Angry Planet - The Wagner Group Gives Putin Implausible Deniability

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

The shine has come off Russia’s regular armed forces. We’ve all seen the pictures in Ukraine of burned out vehicles and crashed drones, everything already starting to rust. Casualties for the Russian military are estimated to be over 100,000. But the Russian Army isn’t the only force in Ukraine fighting on Moscow’s behalf. The Wagner Group is there, too, and we know far less about them and what they’re doing.To help us get a better view, we’re joined by Jason Blazakis. He’s Director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, and a senior research fellow at the Soufan Group. and wrote an op-ed for Newsweek on Wagner last week.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. People live in a world and their own making. Frankly, that seems to be the problem. Welcome to Angry Planet. Hello and welcome to Angry Planet. I'm Jason Fields. And I'm Matthew Galt. The shine has come off Russia's regular military forces. We've all seen the pictures in Ukraine of burned out vehicles and crashed drones, everything already starting to rust in the snow. Casualties for the Russian military are estimated to be over 100,000. But the Russian army isn't the only force in Ukraine fighting on Moscow's behalf.

The Wagner Group is there too, and we know far less about them and what they're doing. To help us get a better view, we're joined by Jason Blazakis. He's Director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, as well as being a senior research fellow at the Sufine Group. He also wrote an op-ed for Newsweek on Wagner just last week. So thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Can we start at the very beginning, which is really what we like to do? What is the Wagner Group when, when was it founded and why?

So the Wagner Group was founded in 2014. And during its founding, it was not an organization that had a press release to announce its formation. It was an organization that existed as a so-called private military company with this thin veneer of plausible deniability. That's why they didn't have this big, grandiose announcement. And as a fighting force, it first was projected as a fighting force in the 2014 Crimea conflict when the Russian Federation annexed portions of Ukraine in the Crimea region. The Wagner Group was part of the fighting force to

advance Russian geostrategic interests. And its founder, the individual who bankrolls the so-called Wagner group, is an individual by the name of Yevgeny Progoshin. And Progossin is known as Putin's chef. And we can talk about why that's the case later, maybe if you're interested. But he is ostensibly an oligarch, an individual who has accumulated a great amount of wealth within the Russian Federation. And with that wealth, he was a lot of wealth. He was a lot of wealth. able to form the Wagner group. And within the Wagner group, you have primarily Russians, but an interesting aspect of the Wagner group is that it's composed of mercenaries from across the globe. They've made an effort to recruit individuals from all over the globe. And they, well, I would

be reticent to say that they are etiologically driven. They do have individuals at senior levels during the time of its founding, specifically individual by the name of Demetri Udkken, who was a lieutenant colonel formerly of the Russian Spetheknots, and he is an individual that has neo-Nazi ideologies as well. So you have that strain. People always ask, why was it called the Wagner group? The lore behind the creation of the so-called Wagner group is because Demetri Udken was a fan of Adolf Hitler, and Hitler's favorite composer was Richard Wagner. I was just about to ask you that. That was my next question. So will you... ahead, Matthew. Follow up on Dimitri, there is a picture that goes around the internet of him.

Yeah, I've seen it. Will you describe the picture for the audience? Yeah, yeah, bald guy like me, you know, tall, imposing figure. And this picture you're talking about that's been circulating over the internet the last year or so is a picture of him with no shirt on. and his right and left area of his shoulder near his clavicle on each side are essentially SS tattoos. So SS is obviously a fighting force of the Adolf Hitler Nazi regime. So here's an individual who's literally wearing those tattoos on his skin. And people have said, well, is this really a picture of him? And there have been some studies looking at his facial composition and comparing it.

