 Good afternoon everyone and welcome to this event at New America. We're going to be focusing in on the Wagner Group, an organization that is in the news a lot. And we are really going to delve down deeply. The New Americas has published a great series of reports that really is quite innovative and is getting us to think differently and creatively about what this group is, what it means for the United States and its allies and a whole variety of policy implications to that. I want to welcome everybody and thank you for your time. My name is Paul Stronsky. I'm a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and I'm honored to be here today to help moderate this discussion. I'd also like to introduce our speakers today. First we have Candice Rondeau who's directs the Future Frontlines, a public intelligence service for next generation security and democratic resilience. She's a journalist and public policy analyst, she's a professor of practice and a fellow at the Malikian Center for Russian Eurasian and East European Studies and the Center for the Future of War at Arizona State University. She's also director of the Planetary Politics Initiative at New America. We have Ben Dalton, who's program manager for New America's Future Frontlines program. He worked as a reporter and a researcher with a focus on Eastern Europe and Russia. We have Katarina Stepanenko, who is a Russian analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. Katarina is a senior member of the team that has produced the daily Russian offensive campaign assessments since February 2022. Those are very important and useful assessments that I use and she previously covered Russia's preparation for the full scale invasion of Ukraine. And we have Anna Kruglova. Dr Kruglova is a lecturer in terrorism studies at the University of Southward. Her research interests focus on terrorist propaganda and she's particularly interested in exploring what role internet media and social media play in the recruitment process and radicalization. Now at Future Frontlines, Candice and Ben have just produced a series of five reports under the heading Uncovering the Wagner Group, which presents over five years of research on the Wagner Group's operations. Its connections to the Russian state and military and its role in information war and force mobilization. Just a few, we have a link to that report at the bottom, and we will be taking questions later on after our formal discussion. And you can pose your questions through the Slido box, which again is on the right hand side of the screen. You can do that at any time, and we'll try to pick up your questions a bit further on. Now we have a quick clip to start the session, and we'd like to play that it focuses on a Wagner recruitment ad for Americans. We've dreamed of doing much to make America great again, but in reality, you saw criminal otters, the destruction of nations, the death of civilians, and all for the will of a bunch of families who thought they were earthly gods, deciding who would live under their role and who would be destroyed. You began to realize that this is the side of evil. This is not the America the palming fathers dreamed of. It has become the focus of the evil that is destroying the whole world. And today, the only country fighting this evil is Russia. If you're a true patriot of the very future of Great America, join the ranks of the warriors of Russia. Help defeat evil, or it will be too late for everyone. I read about that clip, but I hadn't seen it before. And it really is quite, quite remarkable and quite striking. And so the first question I'm going to pose is to Candice. I'd like to get your assessment of actually what is the Wagner group. We always hear about it. We think about them, you know, mercenaries in Africa, the Central African Republic in Ukraine. But here they are. And you show in your report that they are not, they're primarily targeting Russians, but not exclusively. So what is this organization. Where are it's all of its tentacles. And why would it be actually trying to recruit somebody from the United States. Yeah, thanks Paul. Such a good question. And that video is really super chilling I've watched it too many times and I sort of debated whether we should show it but I think it's important that people understand the connections between the Wagner groups kind of branding exercise and its recruitment and mobilization purpose in some ways. So the best way to describe the Wagner group is as a paramilitary cartel on paper there really is no such thing as the Wagner group, a company, you know, a unitary company, as we would traditionally think of it like black water it's just not a good comparison. And it's true that, you know, private Russian citizens are engaged in the activities of this paramilitary cartel, in particular that you have getting progression. Of course who now is kind of the face of the Wagner group is technically a private citizen. And he, as far as we know, doesn't take direct orders through the standard chain of command from from the Kremlin. It does not mean that the Wagner group is not a regular force or that irregular forces are not under the purview and overall control of the of the Kremlin. I think there's plenty of evidence to show the connections between the Kremlin, you have getting progression and irregular forces that are now operating around the world including in Ukraine, Libya, Syria, etc. I think, you know, it's been challenging for the US government in particular to describe the Wagner group and kind of get their hands around the problem in large part because by design, the entire kind of branding exercise the Wagner group has been such that it is given a different, a different profile publicly, right. So, but it does serve a couple of different mission sets right most importantly I think the thing that we have come to conclude is that it is really a giant deception operation. To direct the attention of those who would be scrutinizing Russia's dealings with different strong men regimes around the world. In particular, it's you know the origin story starts with Syria, but extends to Libya. It's very, it's been a very important masking function for the Russian military, in terms of the deployment of men and resources for military technical agreements in places like Syria, Libya and so forth. And, but I think the other thing that of course there's an additional purpose, which we have found through our work over the last five years is the creation of the Wagner group brand the kind of elevation of the special forces that they give off has allowed the Kremlin to mobilize forces on a stealth basis basically for the last five years and move them around the world, increasingly obviously the biggest battlefield being Ukraine. But we know that there's kind of this conveyor belt that runs from Russia out into the world and back to the combat zones where Russia has material and strategic interests. Thank you very much. Ben, do you have anything else I mean I know a lot of you, a lot of what you've been working on has also been on sort of the social media