122. ANALYSIS: Niklas Masuhr on the Wagner group - activities, involvement in Ukraine, military and political implications
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Welcome to the War in Ukraine update from Kyiv podcast. I'm Jessica Gnauer, a senior lecturer in international relations at Flinders University in Australia, and I'm talking today with Nicholas Massour. Nicholas is a senior researcher and military analyst at the Centre for Security Studies at the ETH Zurich University. Nicholas works on

contemporary conflicts, defence policy and military strategies, with a particular focus on Russia, NATO and the adaptation of military forces to contemporary conflict and war, including the use of private military companies in conflict zones, and the latter will be the subject of our discussion on the podcast today. So thanks for joining me on the podcast today, Nicholas. Thank

Thank you for having me. So first of all, you know, with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, we have seen this renewed focus on the Russian-based private military company, the Wagner Group, and that's because they have been fighting quite heavily on the ground in Ukraine. But there's also a lot of opacity surrounding that group. So what are we actually talking about when we say the Wagner Group?

Wagner Group is a few things at once. I think for once, which doesn't make it always easy for analysts, is that Wagner is used a bit as a synonym for Russian PMCs,

broadly. If you remember, it was pretty similar a few years ago with Blackwater on the US side, where even after they'd renamed a few times, the name still sort of encapsulated the phenomenon, if you will. With Wagner right now, I would describe it as the paramilitary arm of the precaution network.

So we've got a few concentric circles. Prigozhin, former main caterer to the Russian armed forces, of course, oligarch, part of Russia's shadow state or this separate structure that's sometimes referred to as Kremlin towers within the Russian domestic hierarchy.

He's built this network of companies, of shadow companies, of letterbox companies that have in recent years expanded to include, if you will, an expeditionary dimension. And the Wagner Group and other PMCs have been the paramilitary element within that network.

Yeah. And I thought it was really interesting that you wrote a piece in 2020 with Julia Friedrich, which I'll link to in the show notes, where you actually compare the way in which Chinese associated PMCs and Russian associated PMCs are operating in quite different ways in order to fulfill different types of objectives for those two respective states.

What are the key differences in the way in which sort of Russian-based PMCs and Chinese-based PMCs operate to further different types of state objectives? I think for Wagner, it really depends on what operations are we talking about. Are we talking about Wagner as it was founded and as it's now being deployed within the Ukraine context?

Are we talking about Wagner in Syria, where they were tied into the Assadist counterinsurgency? Or are we talking about more fluid operations in Africa, where we really don't know to what extent the Russian state was involved?

I think to some extent on this latter case on operations in Africa and further afield, if you will, so far it really seems to have been more expeditionary oligarchs as opposed to power projection on the part of the Russian state as we know it. And there, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa, Libya is a bit of an exception, of course, but in sub-Saharan Africa so far, Wagner really seemed to be opportunistic and to really go for its own market.

private actor goals to some extent, as opposed to following a Kremlin master plan. And I think the difference to the Chinese, of course, is that A, China has a much larger footprint in Africa. China has much larger stakes. And B, that means at the strategic level, the Chinese government is interested more in norm building, if you will, and

in having a rules-based order to some extent, or at least some sort of order, right? It's not the Western liberal order that we hear a lot about these days. It's different. And of course, it's highly China-centric and it's a skewed relationship. But China is still much more interested in regulating its assets, regulating its agents, as opposed to Russia, where you really have this very flexible cat-throat relationship

approach where Kremlin and private actor interests may overlap. That doesn't mean, of course, that Russian PMCs are working against the interests of the Russian state. And that's perhaps a bit of a difference to, say, someone like Eric Prince, who was involved or who founded Blackwater, of course, who now is involved with the Chinese government. That is something that we would not expect or that we haven't seen Russian paramilitaries, Russian mercenaries do, where there is a direct

clash between Russian state interests and these private or semi-private actors' interests. But at the same time, as I mentioned, they are more expeditionary or it's more expeditionary corruption, if you will, if we look at the wider pre-Gorzhin network, as opposed to the Russian state deploying these semi-deniable assets to further its plans. Which I guess also leads me to the question, what are the

the main types of activities of the Wagner Group on the African continent, which I know is a very large geographic area. But could you talk a bit about the type of activities of the Wagner Group in Africa? I think that's a good question because it already does encapsulate the spectrum quite a bit. So for instance, in Libya, Wagner was brought in to support the faction of Khalifa Haftar in the

Civil War, the Eastern Faction, and they were actually quite successful. And that seems to have been based on experiences also from Syria, where you've got those different also concentric circles of militia groups and regular forces, etc. And you've added Russian PMCs here and there to do training, to do embedded activities, etc. And that was transposed to Libya to some extent in 2019, I believe. And that worked well.

