When Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash in August 2023, two months after his failed mutiny against Russia’s military leadership, many assumed the Wagner Group would die with him. Prigozhin’s mercenary force had become one of Moscow’s most feared tools of power. It fought brutally in Ukraine and expanded deep into Africa. His sudden fall looked like the end of Wagner as an independent force. It wasn’t. A Financial Times investigation , citing Western intelligence officials, shows that