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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am.

What happens when a state begins to rely on a private company to fight wars?

We’ve seen it before, but not like this. The power that private military company, the Wagner group, has been granted by Russian President, Vladimir Putin, is unprecedented.

But Putin may be finding out what that means the hard way – as the public face of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, publicly feuds with his generals, and embarrassing stories emerge in the Western press.

Today, expert in Russian foreign policy, and fellow at the ANU Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Matthew Sussex, on how the Wagner group, and its leader, are changing the face of modern war.

It’s Thursday, May 18.

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RUBY:

Matthew, at the very beginning of the war in Ukraine, we started to hear these whispers that there was this mercenary army connected to Putin that was fighting for Russia. And it's now become very clear that that is happening, that there are tens of thousands of soldiers employed by this group — the Wagner group — active in Ukraine. So to begin with, tell me about the Wagner group, who is behind it?

MATTHEW:

Yeah, the Wagner group was set up by two guys, one of them Dmitri Utkin, who was a former colonel in the Russian military intelligence Special Forces, the GRU. He's a fairly shadowy character. We do know that he has a variety of Nazi tattoos, but he's certainly sort of the, I guess, the operational trainer, if you like, of Wagner. And the other person who set it up, and this was in 2014, was Yevgeny Prigozhin. He's much better known for being Putin's chef, the guy who cooks up deals for Putin. And it was originally set up as a private military company. But really from the get go, it was pretty clear that it was pretty much indistinguishable from an organ of the Russian state. So, Wagner has been active in a variety of different places, particularly in Africa and in the Middle East. But more recently, of course, it's been in Ukraine, where, as you say, it's estimated that there are about 50,000 fighters operating for Wagner, and they tend to offer relatively better deals, pay deals, contracts, and so forth, than joining the Russian armed forces. So they are quite attractive to join, or have been in the past. The downside is that they also have a very high body count. Wagner troops are used independently of the Russian military forces, and they’re used in a way that shows a pretty callous disregard, I think, for the lives of the people who fight for them. And along the way, Wagner have been implicated in a number of quite horrendous human rights abuses, particularly in Ukraine, but also, of course, in Africa, in places like Mali, and so on.

RUBY:

And one of the two founder of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the man who, as you say, used to be known as Putin's chef, he denied being part of the Wagner group for a long time, but then towards the end of last year he really stepped out of the shadows he went public, and claimed credit for the group. So tell me more about Prigozhin, and his connection to Putin?

MATTHEW:

So Prigozhin is a former criminal actually. He went to jail for, I think it was, tax fraud. And when he got out, he started a, I kid you not, a hotdog vendor business in St Petersburg. And that was around the time that Vladimir Putin was the chief of staff for the reformist mayor of St Petersburg at the time, Anatoly Sobchak. And we don't know if they have history that goes back before Putin became president, but certainly when he did, Prigozhin started pretty quickly to get the contracts for catering at the Kremlin for state dinners. And his company, Concord Catering, became, I think, the wealthiest catering business in Eastern Europe, by about 2010 or so. So Prigozhin has a long history with Putin, and he's a guy who has had his fingers in all sorts of pies. He set up the infamous Internet Research Agency, the Russian troll farm, which was responsible for meddling in all sorts of democratic elections, including numerous times in the United States. So that's just one of his sidelines. But Wagner has been his main business.

RUBY:

And In terms of the Wagner group's activities in Ukraine over the past year or so. What have they been involved in, what have they claimed credit for, and how they've influenced events in Ukraine?

MATTHEW:

Yeah, I mean, it does look as though Wagner has been used by Putin to show up the armed forces. So, when the Russian military fails, he tells Prigozhin to send Wagner in.

Now they claimed a victory over capturing the town of Soledar.

Archival tape – BBC News:

“After months of bloody fighting, an attempt by Russia to give a clear message. For the first time a claim to be in complete control.”

MATTHEW:

And more recently, it's been involved in fighting for the town of Bakhmut, which the Ukrainians have been defending very, very vigorously.

Archival tape – BBC News:

“Battles raging on the outskirts of Bakhmut, Ukrainian troops still defending every inch.”

MATTHEW:

And it's estimated that they've incurred an enormous amount of losses in doing so.

Archival tape – BBC News:

“Near enough now for hand grenades, and for many casualties.”

MATTHEW:

But doing a lot of fighting hand to hand in the trenches, really sort of bloody and messy stuff. And the types of people that have been recruited to Wagner in Ukraine aren't like the types of people who went to work for it in Africa, who were generally former Russian military. But what Prigozhin has done is scoured Russian jails.

