ST. PETERSBURG – The until recently highly secretive Wagner mercenary organization further raised its public profile on Friday when it opened a new headquarters and technology center in Russia’s second largest city.
The multi-story, glass-fronted building in St. Petersburg will not only function as an administrative center for the military group, whose public profile has grown as it assumes an increasingly prominent role in Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, but will also be home to an innovative center for its patriotic launch -ups incubate.
“Wagnerites achieve their goals at the forefront. We will achieve our goals here,” Ruslan Ostashko, a pro-Kremlin blogger and TV presenter who represented Wagner at the opening, told the Moscow Times. “Unfortunately, military conflicts have always been the driving force behind technological advances.”
Another Wagner representative at the opening, Konstantin Dolgov, said the center is a “think tank where people, united by one goal, will work on the implementation of specific tasks for the benefit of the Russian Federation.”
The center’s appearance eight months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a sign of how the group’s star has risen during the conflict, in which Russia’s regular armed forces suffered a series of significant military defeats at the hands of Kiev forces.
“The PMC Wagner Center is a building complex that can accommodate developers, designers, IT specialists, experimental industry and start-ups,” Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group, said in a press release last week.
“If the project shows its success and relevance, we will consider opening more stores.”
The new building in the east of St. Petersburg bears “Wagner” on its glass revolving doors and above the main entrance. While Prigozhin did not show up on opening Friday, dozens of men in military uniforms were present.
Although this was never publicly acknowledged by the Kremlin, soldiers for Wagner were reported in a number of countries in the Middle East and Africa, including Syria, where they fought alongside regular Russian troops.
Aided by convicts recruited from Russian prisons, the company’s mercenaries are currently engaged in a bitter struggle to capture the small but strategically important town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
One of the entrepreneurs who will be based in the new center is Dmitry Zakhilov, who runs an IT company whose main product is used to diagnose drug abuse tendencies in adolescents. The Wagner facility, he said, is interested in using the same technology to screen potential military personnel.
“Military work requires enormous loads. The aim is to keep the psychological state of the troops in an acceptable state. We will help to achieve this goal,” Zakhilov told the Moscow Times.
“Sitting apart is not an option. Regardless of whether Russia is right or wrong, this is where I see my future, so I support my country.”
Wagner’s military prominence is mirrored by that of Prighozin himself, who seeks the political limelight at home with increasing regularity. After years of denial, Prigozhin first admitted in September that he founded Wagner in 2014.
“Prigozhin is now ready to publicly describe his role in a way he has not been able to in the past,” said Dara Massicot, an expert on the Russian army at US think tank RAND Corporation.
“He wears his medals, changes his attire, and addresses his staff on camera as if he were their general.”