Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that defeating Russia in Ukraine is “impossible by definition”, but insisted he does not seek to expand the war to neighbouring countries such as Poland and Latvia.
In a high-profile interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Putin repeated his claim that invading Ukraine was necessary to stop the country from threatening Russia by joining NATO, denied that he had territorial ambitions across Europe, and insisted he would only send troops into neighbouring countries if attacked first. Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended his war in Ukraine in a two-hour interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that defeating Russia in Ukraine is “impossible by definition”, but insisted he does not seek to expand the war to neighbouring countries such as Poland and Latvia. In a high-profile interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Putin repeated his claim that invading Ukraine was necessary to stop the country from threatening Russia by joining NATO, denied that he had territorial ambitions across Europe, and insisted he would only send troops into neighbouring countries if attacked first. It is absolutely out of the question. You just don’t have to be any kind of analyst, it goes against common sense to get involved in some kind of a global war,” Putin said in the interview posted on social media and Carlson’s personal website on Thursday. “And a global war will bring all of humanity to the brink of devastation. It’s obvious.” During a two-hour interview that saw Putin talk at length about the history of Eastern Europe and Russia, the Russian leader said that his government was in contact with the United States and that a peaceful resolution to the war would only be possible if Washington stopped supplying weapons to Ukraine. “I will tell you what we are saying on this matter and what we are conveying to the US leadership,” Putin said. “If you really want to stop fighting, you need to stop supplying weapons. It will be over within a few weeks, that’s it, and then we can agree on some terms. Before you do that, stop.” Putin said he has “never refused” to negotiate peace with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy but Moscow has not yet achieved its goals in Ukraine, including “de-Nazification”, referring to his claim that Kyiv is committing genocide against ethnic Russians. Asked by Carlson whether he would be willing to release imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as a “sign of your decency”, the Russian leader said a deal is possible and there is “no taboo” on resolving the issue. “We have done so many gestures of goodwill out of decency that I think we have run out of them. No, we have never seen anyone reciprocate to us in a similar manner. However, in theory, we can say that we do not rule out that we can do that if our partners take reciprocal steps,” Putin said. Gershkovich has been detained in Russia since March 2023 on spying charges that Washington has described as “baseless”. The Kremlin said Putin agreed to sit down with Carlson because he presented a less one-sided view of the war in Ukraine. Carlson has repeatedly questioned the rationale for US support for Kyiv, and in a video posted on social media this week, he criticised US media outlets for their “fawning” coverage of Zelenskyy. After his interview with Putin aired, Carlson said in a video posted on his website that anyone who believed Putin would give up Crimea for peace is a “lunatic” and “they want a weak leadership in Russia”. Before the interview, Carlson attracted criticism for travelling to Moscow to interview the Russian leader, with former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accusing the former TV host of being a “useful idiot”.
0 Comments
Russia’s presidential hopeful Boris Nadezhdin has said his bid to run in elections in March has been blocked, and that he will challenge the decision of the election commission in the country’s highest court.
Nadezhdin, a prominent critic of the war in Ukraine, is intent on unseating incumbent Vladimir Putin. But his bid was stymied by the Central Election Commission (CEC), which refused to register him as a candidate, he said on Thursday on Telegram, adding that he would launch an appeal in the country’s Supreme Court.Running on the ticket of the small centre-right Civic Initiative party, Nadezhdin last month submitted the 100,000 signatures required to register as a candidate for the election to be held on March 15-17. However, the CEC had informed Nadezhdin on Monday that it had found flaws in 15 percent of signatures he had collected in support of his candidacy, and that some of the purported signatures were those of dead people. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that the decision by election officials was in line with the rules. “I collected more than 200,000 signatures across Russia. We conducted the collection openly and honestly – the queues at our headquarters and collection points were watched by the whole world,” Nadezhdin said. “Taking part in the presidential election in 2024 is the most important political decision of my life. I am not giving up on my intentions.”Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old municipal councillor who is known for his criticism of Putin, had caught the attention of Russia’s small opposition forces with promises to end the war in Ukraine. Born in Soviet-ruled Uzbekistan to a Jewish mother who was a music teacher and a physicist father – he has spent the last 30 years in Russian politics, working as a councillor in the town of Dolgoprudny outside Moscow. He says Putin, 71, made a “fatal mistake” by launching the invasion and has pledged to end it via negotiation. It was already thought that authorities would not welcome a candidate who would introduce antiwar rhetoric in the race. Putin is almost certain to win re-election to extend his 24-year leadership of Russia, including eight years as prime minister, for at least another six years. He has not allowed real electoral opposition during his rule, with rivals such as opposition leader Alexey Navalny behind bars. Putin will be running as an independent, rather than as the candidate of the governing United Russia party, meaning he needs 300,000 signatures to support his candidacy. He has already collected more than 3.5 million, according to his supporters. Conservative American journalist Tucker Carlson has said on Instagram that his interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin will be aired at 6pm EST on Thursday.