aspect the branding aspect. Do you have anything else you know that you want to add and particularly how is this shifted me in the Wagner group you've been watching this organization for the past five years you have all this data from the past five years. And we've also seen a huge shift just one year ago in February 24, 2020 and so what is your sense of how things, how this organization has shifted and how their messaging has shifted. Yeah, thank you for that question. One thing to emphasize is just the sheer scale of the Wagner branded sort of social media space, starting on contact, which is commonly referred to as the Russian Facebook but also now huge presence on telegram, which is, you know, one of the fastest growing social media platforms in the world. I would say that. So, you know you started seeing these groups, these spaces pop up around 2018. You're already growing at a pretty rapid clip for years. But the full scale invasion a year ago acted as this sort of growth super supercharger right like if you look at the chart of the membership growth of some of these big Wagner branded accounts it just goes exponential as soon as the invasion kicks off. And where I would, I would argue that these are now essentially mainstream media sources, right, these are where a lot of the narratives and even field reporting that ultimately sort of proliferates across the broader sort of Russophone Internet, get their origin. And a rapid proliferation of localized groups that are clearly part of a centralized effort at recruitment enforcement mobilization so in June of last year. Something like 25 individual localized Wagner branded groups for regions all across Russia were created, all with the same branding the same messaging the same contact information. And then they sort of draw people into the organization just get get bodies on to the front lines in Ukraine to address Russia's really extreme manpower shortages. Some other sort of like broad macro trends that we've seen is just over the course of the last year is, you know, users have been way more circumspect about their online presence so they're, you know, deleting their profiles they're locking their profiles. And it's that we followed for a long time have taken steps to make it harder to, you know, see who is a member of them. And we've seen them used for everything from propaganda to as I said or mobilization to crowdfunding. So, you know, using crowdfunded donations to buy everything from medical equipment to weapons. It really is, you know, although it's a, it's an entity in its own right it really is, you know, serving and helping you're not just with the sort of the people power of this of this war but also with all of the other problems, you know, the supply problems, and the like that you're seeing and you're seeing that play out in in social media. And maybe either either you, Ben or Candace, what is the, where does Wagner fit in in the structure of the of the Russian regime, I mean, what is its relationship to the Kremlin. What is its relationship to the security services, and what is its relationship to other you know there in your reports you highlight its ties other similar type organizations and nationalist organizations. In a sense, you know, where does this fit in sort of the, the, the, the Kremlin orbit, and in the broader orbit of the Putin regime. Yeah, I think this really represents Paul a an evolution in and maybe a step change in the Kremlin's positioning around what we would call in Russian the Imperium. Now, and this wide expense that that covers Russia's geographical and territorial interests, not just in its borders but of course it's near abroad which has been sort of a long historical kind of reference point for the Putin regime. Basically, since he started as as president now. 20 years ago 20 plus years ago. I think, you know, part of that enterprise has been without doubt, kind of glorification of World War two, the great patriotic war, and reviving some of the entities that are really critical, or were really critical during the Soviet times to force again during World War two so we reference DOSAF, which is kind of a funny little hangover from the Soviet times, which was basically a body that was created for the mobilization of forces during World War two, in order to get ordinary citizens involved in the fight. And this was at a time, of course, you know during World War two when the huge German onslaughts right so there's, there's kind of a drawing on that structure and revival that structure under Russian law. And that provides for, you know, cadet academies, sports organizations, you know, training camps, typically targeted toward youth, right. And sort of in the high school age or, you know, college age. Ideally what you're what I think the idea behind the DOSAF mobilization piece is to create a citizen base that can be drawn on as active reserves. And what we see, we see it very clearly in the social media data but we see it in other sources as well, is that there's, there's almost like a kind of shadow overlap between that structure. There's an imperial movement which has a training camp in St. Petersburg. It's called partisan. They have a headquarters, russet, which is another sort of offshoot contingent that was born of the partisan training camps. And we find, you know, this is the same territory as used by emmer calm, the Ministry of Defense, more often than not. And so, you know, we are making some conclusions that essentially there's a, a bit of buy in from from the Kremlin through this overall enterprise of creating an active reserve. But what we also see is, you know, clearly on the other side just the financing piece I think is the most important to understand is that there's deep connections with the military industrial complex and that a lot of people. It's hard for non Russians, I think, and even some Russians right to understand that the military when we talk about the military industrial complex it's not an abstract thing in Russia. It's a very concrete set of parameters that includes, you know, a nationalized arms production service through rostec primarily, almost on tape, etc, etc, but mostly rostec, and that rostec through its export arm, essentially is able to mobilize active reserve to protect shipments of goods and services that are parceled out under rostec contracts with, let's say Central African Republic or Syria, etc, etc. Likewise, similar arrangements obtained with gas problem, which of course is, you know, one of the world's largest gas producers and energy producers. And of course is an incredibly important bedrock institution. Again, fully nationalized in a state enterprise that is essentially, you know, critical for the sovereign wealth fund of Russia. In fact, under Russian law, again, not very well known but oil and gas revenues, right, a very large portion of them end up in the sovereign wealth fund of Russia. Without that, Russia would not be able to pay its conventional forces, it would not be able to pay, you know, pensions for its citizens, it wouldn't be able to do any kind of infrastructure