 The U.S. Naval War College is a Navy's home of thought. Established in 1884, NWC has become the center of Naval seapower, both strategically and intellectually. The following issues in National Security Lecture is specifically designed to offer scholarly lectures to all participants. We hope you enjoy this upcoming discussion and future lectures. Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to our sixth issues in National Security Lecture for this academic year. I'm Don Richino. I'm the Navy Senior Service Advisor, and since our normal MC, John Jackson, is on travel, floating down the Danube somewhere in Europe, I will serve as your host for today's event. This series was originally conceived as a way to share a portion of the Naval War College's academic experience with the spouses and significant others of our student body. Over the past years, it has been restructured to include participation by the entire Naval War College extended family, to include members of the Naval War College Foundation, international sponsors, civilian employees, and colleagues throughout Naval Station Newport and around the world via Zoom. We will be offering three additional lectures between now and late May 2024, spaced about three weeks apart. An announcement detailing the dates, topics, and speakers of each lecture will be posted by our Public Affairs Office. Looking a bit further ahead, save the date. Tuesday 9 April 2024, Dr. John Marr will speak about Churchill and Roosevelt. This is a reschedule from our snow day that we had last month. Okay, on for the main event. Please feel free to use the chat feature of Zoom and we will get to them at the conclusion of the presentation. So today's fascinating lecture. You may recall that as Russian forces floundered in the early part of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, reports emerged of forces from a Russian private military company arriving on the front lines to bolster the Russian army. It wouldn't be long before the Wagner group would become front-page news. While this shadowy outfit gained international notoriety through its participation in Ukraine, the Wagner group had long served as Moscow's mercenaries abroad, particularly across the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. This lecture surveys the rise and fall of the Wagner group from conception to decapitation and considers what's next for Russia's use of mercenaries. I'm very pleased to introduce our speaker Christopher Faulkner who is an assistant professor of national security affairs in the College of Distance Education at the U.S. Naval War College where he teaches courses on international security and foreign policy analysis. He first joined the Naval War College in 2021 as a post-doctoral fellow. Before joining the Naval War College he served as a visiting assistant professor at Center College in Danville, Kentucky. During his doctoral studies he was a Minerva Jennings Randolph Peace and Security Scholar with the United States Institute of Peace. His research focuses on militant recruitment, civil military relations, and private military companies. He is currently writing a book on the rise and fall of the Wagner group, this Russian private military company, and he's a hell of a golfer. So Chris, the podium is yours. All right, I got told to stay flag to flag, so good afternoon everyone. My name is Chris Faulkner. It's done mentioned. I'm an assistant professor in the College of Distance Education. And first, I'm really excited to be here, A, because I haven't got to present on this stage, and B, I get an opportunity to talk about a subject that's become more front and center over the last, I'd say, couple of years, but really over the last decade. And we've seen the rise of a Russian hybrid warfare in the form of private military and security companies. I term it Russian mercenaries and I'll get into a little bit of a kind of typology discussion of how these are different than our mercenaries of the past and how Russia's kind of employed a new form of contractor or actor to carry out, I'll say, foreign policy on the cheap. But with that, I thought I'd give a little background on the Wagner group. This is where most of my talk will center is talking about this particular organization, how it's evolved over time and space. By no means it's the only Russian private military company. For any of you who've watched the news, they seem to pop up frequently, regularly, and they evolve over time and space. But I thought it was helpful to kind of situate this in two particular events that I think this audience in particular might recall. In February of 2018, we had the battle in Syria between US Special Forces, Kurdish forces, and we didn't know who. We see a kind of convoy of about 500 personnel trying to retake oil plants and subsequently get on the hotline with the Russian government to try to figure out who these folks are. They say they have no idea and it leads to a four-hour battle in which US come blow to blow with what were members of the Wagner group. We see something like 200, 300 Wagner personnel killed in this particular schism and raised serious concerns about escalation with the Russian government. And so this is kind of the first exposure we have. I would suggest with Wagner writ large front page news, thinking about how this organization has been deployed to foreign theaters to carry out Russian foreign policy. On the other side over here, this one's probably more it's more recent and more visible in a lot of ways. The rise of the Wagner group in Russia's full-on invasion of Ukraine and a private military and security contractor being brought in is kind of a band-aid to help the, as I suggested, floundering Russian military force and their campaign in Ukraine. What we ultimately see in this headline here is the Wagner Chief, former Wagner Chief, now deceased of Guinea-Pragosian. Talking about 20,000 of his troops killed in the Battle of Bakhmut became a pretty important conflict, at least symbolically for a war of attrition. And we see them become a clear agent of the Russian state no longer benefiting from this facade of plausible liability that Russia benefited from in several years prior. So I thought I'd give you just a little background of where my talk is planning to go. I want to talk a little bit about defining what private military and security companies are. Talk a little bit about Russia's use and growing reliance on private military companies. Talk a little bit about ongoing slash recent operations that private military and security contractors have engaged in from the Russian state with a heavy focus on kind of tracing where the Wagner group started to where it ended and where it's continuing. And then kind of ask a few questions and tee up the Q&A to talk about the future of the Russian private military and security industry, how it's evolved since the Wagner Mutiny in June of 2023. So that's this kind of rhetorical question of what