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David Patrikarakos is UnHerd's foreign correspondent. His latest book is War in 140 characters: how social media is reshaping conflict in the 21st century. (Hachette)
April 26, 2023
The Wagner Group might be a gang of hired murderers, but it
is also a well-oiled machine: peel back its layers of barbarity and
you’ll find a slick private military company with plans to expand its
influence throughout the world. Experts, including US Congress,
have long argued that Wagner is controlled by the Russian special
services, specifically the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry
of Defence, commonly known as the GRU.
But this is wrong. I have been investigating Wagner for six months,
and both sources in Ukraine and documents shown to me by the Dossier
Center, an investigative project set up by Russian dissident Mikhail
Khodorkovsky, tell a very different story. The company has never been
under the GRU; nor does it report to the Ministry of Defence, with which
it now has an increasingly fractious relationship, or any law
enforcement or government agencies. In fact, unlike other Russian
private or quasi-private military companies, such as Redut, it is funded and run by a single individual: Yevgeny Prigozhin, who in turn answers only to one man: Vladimir Putin.
Wagner, then, is vital to understanding the Kremlin’s emerging global
strategy. Its mercenaries are not only butchering in Ukraine, but are
also being deployed across Africa as the Kremlin seeks to hoover up the
continent’s resources. As violence strafes Sudan, reports,
backed up by my contacts on the ground, claim that Wagner supplied
Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces with surface-to-air missiles in its battle
for control of the state against Sudanese leader General Abdel Fattah
al-Burhan. The group is also helping to prop up the regime in Syria and
is busy meddling in Baltic states as well.
Late last year, as the war in Ukraine intensified, Prigozhin, who
holds no official position, was considered by many to be more powerful
than most federal ministers. Some argued he even held more sway in the
Kremlin than Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov. But even if Prigozhin wouldn’t take orders from the Ministry of
Defence, Russian sources tell me he would work with it when it suited
his needs.
At the direct request of Putin or his office, the Ministry was forced
to provide support — including weapons, tanks, fighter jets and
military bases — to Wagner. In return, Prigozhin’s units would sometimes
find themselves under the operational control of the Ministry of
Defence or the Russian special services: this has been the case in Syria
since February 2022. For the most part, however, Wagner remains an
independent entity, which suits Prigozhin perfectly. If the invasion
goes wrong in Ukraine, he won’t be the person responsible; if it goes
well, he can point to his role in any success.
For the first time, documents handed to me by the Dossier Center
reveal how Prigozhin finances Wagner, as well as many of his other
projects. It is a web of dark money that spreads through dozens of
countries. Prigozhin is linked to several hundred companies registered
in Russia that received government contracts for various state
functions, such as building military camps, organising rubbish
collections, and supplying food for the military, hospitals and schools.
From 2011 to 2018, these companies received more than 5,000 Russian
state contracts worth 209 billion rubles (£2 billion), with some of
these profits going to projects involving Wagner and so-called
“political technologists” — those whom the Kremlin puts in charge of
influencing political systems — abroad.
Contracts are generally awarded on a non-competitive basis, but none
of Prigozhin’s companies have ever been severely penalised for this
behaviour. Due to the legal simplicity of registering new companies in
Russia, his firms can dodge sanctions easily. Once a company has been
sanctioned, its cash is simply moved to the balance of another of
Prigozhin’s companies (as yet unknown to the authorities) — and the
trading can begin again. Prigozhin’s internal documents on his many
African and Syrian projects illustrate this cash flow, freely paying the
necessary expenses for projects in countries of interest to him,
including in cash.
In Africa, as the crisis in Sudan shows, Wagner is fast making the
region’s many problems worse. Sources in the Central African Republic
have confirmed that Prigozhin recently paid bribes to political
influencers and local military leaders, while further reports
suggest the group is planning to increase its level of activity in
Libya (possibly, due to elections that are scheduled for summer 2023).
When I was in the region last year, a contact who had recently been
inside Burkina Faso (which had just experienced a coup) showed me photos
of streets filled with Slavic-looking tough guys.
