A shadowy paramilitary organization has been in the news recently because of the war in Syria, where Russia is supporting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, while the United States leads a coalition fighting the Islamic State that includes the Syrian Democratic Forces.
On the night of February 7-8, The Washington Post reported, “a headquarters base of U.S. troops and their Syrian allies, located near a strategic oil field several miles east of the [Euphrates] river…, was attacked by 300 to 500 ‘pro-regime’ forces.” U.S. forces responded and, “After three hours, the attacking force retreated, leaving behind what the U.S. military said was about 100 dead attackers.” The details of what exactly happened and why the pro-regime forces attacked remain unclear. However, reports surfaced that most of the dead – some reports said hundreds were killed – were Russian mercenaries.
Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said “several dozen” Russians had been killed or wounded, but it insisted that “Russian service members did not take part in any capacity and Russian military equipment was not used.” The ministry did acknowledge that “Russian citizens” were present but said they were in Syria “of their own free will and for different reasons.”
If any of this sounds familiar to our readers, well, it certainly should. Remember the Russian takeover of Crimea? The invasion and war in the Donbas? The “little green men” who appeared in Crimea? The tourists on leave from the military who went off to fight in Ukraine’s east? It is not news that Russian personnel – both regular military and contractors – have been sent on all manner of secret deployments outside of Russia. And, we probably don’t need to remind our readers that Russia later admitted its regular soldiers were indeed in Ukraine.
RFE/RL had noted back in December 2016 “the key role paramilitary mercenary formations have played in Russian foreign policy for at least the last five years, particularly in Ukraine and Syria.” Furthermore, RFE/RL cited reports that these formations were equipped and supported by the Russian Defense Ministry, and that some of these mercenaries have been awarded Russian military honors. Meanwhile, the use of such mercenary companies also gives the Kremlin some degree of deniability.
Interestingly, there is a connection between pro-Russian forces in Ukraine and Syria. In both cases, fighters from the private military contracting agency Vagner (also referred to as Wagner) were and are involved. Eurasia Daily Monitor (EDM) reported on February 15 that “the backbone of the force [in Syria] was made up of up to 600 ChVK [the Russian acronym for private military company] Vagner Russian contractors armed with tanks and heavy guns, according to an unnamed military source.” EDM analyst Pavel Felgenhauer noted that Igor Strelkov (Girkin), the former commander of Russia-backed militants in the Donbas, has published reports about Russian casualties in Syria that have quoted former ‘colleagues from Donbas’ who are now with ChVK Vagner.”
Another EDM analyst, Pavel K. Baev, wrote on February 26 about the man behind Vagner: “the political entrepreneur” Yevgeny Prigozhin, who “is not a household name in Russia and, until now, has been almost entirely unknown to many Western observers.” The tycoon’s contacts with Russian President Vladimir Putin go back to the early 1990s when Mr. Putin was a local official in St Petersburg and Mr. Prigozhin was a restaurant owner. (He is nicknamed “Putin’s chef.”) He used those connections to launch a variety of other enterprises, including catering, real estate, oil and natural gas. He gained notoriety in the U.S. recently when he was indicted by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III for funding the Internet Research Agency – the infamous “troll factory” that is accused of “information warfare” during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.
Mr. Baev pointed out: Mr. Prigozhin’s “non-transparent business Concord Catering makes for a perfect ‘roof’ to channel money into the Internet Research Agency from sources about which no questions would be asked or answered. Similarly, Prigozhin’s business, on its face, would not be able to unilaterally finance the activities of the Wagner Group, which has, according to latest estimates, grown to a private army of 3,600 mercenaries with an annual budget of about $350 million. This, then, raises yet another question: Where does the money come from?”
Quite appropriately, the analyst went on to ask: “Where is Vladimir Putin in all of this?”