are private military and security companies and from a Western standpoint, I think we think about these particular actors in a different way than Russia's deployed and kind of cultivated this new infrastructure of private military and security companies. So I have a few photos up here and we think about them from a Western perspective. We often think about true private entities, all right, corporations that are hired to provide some type of assistance, military or security to a client, whether it's providing security for diplomats, in the case of Paul Bremmer in Iraq, whether it's Chinese private security companies providing security assistance for Chinese investment projects and the Belt and Road Initiative, whether it's something like the notorious executive outcomes, South African mercenary firm or private military and security company that was notorious for its engagement and civil conflict. Some of these are the same. Some of them are a little bit different, but the broad idea is they're all private, all right. At least that's the verbiage we want to differentiate Western private military companies from what Russia has done with organizations like Wagner. I thought it was helpful to maybe also engage in a little bit of a scholarly exercise of typologies here. How are mercenaries and private military and security companies distinct? And for those of you that have read about this topic in any form or fashion, there's kind of a bifurcation of mercenaries were soldiers for hire, dogs of war. They were individual ad hoc and they were there to take part in for-profit military operations for personal and private gain. Where we've seen the kind of bifurcation was the collapse of the Soviet Union into the Cold War and the corporatization of mercenaries. The development of a new industry of private military and I say private military and security companies without getting in too long of a typology discussion. The idea here is we've really corporatized or have corporate warriors. I put bullets from the boardroom. We've now had permanent structures no longer ad hoc in nature there to provide a kind of a continuum of security to military services. What's really happened within this particular industry though and especially from a western perspective is we've now seen something like a more pivot towards security provision as opposed to military operations. And that's really one of the distinctions between what we think about when we think about western private security companies or private military companies and the Russian state's use of these actors. That's all to say is Russia is very keen on engaging in kinetic military operations through these actors. Something different than what western private security contractors have typically done or at least have evolved to do. So why does Russia do it? How have they evolved over time? So I think there's a few different things I want to point out here of how we've arrived at kind of the contemporary environment where private security contractors, private military contractors have become a tool of the Kremlin. The story is pretty linear if you will. We're starting with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the downsizing of the Russian military. Subsequently creates a abundance of security service members, national security professionals, folks with skills that only are valuable in a military or security space. And so we have some organic development of what is a pseudo private entity is what the West is trying to court a more benevolent Russian state. And this is really what some folks have called the renaissance of private military companies. I think for the genesis of our contemporary environment when we think of the Russian state what we've arrived at is a evolution from private security companies that were developed to protect infrastructure. Most of us are familiar with the idea that Russia is a pretty big oil exporter. So we have tons of semi-state private entities, quasi-state entities that are in extractive industry and subsequently rely on private security contractors. So this is really the genealogy of where we've seen something like Wagner and the broader industry emerge from. We also see the rise of Somali piracy and maritime security issues. We're here at the Naval War College. We think about challenges in the maritime environment. Russia capitalized on maritime insecurity and we saw development of organizations like the Moran security group, which was a key security outfit to provide security for Russian interests over open waters to protect protection from piracy. And then lastly one of the big things that we think about is the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and kind of the maturation of what we think about with the Western private security industry. Russia very much wanted to model this and capitalize on a particular market. There's a demand and subsequently it was the Russian state trying to figure out how to a commandeer a broader privatization across their particular economy, but then thinking about how they might utilize a private military and security industry for foreign policy, quote-unquote on the cheap. And this is where we've arrived at the current and contemporary environment of for my Africa watchers. The way someone like Wagner has now morphed into a tool for the Russian government outside of Ukraine, outside of Russia, to make inroads into places where the Russian state is only looking to quote-unquote test the waters before fully committing to any type of bilateral on deep engagement with actors. And that leads into why Russia's relied on private military and security companies. The first bullet point up here is really kind of a farce at the moment. The real value add for someone like Putin, right, in the Russian state more generally, was we could utilize a private corporation under the guise of plausible deniability, right, to make inroads into places where we could clearly deny their involvement, the Russian state's involvement, where we could clearly separate the Russian state from any type of nefarious activity when convenient. And as these actors potentially made benevolent relations and improved relations with client states, Russia could come in and engage in what we'll call state capture, right, and I'll talk about a few vignettes that I think illustrate the value that something like a foreign policy tool through private military companies, excuse me, as a foreign policy tool can lend. They're also cheaper, and this kind of is a throw away, if you will, because it's the same argument that most of you would be familiar with when we talk about Western private military and security companies. Why does the U.S. government, for instance, rely on security contractors? They're cheaper, there's no long-term benefits that have to be paid, there's not casualty aversion like there is when it comes to the deployment of U.S. military personnel to particular theaters, and they're the same