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Russian PMCs in Syria. Former PMC employee: Russians in Syria changed the rules of the game

https://www.site/2018-03-05/kak_vyglyadit_lager_chvk_vagnera_v_krasnodare

“Everyone is lying, son, they are sharing the oil! They make money off the blood of the guys.”

What does the Wagner PMC camp look like near Krasnodar?

Igor Pushkarev

Krasnodar is quite far from the combat zones in south-eastern Ukraine or Syria. But here is probably the most famous private military organization in Russia now - the Wagner PMC, whose fighters have made their mark in Crimea, Donbass and Syria in just a few years.

The fact that the camp of this PMC is based near the village of Molkino, which is 30 kilometers from Krasnodar to the south along the M-4 Don highway, was written by RBC magazine back in the summer of 2016. Journalists of the publication reached the village and talked with servicemen of the 10th brigade of the GRU of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation at the first checkpoint. What is happening behind it, whether the Wagner PMC camp actually exists and what it looks like - all this remained unknown..

From Krasnodar you can get to Molkino by bus, which goes from the bus station towards the regional center of Goryachiy Klyuch, or by taxi. In one case the tariff is 80 rubles, in the other - “ruble”, that is, 1 thousand rubles. Actually, Molkino itself is a pair of two-story brick apartment buildings, several private ones, one street - Ofitserskaya and one grocery store with a very modest range of goods. The checkpoint of the 10th GRU brigade is located a hundred meters from the village, on the other side of the M-4 Don highway and the railway, which runs parallel to the autobahn.

Traffic around the checkpoint is quite busy. Some cars are constantly driving in and out, people in civilian clothes and uniforms pass back and forth. For the most part, they rush to the left - to where the asphalt road goes and where the actual military unit of the Ministry of Defense is located. By the way, at the local training ground, judging by open sources, “Tank Biathlon” is regularly held, as well as reenactor games.

The Wagner PMC camp, as far as is known from the RBC publication, is located in the opposite direction.

“You see, the dirt road goes to the right. Follow it, you will pass another checkpoint and further, they are standing there,” the soldiers admonished me at the first checkpoint. At first, I must admit, no one wanted to let the stranger in my person. But the phrase “to Syria” seems to have a magical effect here. At the “second checkpoint” there is another GRU serviceman guarding it. Just like his colleagues at the main checkpoint, he is armed with a bayonet and his equipment includes a bulletproof vest and a helmet. But he pays almost no attention to those passing by. He sits quietly on a chair in a booth, listens to the radio and drinks tea and cookies.

It takes about 10 minutes to walk to the Wagner camp, about a kilometer. I came across a young man in civilian clothes with a camouflage backpack over his shoulders and wearing headphones, a couple of cars with people in uniform, but without insignia. About 200 meters before the camp the road makes a sharp turn to the left. From here, two-story houses lined with light green siding, with green roofs, a lattice fence around the perimeter and a parking lot with a dozen parked cars in front of the gate become clearly visible.

- Is this the Wagner brigade? — I ask the man who is getting behind the wheel of a car.

- Yes, here. “There’s a checkpoint,” he pointed to the gate in the fence.

By the way, there are video cameras installed along the perimeter, but they all face the lenses inward, not outward. Apparently, no one here is afraid of any actions from outside and it is much more important to control what is happening inside the camp.

There are three houses. As it turned out a little later, these are barracks. Judging by their appearance, the buildings are quite new. A little further away you can see stacks of boards made of fresh, whitish-yellow wood. It seems that despite the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor, no one is going to curtail their activities here. On the contrary, the camp is planned to be further developed.

Near the barracks, about two dozen men are clustered in several groups. Their affiliation is difficult to establish. Everyone is wearing a mixture of military and civilian clothing. There are several cars - two UAZ and Toyota pickups, as well as a blue-painted all-wheel drive KamAZ “shift vehicle”. There are signs on the fence warning that the facility is secure and there is video surveillance.

I open the gate and go up to the green trailer where the guard is sitting. In front of me is a man in green clothing and again without insignia. Once again I try to make sure I got there: “Is the Wagner brigade here?” In response, there was only a nod and a counter question: “What did you want?” I catch a tenacious, searching gaze on myself.

Initially, it was clear that I, a journalist, would not be welcome here. Pretending to be someone who wants to serve under a contract is also problematic: I don’t look too much like a military man.

But since I got here, I’m trying to find out at least the fate of those whose names were on the list of those killed on February 7. After all, it is still unknown whether these people are alive, missing or dead. My interlocutor, with the words “tell me who we need to know, bro,” writes down the names on a simple piece of paper. A second later another Wagnerian appears behind me. I can’t hear any steps, I guess the second one only from the facial expressions of the first one, the one in the booth. I leave my contact number and retreat. I assume that immediately after I left, the sheet of paper with the list of names ended up in the trash bin.

On the way back I meet another one with a duffel bag over his shoulders. I’m trying to get him to talk, but I only managed to find out that tomorrow we’ll be sent out, so today it’s like a day at the camp. They give you the opportunity to rest a little and get yourself in order. However, very quickly this interlocutor figures out that this is by no means a potential colleague. The look becomes cold, the conversation ends abruptly. I’m returning to Molkino.

Google Maps

The street is deserted. After some time, we managed to talk with one of the residents of the village, an elderly man. The interlocutor introduced himself as Alexander (his name has been changed for his safety. - Website note). He is a former military man, now lives permanently in the village, is in contact and even continues to “work” (he did not specify how exactly) with servicemen of the military unit. Regularly interacts with the Wagnerites. According to him, they appeared in Molkino about 5 years ago, “even before Ukraine.” In the first year, none of the locals even suspected the existence of this special detachment. Only then did information begin to somehow leak out.

— Why can’t the “Wagnerites” say anything to their relatives, at least send some news?

- They won't say anything. This is such a company that there is complete *** (end), you can’t find out anything there. Even I live here and work with them, but I still know little. They have everything organized in such a way that no one should tell anything. You talk to them, and they pretend that they don’t know anything, that they don’t understand anything about what you’re talking about. Although open the Internet and everything is shown: how they were covered, how many cars, how much of what. And I even know the guys who were right there at the epicenter.

Website of the Ryazan diocese

- What they're saying?

“You can’t tell this, especially to mothers.” They will only rip your heart out. It’s better to hope and wait than to do this. There is no need for them to know all this, you understand?! It’s only in Moscow that they say that ours weren’t there. 87 guys died there and many more disappeared - more than 100 people.

- Missing?

- Without a trace. They were torn into pieces right there, the meat was collected across the field and sent here.

-Where were they sent?

- To Rostov (meaning Rostov-on-Don. - Note.. They will now restore who is who using tokens and DNA.

- How long will it take?

- ABOUT! For a long time. If no one from home is interested, then they will remain silent. It’s beneficial for them - they don’t have to pay.

Jaromir Romanov

- How much do they pay?

— At first they paid 5 million for the deceased, but now they have reduced it. I heard that they are already giving 3 million.

— Were the wounded brought here too?

— This time also to Rostov and St. Petersburg. Half there, half here.

— Haven’t you heard of such people, what’s wrong with them: Alexey Shikhov, Ruslan Gavrilov, Kirill Ananyev, Igor Kosoturov, Alexey Lodygin, Stanislav Matveev? (all of them appeared on various lists of the dead previously published by the media. - Approx. website).

“No one here knows anyone by last name.” Only nicknames, call signs. They are all either “Fox”, or “Boar”, or who knows who else.

— They hand over all the documents there when they arrive?

- Everyone gives up. Passports, IDs - everything in full. They are given tokens, and only by these are they identified later. There are now up to *** (many) of these tokens collected this time. Now they will analyze all this. But the fact is that no one was captured. (Says with pride.)

“They were hit from the air.”

“We were the first to start.” There, first their artillery, ours that is, *** (hit) the Kurds. And the Kurds walk under the Americans. They also warned me to stop. But ours - no, ***! They need to take away this oil refinery. So we got it. First, American artillery completely covered our artillery and completely destroyed it. And then their drones arrived and started bombing. First, this entire area was cleared and leveled with bombs. Then we started with helicopters. Anyone who moved was immediately finished off. That's the whole story. How many young boys have died, where are they going, *** where?!

— Well, Assad called Russia for help?

- We need this *** (bad) Kurdistan, or what? For whom did they win this oil refinery, for Putin? These *** are completely lying to us! What the TV says is a complete lie! Bastards! No one is hitting any Russians anywhere, son, they are sharing the oil. These *** people make money from the blood of these guys! Who are these oil rigs for - for me, for you, maybe?

— Why is there such a mess in Ukraine?

— What do you think Donbass is? This is coal, the entire main industry of Ukraine is there. Now we are sitting deep in the ass and getting even further into it! The whole world is already up in arms against us, who are they relying on in this Kremlin? Okay, Chechnya was - it was our territory, and we cannot allow this to happen to us. Putin was right about this, I don’t mind. With Ukraine, it could have turned out either way. It is still possible to understand. But why now? They stuck their head in *** knows where! Across nine seas and ten lands, ***. And these guys, the ones who go twice, are already completely sick. They can’t live without it anymore, they’re already crazy.

Jaromir Romanov

- Like this?