work. And so, in many ways, the Wagner group services all of that, and more importantly reflects the strategic importance of the oil and gas industry and the arms industry for Russia's economy. And the centrality of that and protecting that for the Kremlin, and for Vladimir Putin's very close friends who've been around for a very long time. You can talk about those I think probably a little bit deeper. But anything to add, you know, I know there's been a lot of, you know, the sort of evolution also of the social media kind of goes along with world events and we've seen sort of seen how they've tracked things in Syria, they've tracked this invasion. Do you have anything else, you know, on how these events of the past several years and particularly the last year, you know, impact their messaging. Yeah, I mean, so we've, we've definitely seen how real world events act, you know, as great accelerants the invasion being the most noted example, but there have been these, you know, other key events in the history of the Wagner group. The battle of Kashem where Wagner forces directly engaged with, you know, US forces in Syria was some sort of early explosion of growth in these Wagner rented spaces. And what we could see from these sort of interactions is that many of the people in these spaces were either seemingly directly involved as combatants, or, you know, friends family, first degree connections to people who are involved. I would just, you know, reinforce what what Candice said, which is, you know, these are networks, more so than they are unitary organizations and they are embedded within what is commonly called in Russia sort of an ultra nationalist social context. And what we've seen over the last year is, you know, this has been a long standing trend within Russia for many, many years now, but over the last year we've seen a kind of blossom into the mainstream and try to turn itself into a mass movement. And I think what we've seen with Yevgeny Progression the head of the Wagner group is an attempt through all of his sort of like strident public announcements, videos and so forth, to make himself a figurehead for the sort of emerging mass movement it's sort of a populist outside track, in addition to sort of the inside track that he pursues, but we can talk more about progression maybe in a little bit. Thanks. And now I'd like to pivot to Katarina with some questions about. Pre-Gosian, you know, and the Wagner group has certainly been part of this invasion. It has certainly been a key part of this invasion, particularly as the Russian military struggled so could you please you know describe what you're seeing and what you've seen in watching this war and watching the sort of the growing but also shifting impact of Mr. Pre-Gosian and Wagner. Thank you so much for this wonderful question. We assess that the rest of the conventional forces, called the nation after the Trump was the primary kind of rising ground for Wagner and Wagner's operations in Ukraine. Wagner has been operating on a small scale during the beginning of the war, namely like I believe the element there were there were 300 elements or 1000 elements in the battle for Kiev, with the primary path of trying to get to the trying to disable as the situation on the ground. As we all know, Russia failed at reaching Kiev in March, April of 2022, and Wagner said that their operations to both training some of Russian forces as well as participating in some operations in Zemba. Namely, they participated in battle for Papassas, where they collaborated with conventional forces, as well as with testing units and so on. When the battle culminated and when Russia eventually seized the last two cities in Luhansk Oblast, their forces, their conventional forces were unable to continue the offensive operation, and that led Putin with essentially a very interesting choice. He had, he had to choose, likely on the recommendation of Russian Defense Ministry to whether he's going to launch this mobilization in any capacity, and he had already seen that Russian Defense Ministry wasn't effective in achieving the goals that he had set for them. Or he could conduct some sort of crypto mobilization where he used different conglomeration of irregular forces to continue his offensive operation. And this is where we saw the rise of numerous irregular formations, given that he didn't want to risk his regime, and also the implications of the mobilization to have had on his regime. We saw the rise of the volunteer battalions. We saw the rise of Wagner. We saw a barbed unit. We had a Russian legion, imperialist legion, and so on emerge. And it's likely that the Kremlin allowed them to publicize their recruitment advertisements, not just to special forces or previous veterans, but also to recruit regular vanias on the streets who didn't have experience, and it was a one large force recruitment campaign. It looks like for Wagner, however, had special privileges. Wagner was offering a lot more money than other formations. And it's likely that the Russian Defense Ministry even tried to compete with Wagner and the recruits and efforts because volunteer battalions also started to emerge around the summertime, and but they were offering a lot less money compared to what Wagner was offering. However, they did have safe benefits on their side. And so as we saw these force generation efforts emerge, it is likely that Putin really anticipated that the conglomeration of different irregular forces that were all subjected to different authorities and so on, would lead him to this offensive group that would renew a assault and attack Ukrainian positions in Donbass. That was not what's exactly happened, mainly because Ukrainians have launched a very successful counter offensive, E.M. Kharkiv Oblast, which had likely shifted his process and forced him to double down on Wagner's group. I say this because Ukrainians were able to conduct a cease and counter offensive in September, in early September, and then Triglozin started to emerge in a lot of places. Washington intelligence has confirmed that Triglozin had went to Putin and directly complained to him. We also had second leader, Razan Khabirov, come down to Triglozin's side and accuse Alexander Lapin, who was also commanding central forces in Ukraine, alongside with Khabirov and Triglozin, in Vypichan, to criticize him, essentially, and which ultimately led to his removal and the appointment of Wagner-affiliated Sergei Porovkin as the commander. All of these things likely led Triglozin to believe that he could potentially gain some political power. We saw both the rise of his new bloggers, the literary channels, correspondents, so think of Grezon and other wonderful channels that Candace and Ben had explored in their pieces. We saw their rise, and then ultimately Triglozin made the first public appearance, which was his recruitment of convicts. During this time, the Kremlin also likely gave him the privilege of recruiting prisoners and, of course, using their training grounds. But I think that all of this is leading to some sort of an end currently. The