Alexander Kuznetsov (soldier)
Aleksandr Sergeevich Kuznetsov, nom de guerre Ratibor, is a Russian soldier who co-founded the Wagner Group alongside Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin. His first role in the mercenary company was as commander of the 1st Attack and Reconnaissance Company in 2014, and fought in Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Ukraine. Following the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2023, Kuznetsov joined the Chechen Akhmat forces in Ukraine with other ex-Wagner mercenaries.
Biography
Kuznetsov was born on October 8, 1977, in Nikolskoye, USSR in what is now Russia. 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. He was company commander of GRU in Solnechnogorsk. 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. 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. He was placed as the commander of the 1st Attack and Reconnaissance Company. He took the call sign "Ratibor", and his first deployment was in Ukraine during the War in Donbas in 2014 with Rusich.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. In 2019, Kuznetsov served with Wagner in Libya alongside the Libyan National Army during their offensives on Tripoli. On October 3, 2019, Kuznetsov was wounded in an ambush that killed 15 Wagner and Rusich operatives. He was flown to Saint Petersburg for treatment. After the injury, Kuznetsov headed Meroe Gold in Sudan, a Wagner-linked company controlling several gold mines in Sudan.
In February 2022, Kuznetsov fought in the Russian invasion of Ukraine