— Just recently one of these people came, who was there in February. I barely escaped, ***. A shell exploded right next to him, and he was thrown back by the blast wave. He says that the guys who were nearby, about 15 of them, were immediately torn to pieces, only the shreds flew away. And he was only caught a little, but that was enough. All legs are in a sieve! He was barely repaired, he already came here on crutches, fir-trees and sticks, to receive money. I received the money, but he said: “Just let my legs heal, I want it back, to get even for my own people!” Yes, motherfucker, I say, God saved you! He, along with those who were scattered in pieces, could have remained there. Stay home and eat your bread! No, they are already sick. I'm telling you exactly! The psyche is everything.

- Money, maybe?

- Yes, ***. Well, how much will they get there, 200? Just work at home, don’t drink too much and don’t be lazy - a man will earn 40-50 a month. If it runs, then you can earn 3 million here in a year. I will never send my children to such *** in my life. I won’t allow it, I’d rather kill him with my own hands than this! Who did they do well? They left for nothing, and that’s all!

Interview with the wife of a Ural PMC Wagner fighter who died in Syria

— They say that a new batch is being prepared for shipment?

- They should send it today or tomorrow.

— Do they send them from the port in Novorossiysk?

— From a military airfield. From here by bus to Rostov and from Rostov by plane there. Those who came this time will go half to Syria, half to another.

- Donbass?

- No, they haven’t sent anyone from here to Donbass for a long time. These will go to Africa. (It was previously reported that Wagner PMC will be involved in South Sudan. - Approx. website).

- What about in Africa?

- ***, everyone is silent here, but they do such *** that *** (end)! They will not fight in Africa. There won't even be any weapons.

- What will they do then?

— They will be instructors, they will teach.

- Whom?

“Everything is being done against America again, we are undermining their interests.” They are against us, we are against them. All over again. At least they were paid better before.

— How much is better?

- 400 thousand a month with combat ones and even more. Little by little, little by little, and now we’ve made 200. They cut it in half, count it. Although now they are fighting even more bitterly than before. This is no longer Donbass, where they stood still and shot here and there. There with ISIS (a terrorist organization banned on the territory of the Russian Federation. - Website note). These are no longer crests, seasoned guys, ***. It’s a pity, of course, for these our guys. I knew many of them.

Jaromir Romanov

— There are about 20 of them in the camp on the street now.

- It's only on the street. As long as there are 150 people there, the team does not gather, they are not sent anywhere. 150 people is the smallest party. This time they recruited up to *** (many) recruits. They almost put all the old people there in February. Four days ago, five buses left - the first batch. Now four more buses will be sent. Five or six buses leave, two or three buses return. As long as this Wagner has been there, everything has been going on like this. Two or three buses will return, and then the wounded, who are being discharged from hospitals, begin to appear in groups of five or six people, up to ten people, for money. So it goes.

- How long do they last?

- For six months. This time some were detained for seven months. Not everyone, just specialists, snipers for example. Today they only have junior commanders there. You can't get half a word out of them. Their security service works very well, you shouldn’t joke with them. They can kill themselves if you do something wrong. They will later say that you died in battle, or they will put you in such a place that you will never return.

— They say that they used to have one base near the village of Veselaya in Rostov.

- No, they always trained and sent from here. But Rostov only received them, they were paid money there. Now everything has changed, they send money here and receive money. What is this money? There are no arms or legs - and this is a disability for life. What will he do now? If I could before, then why the f*** went there?! What to do now without legs - stand on a wheelchair in the middle of the road and beg for money? If you, as expected, give your life or health for the country, then this is understandable. A military pension is assigned, leaving is mandatory. And who needs these? This is all an illegal company, and if they even find out that he visited there, this will be a criminal sentence. Nobody tells them that abroad those who were in PMCs are considered murderers and are tried as murderers. They don’t look abroad whether you shot there or not! He worked in a private military company, was there - that's it, a killer.

I'm returning to Krasnodar. It's plus 15 outside, it's spring. Green grass is growing everywhere on the lawns, and people are getting ready to plant potatoes in the fields. There are no hints that there is a war going on somewhere. What catches your eye, however, are dozens of police officers and Cossack vigilantes who have taken the railway and bus stations under tight control. “The homeless are probably being chased away again. “A lot of them have multiplied again,” suggested a saleswoman at a kiosk on the station square, from whom I take a bottle of water.

The last six months of the war in Syria through the eyes of three ordinary soldiers of a Russian private military corporation

In the compartment of the branded “Quiet Don” train, which departed from Rostov-on-Don to Moscow in early November 2017, a strange-looking medal was washed. In this award, the symbols of mutually hostile eras were clearly visible - the Prussian Iron Cross, the Soviet five-pointed star and the White Guard Order of the Ice March. Three men of different ages, approximately 20, 35 and 45 years old, did not fall into drunken courage afterwards; the awards quietly disappeared somewhere so quickly that I did not have time to ask about the origin of the strange medal. However, the path was not short, and little by little, first from scraps of phrases, then, when common tastes and memories were found, a whole picture began to emerge from frank conversations.

The three men were returning from a six-month deployment to Syria. We traveled under a contract concluded with the well-known private military company (PMC) Wagner, although the document, of course, does not contain either this pseudonym call sign or the surname of its owner - Dmitry Utkin, who, by the way, headed Evgeniy’s restaurant holding in the same November Prigozhin, also known as the “chief cook of the Kremlin.” They flatly refused to disclose the official name of the organization that hired them, saying only that this name is constantly changing. The legal address is located in Krasnogorsk, near Moscow, on Ilinskoye Highway, in the area of the military town of Pavshino. The contract period is from three to six months. The contract is signed at the PMC base in Molkino. The future fighter reads the multi-page document, signs it, and it remains in the company office. It is strictly forbidden to communicate with representatives of the media, so in this collective interview they appear as Sergei Ts., Gennady F. and Stepan M. These men were among those who put an end to the long war in the ancient lands of Syria.

On December 6, 2017, the Interfax news agency officially reported, with reference to the Russian Ministry of Defense, that “Syria has been completely liberated from terrorists, all ISIS gangs have been destroyed, more than a thousand settlements have been liberated, and main communications have been unblocked.” But in these victorious reports not a word is said about the contribution that ordinary soldiers of private military companies made to the victory.

Crossing of the Euphrates near the city of Deir ez-Zor

COLLECTION PLACE: MOLKINO BASE

In the area of the Molkino village, Krasnodar Territory, the 10th separate special forces brigade of the GRU (military unit 51532) is located. The Wagner PMC base is adjacent to it. Soldiers came here from all over the country. First, they had to pass a medical commission and various admissions tests.

“There was a medical examination, but the selection was more visual: arms and legs in place - and forward,” says Sergei. – They took everyone, because the PMC suffered heavy losses in Syria. They also had to run 3 km and do 40–50 push-ups (this was rated as “good” and “excellent”). Many did not pass these standards, but were enrolled.

A lie detector was considered a much more serious test. Every candidate takes a polygraph. For example, out of eight people in the group in which Gennady was, only two successfully passed the lie detector, including himself. Gennady still has no idea what the others were using, what kind of lies the PMC psychologists were looking for. But, in his opinion, this selection certainly did not concern the criminal background of the candidates.

Personnel accepted under the contract were distributed among “brigades.” These were not army brigades in their traditional form; the PMC brigades consisted of only 300 to 400 people, depending on the tasks assigned to them.

FLIGHT ROSTOV-ON-DON – DAMASCUS

We departed from Rostov-on-Don International Airport on April 25, 2017, on a regular charter flight. They did not put a visa in the passport; the border guards only stamped the departure note (and upon return, another arrival note). The Syrian Border Service does not appear in the documents at all. In total, one and a half hundred PMC fighters flew in the Boeing; a day or two later, the second half of the “brigade” arrived in the same way. We flew to Damascus in civilian clothes and changed clothes at the Syrian base, that is, in the middle of the desert. They took military uniforms with them, and everyone dressed according to their own taste. The desert uniform of the British SAS special forces is considered the most comfortable, the best in strength and color, followed by the uniform of the American special forces. So, in appearance, the Russian fighters were no different from a detachment of Anglo-Saxon special forces. The Syrian uniform, according to the unanimous opinion of the interlocutors, is of very poor quality.

OIL FIELDS AL-SHAIR

The PMC fighters did not go through security control at Damascus airport; they immediately boarded buses and off they went. Where?

“The rank and file are never told where, how long to go and what they will do,” says Stepan. “We were brought to the area of the oil fields of Ash-Shair, where we stayed for three months and only after three months did we find out what this place was called. 40 kilometers northwest of Palmyra.

They dropped us off right in the mountain desert. Some did not have tents, in particular Sergei, and for the first month and a half he lived “in the fresh air,” although it was raining and cold in the mountainous areas at that time. Only later were government-issued tents issued. In total, three PMC brigades were gathered in that place, that is, about a thousand people. What did you do?

“The mountains were on guard,” says Gennady. “ISIS spirits were sitting on the opposite mountain range. They were bombarded by aircraft all the time. Armored vehicles were transported past us every day - tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, about 60 units in total. Apparently, preparations were underway for an offensive.

At the end of August, the offensive began, and the fighters went through the mountains to the city of Akerbat. We descended into the valley and took the adjacent villages one after another.

Fighting on the outskirts of the city of Akerbat

"STORMS" AND STORM OF AKERBAT

The striking force of a PMC brigade in Syria is usually called “assaults” (with emphasis on the last syllable). In addition to “assaults,” there is also a platoon of heavy weapons, at its disposal are mortars, ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles), heavy machine guns, and AGS (automatic grenade launchers). Fire support squad. An armored group with an indefinite amount of equipment - from one infantry fighting vehicle to several armored personnel carriers and tanks, depending on your luck. The brigade's combat strength is about 200 people, those who have at least some combat experience. The remaining 100–150 are the so-called staff guys, servants, and personal drivers of commanders. The brigades are commanded by retired special forces officers (not a single career officer); there are practically no army officers.