Carlson, who launched his own network on X (formerly Twitter) in June 2023, traveled to Moscow for a sit-down with Putin. The Kremlin confirmed the meeting on Tuesday. The Russian president rarely grants one-on-one interviews to foreign press. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that Putin has “no desire” to speak to Western media outlets that have “completely one-sided” opinions and “aren’t even trying to be impartial.” Carlson said he wanted to talk to the Russian leader because many Western news outlets “lie to their readers and viewers” and are biased in their coverage of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. “That’s wrong. Americans have the right to know all they can about a war they are implicated in,” he said in a video on X on Tuesday. Carlson has been criticized by some politicians and media figures at home and abroad who say his interview with Putin will only amplify Russian “propaganda.” “He parrots Vladimir Putin’s pack of lies about Ukraine,” former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told MSNBC. Newsweek quoted one former and two current members of the European Parliament as saying that Carlson could be banned from visiting the EU for providing “a platform” for Putin. Anyone calling for the arrest of US journalist Tucker Carlson over his plan to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin should themselves be detained, billionaire Elon Musk has suggested. Carlson arrived in Moscow last weekend, saying he intended to show Americans an unfiltered Russian position on the Ukraine conflict and the broader tensions between Moscow and the West. The former Fox News host accused the mainstream media of failing to provide the full picture due to political reasons, and said Musk had promised not to suppress the distribution on X (formerly Twitter) of his planned interview with Putin. There has been speculation about the potential risks to Carlson in his homeland due to his trip to Russia. Malaysia-based conservative blogger Ian Miles Cheong has suggested that he “could become the next Julian Assange,” noting that “politicians and establishment media shills” have been calling for Carlson’s arrest. “Arrest those calling for his arrest!” Musk responded in a post on X. WikiLeaks founder Assange is currently in a British prison, fighting a US extradition request. Washington has indicted him with crimes related to the way whistleblower Chelsea Manning obtained classified materials on the US military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, some of which were damning for the American government. Supporters say Assange, who has not had full freedom since 2012, is being persecuted by the US and its allies for exposing their dirty secrets. He was jailed in 2019 after Ecuador revoked the political asylum that had allowed him to stay at the country’s embassy in London, enabling British law enforcement to arrest him. Some public figures in the US have accused Carlson of harboring sympathies for Putin, and of intending to spread “Russian propaganda” by interviewing him. Even before the goal of Carlson’s visit to Moscow was confirmed, neoconservative writer Bill Kristol urged the US government to prevent the journalist from returning home, “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” Carlson has insisted that he does not like the Russian leader, but said it is important for the American public to hear Putin’s views on the Ukraine conflict and the tensions between Moscow and Washington, considering what’s at stake. He also accused the American government of trying to prevent him from interviewing Putin, a notion that White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed as “ridiculous.” American journalist Tucker Carlson has spent several days in Russia and even attended a ballet performance at the Bolshoi Theatre, Telegram channel Mash reported on Saturday, sharing several photos of the conservative commentator. Carlson allegedly touched down at Vnukovo airport on a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul on Thursday after several hours’ delay, according to the channel. He was later spotted taking in the ballet Spartacus at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. The conservative commentator has yet to confirm the trip and it remains unclear what business he had in Russia. However, rumors of his intention to interview President Vladimir Putin have been circulating since last year.
Despite dominating prime-time ratings for years, Carlson was fired from Fox News in April for reasons that have never been made public. He subsequently launched his own talk show streaming on X (formerly Twitter). While Carlson has been repeatedly demonized by the US media establishment as a “useful idiot” for Moscow – if not a Russian agent entirely – due to his skepticism regarding Washington’s foreign policy and particularly the conflict in Ukraine, the journalist has never previously visited Russia or worked with Russian media organizations.