Felix Klock: fairly well militarily speaking, of course, until the Turkish government and Turkish forces and drones etc intervened in early 2020. Felix Klock: And since then, what we've seen is that Wagner, for instance in Libya they've built fortifications across the desert I think it's a 150 kilometer stretch of fortifications.

Wagner has deployed aviation assets there. So that is more towards the militarized spectrum. And there we can assume that Wagner is doing the heavy lifting for the Russian government, or at least that the Russian government is more involved than in other theaters or in other countries. But at the same time, something that was interesting about Libya is that while the Russians were involved in the inter-Libyan mediation efforts,

Their point man was a confidant of Ramzan Kadyrov. So again, even though the Russian government there had probably more of an interest than, say, in sub-Saharan Africa at the time, the heavy lifting was done, or at least some of the activities were conducted by elements within Russia's internal Kremlin towers, shadow state, again, however you want to call it, hierarchy. So that is the Libyan case, which is an interesting hybrid case.

But most prominent, if you will, is probably the Russian deployment or the Russian activities in the Central African Republic, where they came in after French and American troops were withdrawn in 2015, 2016. And there we've really got a, in the West, we'd call it a comprehensive approach where political and military and almost development efforts are transformed.

are being fused or at least where there's attempts at fusing. Well, on the one hand, we've got political technologists, i.e. autocratic political consultants, if you will, flanked and protected by Wagner paramilitary assets that are conducting operations in unruly areas where they are embedding with local forces, where they are training them, where they're advising them, etc. Their record in military terms or in security terms isn't great.

But so far, that hasn't deterred the military governments of Mali and potentially Burkina Faso to bring in these Russians. Yeah. So looking now more specifically at the Wagner Group participation in the war in Ukraine, what are some of the implications from that in terms of

power hierarchies within Russia, but then also what is really the calibre of the Wagner fighters in Ukraine? We've heard quite varied reports about that. And in that regard, are there sort of military advantages for Russia from having the Wagner group fighting in Ukraine? I think there's a few aspects to it. So one is this notion of Russian domestic hierarchies and the way the

how you've got these parallel structures, if you will, and how Prigozhin, of course, has raised his profile over the past few years. Previously, he'd, of course, always rejected the notion that he was involved with Wagner, also because PMCs still are illegal in Russia, officially. So that is something where now, of course, this is coming to the fore, where you've got those centrifugal forces within the Russian state,

where people like Kadyrov, people like Prigozhin, of course, are trying to be as useful as possible and to present themselves as power centers within Russia. So there's a demand, if you will, for military competence in Russia. And even if the Russian military has stabilized, there's still a need for certain key military capabilities. And something that Wagner narrowly defined

If we talk about former Russian soldiers with combat experience, with operational experience, with kind of the core appeal of those mercenaries, there we are talking about troops that are qualified for small team operations, for infiltration tactics, these sorts of things.

Regular Russian infantry is not necessarily geared towards that. You've got larger squads, etc. You've got larger groups of people. You don't really have that autonomy at the small level. So, for instance, during the Battle of Sero-Donetsk, Russian special forces and Wagner troops apparently were used to infiltrate Ukrainian lines and to move forward and to secure certain key positions, etc.,

That is the, if you will, elite or that's the more qualified side of Wagner. Then the sort of middle element is probably where Wagner, and again, I use this term more as a catch-all term, where Russian PMCs that previously have experience in Donbass in 2014-15 and in especially Syria, where they've got experience with this advising and embedding mission, if you will, where they were involved in

training and leading and supporting DNR and LNR militia within the context of the war. And then the last element when we talk about Wagner really is this recruitment drive in Russian prisons where they recruited violent criminals, where they told them that they would

receive clemency after six months. Legally speaking, we still don't know what that actually means, if that's actual clemency or if they just get a signed letter from Prokhorin and the assumption is that the Russian state or Russian courts will leave them alone. We really don't know yet. But these troops are basically used as human waves and as expendable, well-determined

often being used as cannon fodder, of course. That doesn't mean they don't fulfill a military role. I think the jury is still out to what extent the Battle of Bakhmut will play a role one way or the other. We know it's been very costly for the Russians. We know it's been costly for the Ukrainians. We don't know how much time delaying at Bakhmut has bought for the Ukrainians.

similar to Severodonetsk, where really we didn't know what the impact was until a few weeks and months afterwards. And now that it's late January 2023, I would still be cautious to give an assessment on Bakhmut one way or the other, even if Bakhmut itself, of course, is still being held by the Ukrainians.

