Masked Wagner mercenaries are giving career talks at Russian high schools, UK intel says

• Wagner Group recruiters are giving career talks at high schools, UK intel says.
• Wagner's leader is likely recruiting youth to instill new extremist Russian ultranationalism ideologies.

Masked mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a Kremlin-linked paramilitary organization, are giving career talks at Russian high schools as part of a new effort to recruit troops, the British defense ministry said Monday in an intelligence update.

According to the update from the Ministry of Defense, the Wagner recruiters visited Moscow high schools to recruit students, "distributing questionnaires entitled 'application of a young warrior' to collect the contact details of interested pupils."

Wagner members also led career guidance lessons "to tell 'heroic stories' of the private military, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington, DC that has tracked wartime developments in Russia and Ukraine closely. The ISW report cited Russian opposition media.

During these lessons, Wagner representatives also reportedly promoted the Wagneryonok, a youth-focused military group and summer camp located in Crimea. Other efforts include recruitment centers in schools, youth sports clubs, gyms, and martial arts studios, Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a statement, per AFP.

ISW said Prigozhin is possibly focusing on enlisting high schoolers because of a shifting ideological focus.

"The Wagner Group likely aims to recruit more impressionable recruits through these youth-focused campaigns and instill in them Prigozhin's extremist ideological brand of Russian ultranationalism," the think tank said in an update.

That change could lead Wagner to "carve out a specialized role among Russian forces in Ukraine" as the group loses influence in the current campaign, ISW said.

Wagner's potential rebranding comes as the group continues to suffer heavy losses on the front lines in Bakhmut, an eastern Ukrainian city that has seen some of the bloodiest fighting of the war.

Western officials estimated last week that up to 30,000 Russian forces have been killed or wounded since the battle began late last summer. Wagner mercenaries have suffered substantial casualties. In particular, the group's army of prisoners, which Wagner can no longer recruit, has lost at least half of its available manpower, the British defense ministry said in its Monday update.

As losses mount, Wagner is increasingly finding itself at odds with Russian military leadership and Russian President Vladimir Putin. There have been fights over who should get the credit for battlefield victories and even beard regulations. Presently, there is a very public feud between Prigozhin and Russia's defense ministry over critical ammunition and supplies.

Prigozhin recently said that he has been "cut off" by Putin and that Russian leadership was denying ammunition to his group in "an attempt to destroy" Wagner. ISW experts said that Russian leadership is also likely using the deadly fighting in Bakhmut to kill off Wagner troops and weaken Prigozhin's power.