Held Talks With Former Wagner Group Senior Commander, President Putin: You Know The Issues You Need To Solve

JAKARTA - Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with one of the most senior commanders of the Wagner Group, Andrei Troshev, discussing how best to use volunteer units in Ukraine's war.

The meeting underscores the Kremlin's efforts to show the country has now gained control of the group of mercenaries, following a failed uprising in June as well as the deaths of Wagner Leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and a number of other senior commanders in a plane crash last month.

Just days after the Wagner Group insurgency, President Putin offered the mercenaries the opportunity to continue fighting, but suggested that Commander Andrei Troshev take over Prigozhin's position, according to reports by the Russian newspaper Kommersant.

The Kremlin said President Putin had met with Troshev, known as the pseudonym "Sedoi" - or "gray hair" as well as Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov.

President Putin said his talks this time discussed how "voluntary units that can carry out various combat tasks, especially, of course, are in the special military operations zone."

"You yourself have been fighting in such units for more than a year," President Putin said.

"You know what it is, how it is done, you know about the problems that need to be resolved first, so that combat work goes in the best and most successful way," said President Putin.

President Putin further said he talked about social support for those involved in the fighting.

Separately, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told RIA news agency Troshev was currently working at the Ministry of Defense.

This meeting appears to suggest Wagner's remnants will now be overseen by Troshev and Yevkurov, who have traveled over the past few months to several countries where Wagner's mercenaries work.

It is known that Troshev is a veteran of the Russian war in Afghanistan and Chechnya. The former commander of the SOBR Interior Ministry's quick reaction force came from St. Petersburg, the same city as President Putin.

Troshev was awarded Russia's highest medal, the Russian Hero in 2016, in connection with the raid on ISIS in Palymyra, Syria.