Date profile information last updated: 13 October 2023.

Anton Yelizarov (Lotus), the Wagner military commander challenging the Kremlin’s choice

Anton Yelizarov is a senior figure in Russian PMC Wagner. He opposes the Russian Defence Minsitry but appears to lack allies in the elite.

Anton Yelizarov (Lotos/Lotus) is a senior commander in Russian private military company (PMC) the Wagner Group. He led the Wagner assault on Soledar, Ukraine in early 2023. Since then, he has acquired a public profile, particularly as a result of statements he has made since Wagner’s failed ‘coup attempt’ in June 2023. He has publicly challenged the authority of Andrey Troshev (Sedoy), the Kremlin’s choice to oversee “volunteer units” in Ukraine following the death of Wagner owner Yevgeniy Prigozhin in August 2023. However, it appears that Yelizarov would face the opposite problem to Troshev in any factional dispute within Wagner: While Troshev has strong relations with the Russian political elite but may struggle to command the loyalty of rank-and-file fighters, Yelizarov likely enjoys the support of regular Wagner fighters but appears to lack political connections.

Overview

• Yelizarov challenges Troshev’s claim to lead Wagner
• Yelizarov’s post-‘coup’ support for Prigozhin
• Yelizarov’s key relationships, inside and outside Wagner
• Yelizarov’s biography: The road to Wagner
• Controversies: Yelizarov’s legal difficulties with the Defence Ministry
• Digital Yelizarov: A Wagner leader reliant on pro-Wagner Telegram channels
• International response: Wagner leader Yelizarov and inconsistent sanctions
• Sources

Yelizarov challenges Troshev’s claim to lead Wagner

Yelizarov is a member of Wagner’s Council of Commanders. He first acquired a public profile when Prigozhin identified him as the immediate military commander in charge of Wagner’s assault on Soledar in January 2023 (Threatologist, 2023). In the aftermath of the failed ‘coup attempt’ on 23-24 June – which saw Prigozhin lead Wagner fighters on a march across Russia (Fontanka.ru, 2023) – he publicly criticised Troshev for defecting to the Russian Ministry of Defence. Yelizarov described Troshev as “an old-aged staff officer” who was “never a commander” or a member of the Council. He insisted that Troshev was the only person to leave the Wagner Group after the coup, characterising rumours that the majority of Wagner commanders had joined him as “just a dream of the Defence Ministry of the Russian Federation” (Telegram, 2023).

Yelizarov: De facto leader of the opposition within Wagner

Yelizarov’s public comments, coupled with his seniority within Wagner, have positioned him as the de facto leader of opposition within Wagner to Troshev and his efforts to assume control of the group on behalf of the Ministry of Defence. Ekho Moskvy Chief Editor Aleksey Venediktov opines that Wagner is now divided into “loyal” and “disloyal” camps, headed respectively by Troshev and Yelizarov. Venediktov also claimed that Yelizarov currently enjoys the support of Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s son and notional heir, Pavel (Novaya Gazeta, 2023) – although there is no independent evidence to verify this claim.

The Orkestr Vagnera Telegram channel characterised Yelizarov as leading “the company’s military and training work” and “in principle, the most senior in the hierarchy at the present time.” However, it also insisted that the Council of Commanders had not made any formal statements or appointments that would make Yelizarov the new Wagner leader (Telegram, 2023). The extent of support enjoyed by Yelizarov among other Wagner commanders is at present unknown, even if the majority of references to Yelizarov on pro-Wagner Telegram channels are positive.

Yelizarov seeks support from Rosgvardia to secure Wagner’s future

On 2 October, the Rybar Telegram channel reported that the Council of Commanders, led by Yelizarov, had reached an agreement with the leadership of Russia’s National Guard (Rosgvardia). According to Rybar’s report, Wagner fighters would sign both individual and collective agreements with Rosgvardia before 1 January 2024. The move was portrayed as an effort to ensure that Wagner could not simply be dissolved (Telegram, 2023).

The agreement appears to be an effort to secure political patronage from one of the Defence Ministry’s institutional rivals within the Russian security establishment. Yelizarov’s ability to resist a Defence Ministry takeover of the Wagner Group may depend on such patronage. However, there is limited open-source information to suggest that Yelizarov enjoys the high-level political connections that Troshev – backed directly by Putin – can boast. At the same time, it is worth noting that the media attention afforded to Yelizarov is much more limited and recent than that given to Troshev, and much of the available information comes from pro-Wagner Telegram channels and is difficult to verify.

Yelizarov’s post-‘coup’ support for Prigozhin

In the immediate aftermath of the ‘coup attempt,’ Yelizarov gave an interview to Timofey Yermakov, a blogger who runs the Z Telegram channel. Yelizarov claimed that Prigozhin had sent Wagner fighters home to rest until the start of August, so that they would then be ready to take on the “many tasks” that lay ahead of the Wagner Group. He identified two challenges as being particularly pressing: rotating fighters on the front lines in Ukraine and embedding new recruits, and transferring Wagner operations to Belarus.

Yelizarov’s comments in the interview made it clear that he continued to support Prigozhin following the coup. Yelizarov expressed concern about the situation in Ukraine and the failure to listen to Wagner complaints about the conduct of the “special military operation.” He accused Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu and Valeriy Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, of leading a “raid” on Wagner and conducting a media campaign to sow divisions between Wagner fighters and Prigozhin. However, he insisted such a campaign would not be successful because “Wagner is not just a structure, it is an ideology” (Telegraph, 2023).

