124. ANALYSIS: Catrina Doxsee with a deep dive into Wagner’s relationship to the Russian state, changes in Prigozhin’s behavior and global security implications
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Welcome to the War in Ukraine update from Kyiv podcast.

Hi listeners, Jessica here. Whilst I have covered some aspects of the Wagner Group on the podcast in the past, this episode is really a deeper dive into the range, scope and implications of Wagner activity, as well as the nuances of the relationship between the Wagner Group and the Russian state and possible implications from that. So as always, thanks for listening. I found this chat super interesting and I hope that all of you enjoy it as well.

I'm Jessica Gnauer, a senior lecturer in international relations at Flinders University in Australia. And I'm talking today with Katrina Doxey. Katrina is an associate director and associate fellow for the Transnational Threats Project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

The Transnational Threats Project focuses on international and domestic terrorism, including the irregular activities of countries such as Iran, Russia and China. Thanks for joining me today, Katrina.

Thank you for having me. Really looking forward to getting into the discussion. I have talked a bit on the podcast previously about the Wagner Group, which is this private military company, which is, to all intents and purposes, a non-state actor, but also clearly has links to the Russian state. So can you illuminate for us, how is the Wagner Group connected to the Russian state? So I think the first...

the first thing that's important to understand is that even though the Wagner Group has group in its name, and even though we refer to it as a private military company or PMC, it's really better understood rather than as one singular financial entity or commercial entity.

as a loose network of different companies, shell companies, financial intermediaries, and basically different entities that are purposefully obfuscating the activities of the group.

That makes it much harder for anyone to hold them accountable and to trace their various financial transactions. What we do know is that this whole web of entities is connected back to Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is a Russian oligarch very close to Vladimir Putin.

And additionally, as the Wagner Group operates in different settings, it works very closely with the Russian government, including the Ministry of Defense and military and various intelligence services. In fact, in Russia, near Molchino, Wagner operates a base that's co-located with a Spetsnaz base. And so we see very clear coordination in their activities.

even working with Russian military intelligence personnel on some of their deployments, as well as that close political connection through Prigozhin and his dealings with Putin, such that we're able to tie them back to the Russian state. And we see in turn that their deployments help to facilitate various of Moscow's geopolitical goals.

And I don't know if you can speak to this or not, but something that has always been slightly confusing to me, as I understand it, within Russia, private military companies are actually illegal. How does that relationship work if private military companies are actually illegal, but it's really an open secret that the Wagner Group is deeply connected with the Russian state?

So that's exactly right. PMCs are technically illegal under the legal code in Russia. But the fact that PMCs like Wagner are allowed to operate outside of Russia and actually are carrying out the Russian state's goals, all of this is happening through loopholes in the law.

and more or less with the tacit approval of the Kremlin. So I've often gotten the question over the past few years, as Wagner has spread in its activities, is it likely that Russia is going to actually just legalize PMCs given that they're using them so much? And I think the answer to that is no, because the fact that PMCs are not legal in Russia and that they're really only operating at Putin's pleasure is

gives Vladimir Putin a tremendous amount of leverage over those PMCs. This is able to keep them in line, make sure that they're not going to go rogue, solely pursuing their own company interests or their own bottom line, but their activities will continue to be in lockstep with the goals of the Russian government. And so I think that that's really, for the way that Moscow is thinking about PMCs, a feature and not a bug.

Yeah, that's fascinating. So if, for example, Progozhin becomes too bold or too confident in the Russian domestic context,

Putin still has those sort of legal levers that he can pull on in order to decide, well, I am going to now fall back on the fact that this is really an illegal entity, technically speaking. Exactly. Which actually brings me to another point, which is that we've seen a really fascinating change just in the way that Wagner is structured and talking about itself happen over the past few months.

So in the fall of 2022, Prigozhin, for the first time, openly admitted that he had a role in founding and is now the leader of the Wagner Group. Up until that point, even though it was basically an open secret,

Prigozhin vehemently denied this, even going so far as to bring lawsuits against researchers or media outlets that would allege his connection to Wagner. So that changed this past fall, with him openly admitting his connection and subsequently appearing in a series of propaganda and recruitment videos, including footage of him recruiting journalists.

at prisons in Russia, footage of him on the front lines celebrating alleged victories of the Wagner Group in Ukraine. And about a month after he made that formal statement, the Wagner Group actually established its first official headquarters, which is located in St. Petersburg, Russia. So that's significant for a couple of reasons, right? So it's the first time that Wagner is officially existing on paper in Russia.