things that even a dictator like Putin might care about, right, so there gives them some opportunity to conduct foreign policy on the cheap. And then I have this other linen's dictum of probe with a bayonet, if you meet steel, stop, if you meet mush, then push, and so subsequently it is kind of this tip of the spear to experiment, right, and you can, as we walk through some of the case vignettes, see how Russian foreign policy thought about probing different states, both for military relations, for economic purposes, for geostrategic reasons when it comes to disrupting the rules-based international order and capitalizing on democratic retrenchment across the international system. Now what's kind of ironic about the Russian private military and security industry is they're technically illegal under the Russian criminal code, right, those of you who have read something about Russian private military and security companies, it's a really important kind of element that allows the Kremlin, right, the Ministry of Defense to retain control over actors that may get out of line, right, it's a convenient accountability tool, so it's Kimberly Martin, NYU, who's one of the first movers in this space suggests illegality becomes a form of control. One thing to note is this is specifically designated for military companies, not security companies, all right, so when we think about Russia's attempt to regulate this industry, they bifurcate between those actors that might provide strictly security services and those that provide military adjacent, excuse me, services. And again, that speaks to the last point here that it limits the competition, right, only those actors who are approved by Putin have the ability to operate in this particular space. Now just to give you an illustration, I think the Center for Strategic and International Studies did a great mapping of how this industry has evolved over time. This graphic here is just depicting how many countries Russian private military and security companies have been in when we think about somewhere like 2014 when they're in two, 2015 when they're in four countries all the way up to over 25 countries. One thing to note about the rise of this particular industry and the way it's become foreign policy on the cheap, the types of deployments vary and scale, right, somewhere from like Central African Republic where we see 2000 plus Wagner mercenaries to somewhere like the Central African, or excuse me, the Democratic Republic of Congo where we saw a smaller footprint to somewhere like Madagascar where we saw a forced deploy to provide services when it came to electoral intervention and, you know, we're talking less in the tens as opposed to the thousands. But nonetheless, it's become an increasingly important part of the Kremlin's foreign policy toolkit and it's, I'll argue, made some challenges for figuring out how to regulate the industry writ large, right? There's a lot of advantageous outcomes by deploying these actors to different places. The easy end roads, right, but we can see what manifested with someone like the Wagner Group and its mutiny in June of 2023 how hard it can be to regulate the particular industry. Now, this is a screen grab of the Wagner Group, right? What most everyone here has heard about, I think, you know, the broader U.S. community, national security community is intimately familiar whether you want it to be or not with this particular outfit. And I hope to get to this at the latter point of my talk. What's happened to it since the infamous plane crash? But it's a really important organization for a bunch of different reasons because it really became the behemoth of this broader private military insecurity industry across the Russian government. It's been the most successful by far. It's been the most notorious. It's been the most successful even when we talk about the number of private military actors that have operated in eastern Ukraine since the invasion in 2022. So it's illustrated a capacity that I don't know the Russian government anticipated it could reach for a bunch of different reasons. But the model has illustrated serious value to not only the Kremlin but would be copycats. Right? It's also illustrated the challenges of trying to reel in power that these entities might develop over time and space. And it was founded or bankrolled I should say by this guy. Yevgeny Progosian. Most of you have heard of his kind of rise and tandem with Putin and St. Petersburg in the early 90s basically becoming a Russian oligarch really benefiting from personal connections as opposed to any real military expertise. And he started an organization known as Concord Group which sits at the middle of this great kind of illustration of how Russian oligarchs but specifically someone like Progosian structured his broad array of corporations to ensure difficulty in combating difficulty in targeting whether financially or kinetically. But Concord Group was a conglomerate of a bunch of different organizations mostly focused on catering for the Russian Ministry of Defense. But this particular oligarch was able to parlay that into a variety of different industries and shell companies. Some of you may have heard of the Internet Research Agency which was sanctioned for its engagement in election meddling and the U.S. presidential election in 2016. All the way to something like Lobai Invest in the far right hand side which is involved in mining gold and diamonds in the Central African Republic. And this whole kind of network of companies is really as I suggest complexity for security makes it really hard to track who they are what they're doing who's in charge and it's really easy to constantly change the names right which from a interagency approach to combating these types of organizations becomes incredibly difficult. But this is the kind of top of the food chain with Progosian and the founder of the Wagner Group. Someone if I can go back to Dimitri Udkin here in the middle former Lieutenant Colonel and the main intelligence directorate retired in 2013 and subsequently became the I would say the military expert if you will for the Wagner Group right. Kind of the personnel that was most responsible for standing up the outfit recruiting and subsequently assisting on the things that Progosian was less good at. And subsequently we have this particular complex network of different actors that lead to the nefarious and notorious Wagner Enterprise. So how where it started and where it's gone you know unintentionally I think Wagner it started in Eastern Ukraine with the annexation of Crimea and then subsequently had its fate sealed in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. And so we have this kind of book into this organization's lifespan. But I think it's important to recognize that the organization itself may change its name may evolve because of its behavior in Eastern Ukraine but it is not disappearing in any traditional sense. What I want to