reason I say this is because we are observing that the Kremlin is increasingly pushing themselves away from Triglozin, both rhetorically and on the ground. The reason for this is likely that Wagner was unable to generate the successes around Bachmuth forcing conventional military to come in and reinforce their positions. And now Triglozin is essentially fighting for his life. And the Russian M.D. is cutting off his access to ammunition, which is likely they're giving him the fair share that all other units have gotten and not giving him the preferential treatment that he had when he had favor with the Kremlin. But also we saw that his recruitment of convicts had decreased and he ultimately stated that it ended. All of these factors, not only so that Wagner has not proven to be a combat effective combat force in Ukraine, meeting always to have reinforcement, both during Luhansk or West offensive, as well as during the Bachmuth drive, but also shows that Triglozin might not have the same amount of favor anymore, as he had imagined. Thank you very much. I think that was really helpful in highlighting, you know, while we focus on this specific group, it's one of many, and one of different entities that is in this space. Many of them are connected somehow, and maybe we can go talk about some of those connections in a bit. But also we've sort of seen how things are shifting and shifting currently for Mr. Prigoshin. I just want to remind everybody in about 15 minutes, we'll start taking questions, so feel free to send any of those, any questions you might have through the Slido box, which is on the right hand of your screen. And now I'd like to turn to Dr. Kruglova to get a better sense of, you know, Wagner, you've done a lot of work on ISIS, you've done a lot of work on terrorism recruitment. You know, one of the things that is interesting here, I think, is, you know, what are the messaging and who is conveying these messages to these, you know, very young men, but not exclusively, but, and men in their 30s actually I think the report, you know, highlights. But, but, you know, what are the messaging, how is this similar to other types of extremist messaging. And, you know, what are the, you know, how does, does, you know, Wagner, how does the Russian government, try to convince these people to mobilize and to fight for Russia right after the partial mobilization in September we saw a huge outflux of young men who didn't want to fight for Russia. So, what are the messages that you know these bloggers and these these recruitment videos have and or do you see them as successful. Yes, as you mentioned my background is jihadist terrorism and ISIS in particular and when I was looking at the Wagner messaging and also at the messaging of such groups as rossage or Russian imperial movement. I was surprised to see the similarities between the narratives and between the messages that are being sent out to the audiences. And it's the same idea of being a real man being strong being successful, going to participate in an adventure for a younger audience and in particular, in particular rossage I think is very good and this because they. It's really visible how they adopt the tactics ISIS used to use when they would attach go pro cameras for example to to the fighters and they would basically shoot the, the battle scenes and then they would call people to take part in real action, or they would produce pieces of music. You could see the really high quality videos which are done in this kind of modern Instagram type style. You could also see the kind of typical narrative for the Russian audience narrative of patriotism, the idea of protecting the country motherland, which has always been strong among the Russian audiences. And if we talk about the Russian imperial movement I think it's probably necessary to highlight the difference because they do seem to present themselves more as kind of intellectuals if you will, in comparison to the other two groups which are purely focused on the kind of excitement of the the battlefield, whilst the Russian imperial movement. One thing I've noticed they do tend to produce a lot of educational material where they talk about historical facts and they are monarchists so they do talk a lot about the heritage that the Russian Empire has and the big dream of making Russia. Royal again if you will, and then also the reference to religion. The Russian imperial movement sees the war as religious war and kind of disseminates the idea that if you go and fight in Ukraine, you are fighting not for the government because they present themselves as anti government. But you fight for your faith for Christ for Orthodox Church. I think one of the strongest narratives for Wagner as well is just pure financial aspect. The idea that if you want to be successful if you want to get a lot of money. That's a way to go. And another interesting trend. I've noticed this as well. I've noticed that specifically on Wagner accounts, there are a lot of comments, which probably are genuine or probably are both but they're a lot of comments from women sending messages of love support, you know, kind of encouragement, etc, etc. I think it's also another very strong powerful narrative for for the group. So these ideas is specifically Wagner are quite similar to the overall narratives that the Russian government is sending to the people trying to encourage them and actually there are kind of there is an ongoing joke among the Russian communities online. Where they say that Russian propagandists don't see the irony behind their own message because the main idea that they are trying to disseminate is that, you know, you are so unsuccessful you're so poor you don't have, you don't find a new place in your country so you can go to war where you can become rich you can become successful. So these that it's so bad to live in Russia that the war is actually much better. So essentially, yes, kind of finding your place. And out of this terrible routine that you have. There are a lot of videos made by Russian propagandists where you see this very poor unsuccessful man who is either an army veteran, say Chechen, Chechen war veteran or Afghan war veteran, who never managed to fatigue and since he came back. I think he has this opportunity to again make something significant and contribute to his own life, but also to the country's future. So that's I think major things that are we can observe on on social media. I think I'll go up on that actually if I if I could. I mean I just think. So first of all I think those observations are brilliant. And I, and it's interesting to me. You know, how specialists who in this very niche area of kind of trying to understand this part of extremism. We kind of converge, I think in our experience, I mean I spent also a lot of time looking at the Taliban and al Qaeda and ISIS and other contexts, and I saw a lot of those hallmarks. And I think what's interesting is, you know, even in the very beginning when we were beginning the research now, you know, five years ago, I remember seeing these chats, you know, between