NATO sees no threat from Russia toward any of its territories, the US-led bloc’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Tuesday during a press conference in Brussels. That’s as several alliance members, including Germany and the Baltic states, have raised concerns of a potential future Russian attack.
Answering questions from journalists following the signing of major new investments in artillery ammunition productions, Stoltenberg stated that, “We don’t see any direct or imminent threat against any NATO ally.” At the same time, he stressed that the bloc nevertheless “closely monitors what Russia does” and has increased its “vigilance and presence in the eastern part of the alliance,” in order to prevent any attacks on allied nations. Meanwhile, German news outlets have reported in recent weeks that Berlin was preparing for a scenario in which Russia launches an “open attack” on NATO as early as the summer of 2025 after securing a major victory in Ukraine. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius also warned on Monday that his country should be ready to respond to a possible Russian attack even though there is no real threat as of now. “Deterrence is the only effective means of positioning oneself against an aggressor from the outset,” Pistorius told ZDF, calling on Germany and its NATO allies to commit to strengthening their military capabilities. Similar concerns have been voiced by other NATO members, such as Estonia, whose Prime Minister Kaja Kallas suggested last week that the bloc has three to five years to prepare for a possible direct confrontation with Russia. Moscow has dismissed any claims that it intends to attack any NATO members as “complete nonsense,” with President Vladimir Putin arguing that Russia has “no geopolitical, economic … or military interest” in doing so. At the same time, the Kremlin has for decades voiced concerns that it was the US and its NATO allies’ continuous expansion to the east that posed an existential threat to Russia. Moscow has cited this expansion, which it believes threatens its national security, as well as the refusal to rule out Ukrainian NATO membership in the future, as some of the key reasons for launching its offensive against Kiev in February 2022. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has invited former US president and potential Republican nominee in the 2024 election, Donald Trump, to visit Kiev.
In his interview with UK’s Channel 4 News on Friday, Zelensky was asked to comment on Trump’s claim that if he returned to the White House, he would be able to put an end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in just 24 hours. “I don't know if his message… will have such [a] positive result,” the Ukrainian leader replied in English. It could be just a “political message” made by a candidate during the “complicated” election period, “but if it's some formula – I have to know it,” he stressed. The reporter then asked the Ukrainian leader if he wanted to invite Trump to arrive in Kiev in person to explain his plan. “Yes, please, Donald Trump, I invite you to Ukraine, to Kiev. So, if you can stop the war during 24 hours I think it will be enough to come, in any day,” Zelenksy said. “Maybe Donald Trump really has some idea, a real idea… he can share it with me, and I think it's OK,” he added. If somebody knows how to stop the conflict with Russia, this information shouldn’t be kept secret from the Ukrainian people, the president insisted. Addressing a crowd of his supporters in Des Moines, Iowa, on Monday night, Trump said, “I know [Russian] President Vladimir Putin very well; I know Zelensky well. I’m gonna get them in; we’re gonna get it solved very quickly.” On Thursday, in his interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, the former US president reiterated his other claim that “Putin would’ve never attacked Ukraine” if he was still in office. When asked about ways to end the conflict in Ukraine last week, Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., suggested that “the only way” to persuade Zelensky to engage in talks with Russia was to “cut off the money” that’s being provided to Kiev by Washington. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, Zelensky tried to brush off concerns that US aid to Ukraine would halt if Trump were back in power. “One man can’t change the whole nation,” he argued. NATO is set to carry out its largest round of war games in decades, with some 90,000 troops from all 31 member states – as well as Sweden – planning to participate. The drills will run for several months, and see training operations held across Europe.