spend some time doing is walking through their different theaters of operation where they're similar and where they're distinct but kind of illustrating the complexity of the networks that is the Wagner Enterprise. In 2014 we see them get engaged in Crimea. In 2015 they test the waters in Libya but it really isn't until 2019 and 2020 that we see a full-on deployment of Wagner personnel as the rogue general Califa Haftar attempts to overthrow the government of National Accord and Tripoli where Wagner comes in to be an essential actor. In Syria, as I noted, all right, they get involved in 2015 and 2016, mostly focused on supporting Russian interests but also in a commercial enterprise of trying to reclaim oil fields. Really important note about the Syria case. Their efforts to reclaim oil fields not only came with inroads for Russian foreign policy otherwise giving Russia concerted interest in this particular extractive economy in Syria but Wagner through a shell company over here in the bottom right named Evropolis yielded 25% of any revenue generated from any oil fields that they took. All right, so this is a hey, we profit when we're successful in reclaiming territory and this became a really important aspect of the Syria Theater and Sudan and Central Africa Republic arrived in 2017 and Sudan in early 2018 in the Central African Republic. It had an experiment in Mozambique in 2019. It's last deployment, official deployment in Africa was Tamali in December of 2021. And then it's kind of last theater of operations at least as the formal Wagner syndicate that it was was in Ukraine in 2022. So most have seen this annexation of Crimea, the little green men. There's no insignia. We don't know who they are. Most point to this is kind of the origin story of Wagner's testing grounds, right? For viability, they came in to kind of support separatists within Eastern Ukraine or excuse me within Crimea. And subsequently illustrated the difficulties for the West to quickly respond to a type of new actor in the space. And subsequently we saw the maturation of Wagner from here to other theaters, right? This is kind of the testing the waters, if you will that subsequently parsley's itself into something like Syria. And I won't spend a ton of time on the Syria case, but it is really important to think about the potential conflict that could have ensued with Russia and the United States engaged in kinetic action against one another. For a whole bunch of different reasons, this is what most scholars have pointed to is the environment that is most illustrative of internal frictions within the Kremlin. Why did Wagner personnel not get claimed by the Russian government as they approached the Kanoko oil plant trying to retake it? And several suggest that infighting between Defense Minister Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff, Garasimov, along with Progosian is what ultimately led to them to disavow the organization is actually operating there. That's a little speculative in nature, but I think an important illustration of a riff that was fomenting that ultimately led to the Wagner mutiny later in June of 2023 in Ukraine, or excuse me, in Russia. And so we've got a long lineage of conflict between Yovgeny Progosian and formal members of state institutions in Russia. And this is where it manifests most clearly. In Africa, I've just pulled up places where it's been involved kinetically, right? So the skull and crossbones indicative of the Wagner patch just kind of illustrates where the Wagner group has operated over time and space. And largely has been successful, I'd suggest, in a lot of different ways outside of East Africa and Mozambique, where it didn't deploy enough, didn't engage with local forces and subsequently suffered a humiliating defeat and had to exit quickly. But out of these other places, it's been very difficult for Wagner to actually, or for the U.S. and for European allies to actually counter the organization for several different reasons. We think about one up here that is a recent Burkina Faso in January of this year. It's the first deployment of the Wagner's new outfit, the Africa Corps. A hundred personnel deployed to Burkina Faso to support a military junta. And it's created complications for the West and their opportunities to try to court this new dictatorship and spin them in a way that is more in favor of Western ideals and Western values. And since we're after Republic, we've seen state capture, where the ruling regime has actually taken Wagner personnel to serve as kind of a paturian guard, right? Where they've seen sewa security, a subsidiary of the Wagner group serve as more or less a secret service for the president. And they've really insulated the regime. And Mali, they fought against al-Qaeda and Islamic state affiliates embedding with the Mali and armed forces and frontline offensive to try to reclaim territory from jihadists. At that same place, they've also done a ton of different activity on the diffs information, misinformation space to kind of promote Wagner interests and Russian interests rather in the region. So, since we're at the naval war college, I thought it was important to mention how AFRICOM, all right? The last two heads of AFRICOM have suggested Wagner is front and center on their agenda. We see in this first quote from Townsend that he thinks Wagner is bad for Africa's security and prosperity in the future. We see General Langley talking about Wagner is all about power and profit, right? I mean, this has created a difficult situation for national security professionals writ large how to combat this new type of actor, particularly in the African theater. So, why use Wagner in Africa? There's a bunch of different reasons, but I'll be short here. This is the good staging ground to explore opportunities for bilateral relations for Moscow. It's also, several scholars have suggested, hey, you've got a great opportunity to sell weapons, all right, prior to Ukraine and then extract resources, all right? It's a win-win. We've got new locations for weapon sales, new bilateral relations ships we might engage with and also opportunities to then extract resources and we can do it all without creating genuine long-term lasting military partnerships, rather utilizing a conduit, the Wagner group to do so, all right? They benefit. We benefit. And then as we saw in Eastern Ukraine, there creates an opportunity for those who are in these deployments to potentially serve as a reserve force, if you will, for the Russian government. In Libya, I've outlined just a few different things that I think are illustrative of what they've did here, but one of the key things was we saw the culmination of how bad Wagner can be when it comes to kinetic operations, all right? Engaging in laying of land mines and booby traps, targeting civilians, all for exploitation of oil. And in this case, unlike Syria where they're yielded profits, the goal here was to eliminate Libya's ability