“For example, the Syrian commander turned to the commander of our brigade,” says Gennady, “and offered several tanks for free, since the Arabs did not have crews for them.

The first to attack are the “assaults”, followed by a platoon of heavy weapons - mortars, heavy machine guns, ATGMs, etc. The enemy set traps, allowed several suburban villages to be taken almost unhindered, and just before the city of Akerbat the brigade encountered an iron defense, where dozens were killed. There were specific battles here, for every house. They found documents of ISIS members (they were handed over to the PMC special officers), they came across notebooks with prayers in Russian, and there were many Uzbek names on the lists.

“Only Russian PMC brigades took Akerbat,” says Sergei, the other two nod their heads in agreement. – The Syrians came to the final stage to film for TV news. We even hid so as not to get into the frame when the Syrians posed with a heroic look.

OFFICIAL REPORT ON THE CAPTURE OF AKERBAT

So, the fighters of the Wagner PMC claim that they captured Akerbat on their own; Syrian government troops did not take part in the assault. The official version states exactly the opposite; the role of PMCs is not mentioned at all. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, “On September 2, 2017, units of the 4th Tank Division of the Syrian government forces, in cooperation with units of the 5th Volunteer Assault Corps and detachments of the military Mukhabarat, with the active support of the Russian Aerospace Forces, liberated the strategically important city of Akerbat, where the “last major outbreak” was located resistance" of terrorists of the IS organization banned in Russia ("Islamic State" is an international terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation).

The government “Rossiyskaya Gazeta” in those days conveyed a message from the commander of the Russian military group in Syria, Colonel General Sergei Surovikin, who, in particular, noted that “to support the offensive of the Syrian army in the Akerbat area, Russian aviation carried out 329 bomb and missile strikes, as a result which resulted in the destruction of 27 units of militants’ armored vehicles, 48 pickup trucks with large-caliber weapons installed, and more than 1,000 militants.” The general also said that ISIS in Akerbat used an unprecedented number of suicide bombers. According to him, “from 15 to 25 militants with suicide belts and four to five jihad mobiles were destroyed every day.” But the general kept silent about the fact that this destruction work was done by guys from the Wagner PMC.

PERFUME

“Almost all ISIS fighters wear a suicide belt,” says Stepan. – Such a beautiful thing, neat, light weight. A plastic package filled with a transparent gel containing many, many metal balls. Because of this, we did not take a single spirit prisoner. One night, ISIS soldiers foolishly entered our village. Most of them, of course, we immediately killed, and several we chased around the village for some time. One spirit, apparently seriously wounded, called for help for a long time, and then an explosion thundered. The explosion caused a nearby wall to collapse. It turns out that he was twenty meters from us. In the morning they carried out cleaning, pits and basements were thrown with grenades.

“The tactics of the spirits are simple: when there is a night firefight, two or three suicide bombers get close and explode,” added Gennady. “This happened once or twice a week: an ISIS fighter would approach the wall of our shelter and explode. Quite a few died from such night raids: eight in one battle, fifteen in another, ten in a third.

“All the local residents had left the village by that time. In general, we did not encounter civilians,” Sergei assured.

Assault on the city of Deir er-Zor

DEIR EZZOR: SYRIAN STALINGRAD

They took Akerbat and told the PMC fighters: it’s time to get ready to go home. We were already changing into civilian clothes, and suddenly there was an order: to the cars in full gear. We drove through the desert for about seven hours, drove three hundred kilometers to the east and found ourselves not far from the city of Deir ez-Zor. There were two Russian PMC brigades that had already crossed the Euphrates on pontoons when the operation to unblock Deir ez-Zor was underway. We were given the task of liberating the adjacent island from ISIS. We carried out this task for about two months, the main losses were suffered in this place, mostly being blown up by mines.

RIA Novosti reports then said: “Advanced units of the Syrian army broke through the three-year blockade of Deir ez-Zor on September 5 and went on the offensive on the eastern outskirts of the city. Having broken through the encirclement of the Air Force base, and after knocking out terrorists from strategic heights in the southwest, government troops reached the western bank of the Euphrates River and crossed it, thereby displacing terrorist detachments in the direction of the Iraqi border and creating a ring around residential areas captured by the Islamic State terrorist group. neighborhoods of Deir ez-Zor."

Military expert Viktor Baranets commented on the lifting of the blockade from Deir ez-Zor: “The city of Deir ez-Zor is of strategic importance for the further actions of terrorists in Syria. If it is taken, it will be a strategic defeat for the militants, and it will be about the same for them as in 1945 for Nazi Germany. Deir ez-Zor has the same significance for ISIS. Defeat in Deir ez-Zor will mean that terrorists will no longer offer active military resistance. This will be not only a military, but also a moral defeat for them, and in front of the whole world.”

“What the blockade of Deir ez-Zor is, again, it must be understood in an Eastern way,” said Sergei. “All those three years that the blockade lasted, cars with food and consumer goods passed through without hindrance. No one suffered from hunger. They even joked that the Syrians said: we fought here for three years, fought, the Russians came - and the war began.

“And chaos began,” Gennady laughed.

Meanwhile, according to Sergei, while the spirits held the line in Al-Shair, the Kurds sent here by the Americans captured the oil fields. At the end of September, the ISIS retreated along flank directions, and again Russian PMC brigades had to return to “squeeze out the oil fields.”

“Apparently, they agreed at the top, and the Kurds moved a little,” says Sergei. – Judging by the inscriptions on the oil rigs, some of them belonged to Europeans, some to Canadians. Canadians lost the most.

At the end of October, the mission of the Wagner PMC fighters was ending. In those days, ISIS cut one of the two main roads connecting the east and west of Syria. They took us along a longer route – about 800 kilometers. There were no incidents.

LOSSES

Over the six months of the mission, the casualties of one brigade amounted to about 40 dead (“two hundredths”) and about 100 wounded (“three hundredths”). The other brigade was more “lucky”: their losses amounted to about 20 killed and 70 wounded. And in the third brigade, in the first two weeks alone, they lost about 50 killed. Most died during the lifting of the blockade of Deir ez-Zor. Thus, a tenth of the personnel died, a fifth were wounded.

MILITARY EQUIPMENT

“The losses would have been much less,” says Sergei, “if the supply of the PMC group had not been so bad, simply bad.” Broken armored cars, five trucks lost in three days, there was nothing even to transport personnel. And the losses from this are high... and that’s it - they stopped! Collapse. No one is going anywhere, God forbid the wounded are taken out. And experience says that it is high time to transfer soldiers to armored vehicles designed for no more than 10 people. Although a year ago the equipment was decent - both weapons and equipment.

“This is just a beautiful television picture: tanks are moving across the desert in a row, followed by infantry fighting vehicles, and helicopters circling above them,” says Stepan. – In fact, there was very little equipment. Our “armada” moved partly on foot, and partly on KamAZ and Urals vehicles. If an ATGM hits a truck, then the losses are, of course, huge. And this saving of our military buns turned into huge losses. One of the leaders responsible for the military supply of the brigades apparently reported to the top how much had been saved. And for three brigades, that is, one and a half thousand people, they were issued only five night sights!

-What about the spirits? - says Stepan. “For example, there are usually 30–40 people in a position, so they are given two or three night sights. When the spirits go on a night attack, five “assaults” barely see them, the rest don’t see a damn thing. The father commanders say: shoot at the flashes. And to do this you need to stick your head out of the shelter. And if you get into the night sight of an ISIS soldier, who definitely won’t play the fool, he’ll shoot right away - and you won’t have time to notice the flash. So it turns out: the spirits see everything, but most of the “assaults” are blind. And therefore the losses are huge.

- So how should it be? – says Sergei. – Like in special forces: each soldier has a night sight and one of the three has a thermal imaging sight. And so - lead people to slaughter. But the management of the PMC may have a lot of money, but they are not going to buy new equipment. I saw with my own eyes a unit armed with three-line rifles, revolvers, Degtyarev machine guns, and even Maxim machine guns. And at first I had a three-ruler. Body armor from the time of the capture of Kabul. The tanks are all “prize”, that is, captured from the Arabs, some resemble a colander. When I was indignant in front of my superiors, I heard: “Darling, why are you in a fairy tale? What they gave you, fight with.”

Oil fields in Syria are the future place of work for Wagner PMC fighters

Photo: MIKHAIL VOSKRESENSKY/RIA NOVOSTI

MILITARY TRAINING

My interlocutors divided the forces that fought on Assad’s side into three categories based on their fighting qualities. The lowest place is occupied by the Syrians, the middle by the Fatimids (as the PMCs called militants from Afghanistan) and Palestinians, the top by the Russians.

“Once a Fatimid detachment captured a bridgehead, then redeployed, and government troops took their place and immediately raised their flag,” said Sergei. “And our experienced fighter, who visited Syria five times, predicted: if the Syrian flag appears over the positions in the evening, then in the morning the ISIS flag will be there. We took it as a joke. And in the morning we woke up from a frantic stomp: 300-400 Syrian soldiers were running shouting: “The ISIS tank has arrived!” And indeed: a black banner had already been raised over the positions of government troops.

“Russians are unsurpassed fighters, especially in defense,” says Stepan. “No one could withstand our attacks, no one.” For six months, not a single enemy withstood the attacks of the “assaults”. Neither in Akerbat, nor in the Deir ez-Zor area.