Dubbed “Steadfast Defender 2024,” the exercise will kick off next week and continue into May, Supreme Allied Commander for Europe Christopher Cavoli announced at a Thursday press briefing. “Exercise Steadfast Defender 2024 will be the largest NATO exercise in decades, with participation from approximately 90,000 forces from all 31 Allies and our good partner Sweden,” Cavoli said, adding that the drills would simulate an “emerging conflict scenario against a near-peer adversary.” At least 1,100 combat vehicles are also set to take part in the war games – including 133 tanks and 533 infantry fighting vehicles – in addition to more than 50 naval vessels from aircraft carriers to destroyers. Around 80 helicopters, drones and fighter jets will join them. Cavoli went on to say that the training operations would show NATO’s ability to “reinforce the Euro-Atlantic area via trans-Atlantic movement of forces from North America,” suggesting the drills would rehearse a major US deployment to the continent. In a separate announcement, the bloc said the drill would demonstrate NATO’s ability to “conduct and sustain complex multi-domain operations over several months, across thousands of kilometers, from the High North to Central and Eastern Europe, and in any condition.” Earlier this week, UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said London would contribute 20,000 military personnel to Steadfast Defender, including troops with the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force. British fighter jets, warships and submarines will also take part. The last war games to rival the size of the upcoming exercise came in 1988, at the height of the Cold War, when 125,000 Western troops gathered for the US-led “Reforger” drill. The annual operation was meant to simulate a large deployment of forces to West Germany in the event of conflict with the Soviet Union, but was halted in 1993 following the collapse of the USSR. Last week German media claimed that Berlin was bracing for hostilities with Russia, which it projected could arise as early as summer 2025. Moscow has for decades voiced concerns about NATO’s expansion towards its borders, viewing it as an existential threat. President Vladimir Putin earlier cited Ukraine’s desire to join the bloc as one of the key reasons for the current conflict. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un plans to travel to Russia and meet with President Vladimir Putin this month, the New York Times and Associated Press reported on Monday, citing US and “allied” officials.
According to the NYT, Kim intends to travel to the city of Vladivostok, on Russia’s Pacific Coast, “probably by armored train,” where both leaders would attend the annual Eastern Economic Forum (EEF), scheduled for September 10-13, adding that Kim plans to visit a Russian naval base. Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang have commented on the matter. Kim, who rarely leaves the country and mostly travels by train, last met with Putin in Vladivostok in 2019. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu made a surprise visit to Pyongyang in July, where he and Kim attended a military parade, marking the 70th anniversary of the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War. Shoigu later said that Moscow was open to holding joint drills with North Korea. Shoigu also delivered “a personal message” from Putin to Kim, according to the Kremlin. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un plans to travel to Russia and meet with President Vladimir Putin this month, the New York Times and Associated Press reported on Monday, citing US and “allied” officials. According to the NYT, Kim intends to travel to the city of Vladivostok, on Russia’s Pacific Coast, “probably by armored train,” where both leaders would attend the annual Eastern Economic Forum (EEF), scheduled for September 10-13, adding that Kim plans to visit a Russian naval base. Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang have commented on the matter. Kim, who rarely leaves the country and mostly travels by train, last met with Putin in Vladivostok in 2019. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu made a surprise visit to Pyongyang in July, where he and Kim attended a military parade, marking the 70th anniversary of the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War. Shoigu later said that Moscow was open to holding joint drills with North Korea. Shoigu also delivered “a personal message” from Putin to Kim, according to the Kremlin. According to RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan, Former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson has been seeking an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“[Carlson] is strongly requesting an interview with Vladimir Putin,” Simonyan said on a talk show aired by the Rossiya-1 TV channel. “It would be great, if someone listens and notifies the president about this.” Carlson has not commented on the matter. Putin rarely gives one-on-one interviews to foreign media. His last lengthy conversation with a Western journalist was with CNBC anchor Hadley Gamble on the sidelines of the Russian Energy Week forum in Moscow in October 2021. ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’, which aired on Fox from 2016 to 2023, was the highest-rated show on US cable news. Carlson was abruptly fired from the channel in April. According to the journalist, the termination was a condition of the settlement that Fox News reached with the Dominion Voting Systems, which sued the channel for defamation over its coverage of the US 2020 presidential election. Russian authorities have confirmed that a private jet with Wagner Group founder Evgeny Prigozhin listed as a passenger crashed between Moscow and St. Petersburg on Wednesday, killing all on board. What details have been confirmed? The Russian Emergencies Ministry confirmed that the jet plunged to the ground in Tver Region, and that all three crew and seven passengers on board were killed. The ministry said that the jet, an Embraer 135BJ Legacy 600, was traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg at the time of the incident. Rosaviatsiya, the Russian federal air transport agency, said that Prighozhin was on board, along with several high-ranking Wagner commanders. Was the crash caught on camera? Several short clips of the crash have circulated on social media. Videos published by the Mash and Baza Telegram channels appear to show the jet plummeting toward the ground in a seemingly uncontrolled spin, leaving behind a trail of black smoke. It is unclear from the clips which part of the aircraft had caught fire.