to an older picture that's known to be him, and there was a 74% match. So it's very likely he is that individual. The interesting thing about him is we haven't seen him associated with the Wagner group openly since 2016. In 2016, actually, it was awarded some high-level medals from Vladimir Putin himself. So the question is, like, what is his role today? And that is, to me, a significant question mark. Irrespective of his role, though, since the group's formation in 2014, the Wagner group has rapidly expanded, not just in terms of personnel, but also in terms of where it operates worldwide. How many personnel are we talking about? We're talking very likely. The precise answer is unknown. This is not an organization that precisely tells us the number of

individuals within it, but we're talking very likely in my mind, understanding where they are throughout the globe and how they've been deployed in Ukraine more recently, we're talking probably more than 10,000 individuals who compose the so-called Wagner group. So it's not an insignificant number of individuals. And it's probably a group that has grown pretty considerably, given some of the recruitment tactics the group has utilized. Like what? One example of that is over the course of this summer, Yevgeny Progoshin went into Russian prisons to essentially take individuals forcefully out of those prisons to fight for the Wagner group. So they've been

able to artificially, I guess you could say, or very coercively bring their numbers up. And part of the reason is because obviously they have sustained a lot of casualties along the lines of the Russian Federation conventional military as well. In addition, there have been reports, for instance, of trying to recruit out of Afghanistan, trying to recruit members that had been formally trained by the United States in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban. And those individuals, obviously with the United States departure from Afghanistan in August of 2021, are trying to make ends meet. There are certainly no friends of the Taliban. And the Wagner group has identified this as an area for potential recruits. And now I haven't seen the figures that have come out of that recruitment

effort. But I think it shows the depth and scale in which they're trying to recruit individuals. And there were reports earlier than that as well, that they were trying to recruit individuals. out of Syria to fight in the Ukrainian conflict as well. So very diverse recruitment methods being utilized by the group. And some of them coercive, others primarily fiduciary-related. Yeah, how does it pay? I mean, is it a good job? Yeah, yeah.

It pays thousands of equivalent U.S. dollars per month in the context of, you know, how people are getting by in Russia these days because of significant sanctions, that is not an insignificant amount of money and certainly more than the uniform soldiers make on a monthly basis. So it is a fairly lucrative way to make money. And because there's desperation, because of sanctions amongst other things, combining that with the coercive aspects that Progotion has adopted, it is a, a pathway to potentially making more money for your family. At the sacrifice of potentially your life, though. What makes you an attractive recruit?

These days, in the context of the significant losses that you document it up top of this show, you know, it's not a lot of things would make me want to go. So it's, it's, you know, anybody who, you know, can ostensibly, walk on on their two feet would be attractive to the Russian Federation right now. They've been well documented. Russian males are fleeing that country because of some of the missteps of Vladimir Putin who put into place essentially a draft. That led to a lot of military age men leaving in mass quantities from the Russian Federation.

So right now, anybody who has a pulse, quite frankly, would make an attractive recruit. And the Wagner group's attractive to use in a lot of ways because it allows for the Russian Federation to say that the battlefield losses aren't as significant as they otherwise would be because Wagner is not part technically of the Russian military. So if they're getting killed, that doesn't add up to the death toll that you talked about earlier as well. So I think it gives them the ability to control the narrative to an extent that the losses aren't as bad as they could be. Does that mean that the Russian government is paying Wagner in basically the way they pay the regular military? Or how does that relationship work? So Wagner is paid through the coffers of Yvgeny Progoshin. And Progrosion has made a lot of money through the backs of contracts he has had in place for a very long time,

very lucrative contracts with the Russian Federation, ranging from cleaning services to contracted services in the food industry. Couple that with the fact that Yvgeny Progoshan has been able to accrue finances through the deployment of the Wagner Group elsewhere, particularly in places like Africa, where they've exploited natural resources, has been another method in which the group has secured finance. And those financial components are the ways in which Wagner is being paid. So the Russian state may not be paying them directly. And that is another example of this thin veneer of plausible deniability that the Russian Federation has. The interesting aspect to this, though, is technically speaking, the Russian Federation has outlawed private military companies. So in theory,

the Wagner Group really shouldn't even exist. They should be banned pursuant to the Russian Criminal Code Article 359, which bans private military companies. And that's another reason why that Russian state really can't just hand Wagner group money directly. So how well-share- Right? Yeah, it's great. It's a double-speak game. Right, but that's how all of this Russian shit works. It does, absolutely.

