Wagner Group

Sean McFate, a former private military contractor, reveals what he has learnt from speaking to mercenaries from Russia's infamous Wagner Group and studying ...

Zelensky comes out to make videos but only for like two minutes and then he disappears, because the Ukrainians are smart – if he gets killed, the resistance movement may die with him. “The mercenary world is very broad, with a lot of charlatans, but at the very top of the pyramid there are some very effective hunter-killer teams. The Wagner Group could be used to sight out targets for flattening.” There are parts of the world I just can’t travel to anymore.” The privatisation of warfare is as old as warfare itself. Wagner’s rank and file, says McFate, are “paid fairly well compared to a typical Russian soldier”, perhaps receiving around 180,000 rubles a month. All the doors are closed to you, in fact you’re a criminal in most places in the world… Some are just doing it for the adventure, for the money,” he says. as a fifth column in front of the Russian invasion”. These are the saboteurs that Ukraine has been trying to hunt down while imposing a curfew on its capital. This makes me very afraid for what could happen in the coming days and months of this conflict.” “Because if they wiped out 30 children on the way to kill President Zelensky, Putin will try to say: ‘It wasn’t us, it wasn’t the Russians, it was these overzealous pro-Russian patriots – and we condemn that in the strongest language possible’. The Wagner Group provides ‘plausible deniability’.” They travelled to the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine later that year, aiding pro-Russian forces.