and the central government's ability to export oil, all right? Therefore increasing the cost of oil for Russian interests elsewhere, all right? But the short story here is it's a clear effort of the Wagner enterprise to try to survey, in this case, a dictator or want-to-be-dictators efforts to overthrow a sitting government, right? That's a short story of Libya, but I think it's illustrative of a few other aspects for Wagner's broader Africa operations. Since it was unsuccessful and unseating the sitting government, it still holds a force there mostly for transit purposes. It's become a central logistics hub for Russia on the African continent, right? We oftentimes see through open source flight data, flights going to Syria, to Libya, and then kind of funneling around to the other African theaters when it's, we're talking about Mali to the Central African Republic, now Burkina Faso, and as of this weekend, concerns about Niger. And Sudan, a quite interesting illustration of ways in which Russia's utilized the Wagner operation to kind of create inroads and relationships. They started with the deployment of geologists, right? To kind of embed with the mining infrastructure here to get in bed with particular ministry of draw a blank on the particular ministry's name. But get in bed with those who are responsible for the the gold industry in Sudan and then subsequently started deploying weapons, selling weapons, right? And for those of you who have tracked Sudan in the midst of a civil conflict, we see Wagner kind of embed with the rapid support forces. They've also benefited significantly from paying higher prices for alluvial gold, right? And subsequently then utilizing their logistics hubs to transit gold from Sudan to places like the United Arab Emirates where it can enter markets through illicit means and benefit both the Wagner Enterprise and also the Russian state for sanctions circumvention. Central African Republic is probably the one of the most interesting cases of Wagner's deployments. It entered under the guise of a UN Security Council resolution to provide security assistance to the sitting government of Tuadarra in 2017 who had been under an arms embargo since 2013. Russia deployed about 600 military trainers. They were Wagner personnel along with small arms to support the government's efforts to combat ongoing rebel offenses from the country's north. And they've been there ever since. So what most call this is the clear regime survival package. And this is what Wagner is essentially advertised post Central African Republic. Hey, we will come in. We will insulate you from internal threats. We will shore up security for the elite, the political elite within the country. And subsequently, we will then engage in exploitation of your natural resource industry. Just like Sudan, just like Syria, we see precautions web of companies. In this case, Lobai Invest, a mining corporation that had no track record prior to the Central African Republic being stood up and they've converted what were small scale mining into large scale operations to service, again, the Kremlin and Wagner operations. They've also been heavily involved in propaganda here. Something that's important to note is that is one of the key distinctions between someone like Wagner and Western private military companies. It's kind of a one stop shop for all things nefarious. And what they've done in a place like Central African Republic is really engaged in nontraditional means of propaganda. Films that promote Wagner's agenda, illustrating their capacity to be a successful when it comes to security provision in a film like Tourist in a film like Granite and be doing this for an African audience, right, to illustrate, hey, we're competing against the West. Most of these films depict Western security actors as bad guys and Russian mercenaries as the good ones, the saviors. Molly's the most recent African deployment, December of 2021. I've pulled a graphic here that just kind of illustrates where Wagner's operated within the country, right, from December of 2021 through June of 2023. But what I don't have up here is how bad the violence has gotten. One of the things that's important when you consider the distinction between the way Russia's utilize private military and security contractors and how the West utilize this private military and security contractors. The Model 4 Wagner is shoot first, ask questions later. And so civilian violence in a place like Molly has skyrocketed since this organization arrived. They very much are engaged in kinetic frontline offensive counterinsurgency operations. They've had some success in reclaiming territory for the Molly and junta. But at the same time it's been at the expense, I would suggest, for civilians that are there that is only legitimized non-state armed groups like JNM, al-Qaeda affiliate and the Islamic State Greater Sahara. So it's only given those actors more legitimacy and created a dire security situation for the civilian population. The benefit, as I suggested on the earlier one was, hey, we've got a regime survival package for the junta that's there. Right, they've insulated security, short of security for a coup government that has been in power since mid-2021. And then to everyone's favorite and I'll be as brief as I can with Ukraine because I think the story is pretty clear. If you tracked early invasion, Wagner wasn't there, right? Wagner was this foreign policy tool mostly focused outside of Europe. And subsequently, we see Russian invasion that doesn't go according to plan for a whole bunch of different reasons. But what we also see is the deployment of a different private military company known as Redut. Redut gets involved directly connected to the Russian government under the control of the Ministry of Defense and performs, I'll just say poorly. And this is in which case we see the Kremlin call Wagner back for assistance, right? And that doesn't mean they exit all of their deployments across the African theater and across the Middle East. But it does empower someone like Progosian in a way that I'll suggest the Kremlin never intended, right? This entity was really a foreign policy tip of the spear tool to be used outside of Ukraine the expectations were, hey, yes, we might have some reserve forces that come support if necessary. But in this particular case, I don't think anyone in the Ministry of Defense forecasted that they would need to rely on Wagner the way they did in places like Bakhmut. I pulled a few different graphics here that some of you may be familiar with. What became really interesting in Wagner's history is what it did once it got involved in Ukraine. It's typically pulling from former special forces former members of the intelligence community former members of the internal state security service in Russia. And all of a sudden you're starting to hemorrhage personnel and Progosian gets a green light from Putin to recruit across penal colonies. And