It's always just, it's always double-speak and obfuscation and stuff that from the outside doesn't make any sense. Nope. It only makes sense if you really understand the ways in which the Russian political system operates. Because this does sit really nest it well within sort of how historically Russia and the Soviet Union have operated historically. How capable is this group? I'm just wondering if I walked in and I was a warm body, which is an assumption, And I said, I want to join up.

Would they have the ability to send me through basic training? Could I choose whether I want to be a radio operator or drive a tank? Do they have tanks? I mean, I'm just wondering how much it's like all of the ads that we have in the United States for joining the military. Yeah. So they have a training facility in a former Spets Knots camp. so they can do training in the Russian Federation soil. They have deployed individuals throughout the globe who have been able to secure real-world experiences through those deployments.

It's important to take a step back also to say that the Wagner Group is composed of individuals as well that have been formerly in the military within Russia. So they do have some individuals that actually have significant experience. Dmitry Utkin, for instance, the example I gave earlier today was a little. Lieutenant Colonel in the GRU, essentially. So they are composed of individuals that have, in some cases, real world capabilities. Now, of course, some of these new recruits that have come to the conflict, in a lot of ways I've kind of described them as canof-fire, they're just throwing them into the fire, using them, you know, as fodder more than anything else to level in which they have the capability

to train them before they deployed. I think it's at a very low level. But as a fighting force, I think the Wagner Group's experiences in any number of areas has been, I would label, uneven. In some cases, they've been successful. Perhaps in the context of Crimea and Ukraine, they've been more successful, perhaps than the Russian conventional military. And I think that's in some reason why Putin has perhaps been sidling up closer to, Progoshin has been criticizing Shoygoi, the Minister of Defense. And I think part of that reason being they have been perceived to be more successful in Ukraine.

But of course, they've been deployed in other places like Syria where they actually had in exchange with U.S. military forces and they did very poorly there. They were deployed in places like Mozambique before. And they left Mozambique because they were slaughtered by Islamist rebels in that country. So in some experiences, it's been very poor on the. battlefield in terms of how they've been effective. In other cases, perhaps better than the conventional Russian military. Do they have military equipment like tanks or aircraft, or is it really just an infantry force? No, they have hardware. Progossan is a very rich guy. So they have like

significant hardware. They have personal arm carriers. There is a story that came out about six, seven months ago that even they may have fixed wing aircraft potentially. There was some good reporting that they may have those kinds of assets in places like Sudan. They certainly have helicopters. So this isn't just a bunch of dudes in boots walking about Ukraine or the remote areas of Africa. They actually have real deal hardware. So in that sense, they are in organization that has material that allows them to project force in ways in which makes them capable. All right,

Angry Planet listeners, we're going to pause there for a break. We'll be right back after this. All right, Angry Planet listeners, welcome back. We're talking about the Wagner group. Can I hire them? Well, it depends if you're an individual in the United States, for instance, which you are, Jason. So, you know, the Russian Federation has made a list of countries who are friendly and unfriendly. So you being in a country that clearly is unfriendly, you probably would have to go through significant vetting before you could hire the Wagner group. So probably unlikely would meet, you know, go through that vetting process. But I will say like, you know, less tongue in cheek. You know, if you're in a country that isn't deemed to be unfriendly and this, you know, many countries fit that bill. We have seen the Wagner group hired by a number of authoritarian or leaders who have taken over in places like Mali through a military coup to help with their security situation ostensibly.

And I say security situation is to essentially prop them up so they can retain power in the illegal ways that they've held it, especially in Mali as one example, where there was a military coup. So we have seen them hire throughout the world, primarily in places like Africa, though. Yeah, can we drill down on that? We've actually did an episode about it with a reporter from Africa maybe six months ago. And it's kind of one of these, there's an old truism in defense reporting that Africa is the most important no one wants to read about. And if you, we had a standing rule at an old place that I worked where if we were writing about something very important that was happening in Africa. don't put Africa in the title because readers typically won't click on it. And so we're talking about Wagner Group right now.