And it's their first official headquarters on Russian soil.

And all of this is still happening in the context that PMCs like Wagner are not legal under Russian law. So the fact that they feel comfortable doing this, that Prokofiev feels confident enough in his position and his power in the Russian government that he can say this openly, establish this openly operating headquarters on Russian soil,

I think really points to how Prigozhin's political fortunes have changed since the invasion of Ukraine. We've seen Prigozhin take on a lot more power, both in terms of his relationship with Putin, coming largely at the expense of other political and military leaders and oligarchs who have fallen in fortune due to failures in Ukraine. And we've seen Wagner increasingly take on a leading role on the front lines in Ukraine.

acting more or less at this point like an informal unit of the Russian military. And because ultimately the illegal status of PMCs in Russia gives Putin a tremendous amount of leverage over anyone affiliated with a PMC, the fact that Progozhin is completely comfortable being open about this now

I think really points to a sea change in the power that he wields in Russia and the security both of him personally and of the Wagner Group itself as an institution of the Russian state.

Mm-hmm. And so, as you mentioned, it's almost a misnomer to say the Wagner Group, but can you give us a bit of background? As I understand what we refer to as the Wagner Group was founded in 2014. How was it founded and what type of activity has it been involved in since then? Absolutely. And yes, I will say for shorthand, it's a lot easier to refer to them as

private military company, a single entity, just setting that context for the way that they are loosely networked together. So we saw Wagner form in 2014 in the context of Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine.

And there we had these quote unquote little green men, basically deniable forces that even though we all know they were linked to the Russian government and to Moscow's aims,

taking territory in Ukraine, Russia was hoping to be able to deny any links to them, to be able to avoid accountability, including attempting to give plausible deniability when it came to Western sanctions and Western punishment of Moscow for its actions. How

After Ukraine, we saw Wagner participate in various other deployments. In those early stages, often in the context of helping to supplement Russian forces. So for instance, they helped to supplement Russian military action in Syria. They

They also helped with Russian allies, for instance, going into Libya to support Haftar's forces. We then saw sort of a second 2.0 version of this PMC model start to emerge as PMCs became increasingly active in sub-Saharan Africa around 2017 and 2018 through the present. And so, you know, I say as they became increasingly active,

PMCs from various countries, including from Russia, have long been active worldwide, including in Africa. But what we've really seen since that 2014 creation of the Wagner Group is a concentrated effort by Russia to use PMCs like the Wagner Group.

to carry out geopolitical goals and to serve as a force multiplier. So as they moved into this 2.0 stage of Wagner activities, we increasingly saw Wagner target countries in sub-Saharan Africa that

that had weak governance, oftentimes autocratic governments or military governments that had recently gained power through coups or other non-legitimate means. We also see the target countries typically having some kind of long-term instability

and conflict within the country. And they tend to be countries with rich natural resources, typically gold, gemstones, and in some cases, energy resources as well. So in these cases, Wagner would come to an agreement with the local government

to deploy personnel in order to carry out various tasks, including direct combat action, training of local military personnel, help with arms transfers and training on how to use equipment,

equipment, intelligence and information operations, site and personnel security, and other paramilitary tasks. In exchange for that assistance, they not only got whatever the contractually agreed upon monthly fee was for their service, but also frequently accessed to those natural resources in those countries, often through mining concessions.

as well as other advantages that often fit into Russia's broader geopolitical goals. So, for example, in Sudan, we've seen them pursue basing rights to establish a Russian naval base on Port Sudan.

a plan that is currently indefinitely on hold, largely due to U.S. intervention, but if completed, would give Russia a foothold on the Red Sea, which is a strategically important location that it has long had interest in getting some kind of access to. We've also seen in some cases, like in Madagascar, the positioning of the Wagner Group

has allowed them to gain additional competitiveness or priority for other local contracts, including, in the case of Madagascar, contracts to help renovate and rebuild the country's largest port.