Russian imperial movement Wagner folks about the recreation of, you know, new Byzantium, right, you know this Christian Orthodox kind of Valhalla that would then oppose itself to the ISIS Caliphate. And that was the beginning of the conversation. Right. And I think that's like really interesting is that that's kind of like the origin story for a lot of these folks to join up. But also, I think, you know, to your point on about the irony of trying to sell a better Russia, right to a group of people who are clearly being cast as kind of marginalized economically socially. You're picking up on something very important. I remember also at the beginning of this research in, you know, 2018. Some of the very early videos that were posted on the contact here were produced by a young man from Toyota, which is a town in Russia that is, I think, you know, I would call it like the Flint Michigan of Russia in terms of like, it's rust about kind of nature and and what was interesting to me about this young man was that he clearly had kind of remade himself as a as a vlogger and you know he somehow had used his, you know, social media talents to enrich himself on some level give him more health more social status, and he fit in very perfectly with a grand plan clearly from the Kremlin to begin this mobilization process, many years back. Thank you for that and thank you thank you actually both you know what I spent a lot of my time looking at the Wagner group in in Africa where you're, we're not really focusing as much on the ideology of it when we're focusing on their sort of their ideology, but I think one of the very important things both from this discussion but also from the reports that have that are at the bottom of the screen are, you know, this, this groups ties to, to extremist organizations ties to the Russian far right and and and all those the ilk. Another thing I would like to jump back to Katarina for a second I mean we spoke a little bit about how, you know, Wagner seems to be, you know, has, you know, wants to recruit from, from veterans wants to recruit from, you know, special forces and, you know, which would make sense. And there are ties to those, but we've also seen Wagner recruit from from prisons, and that seems to have shifted there was a very interesting article. You know, these people, some of these guys want to get rich but there are a couple prisoners who haven't gotten paid in our article that came out today. So, what is the sort of role of sort of these prisoners. And how is that shifting because it seems to be that is now closed off or all the prisoners that that wanted to go out, or is this just another sign of shifting trends for for pre Gosian and Wagner inside Russia. So, Wagner had used their convicts to largely face the very mass of the folks. Essentially they they would use groups of 10 to 15 in all different areas to try to attack and the vicinity about what we have seen this since July and that has been a very costly endeavor for them. The US officials believe that Russian of that Wagner forces have lost approximately 30,000 30,000 of their forces of the reported 50,000 that they've had 40,000 of this 50,000 was convex, just to give you the scale of the recruitment. There are a couple of things that are underway with Wagner recruitment of prisoners. The first thing is that the word spreads around, but it wasn't did not develop a very good reputation with these prisoners, namely, for the fact that as the word got out that Wagner is actually suffering casualties. Not many decided to continue with this and not many wanted to continue and pursue this recruitment. The second aspect of this is that we've also found evidence that the Russian Ministry of Defense trying to one up Wagner starting in October, where they also launched their own recruits into prisoners. They were reported that they received favorite more favorable conditions and more more were more interested in siding with the Russian Ministry of Defense, because they were. They knew that Wagner had a pretty terrible reputation of the way that they treat these forces on the ground essentially like cannon fodder for their brown infantry attacks with minimum artillery cover. This has been a very interesting dynamic because now it's the question is stating that he doesn't have this access to this privilege to recruiting convicts and prisoners. The Russian MOG is trying to replicate the same thing. Now, did the approach that Russian MOG is taking to the prisoner recruits team. Not necessarily we've seen a lot of prisoner reports about how Russian MOG is doing exact same things that Wagner did killing deserters friendly fire against convicts, throwing them into battles with minimum spending preparation. So essentially it's Wagner and Russian Ministry of Defense are kind of mirroring each other in a lot of their behavior, likely because of their own preconceived notion against these convicts and you know and it is understandable these convicts don't have much of discipline. They don't have much of, you know, loyalty outside of having freedom and all of these factors really play into the compact effectiveness of both sides of this convict recruitment process. I think that's that's that's very clear and you know just some of the stories I've read of some of these convicts I mean they're they're they're not so they're not petty criminals but they're they're pretty hardened people who you might not want out on the street and particularly dealing with innocent civilian populations in the line of fire in Ukraine. I'm good we're going to switch to two questions in a few minutes but maybe I just like to open up to all of you. I think this sort of leads to a question and we've seen some splits recently in between bloggers that are more tied to perigotian and bloggers that are more tied to, to the MOD. We've also, you know, seen this tension, you know perigotian is complaining that he's not getting ammunition. So, you know what is the relationship between a Wagner between perigotian. What is the relationship between the MOD, what is the relationship between them and and shoy goo. And you know very often we know see a lot of stuff about you know how close is Mr pregosin and this entity to to Putin as well. So I'd like to get your thoughts about about that. And Katarina maybe you could take that one first. Of course, so we mapped out at IW we mapped out what the rest and all for nationalist base looks out. Essentially, we have pro Kremlin mill bloggers who, you know, are either affiliated to some publications within the Kremlin or run around and report on the They tend to amplify some of Kremlin statements that have a semi critical perspective towards the Russian industry defense. We also have the veteran group with at the beginning of the kind of the criticism the waves of criticism over the summer were relatively equal. They essentially they their whole ground is that they want to have reforms in the Russian military, and they were really upset that the Russian Ministry of Defense, when the war began, decided not to implement those crucial changes to