it dilutes the expertise of the organization, particularly in Ukraine. But most would suggest a way that it illustrated value was if you remember the battle for Bakhmut was kind of a meat grinder. Shock troops just going, going, going and subsequently kind of a demonstration of loyalty and patriotism. Now Progosian, meanwhile, used a lot of this particular situation to illustrate, A, the capacity of Wagner and B, the deficiency of the Ministry of Defense and the Russian Army and called for more ammunition that we were not getting resource enough. You name it, the list goes on and you can find videos of Progosian constantly yelling about needing more needing more needing more. Now, they lost a ton of personnel but the consequence of this friction between the Ministry of Defense and the Russian government or excuse me, and the Wagner group leads to this march to Moscow. Really infamous case, which, if you were tracking this in real time was almost unbelievable. A lot of news agencies suggesting this might be the end of Putin. For those of Wagner vouchers it was very clearly the manifestation of I'm very ticked off at Gorosimov and Shoygu and that's who I'm targeting. But we see Progosian say we gave a masterclass on how it should have been done on February 24th, 2022 when Russia invaded. Now, if you're not familiar they made it within like 200 miles of Moscow before they turned around. They took over the southern base in Russia that was essentially executing the war in Ukraine. I'll say it this way they took the Deputy Defense Minister, Eunice Yevokrov hostage. He's right here and on the left hand side of this picture on the right and demanded more support, more assistance and illustrated kind of a capacity that I don't think really even those Western watchers of this organization expected but highlighted serious friction. It didn't end too well for Progosian, right? Everyone can recall two months to the day of the mutiny was when the infamous plane crash occurred. That's the end of the story of Wagner but it's not, right? This is one of the things that I think is important to think about when we talk about Russian private military companies. Our own CIA director suggested Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback and we have a bunch of speculation about what happened but the short story is the revenge was taken and subsequently what happens to the Wagner enterprise now that this financier is no longer at its help. And so I polled this Wall Street Journal expose of efforts by the government to commandeer the Wagner enterprise particularly in Africa. And so Yev Korov, the deputy defense minister, the guy in the video, I'd suggest ultimately got his revenge because he's leading the charge. And the goal here is to reel in the lease that Wagner was given to commandeer the outfit in a way that ensures continuity of their activities but through different means and through different oligarchs that are seen as more loyal to Putin. I'll make the argument that suggests that the industry isn't going anywhere anytime soon. The facade of plausible deniability plausible deniability is gone but we've seen some real tangible benefits from this restructuring. I referenced Burkina Faso on the map of Africa. Burkina Faso is ruling military junta was unwilling to get in bed with Wagner. For a whole bunch of different reasons related to wanting to utilize volunteer defense forces for their security to not getting exploited in the ways that Mali or Central Africa Republic had been exploited. But now that Russia has commandeered the Wagner enterprise and attempted to restructure it under the guise of the Africa Corps, Burkina Faso is now signing up. And if you've watched over the weekend it's kind of parlays into what I think happens next. Niger's ruling military junta just issued a decree breaking off military relations with the United States. If you're unfamiliar with what we have there is a $110 million Air Force base, a bunch of ISR assets and subsequently we are concerned about what happens in this particular space but also what happens for this broader region that now seems to be succumbing to Russian influence more quickly than we might have anticipated. A few other things that I want to mention before the wrap up is thinking about what happens to this industry not just from a Russian lens but after Ukraine. We'll see veterans on both sides subsequently looking for employment in a bunch of different ways and looking to capitalize on newly acquired skills. And so several scholars have written about a concern of PMC proliferation in ways that states are unwilling to foot the bill but the Wagner model has illustrated value in going abroad foreign deployments kind of a full circle back to mercenaries. And then the probably the biggest concern from national security professionals is will this model be replicated by other autocracies right other great powers if you will right and we can debate whether Russia is a great power or not when we think about the rise of private security industry in China. Will this be a model that they replicate for foreign policy? So far most experts are suggesting that it's more their industry is more focused on shoring up security for economic interest Chinese economic interest in foreign theaters but there's always that opportunity to watch the Wagner playbook learn from it adapt it and then deploy it in a way that's more in tune and in line with your foreign policy aspirations. So that is what I have for my lecture tonight and I am happy to field questions my contact information's up here. So thanks for your attention. Ladies and gentlemen if you would the floor is now open to you to ask your questions. Please use the microphones that are located in the seats near you to ask your questions so we can hear that on zoom. Hi this is Megan Department of State. I might have missed it but with Wagner now falling more under Putin how is how are they recruiting new Wagner members who pays them? Yeah yeah I'll leave it at that. No no very good question. So there were two at the bottom of that graphic there were two private military companies redo and a new one convoy. Most have suggested that this is the mechanism in which they're recruiting fighters to fight in Ukraine. They the the story is those fighters will at some point be deployed to Africa but I'm a little bit more cynical about the immediate battle versus the foreign theaters that they want to engage in. So the question of recruitment is a little bit opaque but trying to utilize current outfits that have been stood up. So convoy is really recent private military company that is funded by a Russian oligarch that is managed by the Ministry of Defense through the intelligence directorate and it's focused specifically on Crimea right so it's looking to recruit those within that particular theater first for Defense of Crimea and then for use in Ukraine but then subsequently to scale up recruitment for the African