Has Putin picked a new Wagner boss? Who is Andrei Troshev, aka the ‘Grey Hair’ warlord?

What happens to Russia’s Wagner Group after the death of its chief Yevgeny Prigozhin? More than a month on, we might have an answer. The mercenary group reportedly has a new boss. His name is Andrei Troshev and he is dubbed the “Grey Hair” warlord.

Troshev reportedly met Russian president Valdimir Putin on Thursday night.

So what happened in the meeting? And what do we know about Troshev? We explain.

What did Putin and Troshev discuss?

Putin met Troshev, a founding member and executive director of the Wagner Group, along with Russia’s deputy defence minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov on Thursday night. The Russian president has tasked the former aide of Prigozhin to oversee volunteer fighter units in Ukraine, according to a Kremlin statement on Friday, reports news agency AFP.

“At the last meeting we talked about you overseeing the formation of volunteer units that can carry out various tasks, first and foremost of course in the zone of the special military operation,” Putin was quoted as saying to Troshev, referring to war in Ukraine.

The meeting underlined the integration of Wagner fighters into Russia’s regular military. It is seen as the Kremlin’s attempt to show that the state had now gained control of the mercenary group after the aborted mutiny by Prigozhin.

Putin and Troshev spoke about how “volunteer units that can perform various combat tasks, above all, of course, in the zone of the special military operation”.

“You yourself have been fighting in such a unit for more than a year,” Putin said. “You know what it is, how it is done, you know about the issues that need to be resolved in advance so that the combat work goes in the best and most successful way,” according to a report in Reuters. Putin also said that he wanted to speak about social support for those involved in the fighting.

The meeting took place in the Kremlin and was shown on Russian state television. Troshev was shown listening to Putin, leaning forward and nodding, pencil in hand. His remarks were not shown, the report says.

Who is Andrei Troshev?

Troshev is a founding member of the Wagner Group and one of its most senior former commanders. He is known by his nom de guerre “Sedoi” or “grey hair”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the RIA news agency that Troshev now worked at the defence ministry.

According to sanction documents published by the European Union and France, Sedoy or Sedoi is a call sign for Troshev. He is a retired Russian colonel and was the chief of staff of the Wagner Group operations in Syria, which backed the Syrian regime, reports CNN.

According to the EU sanctions from December 2021, Troshev is directly involved in the military operations of the Wagner Group in Syria. “As such, he provides a crucial contribution to Bashar al-Assad’s war effort and therefore supports and benefits from the Syrian regime,” CNN reports quoting from the document.

He is closely associated with several high-profile figures in the Wagner Group, including founder Dimitriy Utkin, a former GRU military intelligence officer, and commanders Aleksandr Sergeevich Kuznetsov and Andrey Bogatov, reports NDTV.

Troshev is a former employee of the special rapid response detachment of the Russian interior ministry’s Northwestern Federal District. He is a war veteran who fought in Chechnya and Afghanistan and has been awarded several medals for his service – two Orders of the Red Star, two Orders of Courage and a medal of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 2nd degree, according to reports in the Russian media. In 2016, he was awarded Russia’s highest medal, “Hero of Russia,” for his role in the storming of Palmyra in Syria against Islamic State militants.

The mercenary leader’s name also appears on the United Kingdom’s list of financial sanctions targets. It says that he has “supported the Syrian regime, was a member of a militia, and has repressed the civilian population in Syria”.

Troshev was born in April 1953 in Leningrad, in the former Soviet Union, the EU sanctions say. Ukraine also imposed sanctions against him on 26 February 2023.

The commander’s name to take over Wagner cropped up days after the failed mutiny, as Prigohzin’s fate remained unclear. In July, Putin had first proposed to the mercenary fighters that Troshev should command the private military group, according to remarks made to the Kommersant newspaper.

In a meeting reportedly held five days after the June rebellion, Putin told Wagner mercenaries that among the multiple employment choices offered to them, one included continuing to fight under their direct commander, “Sedoi”. He also referred to Troshev as their “real commander all along”.

The president told Kommersant newspaper that many nodded affirmatively at his suggestion.

What has been Wagner Group up to since the mutiny?

Wagner is said to be one of the world’s most battle-hardened mercenary forces. However, its fate has remained uncertain since Prigozhin’s failed 23 June 23 uprising and his death, exactly two months later on 23 August in a rather mysterious plane crash.

The aborted mutiny is widely regarded to have posed the most serious internal challenge to Putin for decades. Prigozhin said that the mutiny was not aimed at toppling Putin but at settling scores with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, reports Reuters.

After the Wagner boss’s death, Putin ordered the fighters to sign an oath of allegiance to the Russian state, a step Prigozhin had opposed.

Amid all this, their absence from the Ukraine was not unnoticed. Now the fighters are reportedly back on the battlefield. They appear to be some of the best within the Russian ranks, but the threat is still low without their leader, Kyiv’s military said.

Following the capture of Bakhmut, the Wagner mercenaries pulled back from the front lines to stage the rebellion. In the aftermath, they were either cast into exile in Belarus or offered the opportunity to sign contracts with the Russian military.

Now around 500 mercenaries have returned to eastern Ukraine and will be sent into combat on behalf of Russia, Illya Yevlash, a spokesperson for Kyiv’s military, said on Wednesday, reports Business Insider.

Yevlash told Ukrainian broadcaster RBC-Ukraine that these fighters came from Belarus, where 8,000 mercenaries were living in exile and training the country’s military. Now the camp where they were staying has been disbanded. While some fighters were sent to Africa, where Wagner has a foothold supporting several governments, others were forced to sign contracts with the Russian defence ministry, the report says.

Now Putin seems to have reestablished his influence on the mercenary group. Thursday’s widely reported meeting indicates that what remains of Wagner will be overseen by Troshev and Russia’s deputy defence minister Yevkurov, who travelled over recent months to several countries where the mercenaries work.

With inputs from agencies