mobilization proceedings or you know announcing mobilization, trying to improve the cohesion of forces, getting rid of the BCG system. And then we have the Wagner group. At the beginning around the summer, when all of these, there was a lot of criticism towards the Russian Ministry of Defense. And these groups seemingly kind of put aside their differences and we're interacting a lot more frequently with each other. There was a time where you could see a pro Kremlin actor like the body. Interact with with Grey Zone and Vargonzo, who was also Kremlin affiliated also reposed the same content and that was a very unique time and we had a hard time mapping it because we didn't understand where these kind of affiliations work. However, when the gotten started to petition for legalization of Wagner, for removal of officials like St Petersburg governor begloss for, you know, causing all of these scandals attacking one of the veteran communities, members eager to get into the war criminal. There was a lot of splits that were emerging and now the community doesn't look as uniform in their case for the institution of the Russian Ministry of Defense, but instead they're conflicting with each other and trying to promote their own objectives and their own platform. And especially the veteran group is on the ride right now, because the Russian Ministry of Defense, essentially listen to them, and is now instituting reforms that they've been so desperately calling for. And there's no reason for them to support Wagner affiliated talent for this point. So that is a quick breakdown of the information set right now and we're going to continue to monitor the section. So I'm going to go quickly to Candice and then back to Anna, and then I'll start posing the questions from the audience again, you can put your question in through the Slido box in the right hand of the screen we also have a lot of questions in there so I'm going to try to merge some of them together. So we can get as many in as possible so Candice and then Anna please. Yeah I'll be quick because I definitely want to hear some of these questions and I'm sure they're very interesting. I would say a couple of things that I, you know, touching on sort of what Katrina was sort of highlighting in terms of the schisms that we see emerging. I do think one thing that maybe isn't right in front of us that the, the big bank rollers of what we know is the Wagner group. And that's, you know, Sergey chimizov who's the head of Rostock, Gennady team chinko, who's the head of straight trans gas. You know, the, the, the kvalchik brothers right, who are so closely connected to so gas. And of course, some of the contact now has most of the contact you holdings. The fact that the cost of this war, and the, the length of the engagement is something that they did not anticipate. They're losing a lot of money, they're losing a lot of clout. They're probably feeling a bit penned in by not just the sanctions but by the fact that they can't escape the normal way that they only could. They are having difficulty consolidating their, their funds, which is again why I think we're seeing some shifts to the digital currency and the calls for digital currency to be donated from, you know, Wagner group related mill bloggers and so forth. So I think what's really important to understand is that there are other bigger, much more wealthy oligarchs behind you have any provision. You know, Daripaska is another one who has allegedly his own connections to PMC Reddit, which we've been hearing, not that much about but we know that it's, it's out there. You know, there are, you know, it's really important to understand that every single one of these irregular forces has a cluster of other much more wealthy oligarchs who are closer to Putin's inner circle the so called and that those relationships are historical and and they have tended to survive that that made Putin so powerful. And he is actually not he's very much beholden to them in ways that that are difficult to explain. But the other thing I want to just note here, and then I think probably has some really good comments to make is that I think I hope what people take away from this is that Russia is not a monolith. And that we should not be thinking about Russia as a monolith when we're talking about the higher level of challenges, typically speaking, you have internally inside Russia just as you have in the United States. There's a lot of debate over, you know, what this war in Ukraine means. Although I think, you know, largely we can see in Russia there's a great deal of support across the population, there's also a lot of descent, and some of that descent is from the far right some of this from the far left some of this is centrist in its nature. But there is descent in Russia, and I think it's important to keep that in mind that we're not dealing with just one unitary block whomer talking about Russia in diplomatic terms. Thank you, Paul. I just wanted to start on the follow up with the point kind of space. Yes, absolutely Russia is not a monolith. And one of the things that came up. Well, relatively recently, I think is the kind of relatively new unit, which is called freedom to Russia. And this is a organization, a unit consisting of former Russian fighters, whether it's the Wagner group or whether it's official Russian army, who decided to quit and join the Ukrainian forces and they basically present themselves as this liberal force, that is against the world but also they are trying to fight for the kind of bright future of Russia, liberal democratic future of Russia. And you can see a lot of commentaries from in particular Russian imperial movement who just released a video, a long video talking about their kind of defectors and how they abandoned the true values, traditional values and shifted to what they call gay Europa. So that's one clear argument to show that said Russia does exist and it also exists in the on the battlefield, but also in relation to I know Candace and Ben did explore this question a lot in the report. The connection between these three groups, Rosage, Wagner and the Russian imperial movement. It's not always explicit on social media but sometimes you do pick up some cross references and again just in the last few weeks, the Rosage social media produced several publications one of them was a picture where I think it was the Wagner group and then posing somewhere in Ukraine with a symbol of Rosage as well, some of the groups had the emblems of Rosage. And then they also reposted an interview from a channel, which is called the ordinary terrorism, and this is kind of again monarchist channel where a representative of the Russian imperial movement who fights in Ukraine at the moment was asked about his attitude towards Rosage and how he sees it. And the idea he was trying to deliver is that it's quite interesting because even though they share the same approach as the Russian government does. It seems like they're very suspicious of the Russian government at the same time and the point the guy made is that, most likely they are not going