According to a Kremlin statement, Russian President Vladimir Putin has tasked a former aide to late Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin to oversee volunteer fighting units in Ukraine.
"At our last meeting, we discussed you supervising the formation of volunteer units that can carry out various tasks, first and foremost in the zone of the special military operation," Putin was quoted as saying to Andrei Troshev, referring to Moscow's offensive in Ukraine.
The conference, which Deputy Defence Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov also attended, emphasized the integration of fighters from the mercenary Wagner Group into Russia's regular military following Prigozhin's failed rebellion in June.
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On August 23, Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary squad, died along with nine other persons when a jet going from Moscow to Saint Petersburg crashed.
Prigozhin had openly defied Russia's military high command two months earlier by launching a short-lived insurrection with his fighters that threatened to devolve into civil war.
According to observers, this was the most significant challenge to Putin's rule.
Prigozhin ended the insurrection after reportedly reaching an agreement with the Kremlin through the intervention of Belarus, but he faced no criminal charges.
Troshev is a former colonel known by the nickname "Sedoi" (Gray-haired), is a decorated veteran of Kremlin wars in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Syria.
