Wagner Mercenaries Enter the Spotlight as Russian Troops Struggle in Ukraine
By Yaroslav Trofimov, Aug. 18, 2022, WSJ

In May, Italian TV journalists asked Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about the role Wagner Group, a private military company, was playing as Moscow began its offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas area.

He dismissed the question. Wagner, he said, wasn’t deployed in Ukraine and had no connection to the Russian state.

But, according to Ukrainian commanders, Wagner’s fighters have proven indispensable in Russia’s few successes in Donbas. Once ordered to minimize Wagner’s role, Russia’s official media is awash with reportage about the heroic exploits of the
company, which likes to call itself the “orchestra” and its soldiers “musicians.”

Wagner’s owner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as President Putin’s chef because of his catering contracts with the Kremlin and wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for alleged interference in U.S. elections, has recently been awarded Russia’s
highest merit, the Hero of Russia.

Wagner’s recruitment billboards have appeared on the streets of several Russian cities. “The W Orchestra awaits you,” proclaimed one erected in July in Yekaterinburg, with Wagner’s trademark skull logo on a harmonica in the hands of one of the
fighters.

In all, the company, which also operates under the name Liga in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, has opened recruitment centers in 26 Russian cities, according to Ukrainian military intelligence, and now is expanding its drive to prisons all over
Russia as it seeks to replenish its losses.

“They achieve successes on the front where others shy away,” said Igor Girkin, a former Russian intelligence colonel whose takeover of the city of Slovyansk sparked violence in Donbas in 2014, “because they execute their mission regardless of the
casualties that they take.” Mr. Girkin compared Wagner to the Nazi SS Totenkopf, or Dead Head, division, which didn’t spare its troops in battle—quipping that some Wagner commanders might consider it a compliment.

Mr. Prigozhin, who has been repeatedly photographed at Wagner’s bases in Donbas, said in written answers to questions that he “doesn’t know anything” about Wagner and that Mr. Girkin’s statements “require examining his head to see if it’s
dead.”

The Kremlin and Russia’s Ministry of Defense didn’t reply to requests for comment.

Russia’s new reliance on Wagner stems in part from the fact that elite Russian units that would otherwise carry out such missions have been battered near Kyiv because of Moscow’s miscalculations in the early weeks of the war, said retired Ukrainian
Maj. Gen. Victor Yahun, a former deputy chief of Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service.

“The Russian Federation has a huge problem with motivated units. The only motivation that remains is money,” he said. “They have nobody left for storming and breakthroughs, and Wagner is their only combat unit that does it without asking any
questions—even if it takes losses of 10% to 15% after every mission.”

Wagner fighters are paid vastly better than the regular Russian troops. According to a research note by Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence service seen by The Wall Street Journal, Wagner troops receive 350,000 rubles, equivalent to $5,790, a month,
plus premiums of 150,000 to 700,000 rubles depending on mission success and role, with additional bonuses for killing Ukrainian soldiers. Wagner’s own advertisements on social media mention a starting pay of 250,000 rubles.

In May, the main Russian offensive in Donbas stalled near Izyum and Russian attempts at a pontoon crossing of the Siverskyi Donets River ended in a rout. Then, Wagner’s men finally managed to break Ukrainian fortifications near the town of Popasna.
That allowed Russian forces to fan out in what they called “flower of Popasna” offensive in the following weeks, taking the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. Wagner captured the Vuhlehirsk power station in July and, according to Russian and
Ukrainian officials, now is spearheading the fighting to break Ukraine’s next line of defenses in the city of Bakhmut.

“They bleed just like everyone else, they fall like everyone else, but you do feel their level of preparation,” said Ukrainian Capt. Oleksandr Buntov, who commanded a reconnaissance unit engaged in close combat with Wagner in Popasna and later near
Lysychansk. “It’s not the usual Russian infantry. They know reconnaissance, and you can see it from how they walk and how they move. They also know how to call in artillery and air support.”

