The Wagner Group is not a formal organization. It does not even legally exist. This is a fiction, invented precisely to divert attention from fictitious companies, which ultimately belong to the Ministry of Defense of Russia.
On the Internet site of the Washington Research Center “Nova “New America” (May America) On May 5, a “round table” was held on the role of mercenaries in Russia's military aggression against Ukraine and ways to prosecute them, writes the author of “Voice of America” Eugene Komarov.
The English term “ghost soldiers” in Russian is not used: since the Russian annexation of Crimea and the occupation of eastern Ukraine in 2014, soldiers without clear insignia in everyday life are often called “green men”, “polite people”, and more often just Wagnerians , which does not change their essence: war and murder for money, which allows to disguise the state-customer.
Anne-Marie Slaughter, Director General of the New America Expert Community (CEO), says: “Since the beginning of Russia's intervention in Ukraine in 2014, the Wagner Group – the so-called Russian volunteers – have been constant and continuous threat to Ukraine's stability. They are involved in war crimes in Donbass as well as in Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic. There have been reports that Wagner's mercenaries were ordered to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky in late February. “
The Wagners were first written about in 2015, and in 2017 they were included in the list of US sanctions, which in a sense “legalized” their name as “private military company Wagner” (PMC Wagner).
According to media reports, “Wagner” is a call-up colonel of the special forces reserve of the GRU of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, a cavalier of four Russian orders of courage, a native of the Sverdlovsk region Dmitry Utkin. Previously, he was the commander of the 700th special detachment of the 2nd special brigade of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, stationed in the Pskov region. In 2013, he retired and went to work for a field protection company in Syria, took part in hostilities, and a year later went as part of the “polite people” to annex Crimea, where he became commander of his own unit, organized training and funding through one of the companies of “Putin's cook” Eugene Prigogine.
According to journalists who spoke with his entourage, Utkin was fascinated by German fascism and therefore took the call sign Wagner, in honor of Richard Wagner, a favorite composer of Adolf Hitler. The group has a closed training base in the Krasnodar Territory, registered as a “pioneer camp”, and in addition to Ukraine, has participated in hostilities in Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, Sudan, Mozambique and Mali.
Candace Rondeaux, Professor at the University of Arizona, Director of Future Frontlines at New America, notes: “In 2014, the Wagnerians were included in the to the category of volunteer fighters who defended the Russian ethnic population outside Russia, but in fact they were deployed, at least with the tacit consent of the state, if not an explicit order of the Kremlin. “
Prospective mercenaries were recruited from private security companies and personal liaisons from reserve officers, as far as possible from special forces or airborne units. “They are controlled by the Russian state from top to bottom,” says Professor Candice Rondo, “but surprisingly they never fall under national law.” The state creates a kind of parallel legal environment for them. “
Article 359 of the Criminal Code provides for up to eight years in prison for recruiting, training, financing, material support of a mercenary, his use in armed conflict or hostilities. A mercenary is a person who acts for the purpose of receiving remuneration and is not a citizen of a state participating in an armed conflict, who does not reside permanently in its territory and is not a person aimed at performing official duties. The right words. But in fact, a hypothetical possible punishment under this article was used in the case to intimidate dissatisfied members of the group for disciplinary purposes.
“Wagner” is an ideal tool for the dirtiest tasks. Due to the fact that they have no official connection with the state, they can always be disowned and declare Russia's non-involvement – that's why the attempt to remove Vladimir Zelensky was entrusted to these “tamtets”. There is also an opportunity for the official to abandon the group, which is in an awkward position. This happened, in particular, on February 7, 2018, when several units of the Wagnerians took part in an operation near the city of Hasham in Syria, came under attack by artillery and the US Air Force in response and lost more than 200 people. Russia has not recognized the dead not only as servicemen, but even as its own citizens.