to be useful once the war is over. So they need to get united now and kind of make a contribution to their future once the war is finished. So they definitely do share some common interest and I guess also have interactions with each other on the battlefield or outside the battlefield and seem to support each other quite actively. And that actually leads into one of the questions that we have. And it specifically focuses on on convict recruitment, but I also think you could add this to sort of recruitment of people on the far right as well. And the question is, you know, are these people being recruited to to sort of to possibly thin the ranks of, you know, military aged men who might pose a threat to the regime after, after the war, whether they are from the right whether they're criminal elements, or is it simply do they just need more cannon fodder. And that's what some of these recruitments are about is that is there any sort of broader purpose of going after both convicts and the far right. Well, I think for the far right is the matter of ideology, they are not being recruited they kind of recruit themselves if you will, they are going and volunteer and support the cause because they see Ukraine as part of Russian Empire. So it's interesting. Well, it's kind of terrifying at the same time the Russian Empire movement since the beginning of war. Does it to refer to Ukraine, which is Ukraine in Russian as a cry that which in one of the interpretations the the root of this words, according to one of the interpretations is the kind of side of the country. You can see the message that the group is trying to deliver that again they don't see Ukraine as independent democratic country they see it as part of Russian they are trying to do everything they can to bring it back with prisoners. I think, first, the Russian government just didn't want to make the general population and great and they, the initial narratives because the rumors about mobilization and the general recruitment were going on across Russia for a while. And the, the, I think there was the fear that there will be turmoil and people will rise up and start protesting. So I think that was a way for the Russian government to kind of, you know, use the the prisoners as, as fighters, instead of their own population. Great now I'm going to merge a bunch of questions we have a lot of questions actually about Wagner in Africa. You know some of them, you know where they operating I mean I think it's the Central African Republic. In Serbia, he's probably see them in Mali, perhaps they're stepping into Burkina Faso. We've seen them in Mozambique and Sudan. But what is the impact of this war, what is the impact of these, these new strains between, you know, the MOD and pre Gosion, what impact does that have on Wagner's ability to to operate in Africa is it now going to focus more on because of strains at home. And you know, what does it mean for for Wagner's global operations. I'll try and answer this. And I'm curious to hear your thoughts to Paul but I, I will say that there's a lot of temptation to predict you know what happens in Ukraine, you know with the force mobilization there and how will that, you know fit with with the force. But if we if we just keep in mind the simple premise that where Ross tech goes, there goes Wagner. Okay, then we start to understand that, as long as African nations want AK 47s, you know, pan sear by batteries, you know, commas, infantry trucks and fighting vehicles, etc, etc. While there's a demand for that in Africa and other parts of the world Latin America we know for instance Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba even wherever rustic has relations we should expect that we will see something that looks like the Wagner group today, and that will continue for a long time. Let's be very clear Russia is the second largest purveyor of arms deals in the world after the United States. I don't think we're going to see that change, possibly even in our lifetimes. The question is, will the behavior change in terms of the kind of the format of those deals, and what the Kremlin has gained from these military technical arrangements and this engagement in Africa in particular is a lot of votes in the UN General Assembly. And a lot of votes on the UN Security Council that have been hard fought and hard won. There's a lot of influence now that Russia is able to wield as a permanent member of the UN Security Council over a pretty large block of what were, you know, at one point or non-aligned states or states that had been previously under the Cold War years aligned with the Soviet Union. And it's leveraged that influence very well by blocking, you know, votes as we see today in on the Ukraine resolution that is that is pending. So I think it's really important to understand that Russia will continue to leverage that access in Africa in multiple different ways. And Kandace, I would agree with that. The only thing I would also add, I mean, I think you're right to highlight, you know, Wagner is what we're focusing on now, but there could be others that follow it. Also, you know, what we saw after, you know, the collapse of the Soviet Union was that there was a lot of Russian soldiers, ex-soldiers who had a lot of experience and they could market themselves even on their own in places in Africa. So I think this is certainly something we will see continuing. And then the last question, I'm going to merge two of them together and I apologize. I think I got most of them either in the discussion or in the first part. But it's, there was some discussion about how Wagner is not like a normal American PMC. So could somebody go into what the difference is of that. And then, you know, since it's not a sort of a regular fighting force, what implications does that have for its POWs? How does Ukraine, you know, whatever Ukraine's responsibilities for treating them, what are the rules of work? Because they're not really covered in like a normal POW in the Geneva Conventions. So Kandace and anyone else. I'll try and answer this one really quickly. Here are the primary differences between an American PMC and what we know as the Wagner group. Number one, American PMCs typically are registered as corporations or S companies in the United States. So they have a tax base, they have a real face, etc. There is no such unitary entity that is registered in Russia. There is a Wagner group center that is now most recently registered as a company. And that is only for the real estate holding in St. Petersburg. It is not for the entire enterprise. So to be very clear, not a corporation first and foremost, so therefore not a private entity. Secondly, most importantly, unlike US PMCs, which are private entities, corporations, the Wagner group tends to pay its soldiers via shell companies. That more often than not have illicit deals that break and barrows international law and that facilitate the illicit sanctions busting of the Ministry of Defense and state enterprises. That's another big distinction. The second piece, the last piece I would just say is when we