Yelizarov’s key relationships, inside and outside Wagner

Family

Yelizarov is married with at least one daughter, born in 2005. Biographical and social media profiles of his wife, daughter, and wife’s relatives are available online. However, they are excluded from this profile in accordance with ethical principles for data collection: There is no open-source evidence that they have engaged in any illegal or PMC-related activities. Several personal contacts are excluded from the above network map for the same reason.

Business interests

The Ukrainian open-source investigative outlet Molfar conducted an in-depth profile of Yelizarov that indicated several business interests (Molfar, undated):

• Between 2015 and 2018, Yelizarov may have owned a carpentry company in Krasnodar (company registration number: 315230800010188). However, the information available on the registration documentation (Unified State Register of Legal Persons, undated) does not allow for definitive confirmation that the Anton Olegovich Yelizarov listed on the state register of companies refers to the same person.
• An Anton Olegovich Yelizarov also owns the Donjon interior design company based in Krasnodar. Donjon registered its website, http://donjon.design/, in August 2016 using a privacy protection service. The website is no longer active and was last archived by the Wayback machine on 31 July 2019. The Twitter profile picture for the studio is of Yelizarov (Twitter, undated).

Yelizarov’s biography: The road to Wagner

Professional background

Yelizarov served in the 108th regiment of the 7th Guards Airborne Division, Novorossiysk, as platoon and company commander (Novaya Gazeta, 2023). He then commanded a group within the 10th Detached Spetsnaz Brigade based at Molkino and served in the North Caucasus (Novaya Gazeta, 2023).

In 2007, it appears that he worked for the Vympel-Caucasus security company based in Novorossiysk. For an unknown period of time, he also worked as a driver and manager of fuel and lubricants (Molfar, undated).

Yelizarov within Wagner

Denis Korotkov, an investigative journalist and expert in Russian private military companies, argues that Yelizarov began working with Wagner no later than 2016. Yelizarov fought in Syria, where he was wounded in 2017 (Novaya Gazeta, 2023). The Wagner-affiliated Grey Zone Telegram channel specified that he had fought at Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor and received his injury “during the storming of the east bank of the Euphrates (Telegram, 2023).

According to Korotkov, Yelizarov then served as a Wagner instructor in the Central African Republic in the period 2018-2019 (Novaya Gazeta, 2023); he also appears to have been active in the country August-September 2021 (Dossier Center, 2023). Yelizarov reportedly led an assault team in Libya in 2021 as well (Novaya Gazeta, 2023).

Yevgeniy Prigozhin identified Yelizarov as the direct military commander of the assaults on Bakhmut-Artemovsk and Soledar in winter 2022-2023 (Fontanka.ru, 2023). His role in the capture of Soledar was cited by the European Union as one of the reasons for the imposition of sanctions against him (Official Journal of the European Union, 2023).

Controversies: Yelizarov’s legal difficulties with the Defence Ministry

In 2014, Yelizarov was accused of fraud over the sale of his service apartment, which prosecutors alleged involved the use of forged documents. A court sentenced him to a three-year suspended sentence and a R100,000 fine. He was evicted from the apartment in 2016 after unsuccessfully suing the Defence Ministry (Novaya Gazeta, 2023).

There is, therefore, a highly personal dimension to his current clash with the Defence Ministry. In his interview with Yermakov, he himself alluded to this, accusing the ministry of denying him his legal rights and trying to make him homeless. He asked: and after this they think that I will betray the company and its leader, that for the sake of a mythical social guarantees I will sign a contract with them? If these people think that, they are definitely out of their minds” (Telegraph, 2023).

Digital Yelizarov: A Wagner leader reliant on pro-Wagner Telegram channels

Yelizarov does not currently operate any known social media accounts; instead, his comments are publicised through a variety of pro-Wagner Telegram channels.

However, if the Anton Yelizarov who owns the Donjon interior design company and the Anton Yelizarov who is a prominent commander in the Wagner Group are indeed one and the same person, then Yelizarov has historically operated a number of social media accounts in the company’s name, in addition to the aforementioned company website. None of the accounts have been active since 2018:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DONJON10367268. Account created August 2016. Last post 23 August 2017.
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/don.jon.58726. Last post 20 February 2018.
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/__donjon/. Last post March 2018.
• OK: https://ok.ru/profile/579726094359. Last post March 2018
• VK: https://vk.com/id376364394 and https://vk.com/id268142351. Last post March 2018
• Pinterest: https://br.pinterest.com/donjondesign/_created.

International response: Wagner leader Yelizarov and inconsistent sanctions

Yelizarov was sanctioned by the EU on 24 February 2023 for his involvement in Ukraine, under Council Regulation (EU) No 269/2014. The EU stated that his involvement in military operations around Soledar meant that “He actively participates in the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Therefore, he is responsible for supporting and implementing actions and policies which undermine and threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine” (Official Journal of the European Union, 2023).

Ukraine sanctioned Yelizarov on 1 April 2023 (President of Ukraine, 2023) and Japan on 26 May 2023 (War & Sanctions, undated), in both cases again for his activities in Ukraine.

However, Yelizarov has not been sanctioned by either the United States or the United Kingdom. This illustrates a general weakness in the international sanctions regime, where Ukraine’s partners are inconsistent as to which less-prominent individuals associated with Wagner are sanctioned and/or in the speed with which they impose such sanctions.