theater is that Africa Corps expands. The other is foreign recruits. There is a history of Wagner utilizing for instance Syrians and their offensive in Libya. Though I have I you know this is more speculative than than confirmation of that they're doing this but I think that that is something that Russia will look to do as they commandeer the Wagner Enterprise and figure out ways to staff the rank and file. I'm suspicious that they're thinking hard enough about who they recruit and where they send them and the potential conflicts that might create but that would be kind of the other kind of speculative a way of recruitment. In terms of paying them now that it's been commandeered you know this is another opaque space. Wagner was I'll say not really self-financed ever. It benefited from extractive economies and places like Central African Republic which most would suggest was one where it became capable of funding itself but still a beneficiary of Russian investment particularly with military hardware but they significantly profited and Central African Republic mildly far less so. They're almost entirely relying on the Russian government or taxation of the gold industry all right through the Mali and junta but the pay side of it at this point seems to be something that is still being figured out how I guess how it's divvied up but that's that's kind of the mechanism the protocol that was set up prior to this most recent Africa core consolidation. Any other questions? Sir. Yep. How you doing? Thank you for the lecture. My name is Stefan Marino from the State Department as well. I'm just curious when you talked about the proliferation or possible proliferation of PMCs I know a few years ago Blackwater Academy Z not sure what they're called these days had to move over to the UAE and I remember that they were trying to look at putting together some sort of infantry type battalion or concept. I'm just wondering if you've seen other non-Russian actors especially any of our former American actors in that space. Thank you. Yeah, that's a good question. It's a you know I won't it's a little outside of my expertise when it comes to having delved into the the proliferation aspect. I think SIDAT it's a Turkish private military security company directly connected to Erdogan. So this is one that I think some have pointed to is kind of a way in which a particular political figure will empower and cultivate kind of a force like Wagner though it hasn't engaged in a ton of foreign policy explore exploration yet when it comes to Western actors. You know I'm less clear as a State Department official on export controls when it comes to security provision of security services and I haven't tracked the Blackwater evolution but I think that this was the other the other place that we're thinking about you know maybe to make an analogy to the maritime space where you flag your vessel where you register your corporation and what that then gives you opportunity to a recruit who to recruit from and then be how you're regulated and policed if at all. So yeah, I haven't looked into it yet. UIE I think is probably in the place that I've seen most folks who are looking into the proliferation relation space talking about where corporations might incorporate but that would just be kind of my elementary answer. Is there Trish Brown U.S. Army yet curious do you see the Wagner Wagner group expanding beyond Africa and the Middle East to Central or South America or elsewhere beyond Asia etc. Yeah, there was you know, there's some speculative reporting that Wagner had already tried to sell its services to like the Maduro regime in Venezuela. So I think that there's efforts to consider other theaters. I'm kind of an African security focused researcher. So I haven't looked into somewhere like Southeast Asia but I I anticipate framing it this way like Wagner and whatever supersedes it is very much a constructive opportunism. So I would suggest that I guarantee the Kremlin and Ministry of Defense are considering other potential areas to get involved. So I think they look to capitalize on these on these particular fragile fragile states but not without a broader strategic goal in mind. And you know, this is me seeing maybe what I want to see thinking about why they're courting African dictators. Recent Hoontas. Hey, there was a Hey, we made it into Central African Republic and this is an easy place to export this model to other states that have fragile societies so fragile political structures but then B it has large-scale payoffs for Russia's broader strategic goals of undermining the rules-based international order capitalizing on democratic retrenchment and erosion getting friends in other places that then might be silent at a U.N. vote when it comes to general assembly vote on whether or not we should reprimand Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. So there are these smaller wins that stack up so that's all to say that I can see the model manifesting in other locations but the only one that I've seen right outside of the Middle East and Africa was that speculative reporting on Venezuela. I do have a few questions from Zoom. The first question I think you've already addressed a little bit but I'll ask it anyway. Does the U.S. employ any PMCs perhaps through the CIA? Perhaps through the CIA. I well so we've certainly employed private military and security companies in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean Blackwater was brought up already. You know I don't have good optics on what the CIA doesn't do but we certainly utilize these actors but I think the ways in which we employ these particular outfits is very distinct from a the ways in which you know the Russian government does. Thank you. Next question. Were Wagner shell companies used to buy foreign tech and components to manufacture military hardware? Yeah that's a that's a great question. I think this is part of the I don't want to say ingenious design of the network of corporations but it creates a very difficult tracking mechanism. What most have called a whack-a-mole foreign policy for us when it comes to trying to sanction different entities and hold them accountable. Right so if you understand the I think the question suggesting have they utilized these particular shell companies to import US hardware to then utilize in Ukraine. I think that's ongoing more than just the Wagner kind of network. Sanctions circumvention and export control circumvention is kind of a regular feature of Russian government writ large and Wagner's maybe just one of the conduits to which they've done it or the Wagner network of corporations. And then finally I think it's also related. Is there any possible situation where you could envision a democratic nation utilizing a PMC? Sorry I didn't catch the all right and envision is there any possible situation where you could envision a democratic nation utilizing a private military organization? And the ways that Russia has