While Wagner fought against Ukrainian forces in Donbas as early as in 2014, the company’s main focus over the past eight years has been in Syria, Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic, where it often offered its services to Russian-backed
leaders in exchange for a share of natural-resource revenues, according to U.S. officials. “They are professional killers who work in coordinated groups, and it’s not the first war for them,” said Ukraine’s national security adviser, Oleksiy
Danilov.

Unlike other, smaller private Russian military companies that also operate in Ukraine, such as Redut and Patriot, Wagner has its own tanks, heavy artillery, air defenses and multiple-launch rocket systems. It also operates combat aircraft. At least two
jets piloted by Wagner staff—a retired Russian major general and a retired Belarusian colonel—have been shot down by Ukrainian forces near Popasna. The major general, Kanamat Botashev, was fired from the Russian military and fined 5 million rubles in
2013 after he took an Su-27 jet fighter on an unauthorized joy ride and crashed it.

In the Ukrainian battlefield, Wagner soldiers today operate under the overall command of the Russian military unit responsible for the area, and are integrated into the Russian military’s logistics chain, according to GUR. “It’s a mistake to call
them a private military company—Wagner is just another way of serving in Russia’s armed forces,” said Mr. Yahun.

Part of Wagner’s recent coming out has been dictated by its recruitment needs after heavy losses in Donbas. Some of these casualties have been caused by the company’s new hunger for publicity: A deadly Ukrainian strike on the company’s base in
Popasna on Saturday was made possible by Mr. Prigozhin’s posing for photos with a Russian military correspondent outside the facility. These photos, posted by the correspondent online, allowed the Ukrainian artillery to easily identify the building,
according to Ukrainian officials. The administrator of Wagner’s Telegram social-media channel was among those killed in that strike, according to posts by other Wagner fighters.

Wagner’s heavy losses since May and June mean that the group now has to scrape the barrel for new recruits, lowering its once relatively stringent standards. While requirements haven’t changed for mercenaries seeking work in Africa or the Middle East,
those willing to fight in Ukraine no longer have to be healthy, experienced or particularly fit. “They won’t look too much at the norms, just don’t be a complete sack,” explained a Wagner recruitment note on a Russian social-media network.

The requirement for men over 35 years of age is only that they are able to run 1 kilometer in 4 minutes and 20 seconds, and the only medical conditions precluding service are HIV and hepatitis, according to the notice. The requirement for healthy teeth
has been waived and a criminal conviction no longer is a problem, as long as it wasn’t for sex crimes, the note said.

In fact, according to Russian prisoner-rights groups, the country’s detention facilities have now become a prime recruitment ground for Wagner units in Ukraine. Mr. Prigozhin, who himself served time in prison in Soviet times, has been personally
touring detention facilities, with his Hero of Russia star on his lapel, promising inmates freedom and money in exchange for going to war, Russian prisoner-rights groups say.

Andrey Bogatov, a senior member of Wagner and another holder of the Hero of Russia award, this month confirmed the prisoner recruitment, saying that Wagner cares for the lives of its troops “regardless of whether they are former soldiers or former
convicts.”

Mr. Prigozhin, in written answers to questions, said that he hadn’t just visited prison facilities but himself spent 10 years behind bars.

In Russia’s detention facilities, inmates are told by Wagner that their convictions would be wiped out after six months of service in Ukraine, even though no such procedure is available under Russian law, said Olga Romanova, head of the Russia Behind
Bars prisoner-rights organization.

“This situation is completely outside any legal field,” she said. Few of these prisoner recruits have any military experience because, as a rule, they have been in and out of detention facilities since teenage years, Ms. Romanova added. Some 200 such
inmates have already died in Ukraine since Wagner began deploying them to the front lines last month, she said. “They are just cannon fodder.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/wagner-mercenaries-enter-the-spotlight-as-russian-troops-struggle-in-ukraine-11660826515

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