Alexander Kuznetsov (soldier)

Kuznetsov was born on October 8, 1977, in Nikolskoye, USSR in what is now Russia.^[3][4] He graduated from the Saint Petersburg Higher Military Command College, and soon joined Senezh, the Russian special operations forces. In 2004, Kuznetov posted a video claiming he was in the group of Russian soldiers that killed Chechen fighter Khamzat Gelayev.^[1] He was company commander of GRU in Solnechnogorsk.^[1][4] In 2008, as a major in the Russian government, he was arrested and convicted of robbery and kidnapping, a sentence he served in a Nizhny Novgorod prison for five years.^[4][5] He helped found the Wagner Group in 2014 alongside Yevgeny Prigozhin, Anton Yelizarov, Andrei Troshev, and Dmitry Utkin with the blessing of the Russian government.^[1] He was placed as the commander of the 1st Attack and Reconnaissance Company.^[6] He took the call sign "Ratibor", and his first deployment was in Ukraine during the War in Donbas in 2014 with Rusich.^[1]

In 2016, Kuznetsov served in Syria in the Moran Security Group, a predecessor to Wagner. He was photographed with Utkin, Troshev, and Andrey Bogatov receiving the Hero of Russia award from Vladimir Putin.^[5][1][7] In 2019, Kuznetsov served with Wagner in Libya alongside the Libyan National Army during their offensives on Tripoli.^[3] On October 3, 2019, Kuznetsov was wounded in an ambush that killed 15 Wagner and Rusich operatives.^[4][8] He was flown to Saint Petersburg for treatment.^[1] After the injury, Kuznetsov headed Meroe Gold in Sudan, a Wagner-linked company controlling several gold mines in Sudan.^[9]

In February 2022, Kuznetsov fought in the Russian invasion of Ukraine where he was injured on January 11, 2023, during the Battle of Soledar.^[10] In December 2022, Kuznetsov had been shown in a video by Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov.^[1] During the Wagner Group rebellion in June 2023, Kuznetsov led Wagner's assault and capture of the city of Rostov-on-Don.^[8][1] He reportedly kept a low profile after the rebellion and after Prigozhin's death in September 2023, not seeking any political aims within the group.^[11][1] Kuznetsov joined the Akhmat Special Forces led by Apti Alaudinov alongside 3,000 other former Wagner fighters in April 2024.^[2][12]