Who is Wagner's 'Grey-Haired', the officer entrusted by Putin with a special task in Ukraine?

 

The skinny gray man lying on the asphalt was so drunk he couldn't even say his own name.

 

Emergency personnel found Andrei Troshev near a building in the upper part of St. Petersburg, Russia's second largest city, on June 5, 2017, according to the independent portal Fontanka.ru.

 

Drunken Troshev had about $25,000 in cash, maps of Syria and documentation for the purchase of tents intended for Russian forces fighting for the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the portal writes, referring to hospital records.

 

It turned out that the 61-year-old man, whose war name is "Sedoj" (Grey-haired), is one of the leading officers of Wagner's mercenary group, which was formed a few years earlier.

 

"He is a typical character for Wagner," Nikolai Mitrokhin of the University of Bremen, Germany, told Al Jazeera.

 

Like many other employees of the security wing of Concord, the company of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, Troshev fought in the Soviet-Afghan war and later joined the police force in St. Petersburg, Mitrokhin said.

 

On June 23, Troshev made a fateful decision – he refused to participate in the aborted Wagner Rebellion in Russia and was not on the private plane with Prigozhin and his top officers that crashed in western Russia on August 23.

 

After the uprising, Wagner left Ukraine and disbanded, no longer playing a role in Moscow's faltering war effort in Ukraine.

 

Some of Wagner's veterans were lured into smaller private armies, assembled by state-owned corporations or Kremlin-friendly oligarchs.

 

Some have found refuge in Belarus, whose President Alexander Lukashenko has strengthened law enforcement agencies in a power play with Russia.

 

Some are based in garrisons in several African states, whose leaders have given Wagner access to mineral wealth and raw materials in exchange for security services.

 

The Kremlin did not want Wagner's entire units to return to the Ukrainian battlefields because they proved too unruly as Prigozhin was embroiled in high-profile clashes with the Russian elite, military analysts said.

 

"Complete Wagner Group units could cause control problems in the Russian Ministry of Defense, as they did under Prigogine," retired US Army General Gordon Skip Davis Jr. told Al Jazeera.

 

"However, former Wagner veterans could provide the necessary tactical expertise and lead smaller units of the Russian army," he said.

 

These new formations would be led by Trošev, even though he played a role in one of the bloodiest defeats Wagner had ever faced.

 

In February 2018, Troshev and Prigozhin allegedly ordered an attack on an oil and gas field near the eastern Syrian city of Khasham, not knowing that the area was controlled by US forces and the Syrian opposition.

 

Wagner suffered a humiliating defeat and heavy casualties in what was the first Russo-American conflict since the Cold War.

 

However, Troshev was awarded the Order of Hero of Russia for his service in Syria.

 

Prigogine's rebellion began after the Ministry of Defense said every Wagner fighter must sign a contract to become part of a military machine notorious for corruption, inefficiency and miscalculations that have proved deadly for thousands of Russian soldiers.

 

Prigozhin eventually refused to sign those contracts, increasing tensions.

 

And these contracts are exactly what Trošev is looking for these days.

 

On Saturday, Troshev, dressed in a tailored dark blue suit, common among Russian officials, was photographed in the Kremlin listening to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

 

Putin told him to "form volunteer battalions" that would include Wagner's fighters.

 

“You know how it is, how it's done. You know about the problems that need to be solved in advance in order for combat operations to take place in the best and most successful way," said Putin.

 

But that task is doomed, analysts say, because of Trošev's reputation within Wagner.

"The core of most of Wagner's battle-tested members will certainly not join him," Kiev-based analyst Maria Kucherenko, author of several detailed reports on Wagner, told Al Jazeera.

 

Trošev is also facing a new rival.

Prigozhin's son and successor Pavel "makes an agreement with the Russian National Guard so that Wagner will return to Ukraine on a specific assignment without signing a contract," said Kucherenko.

 

Wagner's mercenaries will also fight "under their own symbols" of a human skull on a black and red background, she added.

 

However, it is crystal clear who would control these mercenary groups.

 

"These retired alcoholics and a dozen military names can be mixed in, but the essence does not change - everything is controlled by the [Russian] General Staff," she said.

 

Meanwhile, the Kremlin is putting pressure on Wagner fighters in Africa who are reluctant to sign up for service in Ukraine by "deliberately blocking their supply chains," Mitrokhin said.

 

As a result, the Telegram channel, which has ties to the Russian military and Wagner, claims that “three assault units” flew from Africa to Ukraine last week.

 

The deployment followed an agreement between their commanders and the Russian National Guard to sign individual and group contracts, Russian pro-war Telegram channel Rybar claimed.

 

It is not clear where the units are going, but their arrival will "contribute to the autumn-winter campaign", it was said.

 

So far, Ukrainian intelligence has reported about 500 Wagner fighters returning to the front lines and said their presence is not expected to change the situation.

 

At Wagner's peak in June, Prigozhin boasted that he had 25,000 fighters, mostly recruited from prisons, Davis said.

 

They played a key role in the capture of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, "at a great human cost," he added.

 

Therefore, "about 500 people probably won't have a significant impact, especially if they are deployed in various Russian units," Davis concluded.