utilized Wagner I think that's difficult for a bunch of different reasons. Providing regime security through a third party actor I can to help support democratic transition or something like this I will never say never but I think there's legal restrictions on the type of security services that can't be exported that aren't either codified through someone like State Department or through Defense Security Cooperation Agency that might limit the ways in which you know I'll put it this way we regulate exportation and ways that Russia doesn't so subsequently it limits the the menu of options when it comes to how we might deploy a private military insecurity company. So that's the I think that's you know I'm U.S. centric here so I can't say that that law stands for every democratic state but my inclination is we're thinking about kind of apples and oranges and the types of corporations or companies that we might be comparing from a Western PMC to a Russian PMC. I'm another question came through is any portion of the Wagner group operating outside of the Russian government? I think it's hard to disentangle that there's any independence as I guess the answer I'd go to and that's become even more clear in the aftermath of the mutiny. One thing I failed to mention in the in the talk here is what the Russian government's attempted to do with Africa Corps places like Central Avenue Republic for instance might be operating more independently than say Mali or say Burkina Faso or say Libya then they are in then car where the Russian Ministry of Defense basically went around and said hey you can sign a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense if you're operating in Mali or you can leave so commandeering the at the outfit in a way that was more intentional where in car it becomes so entrenched and embedded in local economy and the local political infrastructure that there was less of an urgency for someone like this new Africa Corps effort to commandeer it in a way that said sign a contract or you're gone so that's that's kind of the way I would think about independence but I don't think that any of these organizations are independent if that makes sense more questions are coming in does the independent non traditional military nature of PMC's like Wagner make it easier and less risky for another nation's military to engage yeah that's a that's a tough normative question you know as a victim of the recent example or the example that I gave here I think it illustrates I don't want to say an easier way to engage but yes with caveats I think that there's a in that particular environment it was clear that engaging with this particular actor itself called this there was due diligence taken and subsequently the Russians illustrated their willingness to forego association with this outfit to retain the facade of plausible deniability I can see very clearly that in the event that private security contractors or private military contractors from another government where that government is unwilling to forego plausible deniability that creating more serious conundrum but that's all hypothetical and speculative so I don't know what the answer is but I can see it becoming more complex quickly and that's the end of the questions on zoom any other questions from the crowd Jacob Gustafson United States Navy has there been any pushback by organizations like the African Union or any of the subcontinental uh economic committees quite frankly violence is bad for business so I'd be surprised if there wasn't some kind of regional pushback that the the U.S. wouldn't be trying to leverage understanding that this comes with pretty considerable national security concerns yeah I think there's a bunch of different layers to the to the answer first in the aftermath of coups and Mali Burkina Faso and Niger ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States disavowed the the coups demanded a return to democratic government and basically all of these regimes said no and have since aligned with one another so there's alliance of the health states to try to foment some type of security architecture between them my anticipation is that we'll all be linked to some relationship with african core and now have a patron and someone like Russia to be the kind of you know it's very cold war ask the kind of their government that they'll they'll snuggle up to and so ECOWAS attempted to and it's led to retrenchment and it's led to cooperation amongst military hoontas that has not led to the type of you know outcome that I think that particular regional body wanted the african union actually has a convention against on the elimination of mercenarism so I think strongly worded statements have taken place but outside of strongly worded statements the real accountability mechanism and this is one of the challenges with the typology mercenarism is very limited like I can't remember there's a faculty member at national defense university that says like if you have an attorney and they can't get you out of of a conviction for being a mercenary then they're the worst attorney ever because the definition is so loose and easy to beat and so that's the definition that the african union has adopted and subsequently they can chastise mercenarism but chastising the private military and security industry has become more difficult and I think it's only becoming more challenging in the ways it's been commandeered usurped and and kind of evolved with the russian government currently which is all it suggests that we might call them private military and security companies but now it's more or less just a relationship with the russian state and the actor that's carrying out russia's bidding to support these military who does it's just another appendage of the ministry of defense as opposed to a private entity of any sorts so that's my long-winded answer to the layers of complexity in the region okay we're quickly running out of time but there are a couple more questions on zoom one is now that it is clear that the russian government controls vagner how does that affect the legality of vagner how does that affect the legality of vagner you know what the kremlin wants is what the kremlin gets so i don't think that it falls under their purview of criminality as defined by their criminal code my understanding of the commandeering of the outfit is that it is just now a part of the ministry of defense as opposed to a independent quasi-state entity but to the degree that there was any accountability you know that's up for the political leaders in russia to decide on and you know if i'm cynical enough to understand that they hold those who challenge them accountable and will utilize whatever they want when convenient so yeah with that i will go ahead and end this session here there are still a couple of questions i'll share with you online and we'll try to answer them there as well but once again thank you dr falter thanks for your time and expertise