After levelling off at 28,000 feet at 6:10pm (15:10 GMT) Flightradar24 says the aircraft continued in level flight at consistent speed until 6:19pm (15:19GMT) at which point the vertical rate decreased dramatically causing the aircraft to descend briefly before climbing to a maximum altitude of 30,100 feet and then dropping to roughly 27,500 feet. Flightradar24 says the plane then climbed once more reaching 29,300 feet and levelling off once again before eventually spiralling into a fall to the ground.
Is Prigozhin definitely dead? Although Rosaviatsiya listed Prigozhin’s name among those aboard, it did not explicitly pronounce the Wagner chief dead. As of late Wednesday evening, Russian officials said that they had recovered eight bodies, though none had been named by that time. All were described as badly burned. Some Russian outlets identified the plane’s tail number as RA-02795, which is believed to belong to Prigozhin. According to flight-tracking site FlightRadar24, a second plane linked to Prigozhin with the tail number RA-02878 departed Moscow shortly after the first, but returned to land after news of the crash broke. None of these reports have been officially confirmed. Who else was on board? In addition to Prigozhin, Rosaviatsiya said Dmitry Utkin – a former Russian special forces operator and alleged co-founder of the PMC – was also traveling on the jet, as was Valery Chekalov, whom the US considers to be the deputy head of Wagner. The remaining passengers listed were Sergey Propustin, Evgeny Makaryan, Alexander Totmin, and Nikolay Matuseev, identified by Russian news outlets as Wagner. Who is Evgeny Prigozhin? A successful businessman in the catering industry and a confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prigozhin founded the Wagner Group, a private military company (PMC), in 2014. Although the Wagner Group was founded in 2014 and took part in hostilities in the formerly Ukrainian Donbass region, Prigozhin refused to confirm his role in the company until last year. Wagner troops have operated in multiple African countries and in Syria, where they reportedly clashed with US forces in 2018. With his troops fighting in the months-long battle for the city of Artyomovsk (known as Bakhmut in Ukraine), Prigozhin made regular statements to the media and publicly feuded with the Russian Defense Ministry earlier this year, accusing top officials of mismanaging the conflict and denying him adequate ammunition. How did Wagner’s mutiny play out? Prigozhin claimed in June that Russian forces shelled a Wagner field camp, where the PMC’s troops had been resting and rearming following the capture of Artyomovsk the previous month. The Wagner founder then announced that he would lead his forces in a march on Moscow to remove allegedly corrupt military officials. Putin described the mutiny as a “stab in the back” and promised “decisive actions” to restore order. However, less than a day after it began, the rebellion was defused thanks to mediation by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Prigozhin agreed that the men who took part in the mutiny would be redeployed to Belarus, while those who refused would be incorporated into units under the control of the Russian Defense Ministry.
Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on winning a third term in office on Sunday. Putin thanked Erdogan for his “personal contribution” to strengthening relations between Russia and Türkiye.
“Your victory in the elections was a natural result of your selfless work as head of the Republic of Türkiye, and is clear evidence of the Turkish people's support for your efforts to strengthen state sovereignty and pursue an independent foreign policy,” Putin wrote in a message to Erdogan. “We highly appreciate your personal contribution to the strengthening of friendly Russian-Turkish relations and mutually beneficial cooperation,” Putin continued, noting the construction of Türkiye’s first nuclear power plant and the creation of a new gas hub as two significant joint projects. “From the bottom of my heart I wish you new successes…as well as good health and well-being” Putin concluded. Erdogan declared victory on Sunday night after beating challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu in a runoff election for the presidency. With more than 99% of ballots counted, Erdogan led Kilicdaroglu by 55.12% of the vote to 47.88%, according to the latest tally from Türkiye’s Anadolu Agency. The Turkish president’s foreign policy – described