Archival tape – Yevgeny Prigozhin:

“[Speaking Russian] Your sentences will be forgiven!”

MATTHEW:

And said to them come and fight for Wagner and we'll get your sentence commuted, and you can earn money. The types of people who are fighting for Wagner now are often the most violent criminals, and ones who really have no compunction about committing human rights abuses, and treating Ukrainians really, really badly.

RUBY:

And Matthew, in recent months it’s become clear that the relationship between the Wagner group, and the Russian military has begun to seriously deteriorate. Prigozhin has made a number of public claims about the Russian army. Tell me about what he’s saying.

MATTHEW:

Yeah. Prigozhin has been complaining a lot that the Russian military doesn't doesn't supply him, doesn't give him what he needs to finish the fight, and also that it gets in the way.

Archival tape – CNN:

“Yevgeny Prigozhin posted an expletive filled video online of fighters killed in Ukraine, blaming Russian military leaders of not providing them with enough ammunition.

MATTHEW:

And that it's blocked him from recruiting new members. All sorts of complaints, and in particular the Russian military is led by incompetent fools.

Archival tape – Yevgeny Prigozhin:

“You think you are the masters of this life? You think you can dispose of their lives? You think because you have warehouses full of ammunition that you have that right?”

MATTHEW:

And he said that on a number of occasions. So much so that a couple of months ago it's fairly clear, at least from the discord leaks from the United States, that Vladimir Putin personally intervened and sort of brokered a truce between Prigozhin and the Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu. Now, that didn't last very long, and Prigozhin has been getting absolutely furious and posting videos with him standing next to the bodies of dead Wagner fighters.

Archival tape – Yevgeny Prigozhin:

“These men here who died today are Wagner PMC, their blood is still fresh, film all of them.”

MATTHEW:

And saying, you know, Sergei Shoigu, the Defence minister, and Gerasimov, who is the military commander in Ukraine and the chief of the Russian general staff, “you guys are sitting in your offices, you know, stuffing your faces while these people are getting killed. Where the hell is my artillery?” And so, you know, there was an attempt about a week ago to broker yet another truce when the Kremlin appointed Sergei Surovikin. who was the previous Russian military commander, who got replaced in January, in Ukraine, as a sort of liaison between Wagner and the Russian armed forces. Now, clearly that hasn't worked, and evidently they continue to be at each other's throats.

RUBY:

And you mentioned the Discord leaks. And there was a report recently that also went to those leaks claiming that Prigozhin had actually reached out to Ukraine with what seemed like a pretty extraordinary offer, to strike a sort of deal. Can you tell me what we know about that?

MATTHEW:

Yeah, this is a really interesting one. A report in The Washington Post which said that Prigozhin had been in touch, on numerous occasions, with Ukrainian intelligence, offering to give them positions of Russian troops if the Ukrainians withdrew from Bakmut, because, of course, this is a big prize for whoever takes the town, even though it's basically in rubble at the moment. Putin had ordered that it must be captured before May 9th, the Victory Day parade in Moscow and across Russia, which, of course, you know, was pretty muted this year. That didn't happen. But whoever got to capture Bakmut would have bragging rights. And if the story is true, that's clearly something that Prigozhin wanted.

Of course, it could be a massive psy-op. It could be the Russian military leaking the story. It could be the Ukrainians. It could be the Americans. If so, it's a pretty good one. And it makes Prigozhin look very, very bad. So far, it doesn't look as though the Kremlin has accepted that line. It's said that it's misinformation. But being reported so publicly is just another example of how this is a sort of reality TV show, or a soap opera playing out in front of a global audience, pretty much in real time.

RUBY:

We'll be back after this.

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RUBY:

Matthew, how precarious is Prigozhin’s position right now? He’s been publicly accused of offering to give Ukraine the location of Russian troops. He says that's not true, and so far it seems like Putin believes that. But there are no guarantees here are there? And there's no doubt that, if it was true, Putin would see something like this as a betrayal.

MATTHEW:

Oh, absolutely right. It's treason. And, you know, he wouldn't be long for this world, I would have thought. You know, a lot of his mystique, attached to Putin, is that he has absolutely no compunction whatsoever, in purging anyone he sees as being disloyal or a failure, in reality, actually, he has found it difficult to completely shed himself of people who have been close to him. And Prigozhin is someone who has been close to Putin, in as much as you can. He's not connected to any of the real power ministries at all. So in that respect, he doesn't have a big support base, but he's certainly someone who has done a lot of things for Putin. And it might be very difficult for the Russian President to discard him completely. Time will tell, I guess.

RUBY:

And it does also seem like, at least at this moment in time, that Putin might need Prigozhin more than Prigozhin needs him, because it certainly seems like Russia would have very little chance of winning in Ukraine without the Wagner group.