It has come up in the news a lot. And I'm seeing it getting a lot more mainstream coverage because of the Ukraine connection. However, they've been operating for a long time in Africa, right? And it's not just Molly. Can you talk about some of their other activities in Africa and kind of what it tells us about the group? Yeah, so you can kind of skip around the African continent. In Libya, for instance, as one example, in North Africa, the Wagner group has deployed there to try to change the outcome of the Civil War by supporting individual by the name of Khalifa Haftar. and the context of that support trying to use their fighting force to augment Haftar's forces,

they've been able to gain access to oil-connected facilities as just one example of this tit for tat. Wagner doesn't do anything for free, nor does Wagner do anything, in my estimate, that doesn't benefit the larger Russian Federation geostrategic interests. in Libya, supporting an individual like Haftar in an effort to influence the endgame in Libya, where perhaps the Russian Federation then could gain access to warm water ports and things of that nature, like they did in Syria, because they were deployed there as well in Syria. And as part of that deployment in Syria to skip around in the Middle East,

the Assad regime gave certain benefits, again, in terms of oil access, warm water port access to Wagner, mercenaries into the Russian Federation, right? So this tit for tat that we see in Libya in Syria has also played out elsewhere. Fast forward a little bit. In Sudan, then, you saw the Wagner group prop up a military authoritarian leader. And Sudan came out of this really terrible picture of where you had a hardliner in power for a very long time. There was an upright. We saw briefly civilians take some ownership over Sudan again, and then the military has kind of like this run rough shot over them. In an effort to help retain their power, again, leveraging the Wagner Group to help provide for security services, ostensibly training Sudanese military forces because a lot of the Wagner group individuals are former Russian military,

and they have capabilities to train and build capacity of military forces. We saw them do that on behalf of the Sudanese regime in power right now in exchange for access to gold mines. In fact, those gold mines were providing significant source of revenue and likely still do for the Progogian Enterprise in the Wagner Group. to the point where it was so well known a few years ago, the U.S. Department of Treasury designated an entity known as the Moreau M-E-R-O-E group, which was a gold organization acting on behalf of the Wagner Group. So that was a really good example of this trade of essentially access for natural resources for security services, as well as having influence in a country.

We can't underplay that. significance. They've also done essentially the same thing in places like the Central African Republic, propping up a long time hardliner in the Central African Republic in exchange for providing security services to him for access to gold, diamonds, and timber, timber being a very significant natural resource in the Central African Republic. And just within the last 24 hours, And December 15th, we've learned, quite possibly Wagner's making inroads in Burkina Faso now as well. So they've been all over Africa, but generally to plunder the natural resources of that country and to gain significant political leverage within that country as well.

It's amazing that Moscow gets the benefits of this and seems like it takes none of the risks. I mean, is that fair to say? Is it really, does it, does the fig leaf work? Does anyone say, oh, it's just Wagner, you know, this, at this point, I don't know. Yeah, it's got to not be, right? I mean, it's just so ridiculous. What happened to consequences, though, for this adventurism that's happened throughout the globe in the context of Wagner's activities.

And in my mind, very few consequences. You know, the Treasury Department has designated it. the Moreau Gold Group and amongst other entities in Sudan, but they still continue to operate with impunity in Sudan. They, as an organization, Progogian himself has been sanctioned a number of times, but yet he's able to operate with impunity. And it seems like the welcome met has been out for the Wagner Group in a number of locations with very few negative consequences for the organization. aside from the firefight that they engaged in in Mozambique where a lot of Wagner individuals were killed, and the firefight that they had engaged with in the United States were engaging with U.S. Special Forces.

They lost terribly. But you're right. It's unfortunate, but the Wagner Group continues to operate. We all know what the Wagner Group is, but they still are welcomed. And the question is, how can you change that calculation? So how can we change that calculation? Well, you know, one example of what the United States should consider doing, Jason, and I wrote for Newsweek, a piece that suggests that one pathway could be to potentially designate the Wagner Group as a foreign terrorist organization pursuant to U.S. law. And with that comes a number of consequences.