So ultimately, for Wagner, what they're securing in exchange for their services is largely economic and financial gains. Those gains also come back up to Prokosian, to the Russian oligarchs and the Russian government. And in addition, the Russian government is also able to secure various geopolitical goals, including military intelligence, power projection,

and the facilitation of tighter diplomatic ties, the removal of competing interests, including from Western countries like France and other European nations or the U.S. They're able to help to facilitate further security cooperation agreements for the future.

So given that quite extensive activity and at the same time, this very heavy involvement of Wagner group fighters in Ukraine, in particular since Russia's full-scale invasion last year, do you think that that drawing of Wagner resources into the Ukrainian context will have a kind of destabilizing geopolitical impact elsewhere?

Yeah, it's a great question. And I think there are really two categories of effects that we can expect to see in some of these other deployments, like in Africa, in the context of what's happening in Ukraine.

So on the one hand, as you're mentioning, there's definitely an eye to the redistribution of resources, redeployment of troops. We've seen since the early months after the 2022 invasion that there have been some redeployments of Wagner troops from other deployments, particularly in Libya, up to Ukraine to help with the fighting there.

We've also seen sort of a limitation on how many new troops are coming into some of these places. So, for example, Wagner first deployed to Mali in late 2021 with the first troops arriving in December. And there are currently estimated to be about a thousand troops.

or so Wagner troops there, that was about the number we had in early 2022 with the expectation that more would be arriving and that just hasn't manifested largely because the priority is sending new recruits to the Ukrainian front. So we have certainly seen the movement of resources and personnel from other locations, the limitation of bolstering the strength in those other locations

But it is notable that even despite that, and despite that change in focus, they've continued to operate in these other locations in Africa, even pursuing new deployments. For example, just a few months ago during the U.S.-Africa summit in Washington, D.C., we got reports that Burkina Faso had just reached an agreement with Wagner to provide services there, largely inspired by what's been going on in neighboring Mali.

So they certainly see the value in those out-of-area deployments and activities in such a way that they're not ceasing to pursue those opportunities because of Ukraine. So then I think the second category of concern that we should think about in terms of

at least the supplies and the troops that are going into these other deployments, is what is the quality moving forward and what's the experience of them moving forward? As many have probably seen in the context of Ukraine, amid recruitment challenges and horrible conditions on the front lines,

Wagner, like the Russian army, has grown more and more desperate for recruits, even turning to recruit from Russian prisons, even prisons abroad in some of the locations where Wagner has previously been operating, like the Central African Republic.

as well as bringing in other individuals, both from Russia and from other places that Russia is active, who just have pretty minimal or no prior experience or prior training. And so increasingly, whereas Wagner had previously been made up largely of military and intelligence veterans from Russia who are pursuing education,

a new career after leaving the military or after leaving the government that could still utilize those same skills, often for a higher paycheck. Now you have people coming in who have little to no prior experience, often don't have time or capacity for heavy training, especially knowing that they're not likely to last long on the front lines anyway. And you also have a lot of

dissent within the ranks, where especially as you bring in populations out of prisons, there's an intense social stigma between non-prisoners and prisoners in the ranks, as well as between the prisoners themselves, given the very strict hierarchy socially within Russian prisons.

All of that makes it much more difficult for Wagner to operate and to succeed in their combat tasks versus having relatively well-trained, well-disciplined former Russian soldiers all working together who are very experienced in doing so.

And so I think that that's also something to look at moving forward, where even if Wagner is able to continue sending troops to places like sub-Saharan Africa, including new deployments in Burkina Faso and possibly others, it's not the same types of personnel that we've seen previously.

And with Wagner already having a mixed record of operational success and a very bad record on human rights abuses and civilian casualties, I think there is rightfully a lot of concern about what this new profile of troops is actually going to do in these countries. Mm-hmm. And-

Even though most of the Wagner Group activity seems geographically far away from the United States, I know that you've researched and talked about the way in which the activity that the Wagner Group is involved in does actually pose national security threats also to the United States and ways in which the United States can combat that influence. So could you talk a bit about that aspect?

of Wagner activity? Absolutely. So there's obviously the direct combat threat to the US and its partners and allies that we see in a location like Ukraine today. But there's also, I think, a broader set of threats that are less obvious when you're looking at some of their out-of-area deployments, such as in Africa.