“And even the Fatimids are well equipped,” said Gennady. – I myself saw how they drove “jihadists” through the desert on their motorcycles (that’s what they call an ISIS pickup truck with weapons; it differs from a “suicide bomber” - the same car, but stuffed with explosives). They abandoned this “jihad” as if there was nothing to do. Is it really possible to fight like that with our equipment?! Our gunners walk on foot, together with the infantry, there are three of them: one carries the installation, two carry one rocket each (each of them weighs 25 kilograms). ISIS also has three pilots, but they are on two motorcycles. On one motorcycle there is an installation and two people, on the other there is a third with two missiles. They made a noise and disappeared a minute later.

“I personally saw how a Dukhovsky ATGM knocked out three vehicles - an armored personnel carrier and two trucks - within 10 minutes,” says Sergei.

“The level of training of the Syrian troops is not only zero, but, one might say, minus,” Gennady picked up. – For example, out of 60 units of armored vehicles brought, as already said, to the combat area, about 20 ended up in the hands of the ISIS spirits who were in Akerbat. In general, tanks in Syria are a moving prize. There is even a joke on this topic: Russia supplies tanks to the Syrians, the Syrians give them to ISIS, the Russians come, take the tanks from the ISIS and receive a bonus for it. Again we hand it over to the Syrians - and everything starts all over again, the tank circulates throughout Syria until it is burned.

“Personally, I saw how Syrian special forces went on reconnaissance,” recalls Sergei. “We walked about seven kilometers and started yelling on the radio that they had run out of water, several people were hit (and these were indigenous residents of Syria). And they returned without completing the task. The Russians even had to endure sun-stricken Arabs on themselves. I agree with Gennady: zero level of training.

“All of Syria is approximately two Moscow regions, most of it is desert,” Stepan concludes. – It’s enough to liberate a few enclaves and a valley – and that’s it! And let the spirits ride like steppe hares through the desert as much as they want. The work is for a month or two, but no one needs it. Generals make money from the war, tanks and weapons are decommissioned, ISIS conducts trade with everyone almost officially.

PERSONNEL OF PMC "WAGNER"

“Despite the fact that many PMC soldiers served in the army and special forces, I will not be mistaken if I say that 90% do not understand where they are going,” says Sergei. – The desire to earn money completely blows your brain away. Therefore, having found themselves in a real mess, they declare that they came here not to die, but to earn money. These are called “five hundredths,” that is, deserters and refuseniks. They are immediately sent to rigging teams, that is, shell loaders, etc.

“And in life, those who came to Syria are mostly losers,” says Gennady. – As a rule, former cops, prisoners and military personnel. About 40% of the personnel served time for serious crimes - murders, robberies, etc. PMC fighters even greet each other like this: “Hello, losers!” It is noticeable that for many months before the business trip, and even years, they drank without drying out. In Syria it is forbidden to drink, their heads lighten up a little, and they make a vow to quit for the rest of their lives. They return to Russia with a million in their pockets and go into such a dive that a month later they crawl back to the base without pants.

EARNINGS OF A GENTLEMAN OF LUCK

A year or two ago, according to Sergei, fighters of the Wagner PMC earned 310-350 thousand rubles a month (240 thousand - salary plus 3 thousand per day - combat). In the spring of this year they had 300 thousand (with a salary of 220 thousand), and those who arrived in the fall earned an average of 200–210 thousand (the salary dropped to 150 thousand).

– What is the reason for the drop in earnings? – Stepan asked again. – I think with the fact that everyone steals, they steal everything. At some point, people lose their heads and start stealing without a twinge of conscience. We suspect that the top people still pay decently, but just below they come up with various restrictions that are associated with salaries. For example, there is a clause in the contract that states that a business trip starting from the fourth month is considered long-term and an additional thousand rubles are paid for each day. When someone reminded the boss about this point, he received the following answer in a very softened form: “Are you crazy? You already get a lot!”

- What about insurance? - I ask. – What amount is paid in case of death?

“You see,” says Sergei, “according to some rumors, three and a half million, according to others – five million.” Personally, I didn’t see anything about this in my contract. Although I could have looked at it: the contract is multi-page, and besides, the principle of time pressure comes into play. It says that you agree that you may not be taken out as a corpse. Also, according to rumors, they pay 50 thousand for a minor injury, and up to 300 thousand plus treatment for a more severe one. They say the treatment is good - in military hospitals in Rostov-on-Don, Kislovodsk, St. Petersburg, Moscow, etc. Good conditions, highly qualified doctors. But there is one principle: no disabilities.

“I have an ambivalent attitude towards these private military companies,” Stepan adds. – On the one hand, they deceive, and it’s insulting. On the other hand, if you look at the situation from the outside, PMCs are removing unnecessary elements from civilian life (this is literally what the fighter said about his comrades, and therefore about himself. - A.Ch.).

As it turned out later, Sergei brought one and a half million rubles from Syria. I paid off my debts, bought a night sight, binoculars, warm clothes, and other little equipment. There is only just enough money left to get from Moscow to Krasnodar.

– What work is left in Syria? Protect oil fields and factories. They will no longer throw attacks.

COLLECTION PLACE: MOLKINO BASE

There was a medical examination, but the selection was more visual: arms and legs in place - and forward, says Sergei. - They took everyone, because the PMC suffered heavy losses in Syria. They also had to run 3 km and do 40-50 push-ups (this was rated as “good” and “excellent”). Many did not pass these standards, but were enrolled.

FLIGHT ROSTOV-ON-DON - DAMASCUS

OIL FIELDS AL-SHAIR

The PMC fighters did not go through control at Damascus airport; they immediately boarded buses and off they went. Where?

The rank and file are never told where, how long to go and what they will do, says Stepan. - We were brought to the area of the oil fields of Ash-Shair, where we stayed for three months and only after three months did we find out what this place was called. 40 kilometers northwest of Palmyra.

The mountains were on guard, says Gennady. - ISIS spirits were sitting on the opposite mountain range. They were bombarded by aircraft all the time. Armored vehicles were transported past us every day - tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, about 60 units in total. Apparently, preparations were underway for an offensive.

At the end of August, the offensive began, and the fighters went through the mountains to the city of Akerbat. We descended into the valley and took the adjacent villages one after another.

"STORMS" AND STORM OF AKERBAT

The striking force of a PMC brigade in Syria is usually called “assaults” (with emphasis on the last syllable). In addition to “assaults,” there is also a platoon of heavy weapons, at its disposal are mortars, ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles), heavy machine guns, and AGS (automatic grenade launchers). Fire support squad. An armored group with an indefinite amount of equipment - from one infantry fighting vehicle to several armored personnel carriers and tanks, depending on your luck. The brigade's combat strength is about 200 people, those who have at least some combat experience. The remaining 100-150 are the so-called staff guys, servants, and personal drivers of commanders. The brigades are commanded by retired special forces officers (not a single career officer); there are practically no army officers.

For example, the commander of our brigade, says Gennady, was approached by the Syrian commander and offered several tanks for free, since the Arabs did not have crews for them.

The first to attack are the “assaults”, followed by a platoon of heavy weapons - mortars, heavy machine guns, ATGMs, etc. The enemy set traps, allowed several suburban villages to be taken almost unhindered, and just before the city of Akerbat the brigade encountered an iron defense, where dozens died. There were specific battles here, for every house. They found documents of ISIS members (they were handed over to the PMC special officers), they came across notebooks with prayers in Russian, and there were many Uzbek names on the lists.

Akerbat was taken only by Russian PMC brigades,” says Sergei, the other two nod their heads in agreement. - The Syrians approached the final stage to film for television news. We even hid so as not to get into the frame when the Syrians posed with a heroic look.

OFFICIAL REPORT ON THE CAPTURE OF AKERBAT

PERFUME

Almost all ISIS fighters wear a suicide belt,” says Stepan. - Such a beautiful thing, neat, light weight. A plastic package filled with a transparent gel containing many, many metal balls. Because of this, we did not take a single spirit prisoner. One night, ISIS soldiers foolishly entered our village. Most of them, of course, we immediately killed, and several we chased around the village for some time. One spirit, apparently seriously wounded, called for help for a long time, and then an explosion thundered. The explosion caused a nearby wall to collapse. It turns out that he was twenty meters from us. In the morning they carried out cleaning, pits and basements were thrown with grenades.

The tactics of the spirits are simple: when there is a night firefight, two or three suicide bombers get close and explode,” added Gennady. “This happened once or twice a week: an ISIS fighter approached the wall of our shelter and exploded. Quite a few died from such night attacks: eight in one battle, fifteen in another, ten in a third.

All local residents had left the village by that time. In general, we did not encounter civilians,” Sergei assured.

DEIR EZZOR: SYRIAN STALINGRAD

What is the blockade of Deir ez-Zor - this must again be understood in an eastern way,” said Sergei. - All those three years that the blockade lasted, cars with food and consumer goods passed through unhindered. No one suffered from hunger. They even joked that the Syrians said: we fought here for three years, fought, the Russians came - and the war began.

And chaos began,” Gennady laughed.

Apparently, the top officials reached an agreement, and the Kurds moved a little, says Sergei. - Judging by the inscriptions on the oil rigs, some of them belonged to Europeans, some to Canadians. Canadians lost the most.

LOSSES

MILITARY EQUIPMENT

The losses would have been much less, says Sergei, if the supply of the PMC group had not been so bad, simply bad. Broken armored cars, five trucks lost in three days, there was nothing even to transport personnel. And the losses from this are high... and that’s it - they stopped! Collapse. No one is going anywhere, God forbid the wounded are taken out. And experience says that it is high time to transfer soldiers to armored vehicles designed for no more than 10 people. Although a year ago the equipment was decent - both weapons and equipment.