talk about state responsibility for combatants in these types of situations, whether it's in Africa or in Ukraine, although a little difference there for lots of different reasons. What's important to understand is that it appears that the state has overall control of these forces, unlike, let's say, Blackwater or, you know, G4S, which is of course these famous Western style PMCs. You cannot say that the United States has effective control over those entities, right? What they do is what they do because they are private entities. In this instance, for the Wagner group, everything that they do can be tied to state responsibility through the chain of command. Here's a very good example. Blackwater would source its own ammo, would source its own shells, would source its own protective equipment. We have very clear examples, very public examples of Yevgeny Progosian saying the Ministry of Defense needs to provide us with ammo. That is a very unusual arrangement. We've not expect the Pentagon to give ammo to Blackwater, right? And so I think that's the brightest line I think I can say. As far as Wagner and combatants and the Geneva Conventions, you know, combatants on the field are basically, you know, subject to the Geneva Conventions no matter where they are. Lots of people will, you know, debate universal jurisdiction for war crimes. I will not debate those. I think that it's very clear. There's a long tradition. You can go back to the Nuremberg trials to understand kind of where this this tradition of international justice comes from. As far as the POWs, I mean, that's a question of national law for Russia. We don't really understand anything other than that there is an executive order that was issued by Putin that seems to allow for some sort of amnesty. For prisoners who sign up with the Wagner group and other irregular forces. Beyond that, it's really up to the national law and the national bodies of Russia to apply human rights law. But I think we can say quite clearly that there are questions to be asked about human rights violations. And just one other difference that I would add is that, you know, the United States and many other Western countries have have at least signed on to us and they call the mantra document that in theory is supposed to hold their PMC is accountable for any war crimes or, you know, brutality and Russia has not done that. So that's it. That's another difference. You know, finally, I want to thank everybody just when it has any final thoughts about sort of the policy implications I know we're a few minutes over but you know or how do we hold, you know, these types of organizations accountable and any any final thoughts from any one of you. And maybe just 30 seconds, if possible to make it quick. Yeah, 30 seconds to a minute. 30 seconds. 30 seconds. No question. International tribunal. That is the only way to handle the Wagner group now. You know, not just in the context of Ukraine, but in the context of other locations where they operate. There is, you know, whatever the impressions that people may have in the field, particularly in Central African Republic, you know, parts of Russia, maybe they are a stabilizing force, you know, comparatively speaking, but it doesn't mean they're not violating international law. And they should be treated, you know, under international law appropriately. Unfortunately, the ICC has some limitations on what it can pursue, especially in the context of Ukraine, when it comes to the crime of aggression. I think what we when we're talking about, you know, crime of aggression case when it comes to Russian Ukraine, the Wagner group and irregulars in, you know, under Russian control are one of the prime examples, right, that you can point to you and say, this was a pattern in practice, set of crimes and intention to use all necessary force, all necessary resources to violate the territory of Ukraine. And I think now the goal for the United States, for Ukraine, for Europe, for all of the allies who are behind freedom and liberty for Ukraine is to really pursue justice and to do so aggressively. Yeah, I just also want to highlight, I mean, while we focused on the atrocities in Ukraine, they have a long history of atrocities this organization against civilians, even if they are bringing stability, we've seen their atrocities in Syria, Libya, Central Republic and Mali already. Ben, Anna, Katarina, any other final thoughts, recommendations. The observation that's made was perfect. We're going to see more of these. The Russian Ministry of Defense is seeing more of private military and private security cooperation. And the US and the West did not stop at just Wagner, there's going to be more pushes, because it is not the only person who participate in this, it's the whole system. Thanks. Very quickly, one last thing to sort of keep an eye on I think is the very effective use by Wagner and sort of affiliated organizations to pump up narratives of sort of like faux anti imperialism, especially across Africa to sort of solicit support from, you know, populations. You know, this has been to be a very rich narrative for them and even though it does seem a bit sort of preposterous in some senses, because Russia itself is engaging in very active imperial expansion, even as we speak. It has a quite a bit of purchase for obvious historical reasons in many of the places that it's seeking to operate and expand. 30 seconds to follow up on Ben's point. I think also it's important. We talk a lot about misinformation, disinformation in the moment right and this is another factor that contributes to the Wagner group success and other group success as well where a lot of Russian politicians who do support the war or do you go and join these groups. Do so because they heard something about the atrocities that the Ukrainians are doing supposedly, as they think in to Russians or the Nazi groups that, again, supposedly exist in Ukraine, and they do genuinely believe in this, and they don't do. They don't believe in intelligence and they don't check the fact so I think targeting this, this problem is another thing to address. I think that's that's a great. All great things that we can focus on and, and they're, they're forward leaning and things that I think are certainly manageable with small steps and hopefully eventually a big steps. First of all, I'd like to thank Ben, Anna, Candice, Katarina and the entire team at New America for for organizing this event. I want to thank you also for inviting me to participate. I want to thank our audience for great, really great and incisive questions I kind of merged a lot of them together, but I think I got the gist of all. And I just want to remind everybody that you can there's the link to these reports. It's down at the bottom of the screen, and I really do urge you to read them. I've been focusing on a lot of your group for for many, many years and I learned a lot of how this organization has shifted amidst the Ukraine war and how it shifted over time so I want to thank everybody for your time and wish everybody a very good day. Thank you very much.