There are a few different categories that I think the U.S. and its allies and partners should think about the threat. So first is simply a matter of influence. Russia has been using the Wagner Group to strengthen diplomatic ties and spread its influence further abroad than it's really maintained that sphere of influence in any coordinated way since the end of the Cold War. And in some of these contexts, we specifically see them trying to undermine the

the relationship between the United States or France or other traditional partners in some of these countries. This has been especially striking in some of the countries that have a former colonial and then a post-colonial relationship with states like France.

And that is certainly another topic that we could get into, kind of how some of those long-term historical resentments feed into setting fertile ground for Russian propaganda and for Russian partnerships. But I think that there is just a very serious consideration about Russia undermining relationships that,

the U.S. and its allies have with partners in the region. Second of all, there's a pretty clear threat in terms of military and intelligence assets. This comes from the expansion of Russian power projection, particularly if they're able to secure something like the base with, right,

Red Sea access, or as they continue to build up presence, including control of military bases in many of these countries where they can increasingly both leapfrog across the continent for future deployments and future access, and also just the expansion of Russian intelligence capabilities, including notably SIGINT capabilities. And this is

potentially problematic for the U.S. and its allies, not only in the context of Russia gaining these capabilities, but Russia also increasingly coming in contact

with military and intelligence personnel from the U.S. and other allied countries. Another big consideration on the financial side is the way that Russia is able to exploit natural resources in many of these countries, not just to line the pocketbooks of the oligarchs or help to boost the Russian state's finances, but actually, as we're increasingly seeing in the context of Ukraine,

to be able to blunt the effect of the sanctions that the West has levied against Russia. We've seen over the past year, historically unprecedented sanctions levied against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. And yet Russia is able to smuggle raw materials like gold out of Sudan and other locations in Africa, bring them to unregulated markets to liquidate them into cash.

or even just smuggle them back home to bolster Russia's gold supply. This obviously doesn't deal with the full amount of sanctions, but it is able to weaken one of the tools that the West has to respond to geopolitical actions that the Russian government takes. And then finally, I think that there's a huge concern in terms of human rights abuses and what

the propping up of authoritarian states and undermining the liberal democratic order that we see in these countries. The human rights abuses and indiscriminate killings of civilians have been widely documented in a number of Wagner deployments, including in Mali and in the Central African Republic. And we see that Russia is largely backing governments that have often come to power through military coups or

or otherwise themselves are more interested with securing their own longevity over the security of their nation and of their populations. If the host government is more concerned with its own stability than the country's stability, and if Wagner comes in and is more concerned with pursuing Russian goals rather than addressing stability in the country,

You're going to have instability grow. You're going to create opportunities for local groups, including some of the jihadist organizations that we see operating in a place like the Sahel, to expand their operations. And ultimately, you're contributing to both local and regional instability that can quickly spill over and cause a much larger crisis.

So for all of those reasons, I think it's really important for the U.S. and its partners and allies to be closely watching the situation and working with partners on the ground and in the region to really create a viable alternative to the Wagner Group and to Russian assistance. In many of these cases, it's not that countries are just innately refusing to work with the West.

It's that they either feel like there have been failures in past operations that the West has supported in their country, or they feel like they're not getting a good offer. Russia is often able to underbid some competitors to come in to offer assistance.

particularly because the Wagner Group is able to gain a lot more than just what their monthly paycheck is. But if we can, through increased transparency and conversation and engagement with these countries, really make clear what the true cost of a partnership with Russia and with the Wagner Group is, and along with that, provide a viable alternative

that really gets at the root causes of insecurity and instability. I think that there will be a lot of appetite for that in the region, but it really needs to be based around, you know, in Africa, African autonomy and interests, or in other regions. Similarly, the local country's interests

and agency. And working through that, I think that we can offer solutions that look to building longer-term strength and good governance in the region. And by framing it in terms of agency, you're not just putting this

ultimatum to choose between the West and Russia. We've seen a lot of backlash that any anti-PMC rhetoric from the West just comes across as saying you have to choose between the US and Russia in terms of the big chess game of global competition.

But what really needs to come out of this, I think, is an open dialogue with partners in the region and attempts to get at the root causes of violence. Thank you so much, Katrina. This has been a fascinating discussion and I feel like I've learned a lot about the Wagner Group, but also the dynamics and the way in which it will impact geopolitical tensions going forward. So thanks for joining me on the podcast today.

Thank you. Anytime. Thanks for listening. And thanks to Gonk Overall for our theme music.