Who is Dmitry Utkin, the Nazi-obsessed Wagner commander presumed dead in the same crash as Prigozhin?
- Dmitry Utkin, a close associate of Yevgeny Prigozhin, is presumed dead in Wednesday's plane crash.
- The Wagner Group is named after Utkin's callsign, which stems from his fascination with Nazi Germany.
One of Yevgeny Prigozhin's closest associates, Dmitry Utkin, was named among the 10 people presumed to have died on the Wagner Group leader's private jet, which crashed near Moscow on Wednesday.
Utkin, a former Spetsnaz commander born in 1970, has frequently been described as the mercenary group's original founder or co-founder.
But his exact role remains unclear. In 2020, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, citing investigative outlet Bellingcat, said "it cannot be verified whether Utkin initiated the establishment of Wagner Group or was only a front man for someone else."
Pinning this down is difficult, as Wagner does not exist on paper. According to Bellingcat, Utkin was named as the CEO of Concord Management and Consulting, the Prigozhin-controlled entity that has served as the mouthpiece for Prigozhin and his exploits with Wagner. However, the outlet pointed to evidence this may have just been a legal fiction.
Nonetheless, Utkin's influence is woven into the Wagner Group's origin story and its exploits. The group's name stems from Utkin's "Wagner" callsign, the BBC reported.
That, in turn, goes back to Utkin's reported admiration of Nazi Germany. Utkin has "an obsessive fascination with the history of the Third Reich," according to Bellingcat. Time said he was adorned with Nazi-themed tattoos, including SS "epaulettes" along his collar bones.
His troops littered the places they moved through with far-right symbols, the outlet reported.
Utkin was a career officer who served with Russia's GRU until 2013, before quitting and joining the Moran Security Group, another private military outfit described by the CSIS as a direct precursor to Wagner.
With Moran, Utkin served in a failed operation sponsored by the Syrian government to suppress Islamic State militants, the think tank wrote.
In 2016, Utkin was invited to a lavish reception helmed by President Vladimir Putin for soldiers who "have demonstrated particular courage and heroism," as the Kremlin described it, according to Radio Free Europe.
The invitation, which was justified by Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on the grounds of the medals Utkin had earned, was another clue in verifying the tacit relationship between the Russian government and shadowy private militaries like Wagner.
The US sanctioned Utkin along with the Wagner Group in 2017, citing activities that "threaten the peace, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine."
Following Prigozhin's failed revolt in 2023, what may be Utkin's last public appearance was in a video that surfaced in July, in which Prigozhin introduced a man he said was Utkin. Utkin spoke to the troops after Prigozhin addressed them, The Guardian reported.
After Prigozhin railed against the Russian government's management of the invasion of Ukraine, Utkin said: "This is not the end, this is only the beginning of the greatest work in the world, which will continue very soon," per the Guardian's translation. He then switched to English. "And welcome to hell," he said.