“It’s just a beautiful television picture: tanks are moving in a row across the desert, followed by infantry fighting vehicles, and helicopters circling above them,” says Stepan. - In fact, there was very little equipment. Our “armada” moved partly on foot, and partly on KamAZ and Urals vehicles. If an ATGM hits a truck, then the losses are, of course, huge. And this saving of our military buns turned into huge losses. One of the leaders responsible for the military supply of the brigades apparently reported to the top how much had been saved. And for three brigades, that is, one and a half thousand people, they were issued only five night sights!

What about the spirits? - says Stepan. - For example, 30-40 people usually sit at a position, so they are given two or three night sights. When the spirits go on a night attack, five “assaults” barely see them, the rest don’t see a damn thing. The father commanders say: shoot at the flashes. And to do this you need to stick your head out of the shelter. And if you get into the night sight of an ISIS soldier, who definitely won’t play the fool, he’ll shoot right away - and you won’t have time to notice the flash. So it turns out: the spirits see everything, but most of the “assaults” are blind. And therefore the losses are huge.

So how should it be? - says Sergei. - Like in special forces: each soldier has a night sight and one of the three has a thermal imaging sight. And so - lead people to slaughter. But the management of the PMC may have a lot of money, but they are not going to buy new equipment. I saw with my own eyes a unit armed with three-line rifles, revolvers, Degtyarev machine guns, and even Maxim machine guns. And at first I had a three-ruler. Body armor from the time of the capture of Kabul. The tanks are all “prize”, that is, captured from the Arabs, some resemble a colander. When I was indignant in front of my superiors, I heard: “Darling, why are you in a fairy tale? What they gave you, fight with.”

MILITARY TRAINING

One day, a Fatimid detachment captured a bridgehead, then redeployed, and government troops took their place, immediately raising their flag, Sergei said. “And our experienced fighter, who visited Syria five times, predicted: if the Syrian flag appears over the positions in the evening, then in the morning there will be an ISIS flag there.” We took it as a joke. And in the morning we woke up from a frantic stomp: 300-400 Syrian soldiers were running shouting: “The ISIS tank has arrived!” And indeed: a black banner had already been raised over the positions of government troops.

Russians are unsurpassed fighters, especially in defense, says Stepan. - No one could withstand our attacks, no one. For six months, not a single enemy withstood the attacks of the “assaults”. Neither in Akerbat, nor in the Deir ez-Zor area.

And even the Fatimids are well equipped,” said Gennady. - I myself saw how they drove “jihadists” through the desert on their motorcycles (that’s what they call an ISIS pickup truck with weapons; it differs from a “suicide bomber” - the same car, but stuffed with explosives). They abandoned this “jihad” as if there was nothing to do. Is it really possible to fight like that with our equipment?! Our fighters walk on foot, together with the infantry, there are three of them: one carries the installation, two carry one rocket each (each of them weighs 25 kilograms). ISIS also has three pilots, but they are on two motorcycles. On one motorcycle there is an installation and two people, on the other there is a third with two missiles. They made a noise and disappeared a minute later.

I personally saw how a Dukhovsky ATGM knocked out three vehicles - an armored personnel carrier and two trucks - within 10 minutes,” says Sergei.

The level of training of the Syrian troops is not only zero, but, one might say, minus,” Gennady picked up. - For example, out of 60 units of armored vehicles brought, as already said, to the combat area, about 20 ended up in the hands of the ISIS spirits who were in Akerbat. In general, tanks in Syria are a challenge prize. There is even a joke on this topic: Russia supplies tanks to the Syrians, the Syrians give them to ISIS, the Russians come, take the tanks from the ISIS and receive a bonus for it. Again we hand it over to the Syrians - and everything starts all over again, the tank circulates throughout Syria until it is burned.

Personally, I saw how Syrian special forces went on reconnaissance, Sergei recalls. “We walked about seven kilometers and started yelling over the radio that they had run out of water, several people were hit (and these were indigenous residents of Syria). And they returned without completing the task. The Russians even had to endure sun-stricken Arabs on themselves. I agree with Gennady: zero level of training.

All of Syria is approximately two Moscow regions, most of it is desert,” Stepan concludes. - It’s enough to liberate a few enclaves and a valley - and that’s it! And let the spirits ride like steppe hares through the desert as much as they want. The work is for a month or two, but no one needs it. Generals make money from the war, tanks and weapons are decommissioned, ISIS conducts trade with everyone almost officially.

PERSONNEL OF PMC "WAGNER"

Despite the fact that many PMC soldiers served in the army and special forces, I will not be mistaken if I say that 90% do not understand where they are going,” says Sergei. - The desire to earn money completely blows your brain away. Therefore, having found themselves in a real mess, they declare that they came here not to die, but to earn money. These are called “five hundredths,” that is, deserters and refuseniks. They are immediately sent to rigging teams, that is, shell loaders, etc.

And in life, those who came to Syria are mostly losers,” says Gennady. - As a rule, former cops, prisoners and military personnel. About 40% of the personnel served time for serious crimes - murders, robberies, etc. PMC fighters even greet each other like this: “Hello, losers!” It is noticeable that for many months before the business trip, and even years, they drank without drying out. In Syria it is forbidden to drink, their heads lighten up a little, and they make a vow to quit for the rest of their lives. They return to Russia with a million in their pockets and go into such a dive that a month later they crawl back to the base without pants.

EARNINGS OF A GENTLEMAN OF LUCK

A year or two ago, according to Sergei, fighters of the Wagner PMC earned 310-350 thousand rubles a month (240 thousand - salary plus 3 thousand per day - combat). In the spring of this year they had 300 thousand (with a salary of 220 thousand), and those who arrived in the fall earned an average of 200-210 thousand (the salary dropped to 150 thousand).

What is the reason for the drop in earnings? - asked Stepan. - I think with the fact that everyone steals, they steal everything. At some point, people lose their heads and start stealing without a twinge of conscience. We suspect that the top people still pay decently, but just below they come up with various restrictions that are associated with salaries. For example, there is a clause in the contract that states that a business trip starting from the fourth month is considered long-term and an additional thousand rubles are paid for each day. When someone reminded the boss about this point, he received the following answer in a very softened form: “Are you crazy? You already get a lot!”

What about insurance? - I ask. - What amount is paid in case of death?

You see, says Sergei, according to some rumors, three and a half million, according to others, five million. Personally, I didn’t see anything about this in my contract. Although I could have looked at it: the contract is multi-page, and besides, the principle of time pressure comes into play. It says that you agree that you may not be taken out as a corpse. Also, according to rumors, they pay 50 thousand for a minor injury, and up to 300 thousand plus treatment for a more severe one. They say the treatment is good - in military hospitals in Rostov-on-Don, Kislovodsk, St. Petersburg, Moscow, etc. Good conditions, highly qualified doctors. But there is one principle: no disabilities.

“I have an ambivalent attitude towards these private military companies,” Stepan adds. - On the one hand, they deceive, and this is insulting. On the other hand, if you look at the situation from the outside, PMCs are removing unnecessary elements from civilian life (this is literally what the fighter said about his comrades, and therefore about himself. - A.Ch.).

What jobs are left in Syria? Protect oil fields and factories. They will no longer throw attacks.

As reported Ilya Rozhdestvensky, Anton Baev And Polina Rusyaeva in an article on the website RBC "Ghosts of War: How the Russian Private Army Appeared in Syria", the so-called “Wagner Group” is actively involved in the Syrian conflict. Its use cost up to 10.3 billion rubles. Our blog provides the text of the investigation.

(c) warfiles.ru

PMCs all over the world are a huge business: “private owners” often replace the armed forces. They are illegal in Russia. But a prototype of Russian PMCs, the “Wagner Group,” was tested in Syria, and the authorities are again thinking about legalization

The military unit in the village of Molkino, Krasnodar Territory, is a sensitive facility. The 10th separate special forces brigade of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Ministry of Defense is stationed here, Gazeta.ru wrote. A few tens of meters from the Don federal highway is the first checkpoint on the way to the base. Then the road branches: to the left is a town belonging to the unit, to the right is a training ground, the guard at the checkpoint explains to the RBC journalist. Behind the training ground is another checkpoint with guards armed with AK-74s. Behind this checkpoint there is a camp of a private military company (PMC), says one of the employees of the military unit.

Archival satellite images from Google Earth show that in August 2014 there was no camp yet. It began functioning around mid-2015, say two RBC interlocutors who worked in this camp and are familiar with its structure. These are two dozen tents under the flag of the USSR, surrounded by a small fence with barbed wire, one of them describes the base. On the territory there are several residential barracks, a guard tower, a dog handler station, a training complex and a parking lot for vehicles, an employee of a private military company who has been there describes the base.

This structure does not have an official name, the name of its leader and revenue are not disclosed, and the very existence of the company, perhaps the largest on the market, is not advertised - formally, the activities of PMCs in our country are illegal. RBC magazine figured out what the so-called Wagner PMC is, from what sources and how it is financed, and why the business of private military companies may appear in Russia.

Mercenaries and "private traders"

According to Russian law, a military man can only work for the state. Mercenary is prohibited: for participation in armed conflicts on the territory of another country, the Criminal Code provides for up to seven years of imprisonment (Article 359), for recruitment, training, financing of a mercenary, “as well as his use in an armed conflict or hostilities” - up to 15 years . There are no other laws regulating the PMC sector in Russia.

