By Kontur | 2025-06-25

In the wooded outskirts of Istra, a town west of Moscow, a familiar tune is playing again. Recruiters beckon prospective fighters to "join the orchestra," a euphemism inherited from the once-notorious Wagner Group, Russia's now-dismantled private military company (PMC).

These men are being asked to enlist not in a private outfit but in something new and strange: a Ministry of Defense (MOD)-sponsored revival of the Wagner Group mercenary force, branded the Wagner Legion. Recruitment for the unit is carried out through the local military enlistment office with the support of local authorities.

It is, by rough count, the fourth time Moscow has tried to reanimate Wagner since the group's dramatic implosion in the summer of 2023, when its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin tried to stage a mutiny and then died in a mysterious plane crash two months later. The question is not just why Russia would want to resurrect Wagner -- it is why it needs to.

The answer lies in a mix of manpower shortages, foreign-policy desperation and a mythology that simply refuses to fade.

The legend lives on

In March 2024, the mayor of Istra, Tatyana Vitusheva, reported that more than a thousand "Wagnerites" had joined the Legion. And in October, Russian pro-Kremlin military bloggers started to promote job opportunities with it.

Recruitment is now driven by streaming platforms, social media and official websites offering salaries and bonuses generous by Russian standards. The bonuses are even bigger for fighting in Africa.

Recruiters promise to place men under "legendary commanders" who once marched under Prigozhin's banner.

The symbolism is overt. The language is steeped in old Wagner lore. Veterans still refer to themselves as "musicians."

Yet Wagner, as it existed from 2014 until its apparent collapse in 2023, no longer officially exists. Its assets were absorbed by the MOD; its Africa Corps spun off under Kremlin oversight; its top leadership either dead or sidelined.

The Wagner Legion is something new: a hybrid, co-opting the Wagner name while operating under the state's firm grasp.

Not everyone buys the rebrand though.

"This isn't Wagner -- this is just a regular infantry unit of the [MOD] ... With all the consequences that entails," Timur Eloyev, a user on the Russian social media platform VKontakte, wrote in June.

"The Wagner Legion is just a marketing gimmick. If you end up in it, it'll be just like in the MOD -- you'll be simply placed in the 4th motor rifle brigade. ... The guys who are with me, former Wagnerites, really regret joining."

Why resurrect Wagner?

The reasons for this resurrection are less about glory and more about desperation.

The Russian military is suffering acute personnel shortages in Ukraine, where casualty estimates number in the hundreds of thousands. In Africa, Russia is also facing increased competition from the West, particularly France, in countries such as Mali, the Central African Republic and Burkina Faso. The Africa Corps, formed in late 2023 to take over Wagner's missions abroad, has struggled to replicate the charisma -- and brutality -- of its predecessor.

The MOD, insiders say, is simply unable to match the esprit de corps Wagner fostered.

"I'll share my personal opinion: once the 'musicians' were absorbed into the structure of the Russian Ministry of Defense, they began to quickly degrade and disperse; only a handful agreed to extend their contracts," Russian Foreign Ministry official Igor Moiseyev, who maintained close contact with the fighters, told Svobodnaya Pressa in April.

The Wagner Legion, then, is an effort somehow to revive the brand without reviving the risk of rebellion.

The lure of the patch

Even abroad, the Wagner name persists. In the Central African Republic, where Wagner mercenaries have operated for years, reports of their activity continue under the same brand. One April press release -- issued under Wagner's name despite its official dissolution -- touted a counterinsurgency operation near the Cameroonian border, claiming dozens of terrorists killed and factories retaken.

Insiders say many fighters never stopped wearing Wagner patches and rejecting the top-down control of Russia's military.

The costly fight for Bakhmut, Ukraine, forever turned Wagnerites "against large-scale combat operations -- the kind where you throw wave after wave of your own and enemy soldiers into the meat grinder," Moiseyev said.

Lingering fascination with old ways

An irony sits at the heart of this fourth revival. The Kremlin once saw Wagner as a deniable asset: a way to project power in Africa, Syria and Ukraine without official fingerprints. Then, as Prigozhin's ego and ambitions grew, Wagner became a Frankenstein that turned on its creator.

Now, having destroyed the monster, the Russian government is trying to raise it from the grave but this time under command.

Even though observers like Eloyev and Moiseyev see the Legion as pallid and Kremlin controlled, Wagner Group DNA lives on in some ways.

Many of its commanders, Wagner veterans, speak in interviews not of national strategy but of loyalty to fallen leaders like Dmitry "Wagner" Utkin and Prigozhin himself.

Long after his death, Prigozhin remains a figure of fascination.

Earlier in June, posts surfaced on Reddit and other social media claiming that a man resembling him had been spotted in Tel Aviv, Israel, calmly emerging from a bomb shelter during an Iranian missile strike.

Had Prigozhin somehow cheated death? The spread of the farfetched idea shows how deeply the Wagner myth has embedded itself in popular consciousness.

So Wagner's revival is, in a sense, state-sponsored nostalgia.

The Kremlin is betting that the public will forget the insubordination and remember only the firepower. That fighters will leap at the chance to be part of something legendary, even if that legend ended in mutiny.