I have a hard time believing that was anything more than complete incompetence on Russia’s part. Wagner starts a firefight with mixed American and Syrian resistance fighters, to which the US responds by calling the Kremlin to ask if Wagner are acting on orders from them. Russia tells the US that Wagner are not under direct orders from them and to deal with them as they see fit, and Wagner proceeds to get their ass kicked like they usually do. To me that reads a lot more like the usual Kremlin incompetence than any sort of planned provocation