But so that is useful also from the Russian military side where you've got these expendable troops that can be used to lead assaults for a prolonged period of time while the regular Russian military probably reorganizes, etc., etc.

So that is a military value. That being said, we don't know to what extent Wagner is being appreciated by the regular Russian military, probably not as much, especially given how Prigozhin has sought to position himself as an alternative or sought to establish his troops as alternatives to the regular Russian military.

And do you think that the way in which the Wagner Group has been operating in Ukraine will increase or decrease their appeal and scope of activity outside of Russia and outside of Ukraine? Will it increase the type of activity that they'll be involved in? Or do you think that it will actually decrease their capacity to?

to operate elsewhere? I think that is a really interesting question. And I think there are two archetypical scenarios. One of them is that Wagner or Russian power projection and expeditionary assets are being drained by the war in Ukraine. Say, if Wagner has the choice to deploy qualified troops that are good or

or that are more qualified than others in small teams, tactics, etc. If they are faced with the dilemma of either deploying them to Ukraine or to conduct operations somewhere in Africa, be that at the behest of the Russian state or on their own accord to further the Prigozhin network's economic interests,

Its resources are being drained. Russian defense industry probably is not going to be as reliable from an African perspective going forward because Russia needs defense materials for the war in Ukraine. So that may decrease Russia's appeal. That is one possibility.

The other scenario, of course, is that the Russian state takes more of an interest and assumes more direct control. And of course, Wagner originally was very much tied to GIU or GU, as it's now known, Russian military intelligence. For instance, early Wagner cadres were trained right across from GIU's, Biatsnacht's training facilities. They had this organizational fusion. Now, I think the consensus over the past few years prior to the invasion was that Wagner group and the Prokhorin network had become

more autonomous. And that is sort of the starting point that we seem to be going from these days, that Wagner is actually more autonomous than tied to the Russian state. But two or three years ago, the discussion seemed to assume that Wagner was more tied to Russian intelligence than it was then assumed later. Now, one of the options is that it becomes nationalized, if you

will, that Wagner assets are tied more into broader Russian projects within this competition with the West, and that increasingly Africa might become a secondary or tertiary theater of competition. And that for Russia, it becomes more a question of where can it hurt Western interests, where can it hurt Western assets, where can it hurt NATO assets, or where can it be a force multiplier

if and when Western troops, for instance, are actually deployed. Of course, that is now somewhat receding with France withdrawing from Mali, from Burkina Faso, et cetera. So the situation may be different. And I want to ask you another forward-looking question. We've seen Yevgeny Prokhozhin

seeming to become increasingly confident, outspoken within the Russian domestic political context, explicitly linking himself to the Wagner Group. Do you think that how the war plays out in Ukraine and the role of the Wagner Group within that conflict might ultimately have a destabilising effect within the Russian political context

in terms of a kind of a struggle for power between elites within Russia? I think it definitely plays a role. I don't think I'm particularly qualified to speak about domestic Russian dynamics, which is a bit of my analytical blind spot. However, what I think I can say is that you're absolutely right. There is a fairly tight link between what's happening on the ground in Ukraine and

these Russian domestic power centers or these alternative power centers. And in recent days we've seen Putin himself and the administration in the Kremlin push back to some extent against Prigozhin. So these dynamics are definitely there. Something that of course is also employed by this is that the ability of the Wagner Group to operate independently or semi-independently abroad, which we

we discussed previously, that's also tied to Ukraine, not only in terms of experienced mercenary cadres being killed in Ukraine, but also in terms of how credible Prigozhin is domestically, how much of a power broker he can be and how credible he is as an instrument to the Kremlin. Because if we look at the ground in Africa, for instance, the security situation in Northern Mali seems to have deteriorated. Wagner Group assets have

credibly been accused of various crimes in the Central African Republic. So there's this manicured image of Russia as this alternative to the West and Africa, as a security provider who doesn't ask for a human rights record, who's competent and who is not tied to any former colonizer, to put it bluntly. However,

one could ask the question whether at some stage the spotty record of actually creating security zones, of actually being a credible security provider,

might hurt Russian interests in the medium term and what that again then would do to the relationship between the Prigozhin network and the Kremlin. Interesting and something I guess we'll see play out over this year, if not coming years as well. Well, thanks, Nicholas. I really appreciate you being on the podcast today and I've enjoyed the conversation. Thanks for your time. Thanks very much. Thanks for listening and thanks to Gonka Varol for our theme music.