardsmen sealed off the site and brought bomb-sniffing dogs to Mr. Prigozhin\u2019s grave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next day came another video from Mr. Prigozhin, published by a Wagner-linked Telegram account. It was apparently recorded during his last trip to Africa in August, a previously unreleased response to rumors that he was dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Addressing \u201cthose who like to talk about my liquidation,\u201d he said: \u201cEverything\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Valerie Hopkins, Elian Peltier, Paul Sonne, Ekaterina Bodyagina, Alina Lobzina, Oleg Matsnev and Raja Abdulrahim contributed reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anton Troianovski<\/a> is the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times. He was previously Moscow bureau chief of The Washington Post and spent nine years with The Wall Street Journal in Berlin and New York. More about Anton Troianovski<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Declan Walsh<\/a> is the chief Africa correspondent for The Times. He was previously based in Egypt, covering the Middle East, and in Pakistan. He previously worked at The Guardian and is the author of \u201cThe Nine Lives of Pakistan.\u201d More about Declan Walsh<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Eric Schmitt<\/a> is a senior writer who has traveled the world covering terrorism and national security. He was also the Pentagon correspondent. A member of the Times staff since 1983, he has shared four Pulitzer Prizes. More about Eric Schmitt<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Vivian Yee<\/a> is the Cairo bureau chief, covering politics, society and culture in the Middle East and North Africa. She was previously based in Beirut, Lebanon, and in New York, where she wrote about New York City, New York politics and immigration. More about Vivian Yee<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Julian E. Barnes<\/a> is a national security reporter based in Washington, covering the intelligence agencies. Before joining The Times in 2018, he wrote about security matters for The Wall Street Journal. More about Julian E. Barnes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Anton Troianovski, Declan Walsh, Eric Schmitt, Vivian Yee and Julian E. Barnes, Front Page lead, Sunday, September 10, 2023 A shadowy fight is playing out on three continents for control of Yevgeny Prigozhin\u2019s sprawling interests as head of the Wagner mercenary group. The biggest prize: his lucrative operations in Africa. African leaders allied with Russia had grown used to dealing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14776"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14776"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14778,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14776\/revisions\/14778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Three](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2023\/09\/07\/multimedia\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-hkgm\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-hkgm-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale\")
![\"An](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2023\/09\/07\/multimedia\/07prigozhin-reconstruct--cflv\/07prigozhin-reconstruct--cflv-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale\")
![\"Two](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2023\/09\/07\/multimedia\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-tvmq\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-tvmq-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale\")
A Campaign to Discredit Prigozhin<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2023\/09\/07\/multimedia\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-lwzq\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-lwzq-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale\")
The State of the War<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
![\"Two](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2023\/09\/07\/multimedia\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-pjvb\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-pjvb-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale\")
The Battle for Africa<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2023\/09\/07\/multimedia\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-mczk\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-mczk-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale\")
![\"Two](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2023\/09\/07\/multimedia\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-bgqt\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-bgqt-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale\")
![\"Four](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2023\/09\/07\/multimedia\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-hjvw\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-hjvw-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale\")
For Wagner, an Uncertain Future<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2023\/09\/07\/multimedia\/00prigozhin-reconstruct-01-kqmw\/00prigozhin-reconstruct-01-kqmw-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale\")
![\"High-rise](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2023\/09\/07\/multimedia\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-pkjg\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-pkjg-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale\")
![\"President](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2023\/09\/07\/multimedia\/00prigozhin-reconstruct-02-kqmw\/00prigozhin-reconstruct-02-kqmw-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2023\/09\/07\/multimedia\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-02-gpqf\/07prigozhin-reconstruct-02-gpqf-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale\")