MATTHEW:

Yeah, I mean, look, that depends. I mean, the size of the Russian armed forces is pretty large. They've committed about 80% of their ground troops to the fight in Ukraine, and they're struggling to really make any advances whatsoever. But Wagner hasn't necessarily performed all that well either. Wagner is, you know, 50,000. It's dwarfed by the number of troops that Russia and its regular forces have in the field, and that's probably about 180,000. It's also dwarfed by Putin's own personal internal guard, an organisation called Rosgvardiya, and that has around about 300,000 personnel just set up to guard Putin. So a lot of the scuttlebutt that that sort of risen up about, you know, Prigozhin, seeing himself perhaps as a challenger to Putin, it's possible that that's the case, and it's possible that he sees himself as running out of options, and really is playing for very high stakes. But you probably wouldn't like his chances against Putin. He is someone who has an extraordinary amount of power. So in terms of who needs who more, I think Russia and Putin certainly need Wagner in Africa, where they do a lot of dirty work, training local armies, providing security for high ranking people, fighting rebels and so forth. And in return for that, they get very lucrative licences to import weapons and use natural resources. So they have very much increased Russia's footprint in Sudan, Central African Republic, Syria, Libya, Mozambique, and have been a very effective tool for Russian messaging there. In terms of their ability to do much on the battlefield. I think they are kind of limited to trying to take towns and strategic points. But as the conflict has gone on, I think it's become pretty clear that neither Wagner nor the Russian armed forces really have the ability to conduct really major offensive operations anymore.

RUBY:

And it does seem like the Russian government has handed the Wagner group a rare and unique level of power there to fight wars overseas, on this kind of large scale, and recruit prisoners. So are we seeing consequences of that handover of power? Is it changing the balance of power inside Putin's Russia?

MATTHEW:

I think what Wagner illustrates is the willingness of the Putin regime to use unusual, unconventional tactics in order to achieve his interests. Now, in many respects, Wagner is like an army. In its inventory it has MiG 29 fighters. It has Pantsir missile systems, which are very, very advanced. And so it's indicative of the fact that the Russian government isn't beyond trying to find creative solutions, and isn't beyond trying to find people who will, in fact, commit brutal acts in support of Russian national interests. And now this is reflective of the fact that Russia sees itself, I think, very much at war with the West. They have the Russian word for enemy is vrag, and it's a very evocative, emotional word. And that's what they use to describe the United States. It's what they used to describe many European countries. And it sort of, you know, means you are my bitter enemy and I hate you and and all you stand for. And I'm prepared to use things like not just electoral interference, but, you know, semi-private military companies to go and do nasty things that will hurt your interests.

RUBY:

And Matthew, just to come back to what's happening on the ground in Ukraine. What is likely to unfold in Bakhmut now, and what would it mean if Russia and the Wagner group were not able to hold it?

MATTHEW:

Well, if they don't hold it, then they probably get encircled by the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians are just in the beginning of their, you know, long awaited counter-offensive. And they've been at this for a while, building up supplies from the west in terms of tanks, artillery shells, longer range missiles. They've been very keen to get their hands on F-16 fighter jets. That hasn't happened and probably won't, but certainly enough to be able to mount a reasonable counter-offensive against the Russian forces.

And if, of course, you know the Russians can't hold Bakhmut, and if they can't hold in the south, near the city of Kherson, then they're in a lot of trouble. It may well be that the gains that they've got since invading on February 24 last year, get wiped out relatively quickly, and we start seeing Ukrainian forces moving into the areas that Kremlin proxy forces controlled right from 2014, 2015, all the way through to the actual invasion in 2022. And if that's the case, that puts real pressure on Vladimir Putin as the president, because ultimately it rebounds on him as the person who made the decision to invade. The person who appoints the commanders who do the fighting, and the person who has effectively sacrificed almost a generation of young Russians to this war.

RUBY:

Matthew, thank you so much for your time.

MATTHEW:

It's my pleasure. Always a pleasure to join you.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today,

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has cancelled the Quad meeting between the leaders of Australia, Japan, India and the US, which was due to take place in Sydney next week.

The decision comes after US President Joe Biden pulled out of the trip, to deal with hostile negotiations with Republicans in the US congress over the US government’s debt.

And

A court has ruled that Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes must begin serving her prison sentence while she appeals her convictions, and must pay $452 million US dollars in restitution to the victims of her crimes.

Holmes, who rose to fame after claiming Theranos’ small machines could run an array of diagnostic tests with just a few drops of blood, was convicted in 2022 and sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See you tomorrow!

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