This all benefits Prigozhin, who is also growing fat off oil and
mining concessions in Syria and Africa. In 2019, the Syrian parliament
signed contracts for the development of three blocks of gas and oil
fields with two Russian companies, Velada and Mercury, both of which are
affiliated with Prigozhin. The monthly share of Prigozhin’s structures
from the extraction of natural resources is likely to be about $20
million.
One former Wagner commander who fought in Syria recently told me how
Prigozhin’s office in the country is in a room rented from the Russian
Foreign Ministry in the centre of Damascus, where large amounts of cash
are kept for necessary expenses (salaries, recruitment of locals and so
on). He explained how the battalion commander once took out about
$200,000 for expenses. The cash itself is transported in and out of
Syria on private jets used either by Prigozhin or by his many
underlings.
Prigozhin knows the value of hiring fighters who have served in some
of the toughest places on earth and earned a reputation for viciousness.
He pays them well — often more than what is stated in their contract —
via both bank transfers and bundles of cash from one of his offices.
According to contracts signed by the fighters, relatives or other
preselected individuals could collect cash from the offices on their
behalf. However, in 2020, security measures were tightened, and Wagner
employees are now required to present a badge with an identification
number to receive their pay in cash.
Of course, nothing is ever simple, or pleasant, with Prigozhin. As a
compulsive micro-manager, he is known to punish employees with large
fines for petty disobediences and offences: excessive use of alcohol,
drug use, improper use of social media and so on. He is also known to be
violent with those who work for him.
Sources in Ukraine tell me that Prigozhin would regularly liaise with
high-ranking generals from the Ministry of Defence, including General
Sergei Surovikin, the man in charge of Russia’s “special Military
Operation” in Ukraine from October to January 2023. Things have not gone
well for Russia in Ukraine, which is why Surovikin was replaced, and
Prigozhin has repeatedly publicly criticised the Ministry of Defence for its performance — he ridiculed the regular army, claiming his own Wagner units were far superior.
Relations between Wagner and the defence ministry worsened throughout
early 2023, especially over the battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut,
where both the Russian military and Wagner is battling to claim credit
for the city’s eventual fall, as I discovered when I reported from there earlier this year. According to an April 2023 British intelligence report,
relations between the two have become so factious that “Russia’s
military leadership likely wants a replacement PMC that it has more
control over”. But it was also at pains to point out the difficulties.
“No other known Russian PMC currently approaches Wagner’s size or combat
power,” it concluded.
If this seems like a chaos of internal conflict, it’s one that may
well have approval from the very top. Putin has praised Josef Stalin on
several occasions — and Stalin, perhaps more than anything, relied on
internal rivalries to maintain control. In this context, Prigozhin’s
repeated criticisms of the Ministry of Defence are beneficial to Putin,
not only for pointing out mistakes that might be corrected, but for
pushing it to perform better (while ensuring that neither side becomes
too powerful). It is, in effect, win-win for Putin.
But for the rest of the world it is not. Wagner and Prigozhin now
face allegations of terrorism, political assassinations and the use of
rape as a weapon of war. Last November, UK law firm McCue Jury and
Partners announced it was suing Wagner on behalf of Ukrainian victims
who have fled to the UK. Jason McCue, a senior partner, told me that the
decision to pursue the claim was an easy one. “They have committed war
crimes in Bucha… They are the ones who identified civilian targets so
the Russian military could strike them. And then there are the numerous
documented acts of torture they have committed against both soldiers and
civilians.”
And this catalogue of allegations seems destined to swell. Since last
year, the number of mercenaries has at least tripled. These recruits
not only increased their military capability in general, but also gained
vital experience of participating in larger scale operations, such as
in Bakhmut. Their equipment has also been diversified, with greater
numbers of high-tech heavy weapons flowing in. Wagner is now no longer
merely a private military company, but an army.
Behind them stands Prigozhin, a man whose political ambitions, and
presence in the Russian public consciousness, has never been greater.
Russian aggression is growing globally, and as the Wagner Files reveal, a
globally connected, well-funded private army is now at its forefront.