But one consequence that I think is meaningful is that it makes it harder for groups or countries to want to work with the Wagner Group. It could serve as a deterrent effect. And I say this because while the Wagner group is designated for other things pursuant to U.S. law, they aren't treated as a terrorist group. And I think that raises the stakes for countries and for individuals within those countries to do business with the Wagner group if they were labeled as a terrorist entity. It's one thing to work with an organization that is designated because of the activities that carries out in Ukraine, which seems like. a very distant conflict, right, for a number of countries in Africa. There's this disconnected feeling. But if you designate the Wagner Group and they operate in your back door or in your country,

that could lead to potential prosecutions. It could lead to U.S. determinations that we can't provide foreign assistance to a country. So it may, in my mind, lead to an important decision moment for certain actors within Africa to say, do we de-risk from this relationship with Wagner, or do we continue on and risk the opprobrium of the United States and potential sanctions and potential prosecutions of individuals because the FTO regime is very closely linked to material support prosecutions? And in fact, a lot of people don't know this.

They just think the FTO foreign terrorist organization designation is a sanction, but also it comes with consequences to include jail time for individuals who provide material support to that designated group. So in my mind, it could have that positive effect in terms of changing the calculations. And I say this, especially under the backdrop of what the president of Ghana said recently about essentially Wagner potentially being in Burkina Faso right now. The United States sent very senior delegates to Burkina Faso just back in October saying, hey, please don't work with the Wagner group.

Great. And now then potentially they are. But if the United States said the Wagner group in October was designated as a terrorist group, you better not work with them. You better bet that actually probably would have resulted in perhaps a different outcome that we're seeing now here in December, where quite possibly the Wagner group could be operating in Burkina Faso. And I think Newsweeks actually did this reporting as well on this possible development

in Burkina Faso, which to me is very troubling. So also, I will just say the Wagner Group designation may not lead to the military government and Mali saying, ah, we're going to de-risk. But it could also affect that country that hasn't yet worked with Wagner Group too yet at this point. And I think that's a very powerful policy outcome. And it's worth pursuing. I want to back up.

I've got a couple more, a little bit more bizarre questions. Putin's chef? Yeah. So why that, right? So progosian has historically had a lot of food related contracts for the government. So that's why he's been labeled essentially the meal services, things like that, Putin's chef. He's made billions of essentially doing contract services in the food industry. Can you also tell us they're connected to some sort of, it's like a fusion center or a defense tech center that's in St. Peter's.

Yeah, it just got created. Yeah, great question. And I'm working on this paper of a couple of my graduate research assistants right now that talks about the evolution of the prognosion group. And in November of 2022, they, were able to secure this facility in St. Petersburg, which has been labeled essentially a tech center for the organization. And the reason why was we explore this in the paper for this is to expand and diversify its activities. And I think Progoshin knows in many ways he's been looked at as an individual by Putin as someone he can trust to essentially do things

on behalf of the Russian Federation that perhaps others can't. And one reason why the center was created in our paper, we talk about this, was to try to stem this brain drain situation that's occurring in the Russian Federation. With the Ukrainian conflict started now nearly a year in, the Russian Federation has lost a lot of smart individuals who don't want to die in Ukraine, a lot of these individuals with tech skills. and the creation of the center is a way in which they could try to rebuild tech skills within the Russian Federation. And a lot of people are trying to, you know, within Wagner, say this is going to be kind of like the new Silicon Valley.

You know, that's an open question. And in fact, the interesting thing is about this, you know, Progotion has had some words with the mayor of St. Petersburg as well over the last month and a half. And in fact, right now, the center as of early December, at least, based on our information, was empty because there have been accusations that Progosion has been able to secure the center in ways that maybe off-usgate or get around circumventing St. Petersburg law. So I think there's a question of, you know, when they can go back in and inhabit this center. because according to our information and research, it's currently vacant because they may have skirted it to the law, which would not be surprising because if you go back to the Wagner's foundation, in and of itself, should be illegal pursuant to the Russian law. So Progosion was recently about a month ago taking to task in criticizing the mayor of St. Petersburg for corruption, probably because the mayor of St. Petersburg was actually trying to hold the Wagner Group accountable for some. purchases, perhaps it has made in St. Petersburg like this building that may have a skirt at law.

