ANALYSIS – It's not just the Wagner Group that may soon cease to officially exist, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has decreed that all private military companies (PMCs) must sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense (MoD) – about a dozen Russian PMC mercenary groups are operating in Ukraine.
Others claim the number of Russian PMCs could be in the thirties.
Interestingly, PMCs are still outlawed under Russian law. Yet, as Molfar Global, a private intelligence group, notes:
…since all PMCs are subordinate to the Kremlin in one way or another, the members of these organizations are not arrested or subjected to trials. With a few exceptions: if a PMC leader falls out of favor with the Kremlin, he or she can be arrested and sent to prison along with the members of the organization in accordance with the current laws of the Russian Federation.
Currently, as many as 65,600 PMC combat troops are operating in Ukraine, enabling Vladimir Putin to avoid calling up mobilization and hide the levels of casualties. (RELATED: Is NATO's New Plan For Ukraine Good Enough Or Not Enough?)
Shoigu himself runs Patriot PMC, an upgraded version of the Wagner Group. Members are military serving in the Spetsnaz – special forces soldiers reportedly equivalent to the British SAS and SBS or the American Navy SEALS, Delta Force or Green Berets.
Though many in our spec ops community will debate that comparison.
Patriot PMC members may also be serving in The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (formerly GRU – military intelligence).
Note that the GRU has also long been linked to Wagner, with many claiming it is actually run by the GRU.
“Patriot members get higher salaries that may go up to U.S. $15,200 a month,” according to Ukrainian Volunteer Community “Inform Napalm.”
Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner Group has up to 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, and the Akhmat PMC – also known as the Kadyrovtsy army – led by Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Chechen Republic, has some 3,600 fighters in the country.
Still, as Inform Napalm notes in its report: “PMC personnel raised to the role of aggressive mercenary troops gives many advantages to a government seeking to hide its face behind legal discrepancies.”
The report notes that it offers Russia:
- Flexibility. Soldiers of fortune can come from and be deployed anywhere.
- Low cost. Despite a high risk to their life PMC contractors get $1,500 to $3,600 a month [1, 2] in the war zone depending on the type of their tasks. Moreover, these payments are made in cash and bypass any financial statements.
- Deniability. Moscow can pretend that the Russian government has nothing to do with unruly PMCs that engage into combat on foreign soil.
- Next to no legal responsibility. Russia as a state cannot be held legally accountable for what the Kremlin insists are the actions of volunteer foreign fighters. In addition to that, PMCs can emerge, and dissolve whenever needed, leaving no opportunity to be brought before court.
However, the dynamic in Russia has dramatically changed, with some of these positive attributes of Russian PMCs now being seen as negatives.
On June 23, Prigozhin's Wagner staged a rebellion against Shoigu's decree that had given the Wagner leader 21 days to hand his mercenary fighters over to the Ministry of Defense.
The brief revolt lasted until the next day, Saturday when Wagner fighters had pushed up the M4 highway – downing seven Russian aircraft as the army attempted to intercept them.
Wagner troops got to within 120 miles of Moscow before retreating amid some sort of deal with the Kremlin. (RELATED: Was Wagner Group's Russia ‘Coup' Staged By Putin?)
Following the Wagner debacle Leonid Slutsky, First Deputy Chairman of the Russian Duma's Committee on International Affairs, said, “The country does not need PMCs and their like.”
He wants Russia to build a seven-million-strong professional army and end its reliance on mercenaries.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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