The situation in the world is different: the operating principles of private military and security companies are set out in the “Montreux Document” adopted in the fall of 2008. It was signed by 17 countries, including the USA, Great Britain, China, France and Germany (Russia is not one of them). The document allows people who are not in public service to provide services for armed security of facilities, maintenance of combat complexes, training of military personnel, etc.

In a UN report published in 2011, the organization’s analysts estimated the annual volume of the market for private military services at $20 billion to $100 billion; the non-profit organization War on Want in 2016 - at $100–400 billion. The figures are very approximate: for example, the US Commission on military contracts, to which the UN refers in its report on the growing number of human rights violations by mercenaries, noted in 2011 that at the end of the financial year, costs under contracts with private military companies in Iraq and Afghanistan alone will exceed $206 billion. Revenue of the largest PMC in the world - G4S Plc - amounted to $10.5 billion in 2015: in Russia this is comparable only to the same figure for Bashneft and a third more than for Norilsk Nickel.

The use of “private traders” is typical for Western countries, where the aversion to large losses is largely high, explains Sergei Grinyaev, General Director of the Center for Strategic Assessments and Forecasts. Large casualties among armed forces personnel may influence the decision to end an operation and withdraw troops, as was the case with special forces participating in the UN peacekeeping operation in Somalia, the expert says. In 1993, during an urban battle in Mogadishu, the Americans lost 18 people, about 80 soldiers were wounded, and one was captured. This accelerated the withdrawal of US troops from the country. Such situations can be avoided if we are not talking about the regular army, but about private military companies, Grinyaev is sure.

Reducing losses through the use of PMC fighters is a common practice, used, for example, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 2008, the number of employees of private companies in these countries exceeds the number of US military personnel, and since at least 2010, “private workers” have accounted for the bulk of the killed and wounded, according to the Private Security Monitor project of the University of Denver (USA).

Difficulties of legalization

The latest attempt to legalize PMCs in Russia was made in March 2016, when deputies from A Just Russia Gennady Nosovko and Oleg Mikheev introduced a draft law on private military security organizations to the State Duma. The document called the goals of such activities “participation in ensuring national security by performing and providing military security work and services,” protecting Russia’s interests outside the country, promoting Russian PMCs to world markets, etc. At the same time, according to the bill, such companies were supposed to be prohibited from “directly participating in armed conflicts... on the territory of any state.”

The licensing of PMCs was to be carried out by the Ministry of Defense, and the FSB and the Prosecutor General's Office were to monitor the implementation of the law.

The government opposed the adoption of the law, noting in its response that the bill contradicts Part 5 of Article 13 of the Constitution: “The creation and activities of public associations whose goals or actions are aimed at... undermining the security of the state or the creation of armed formations is prohibited.” The deputies were not supported by colleagues on the relevant committee, who pointed out that the responsibilities of such companies are not differentiated from the functions of private security companies (PSCs), departmental security and national guard troops.

A final decision on the document was not made - its consideration was postponed until the fall, but the authors of the bill themselves decided to withdraw it. The spring document is Nosovko’s third attempt to legalize PMCs in Russia, while the biography of the deputy himself has nothing to do with the Armed Forces: except that in 2014 he was awarded the Ministry of Defense medal “For Strengthening the Military Commonwealth.” The deputy hopes that he will be able to finalize the document and re-introduce it in the fall. In a conversation with RBC magazine, Nosovko said that when discussing the bill at round tables with the participation of relevant departments, the security forces generally supported the initiative, but asked to correct various shortcomings. “There is no sharp denial, but, for example, representatives of the GRU and the FSB say that now there is no need to escalate the situation and open Pandora’s box,” Nosovko noted.

The authorities do not intend to abandon the idea of legalizing PMCs, says an FSB officer familiar with the situation, and confirms an interlocutor at the Ministry of Defense: the issue is being studied, they say. Despite the absence of a law, there are private military companies in Russia. They do the same work as their foreign colleagues: from escorting ships passing through the Gulf of Aden near the coast of Somalia, where pirates operate, to protecting facilities in Africa and Southeast Asia.

The Russian PMC market is extremely small in size, explains Boris Chikin, co-owner of the private military company Moran Security Group (MSG). There are no real military companies in Russia, insists Oleg Krinitsyn, owner of another large PMC, RSB-Group. Domestic firms conduct their main activities abroad. For example, employees of another large PMC - Anti-Terror Center - carried out orders in Iraq, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and other countries in the 2000s.

To facilitate work abroad, Russian PMCs register subsidiaries offshore. In particular, the main founder of MSG with a 50% share is Neova Holdings Ltd (British Virgin Islands). The owners of Russian PMCs do not disclose the financial side of their business; there are no company reports in the SPARK-Interfax database or foreign registers.

"Special tasks"

Russian troops did not participate in a full-scale ground operation in Syria, but in March 2016, the commander of the Russian group in the country, General Alexander Dvornikov, said that certain tasks were being carried out by soldiers on the ground. “I will not hide the fact that units of our special operations forces [highly mobile troops of the Ministry of Defense] are also operating in Syria,” Dvornikov said in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta. According to him, the military carried out additional reconnaissance of targets for air strikes, guided aircraft to targets in remote areas and solved “other special tasks.”

“Special tasks” in Syria were carried out by Sergei Chupov, who died in this country in February 2016, his acquaintance told RBC. According to him, Chupov served in the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but resigned in the early 2000s. This information was confirmed to RBC by another acquaintance of Chupov. A representative of the Ministry of Defense did not comment on the information about the deceased. The military prosecutor's office of the Southern District, in response to a request from RBC, reported that Chupov was not on the lists of the Russian group in Syria. RBC's interlocutor, who knew the soldier closely, claims that the veteran of the internal troops, who went through both Chechen campaigns, was in Syria as an employee of a private military company known as the “Wagner Group.”

“Wagner” is the call sign of the detachment leader, in fact his name is Dmitry Utkin, and he previously served in the Pskov GRU brigade, say four RBC interlocutors who are personally familiar with “Wagner”. In 2013, Utkin, who had left the Armed Forces by that time, left for the Middle East as part of a group of fighters recruited by the Slavic Corps company. This is a subsidiary of Slavonic Corps Limited registered in Hong Kong, Kommersant wrote. The company was included in the register of legal entities in 2012, and Russian citizen Anton Andreev is listed as its director.

The leaders of the “Slavic Corps” Evgeny Sidorov and Vadim Gusev, former managers of the Moran Security Group, when hiring, promised employees that they would guard an oil pipeline and a warehouse in Deir ez-Zor, a city in eastern Syria, Kommersant noted and the source said RBC at MSG. Instead of ensuring the security of energy facilities, 267 soldiers of the “corps” were ordered to support the rebels near the village of Al-Sukhna in Homs province, RBC’s interlocutor notes. Without the necessary equipment and with outdated weapons, they were ambushed by militants of the Islamic State (an organization banned in Russia). In October 2013, fighters of the “Slavic Corps” left Syria.

In January 2015, Sidorov and Gusev were convicted in Russia under the same article 359 of the Criminal Code and received three years in prison. The remaining participants in the events were not held accountable.

"Wagner Group"

For the first time, Fontanka wrote about the “Wagner Group” and its participation in the Syrian war in October 2015: citing anonymous sources, the publication claimed that former employees of the “Slavic Corps” were later seen among “polite people” in Crimea during the events of February- March 2014, and a little over a year later - in the south-east of Ukraine, already as an independent detachment. The Wall Street Journal wrote at the end of 2015 about the participation of the “Wagner Group” in battles on the side of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, also citing anonymous sources. In the same article, WSJ journalists talked about the death of nine people from the “Wagner Group” in the Middle East. The Russian Ministry of Defense called this information “stuffing.”

The base in Molkino was established shortly after the end of the active phase of the “Lugansk” operation - in mid-2015, recalls one of the officers who worked in the “Wagner group”. In this camp, fighters undergo training before heading to Syria, an FSB officer and one of the fighters who served under Wagner explain to RBC.

The issue of creating full-fledged PMCs in Russia has been discussed many times, but a breakthrough in this sense occurred after the Crimean events of 2014, in which GRU units performed well, said an RBC interlocutor close to this organization. It is the GRU that secretly supervises the “Wagner group,” a Defense Ministry officer and an FSB officer confirmed to RBC, adding that this detachment arose after “the situation in the world worsened.”

In the Middle East, the “Wagner Group” appeared shortly before Russia began to officially deploy its bases in the fall of 2015, says a Defense Ministry officer and confirms a source familiar with the operation. In total, almost 2.5 thousand people were located near Latakia and Aleppo, and the operation was led by officers not only from the GRU, but also from the FSB, he adds.

No one officially announced recruitment to the Wagner detachment, but the rumor quickly spread through groups on social networks, whose users were actively interested in “how to get into the Wagner PMC.” There was no shortage of people willing: in 2016, there were from 1 thousand to 1.6 thousand PMC employees in Syria at the same time, depending on the tension of the situation, says a source familiar with the course of the operation. The Ministry of Defense did not respond to RBC’s request whether “citizens who are not serving in the Russian Armed Forces” are really fighting in Syria, and is it true that these soldiers are being trained at a base in the Krasnodar Territory.

The money to the soldiers of the “Wagner Group” was paid in cash, it was not officially registered anywhere, and the purchases of weapons and equipment were classified, a Defense Ministry officer explains to RBC and confirmed by two interlocutors familiar with the operation. According to them, the expenses were covered by the state and “high-ranking businessmen.” RBC's interlocutors refuse to mention their names even in an informal conversation with the voice recorders turned off.