According to Candice Rondo, the Wagnerians played a very important role in the annexation of Crimea, in the first Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014-2015, when the Kremlin denied the involvement of Russian forces in the war. At the new stage of the invasion, the Wagnerians, in addition to attempting an operation against senior government officials in Kyiv (with a landing in Gostomel at the Antonov airfield), were also seen in Kharkiv. “Their specialization is penetrating the front line before the start of hostilities, firing on objects and reconnaissance missions. But things did not go so smoothly, because the status of the war changed, and Russia became entangled in a legal fiction that she had created for herself. “
Documenting the war crimes of the Wagnerians is much more difficult than in the case of regular enemy units. The regular army has military justice, and mercenaries do not. “We can only rely on eyewitness testimony,” said Candice Rondo. – But suddenly we were helped by ordinary social networks. The most interesting thing about the military “feats” of mercenaries is that they, as it turns out, like to talk about their crimes, treat them as a kind of trophy, because they do not receive sufficient public recognition for the work they do in secret. “
< p>This psychological moment is the key to understanding and motivating and cruelty “Wagnerians”. Trying to overcome their forced isolation, they communicate with each other on social networks. Analyzing this, you get an idea of how green men fit into the overall strategic picture, – continues Candice Rondo. “They have developed a kind of culture that has resulted in them not being socialized like the socialized national armed forces.”
The gained combat experience also plays a fatal role: “The age of many commanders of the group is about 50 years. There were two, who were even 60, which seems unusual. Many of them had combat experience in Afghanistan and Chechnya. And it was an extremely cruel experience. The generation of commanders who are a major part of this quasi-military force is suffering from extreme post-traumatic stress disorder, ”concludes Professor Candice Rondo. – Since mercenaries are motivated by financial gain, they are not interested in ending the conflict. And the longer the war lasts, the more damage will be done to the civilian population, the more war crimes will be committed. “
“The Wagnerians are a recruited group of former military, police and intelligence agents,” recalls Candice Rondo. – They are a kind of caste. Many of them have committed war crimes in the past. And if you recruit them again and send them to a new place, they will most likely commit their atrocities again and again. Thus, the use of mercenaries significantly increases the risk of war crimes and cruelty. “
“Imagine: they acted in different parts of the world under extremely free rules of warfare, where the task of striking civilians and objects as a means of achieving military goals was valued. This is exactly the “culture” they come from, says Candice Rondo. – At the same time, they are glorified in modern Russian films and even in the media. One of the things Putin has succeeded in doing is to create a halo of romanticism around the Special Forces. This really seems attractive to many people in Russia, especially young people who simply have no other idea of what true military prowess looks like. To this is often added the motivation to fight for “Russian ethnic purity” – a kind of idea of the “superiority” of the white race. With this they went to Syria, Libya, as before to Afghanistan and Chechnya; and there they saw enemies to be destroyed. It's a diabolical brew of mental trauma and racism. “
Read also: Business Insider: Wagner's mercenaries will not help Russia in the war against Ukraine's army
But the worst conclusion Professor Candice Rondo has to make is not even this: “The reality is that the Wagner Group is not a formal organization. It does not even legally exist. This is a fiction, invented precisely to divert attention from fictitious companies and contracts, which ultimately belong to the Russian Ministry of Defense. The Kremlin has been very successful in trying to confuse NATO on how to respond to the presence of militants without official status. That is why it is so important to focus not on Wagner's group, but on real structures.
Since there is no need to wait for the persecution of mercenaries by the Russian judiciary, the only chance to bring them to justice is international law. The International Convention for the Suppression of the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 4, 1989. The document refers to mercenaries any person who is recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict; does so out of a desire to obtain personal gain or remuneration that significantly exceeds that paid to combatants of the same rank who are members of the armed forces; who is neither a citizen of a country in conflict nor a person permanently residing in its territory, not sent by a state that is not a party to the conflict to perform official duties; which is recruited to take part in joint acts of violence aimed at overthrowing the government or undermining the constitutional order of the state or undermining the territorial integrity of the state.
Sorcha McLeod, chair of the UN Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries and an associate professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, highlights the difficulties in applying the convention. whether a mercenary or not … Chains of subordination are extremely opaque. What shape do they have? What are the distinctions? What are the identification numbers? In each country where the Wagnerians operated, it was all different. When we talk about liability, do we mean criminal liability, or do we seek damages? This is a very long legal path associated with the application of the principle of “universal jurisdiction”, and historically we know that it has never been successful, except for the precedent with the Nazi regime in Nuremberg. “
However, the prospects for international Sorcha McLeod assesses the trial of Wagner crimes in Ukraine relatively highly: “First of all, because there is evidence of pre-planning, when certain entities serving in the Russian government were deployed outside its territorial borders.”
Militants of the Russian private military company Wagner (now the League) have arrived in eastern Ukraine, according to the British Ministry of Defense.
“More than 1,000 mercenaries, including top officials, are expected to be sent to combat The organization said in a statement. The agency believes that this was a forced step, which the Russian leadership pushed for heavy losses and almost complete failure of the invasion.
