Join us for a discussion of Antonio Giustozzi's Did Wagner Group prove an effective tool for Russian foreign policy? with the author. Wagner Group has made the headlines, especially in 2023-24, but after the death of its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin it has almost been forgotten. It is time to assess what impact it has made on Russia's foreign policy. Did it serve Russia's interests? Wagner Group's impact should be assessed against a background characterised by the rigidity and slowness of Russia's state apparatus, especially in Putin's perception. That said, if Wagner Group was an experiment, it was only partially successful, and not only because of Prigozhin's mutiny in 2023. 

You can also read previous papers by Antonio Giustozzi published by in the Russia Program's Academic Policy Paper Series: After Prigozhin: Does Wagner Group have a future? and his latest Russia and the Collapse of the Assad Regime.

Speaker

Dr. Antonio Giustozzi is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). He took his PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He carried out a study of Wagner Group for RUSI in 2023-24.