by Putin as “independent” and Erdogan himself as “balanced” – has seen Türkiye strengthen ties with Russia and China while pushing its NATO allies for concessions, as Erdogan did when he demanded Sweden and Finland lift arms embargoes on his country and deport terror suspects before he would sign off on their accession to the alliance. Türkiye is the sole NATO member that has not imposed sanctions on Russia over its military operation in Ukraine, and Erdogan has taken a neutral stance on the conflict. Under his leadership, Türkiye hosted peace talks between Moscow and Kiev last year, and brokered the Black Sea Grain Initiative. The relationship has not been without its difficulties. Despite Erdogan’s declaration that Türkiye wants a peace deal in Ukraine “as soon as possible,” Ankara has sold Bayraktar TB2 strike and reconnaissance drones and Kipri mine-resistant armored vehicles to Kiev, prompting a rebuke from Moscow this week. Who runs Wagner? Western intelligence agencies have long believed Wagner to be financed by Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s chef” for his lucrative catering contracts with the Kremlin and close ties to the Russian president. Prigozhin is also wanted by the United States for funding the state-backed troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency, which is accused of influencing the 2016 US presidential election in favour of Donald Trump. For years, Prigozhin (who turned a hotdog stand into a food empire after serving serious prison time) vehemently denied the Wagner connection. He sued journalists who made the link, even as he raked in wealth from the group’s deployments overseas in Syria and Africa. Then, in September, Prigozhin finally admitted he owned Wagner, having been filmed touring prisons to offer convicts early release in exchange for six months fighting alongside Wagner in Ukraine. “I cleaned the old weapons myself, sorted out the bulletproof vests myself and found specialists who could help me with this,” Prigozhin said in a statement released by his Concord catering firm. “From that moment, on May 1, 2014, a group of patriots was born, which later came to be called the Wagner Battalion. I am proud that I was able to defend their right to protect the interests of their country.” Experts suspect the Russian state may directly bankroll parts of Wagner too, supplying them with weapons and aircraft and offering training. The French government has accused the Kremlin of “providing material support” to Wagner where it operates in Mali, West Africa, for example. Back home, Wagner’s training base is next door to that of the Russian army, although officially the site is listed as a children’s holiday camp. And there have been cases of Wagner troops evacuated from conflict zones to Russian military hospitals, Currie says, including after that 2018 US air strike on attacking Wagner forces in Syria. “Generally, private military companies would not receive such benefits, specialised military health care, from the state.” In 2021, Russian journalist Ilya Barabanov, along with Nader Ibrahim at the BBC, stumbled upon a discarded Wagner tablet and uncovered a “shopping list” of weapons and equipment the organisation had sent Russian authorities directly. It’s not the only time the group has been careless. In August, a pro-Kremlin war blogger inadvertently revealed the location of Wagner’s main base in eastern Luhansk, Ukraine, when he posted a photo with fighters there. Within days, Ukrainian rockets had reduced it to rubble. Currie recalls seeing the image pop up on open-source intelligence channels, as investigators, both amateur and professional, around the world scrambled to identify its location. “There were clues like a sign on a building we were looking at. Then I woke up the next day and someone had cracked it and the Ukrainians had taken it out.” The casualties for Wagner were reportedly grave. Prigozhin himself had been photographed at the base just before the strike, but he soon resurfaced at a high-profile funeral elsewhere, disproving rumours he’d been killed. Russian outlet Medusa reports that, before the invasion, Prigozhin had somewhat fallen out of favour with the Kremlin, publicly feuding with many of its high-ranking officials and other oligarchs. A large Wagner force was not deployed to Ukraine until the end of the war’s first month, when UK intelligence said more than 1000 mercenaries had joined the fighting. What does Wagner mean for the Ukraine war, and for Putin?