Or maybe he just wasn't paid off. He wasn't paid off to the extent he would have liked. Exactly. This is how the world works, unfortunately, in the Russian Federation. A lot of corruption. Where is Wagner going next, do you think? Yeah. So to me, this is a critically important question for governments to try to answer. You know, there have been reports, for instance, that the Wagner group wants to increase its foothold in places like Africa. Africa is a very intensely natural resource rich continent. The Russian Federation obviously has been sanctioned by the international community for its activities in Ukraine.

So the Wagner Group provides an important economic outlet for the Russian Federation, particularly as it relates to the acquisition of natural resources in the movement of those resources or the exchange of those resources for cash. It could be a way to bypass sanctions effectively. So in my mind, where the Russian Federation and the Wagner group goes next will be countries that have natural resources and have essentially abstained from UN votes related to Russia incursion into Ukraine or have voted against initiatives to essentially condemn the Russian illegal invasion in Ukraine. to me, as I look around the world where the Wagner group can go, if I'm a policymaker, I'm thinking about these two things as to areas where they can go next. Varder is not going to go to a place that has no money. And the only exception to this is if that country would be susceptible to Russian influence, essentially to be owned and controlled by the Russian Federation, politically speaking.

But if we go around the globe, Central African Republic, Sudan, Mali, all countries that are rich in natural resources and have been exploited by the Wagner group. Where they also can go could be areas in which there are so-called failed states, right? States in which there is a lack of stability. Wagner can go in, swoop in, and try to provide security support as a way to say we can help you become more stable as a regime. So this is another area I think we should think about. But they're not going to leave Ukraine now. And I think first and foremost, that's the priority for the Russian Federation. The conflict's not going well.

They're going to need Wagner there. And I had written earlier this year, I thought we would actually see, and this is where my analysis was wrong, and always willing to embrace when I'm wrong. I wrote for the Sufant Center that I thought there was a chance that we would see a redeployment of Wagner assets out of Africa and into Ukraine. Maybe we've seen this to a limited extent, but not to the extent I thought we would. And I probably misestimate their redeployment because I underestimate it, perhaps the U.S. government and other governments putting sanctions on Russia in the way that they did. And they have been pretty weighty sanctions. And now we're just starting to see the effect of sanctions, I think, on Russia now to the point where it looks like they're going to have pretty significant decline in economic growth, making the Wagner Group's enterprise in places like Africa all the more important. Jason Blasekis, thank you so much for coming on the show and illuminating some of this, murky stuff.

Very much. Is there anything else you'd like to highlight that you've been working on recently? Yeah, I would just say, stay tuned for the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism's upcoming report on the Wagner group. We're going to explore some of the things that we discussed today, the Tech Center as one example in what it means. We're going to talk a little bit about the financing of the group in terms of natural resources and contracting related to its activities. And I think the one thing we didn't talk about is we've done some sentiment analysis of the Wagner group and how it's perceived within the Russian-speaking public. And I think the results there are going to be really interesting for folks. But the takeaway will be is Wagner has increased in popularity within the Russian-speaking public over the last year.

And I think this report will be interesting for folks because we use data science methods and we do Russian language research as well. That I think may set the report apart from other reports produced by other think tanks that perhaps haven't looked at the Russian language dynamics. Thank you again. Thanks, Jason. Thank you, Matthew. All right, Angry Planet listeners. As always, Angry Planet is me, Matthew Galt, Jason Fields, and Kevin O'Dell. It was created by myself of Jason Fields.

$9 a month. Angry Planet.substack.com, angryplanetpod.com. Can you tell? I already have holiday brain creeping into me. This will be the last new dispatch, I think, until the new year. We will be back the middle of the first week of January. Another conversation about conflict on an angry planet. Stay safe until then. Thank you all so much. Everybody who helps us out with the show, the $9 a month really, really helps us keep going. this thing is very, very much a labor of love. We really appreciate it. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season.

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