In the summer of 2016, Fontanka wrote about the connection of one of the entrepreneurs with the “Wagner group”: the publication claimed that over the past two years, “Wagner” moved around Russia, accompanied by people working for the St. Petersburg restaurateur Yevgeny Prigozhin. Surrounded by the commander of the Fontanka PMC, she found the head of the security service of one of Prigozhin’s companies, Evgeny Gulyaev, and his subordinates.

The Concord M company, owned by Prigozhin, is one of the main suppliers of food for the Office of the President of Russia, and the Concord catering plant serves Moscow schools. Prigozhin’s companies are a virtual monopoly on the capital’s school food market, and are also one of the largest service providers for the Ministry of Defense: companies deliver food and clean military units.

For private investors, financing PMCs is a way to prove their loyalty, explains an interlocutor at the Ministry of Defense. For example, for closer cooperation with the military department. RBC magazine found no evidence that Prigozhin’s companies provided financial support to PMCs. Moreover, if in 2014 the volume of services provided by companies associated with the businessman to the Ministry of Defense and its structures amounted to 575 million rubles, then in 2015 the volume of such contracts reached 68.6 billion rubles, follows from SPARK-Marketing data.

These contracts make up the lion's share of all government contracts that 14 companies received (the connection of most of these companies with Prigozhin can be traced through SPARK-Interfax; the remaining structures are managed by people who worked with the restaurateur at different times, Fontanka wrote). In 2015, the total volume of tenders they won amounted to 72.2 billion rubles.

Hybrid financing

The costs of maintaining a PMC numbering several thousand people are quite difficult to calculate. The Wagner Group does not pay for the rent of buildings and land, say two RBC interlocutors familiar with the structure of the camp. The state and private divisions of the camp in the Krasnodar Territory are located, according to Rosreestr, on a single plot of about 250 square meters. km. There is no information in the database about who owns the land, but several neighboring plots are registered under the territorial forestry department of the Ministry of Defense.

The military department is engaged in equipping the training ground. As follows from documents on the government procurement portal, in the spring of 2015, the Ministry of Defense held a corresponding auction for the amount of 294 million rubles, its winner was JSC Garrison, a subsidiary of the Ministry of Defense. The base in Molkino also underwent refurbishment: 41.7 million rubles were spent on the training ground.

The maintenance of the base itself, as well as other military units, is also on the balance sheet of the ministry of Sergei Shoigu. Tenders for services for garbage removal and laundry transportation, sanitation services, territory cleaning, and heat supply are carried out in packages for several dozen or hundreds of military units, grouped by territorial basis. On average, in 2015–2016, the military department spent 14.7 million rubles on one military unit. excluding classified contracts, follows from the procurement documentation of six auctions, which mention a base in the Krasnodar Territory.

In 2015–2016, the Ministry of Defense allocated an average of about 410 thousand rubles for the removal of waste from one part of the Southern Military District: the Megaline company became the winner of the tender. Until the end of 2015, the co-owners of the company were Concord Management and Consulting and Lakhta, which each owned 50%. Until mid-2011, the owner of a 14 percent stake in the first company was Yevgeny Prigozhin, and until September 2013 he controlled 80% of Lakhta.

Sanitary maintenance of one military unit of the district in 2015–2016 cost an average of 1.9 million rubles, technical operation of heat supply facilities - 1.6 million rubles. The winners of the tenders for these services were the companies Ecobalt and Teplosintez, respectively (the latter, according to Fontanka, is managed by Megaline employees). The most expensive cost of maintaining a camp is cleaning. In 2015, the Ministry of Defense allocated an average of 10.8 million rubles for cleaning one part of the Southern District. Contracts for cleaning in Molkino were concluded with the company “Agat” (the company is registered in Lyubertsy, the connection with Prigozhin and his entourage could not be traced).

Unlike base maintenance, contracts for the supply of food to units are not posted on the government procurement portal - this information falls under military secrets, since it allows one to determine the number of fighters. In July, an advertisement appeared on the Avito.ru website about hiring workers for a military canteen in Molkino. The employer is the company "Restaurantservice Plus". A similar vacancy was posted on one of the Krasnodar portals back in May. A man named Alexey answered the phone number listed in one of the advertisements, confirming that Restaurantservice Plus was looking for workers for the canteen of a military unit. The telephone number of this company matches the numbers of two companies associated with Prigozhin - Megaline and Concord Management and Consulting.

It is not clear whether the Krasnodar PMC camp is supplied from the same government orders as the GRU camp on the same base. RBC's interlocutor, who is familiar with the structure of the unit, claims that the camps are similar in number and size, so the average cost of maintenance also applies to the Wagner Group base. Companies related to Prigozhin could earn the most at auctions that mention the military unit in Molkino: Megaline and Teplosintez: these companies signed government contracts worth 1.9 billion rubles in 2015–2016, it follows from procurement documentation.

When asked whether the restaurateur’s companies are connected with the financing of the Wagner Group, a high-ranking federal official only smiled and replied: “You must understand - Prigozhin feeds very tasty food.” The companies "Restaurantservice Plus", "Ecobalt", "Megaline", "Teplosintez", "Agat" and "Concord Management" did not respond to RBC's request.

Price issue

If contracts for base maintenance go through electronic platforms, then it is almost impossible to track the expenses for the salaries of PMC fighters - salaries are paid mainly in cash, fighters from the “Wagner group” claim. Part of the money is transferred to instant cards, which do not indicate the owner’s name, and they themselves are issued to unauthorized individuals, one of them clarifies and a Defense Ministry officer confirms. Cards without a name are issued by a number of Russian banks, including Sberbank and Raiffeisenbank, as indicated on their official websites.

When talking about salaries, RBC's interlocutors cite similar figures. According to a driver working at a base in the Krasnodar Territory, civilians receive about 60 thousand rubles. per month. An RBC source familiar with the details of the military operation indicates that a PMC fighter can count on 80 thousand rubles. monthly, while at a base in Russia, and up to 500 thousand rubles. plus a bonus - in the combat zone in Syria. The salary of a PMC employee in Syria rarely exceeded 250–300 thousand rubles. per month, a Defense Ministry officer clarifies in a conversation with RBC. With a minimum threshold of 80 thousand rubles. he agrees, and estimates the average salary for an ordinary person at 150 thousand rubles. plus combat and compensation. With a maximum number of 2.5 thousand people in the “Wagner group”, their salary from August 2015 to August 2016 could range from 2.4 billion (at 80 thousand rubles per month) to 7.5 billion rubles. (with monthly payments of 250 thousand rubles).

The cost of equipment for each fighter can reach up to $1 thousand, travel and accommodation will cost the same amount per month, says Chikin from MSG. Thus, the cost of the presence of 2.5 thousand people in Syria, excluding salaries, can reach $2.5 million per month, or about 170 million rubles. (at the average annual dollar exchange rate of 67.89 rubles, according to the Central Bank).

The maximum expenditure on food during the Syrian campaign could be 800 rubles. per person per day, estimated Alexander Tsyganok, head of the Center for Military Forecasting at the Institute of Political and Military Analysis. From this estimate it follows that food for 2.5 thousand soldiers could cost up to 2 million rubles.

The main losses on the Russian side in Syria are suffered by PMCs, say RBC interlocutors familiar with the details of the operation. Their death toll figures vary. An employee of the Ministry of Defense insists that a total of 27 “private traders” were killed in the Middle East; one of the former PMC officers speaks of at least 100 deaths. “From there, every third “two hundredth”, every second “three hundredth”, says an employee of the base in Molkino (“cargo-200” and “cargo-300” are symbols for transporting the body of a dead and wounded soldier, respectively).

RBC contacted the family of one of the dead PMC fighters, but the relatives refused to communicate. Later, several posts appeared on the social networks of his relatives and friends in which the actions of RBC correspondents were called a “provocation” and an attempt to tarnish the memory of the murdered man. An officer from the “Wagner group” claims that non-disclosure of working conditions at the PMC is a condition for the families to receive compensation.

The standard compensation for the relatives of a deceased soldier is up to 5 million rubles, says a source familiar with the PMC structure (the same amount is received by relatives of Russian Armed Forces personnel who died during hostilities). But getting them is not always easy, insists an acquaintance of a “private trader” who died in Syria: families often have to literally scramble for funds. An officer from the Ministry of Defense clarifies that for a deceased family relative they receive 1 million rubles, and for wounded soldiers they pay up to 500 thousand rubles.

Taking into account salaries, base supplies, accommodation and food, the annual maintenance of the “Wagner group” can cost from 5.1 billion to 10.3 billion rubles. One-time expenses for equipment - 170 million rubles, compensation to the families of the victims with a minimum estimate of losses - from 27 million rubles.

Foreign PMCs and security companies do not disclose the cost structure - it is impossible to “extract” from their reports the amount of training costs, nor the soldier’s salary, nor the cost of maintaining the group. In the mid-2000s in Iraq, employees of one of the most famous military companies, Academi (formerly called Blackwater), received from $600 to $1,075 a day, the Washington Post wrote. According to the publication's calculations, the US Army general at the same time received just under $500 a day. Veterans of the US Marine Corps who trained soldiers in Iraq could earn up to $1 thousand, the Associated Press wrote. CNN estimated the salaries of mercenaries a little more modestly - at $750: this is what the fighters were owed at the beginning of the war in Iraq.

