 Russia's elite build their own private armies, they are key to Putin's war plan moving forward. Russian oligarchs and state-owned companies are increasingly running private military companies and recruiting and training their own battalions for Russia's war in Ukraine. The Daily Beast reported this. Russian billionaire Viktor Shendrik, the head of the security department of Russian Railways, has reportedly been backing a detachment of Russian fighters made up of a group of football fans called Espanola according to iStories media outlet. Shendrik is close with the Rotenberg brothers, Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, two of the Russian billionaires who are longtime friends of Russian president Vladimir Putin and who were reportedly interested in having their own private military company. Espanola was first created last year, but Shendrik recently began sponsoring the group sources told iStories. But the group isn't just a security group, the group is part of the reddit private military company which is operated by the Russian Ministry of Defense and has its own sniper reconnaissance and assault capabilities according to iStories. Putin's United Russia Party took control of the private military company last year according to an intelligence assessment from the main directorate of intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the Espanola battalion has been fighting in Ukraine according to the intelligence report. In fact, Espanola's intelligence chief was recently killed in Ukraine, the group confirmed in a social media post earlier this week. This battalion is just one example of how central private military companies are to Russia. Even after the death of former Wagner group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, Sean McFate, a leading expert on mercenaries told The Daily Beast. The Kremlin is still using mercenaries and private forces as a major tool of warfare, McFate said. Shendrik and the Rottenberg brothers are not alone in backing private military companies that then get sent to Ukraine. Gazprom, the state-owned energy company, has been working on several private military companies behind the scenes. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin gave Gazpromneft an oil subsidiary of Gazprom permission to create a private security group for its infrastructure, and the groups were tasked with protecting Gazprom-related entities. Roskosmos, Russia's space agency, has been backing the Euron or Uranus battalion since at least last year. The emerging trend of private military companies throughout Russia is key to Putin's war plan moving forward, McFate told The Daily Beast. They used to use it for plausible deniability in Africa and Syria, but now they're using it because it's a way for Putin to disguise the true costs of war to average Russians, he added. NATO bringing missiles closer to Russia, Patriot anti-air missile systems will be stationed in Lithuania. NATO will station US-made Patriot anti-air missile systems in Lithuania during 2024. The Baltic country's defense minister has announced. Lithuania shares a border with Russia's exclave of Kaliningrad and with Russia's ally Belarus. This year, the rotational air defense system will finally become operational, at least partially, Avidas Anusoskas said during a press conference in Vilnius, as quoted by the state broadcaster LRT. Our goal is to have a rotation similar to the air policing mission. The minister added, referring to the regular patrol flights by NATO aircraft in the airspace of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. This principle would not be a one-off thing for several months but would cover all of our calendar months and significantly increase our air defense capabilities. Anusoskas said last year the US and its allies in Europe delivered several Patriot batteries to Ukraine as part of efforts to back Kiev during its conflict with Moscow. The Washington-led bloc has deployed additional forces to Eastern Europe and the Baltic states in recent years, citing Russia's military operation in Ukraine. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned last month that the Western allies must prepare for a confrontation that could last for decades. Russia, for its part, cited NATO's continuing expansion Eastwood and the bloc's cooperation with Kiev as one of the root causes of the current conflict. Russian officials have repeatedly stressed that Moscow views NATO military units near its border as a national security threat. In January, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that the stationing of additional foreign forces in Lithuania only leads to the escalation of military tensions.