As the first Russian missiles fell on Kyiv, Wagner mercenaries were reportedly already prowling its streets with orders to hunt down Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. (Ukraine’s military later posted photos of dog tags it said belonged to the dead “Wagnerists” whose assassination plots it foiled.) Many months on, Ukraine continues to win back ground, and Russia is increasingly turning to Wagner in tight spots. The private army appears to have been allocated entire sections of the frontline like a normal military unit, according to UK Ministry of Defence intelligence. At times, they are helping command squads. But, while the mercenaries have had greater success against Ukraine’s seasoned fighters of the Donbas (compared to a Russian army beset by low morale and inexperience) the group, and the other rag-tag mix of “volunteers” the Kremlin has deployed to Ukraine, is unlikely to win the war for Russia. Already, Wagner appears to be feeling the pinch of poor co-ordination across the wider Russian military machine. And it is thought to be suffering its heaviest losses of any conflict so far, such is the scale of the fighting. While Currie says there is still strong support for Putin among Wagner channels online, she is seeing frustration too. “We don’t have exact figures of how many Wagner mercenaries died [in the recent strike on their Luhansk base] for example, but it was a lot. Enough to generate frustration. There’s quite a legacy of Wagner mercenaries feeling abandoned to an extent by Russia.” Ex-Wagner fighter Gabidullin, for example, has hit out at the Kremlin for abandoning his team at that US airstrike during the 2018 battle in Syria, and for using Wagner to hide Russian army casualties. Officially, Wagner doesn’t exist. Mercenaries – contractors who fight wars for money rather than as part of an army – aren’t legal in Russia (nor in most countries, including the US and Australia, in light of international bans). But private groups of this kind still operate all around the world, including America’s Blackwater (now known as Academi), whose staff were convicted of killing Iraqi civilians in 2007. Wagner has left its own (much larger) trail of war crimes across the globe, says the chair of the UN working group on mercenaries, Dr Sorcha MacLeod. “Russia is not the only country with a mercenary group,” she says. “We know Turkey has one too, but Wagner, based on what we know about where it’s been and where it operates, seems to be the biggest. It’s really a proxy force of the Russian state.” Wagner is pronounced “Vagner” for Hitler’s favourite composer. It’s also the call sign of the group’s unconfirmed leader, Dmitry Utkin, a former Russian military intelligence lieutenant, Wagner fan and suspected neo-Nazi. Wagner emerged in 2014 as Russia seized Crimea, part of the “little green men” (soldiers in unmarked green uniforms) sent in to take Ukrainian territory. Utkin himself was wounded in the fighting that became the long-running war of the Donbas. Unofficially, Wagner mercenaries are sometimes called “the cleaners” or “the orchestra”, known for “making noise” with brutal onslaughts. In Syria, they’ve backed Bashar al-Assad’s regime and guarded lucrative oil fields; in Libya, they joined the forces of rebel general Khalifa Haftar in 2019 after he attacked the UN-backed government in the capital, Tripoli. And across Africa, they’ve been brought in to help military governments crack down on rebellion and terrorist cells (and seize diamond mines). Now in Ukraine, they’re back fighting in large numbers, reportedly “rented out” as a strike team by Russian army units and increasingly acting as a regular part of the military. Using mercenaries means Russia can distance itself from Wagner atrocities – the group often do the Kremlin’s dirty work, experts say – and it helps quell fears at home of Russian soldiers returning in body bags. “It’s about plausible deniability,” says MacLeod. “Russia says – and has said when we’ve sent them allegation letters [over Wagner] human rights violations – that mercenaries aren’t permitted under Russian law, so they can’t be doing that.” Hired guns are not new – popes and kings have used them – and, historically, they’ve been known for brutality. They do not have the same chain of command and oversight that regular armies do. But, in modern times, Wagner has taken that to a new level, says MacLeod. “There are no ID numbers, or uniforms, no accountability. Locals might recognise them as the white guys, or the Russians, even as Wagner, but usually that’s as far as it goes.” Fighters are made to sign non-disclosure agreements and are hired through a complex web of shell companies. In fact, many experts now understand the group as more of a network of Russian military contractors – code for the Kremlin outsourcing – rather than one single business entity. “Of course, for an organisation like this that operates in the shadows, it suits them for there to be speculation about who they are, their size, where they are,” MacLeod says. “That adds to the mystique.” Still, journalists and international investigators such as MacLeod have pieced together a picture of how Wagner operates.
Who (and how) does Wagner recruit? The group typically recruits in code, says researcher Isabella Currie at La Trobe University, offering spots to “musicians on tour for the Wagner Conservatory” or, more recently, for “a picnic in Ukraine”. Sometimes they will pose with violins or other musical instruments in photos from the battlefield. “It’s a joke and everyone’s in on it,” Currie says. “It’s just that the joke is terrifying.” Recruits tend to be ex-military personnel, in their 30s and 40s, often with criminal histories or hailing from small Russian towns without much work. They have a reputation as elite fighters, more seasoned than the typical Russian soldier. The bar for selection and training, though, has been lowered more and more as they take big losses in Ukraine. All up, Wagner is thought to be about 10,000 fighters strong. Its casualties in combat are not recorded publicly and so, as researcher Dr Joana de Deus Pereira writes, mercenaries can “vanish without a name”. Sometimes bodies of slain soldiers are not recovered, or their families are denied agreed compensation, told their loved one wasn’t a soldier at all but was working for a gas company or some other front. Generally, though, the pay and compensation deal is very attractive to recruits – much more than the salary on offer through the Russian army. |
Thank you for choosing to make a difference through your donation. We appreciate your support.
This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesCategories
All
Archives
April 2024
|