Later, the monthly salary of “private traders” working in the Middle East could rise to approximately £10 thousand (about $16 thousand at the average annual rate), the Guardian indicated. “There was a period of about three months in 2009 when we were losing people every two to three days,” the publication quotes a British Army veteran who was serving under contract in Afghanistan at the time. The total losses of PMCs operating in the Middle East amounted to dozens of killed and hundreds and thousands of wounded: for example, in 2011, 39 soldiers were killed and 5,206 people were injured.

"Syrian Express"

The fighters get to Syria on their own; there is no centralized dispatch, explains one of the mercenaries. But cargo for the “Wagner Group” is delivered by sea - on the ships of the “Syrian Express”. This name first appeared in the media in 2012: this is the name given to ships supplying the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, including with military goods.

The composition of the “express” can be divided into three parts: ships of the Navy, ships that previously carried out civilian voyages and then became part of the military fleet, and chartered bulk carriers owned by various companies around the world, says the creator of the Maritime Bulletin website, Mikhail Voitenko. It monitors the movements of ships using an automatic information system (AIS), which allows them to identify ships and determine movement parameters, including course.

“The supply of military bases occurs with the help of an auxiliary fleet. If there are not enough ships, then the Ministry of Defense hires ordinary commercial ships, but they cannot transport military cargo,” explains an interlocutor familiar with the organization of sea freight. Among the ships that have joined the ranks of the Navy since the spring of 2015 is the dry cargo ship Kazan-60, which, as Reuters wrote, is part of the “express.” Recently, it has changed owners many times: at the end of 2014, under the name “Georgy Agafonov”, the ship was sold by the Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company to the Turkish company 2E Denizcilik SAN. VE TIC.A.S.

The Turks resold it to the British company Cubbert Business L.P., then, as stated in a letter from 2E Denizcilik to the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine (a copy is at the disposal of RBC), the “Russian-based” company ASP became the owner. Among the companies associated with Yevgeny Prigozhin is a legal entity of the same name, the winner of several auctions for cleaning Ministry of Defense facilities and a participant in one of the tenders for maintaining the base in Molkino. In October 2015, the ship became part of the Black Sea Fleet (BSF) of the Russian Navy under the name “Kazan-60”. The Black Sea Fleet command did not answer RBC’s question about how the fleet received the vessel.

In total, at least 15 civilian ships were involved in the “Syrian Express”: all of them followed the Novorossiysk - Tartus route in the fall of 2015, Voitenko notes, citing AIS data. Mostly ships are registered to companies located in Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, Greece and Ukraine. Several companies are located in Russia, as follows from data from the services marinetraffic.com and fleetphoto.ru.

Voitenko estimates the charter of one civilian ship at $4 thousand per day, of which $2 thousand is its maintenance, $1.5 thousand is the cost of fuel and fees. Based on this estimate, the rental of only civilian ships from the “express” for 305 days (September 30 - July 31) could amount to $18.3 million, or a little more than 1.2 billion rubles.

Sensitive interests

In early March 2016, with the support of Russian aviation, Assad's army began an operation to liberate Palmyra: the city was recaptured after 20 days of fighting. “All the scattered ISIS gangs that escaped the encirclement were destroyed by Russian aviation, which did not allow them to escape in the direction of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor,” said Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoy, head of the main operational department of the General Staff.

PMC fighters played a major role in the liberation of areas of the historical part of Palmyra, says a former officer of the group. “First the Wagner guys work, then the Russian ground units come in, then the Arabs and the cameras,” he says. According to him, the Wagner detachment is used mainly for offensive operations in difficult areas. This makes it possible to reduce losses among regular forces in Syria, says an interlocutor at one of the PMCs.

It is not entirely correct to call the “Wagner Group” a private military company, another representative of this market is sure. “The detachment does not set out to make money; this is not a business,” he clarifies. In the case of the “Wagner Group,” the interests of the state, which needed forces to solve delicate problems in Syria, coincided with the desire of a group of former military personnel to earn money by carrying out tasks in the interests of the country, explains an RBC interlocutor close to the leadership of the FSB.

“The benefit of PMCs is the opportunity to use them abroad, when the use of regular armed forces is not very appropriate,” says Alexander Khramchikhin, deputy director of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis. He actually repeats the statement of Vladimir Putin. “This [PMC] is really a tool for realizing national interests without the direct participation of the state,” Putin, who was then head of government, said in the spring of 2012.

In the same vein, in the fall of 2012, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who is responsible for the military-industrial complex, spoke out: “We are thinking about whether our money will flow to finance other people’s private security military companies, or we will consider the feasibility of creating such companies within Russia itself and take a step in this direction".

PMCs are also an opportunity for large businesses to use armed guards, which will ensure the security of facilities abroad, such as oil pipelines or factories, notes Grinyaev from the Center for Strategic Assessments and Forecasts. To protect its facilities, including in Iraq, LUKOIL in 2004, for example, created the LUKOM-A agency, and the security of Rosneft facilities is provided by a subsidiary of the company RN-Okhrana.

“For the state, the use of private military companies can be financially beneficial exclusively for solving specific problems, but cannot replace the army,” notes Vladimir Neelov, an expert at the Center for Strategic Conjuncture. Among the risks of legalizing PMCs, he names the possible outflow of personnel from the active military - not only for financial reasons, but also for the sake of career growth.

As for the Wagner PMC, due to the appearance in the media of information about its connection with the base in Molkino, the Ministry of Defense is discussing the option of transferring private owners, says an FSB officer. According to him, possible options include Tajikistan, Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia. This is confirmed by the interlocutor at the Ministry of Defense. At the same time, he is confident that the PMCs will not be disbanded - the unit has proven its effectiveness.

With the participation of Elizaveta Surnacheva

http://bmpd.livejournal.com/2085221.html

Dozens of mercenaries from a Russian private military company. There is no official data about this, as well as about the number of dead and wounded: the figures cited in the media vary from “dozens of dead” to 200 people. If so, then these are Russia’s largest one-time losses during the Syrian campaign. Who carried them?

What is Wagner PMC

For the first time, Fontanka wrote about Wagner’s private military company (PMC) and its participation in the Syrian war in October 2015. According to the publication’s sources, in 2013, Russian managers of the private military company Moran Security Group, Vadim Gusev and Evgeny Sidorov, formed a detachment of 267 “contractors” to “protect fields and oil pipelines” in warring Syria. The detachment was named “Slavic Corps”. Its participants subsequently formed the “Wagner Group,” which, according to the publication, took part in hostilities on the territory of Ukraine on the side of the LPR and DPR and participated in the disarmament of Ukrainian military bases in Crimea. Investigations by several media reported that the training of fighters of this PMC takes place in Krasnodar, at the Molkino training ground - this camp began functioning around mid-2015.

At the end of 2015, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) wrote about the participation of the “Wagner Group” in battles on the side of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, also citing sources. In the same article, WSJ journalists reported on the death of nine people from the Wagner Group in Syria.

In 2016, there were from 1 thousand to 1.6 thousand PMC employees in Syria at the same time, depending on the tension of the situation, RBC magazine wrote, citing a source familiar with the course of the operation.

Who runs the PMC

The founder of the “Wagner group,” as various media outlets wrote, is Dmitry Utkin with the call sign “Wagner.” A reserve officer, until 2013 he commanded the 700th separate special forces detachment of the 2nd separate brigade of the Special Forces of the GRU of the Ministry of Defense. After being transferred to the reserve, he worked at the Moran Security Group and participated in the Syrian expedition of the “Slavic Corps” in 2013. Since 2014, Utkin has been the commander of his own unit, which, based on his call sign, received the code name “Wagner PMC.” Since the fall of 2015, its activities have been transferred to Syria. There, as RBC magazine wrote, the “Wagner group” was secretly supervised by the GRU (now called the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation).

What are Russia's losses in Syria?

In December, during a surprise visit to the Khmeimim base, Vladimir Putin solemnly announced the beginning of the withdrawal of Russian wars from Syria. By that time, there were official losses of the Russian army in Syria. But, according to Reuters, in just 9 months of 2017, at least 131 people died in Syria (officially - 16 people).

Where did this figure come from? Reuters obtained a certificate of death of Russian citizen Sergei Poddubny, issued by the consular department of the Russian Embassy in Syria on October 4. The certificate number is 131. The numbering of such certificates is updated annually, the consulate told the agency. This means that the number of each certificate corresponds to the number of deaths registered by the consulate up to that point since the beginning of the year. The consulate also stated that it does not register deaths of military personnel. The members of the “Wagner Group” are not military personnel. The Ministry of Defense never comments on her losses.

Are PMCs legal in Russia?

Mercenary activity is prohibited in Russia; military personnel can only work for the state. For participation in armed conflicts on the territory of another country, the Criminal Code provides for up to seven years in prison (Article 359), for recruiting, training and financing a mercenary - up to 15 years.

But they have been trying to legitimize the activities of PMCs in Russia for many years. The latest initiative is quite recent - in mid-January, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on State Construction and Legislation, Mikhail Emelyanov, said that the bill on PMCs would be submitted to the lower house within a month. A little earlier, the creation of a legislative framework to protect the interests of Russian mercenaries was supported by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

It is assumed that the law will allow PMC fighters to be involved in participation in counter-terrorism operations abroad, as well as in the protection of various objects such as oil and gas fields. PMCs will be prohibited from developing, purchasing or storing weapons of mass destruction. But the law was going to provide social guarantees for Russians who work for PMCs - now they officially do not have any rights and benefits provided for contract workers.

Anastasia Yakoreva, Svetlana Reiter

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