Russian President Vladimir Putin has personally met with Andrei Troshev to discuss the formation of volunteer units for "various tasks in the special military operation zone," a term used by Putin's propaganda to describe the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Troshev, who is now working in the Ministry of Defense, is the successor to Yevgeny Prigozhin, who officially died in a plane crash on August 23.
The meeting at the Kremlin comes at a time when Ukraine is making significant progress in its counteroffensive and launching bolder attacks on the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula.
Recent reports suggest that some mercenaries from the Wagner Group have returned to the front lines in Ukraine.
Yevgeny Prigozhin led an armed rebellion against Russian command two months before his death, posing the first real threat to Putin's power in years. After this event, some mercenaries were stationed in Belarus.
Troshev's loyalty and background
Andrei Troshev was the formal number two in the Wagner Group and had refused to support the June rebellion, choosing to side with the FSB and Russian military command instead.
Troshev is a retired officer who participated in the USSR's aggression in Afghanistan (1979-1989) and the war in Chechnya in the 1990s. He has received multiple awards and was named a Hero of the Russian Federation in 2016 for his actions in Syria.
