Many Russian and international sources suggest that the Russian Federation’s new global superpower gaining tactic of traditional diplomacy has been added by the use of the foreign military groupings (sometimes openly called legionnaires) in various conflicting places in the world
to mark Russia’s presence everywhere around the globe and to enhance its status, prestige both domestically for ordinary Russians as well as to the rest of the world powers, whoever one may consider at this point of the history – USA, China, EU, some other countries. The Russia’s mission has been carried out by a military private company called “Wagner”. The latter has recently received a variety of media coverage. On the one hand, there seems to be a lot of information, but on the other hand, it is not clear what the real facts are and what is the actual reality. The truth is that such a private company does exist. It has thousands of members, and the geographic area of activity outside Russia has expanded according to President Putin’s 20-year-old global power ambitions – to restore at least the Soviet dominant status in large parts of the world; and perhaps with the wishful thinking, to gain even more – to be the sophisticated “quiet” chess player with the bigger goal to make Russia the world hegemony. Obviously, it is important for Russian President Putin to restore the former Soviet Union’s involvement in the world order, that is, to share world power, all the more so as Russia is one of the largest nuclear powers, one of the largest natural resource holders, has the largest territory in the world, but often left out in fundamental decision making in the modern international politics. For the last three decades the main international actors have been the United States, the European Union, China or some other countries, depending on the situation, region, conflict character etc.
What do we know about the military private company called “Wagner”?
Basically, several countries have military private companies and their activities include training for a military in another country, securitization of companies operating in war zones, securing merchant ships in piracy areas, and so on. At the same time, the activities of such companies have given rise to many contradictory views – whether their activities are justified at all and whether they can participate in ordinary battles with one or other party of the conflict. Efforts have also been made to develop international regulations, but common understanding has not been achieved for various reasons.
The Russian military company “Wagner” has allegedly received its name as one of its leaders Lt. Col. Dmitry Utkin by military call “Wagner”, however, Wagner happens to be Nazi leader Hitler’s favorite composer in history, and of course varied conclusions can be drawn here as they have been done already by mentioning that Hitler Germany allegedly has been one of the role models of the statehood for Mr.Utkin.
The beginning of the activities of the grouping is considered to be related to the events of 2014 in Eastern Ukraine. Undoubtedly, Wagner had a role played in the violent battles in Lugansk and Donetsk when the so-called autonomous regions in Ukraine were set up and refused to surrender to Kiev. It is quite possible that this group had already participated in the “quiet” takeover of Crimea. There is also reason to believe that the Russian military private company was created theoretically through brainstorming for years before and not all of a sudden, overnight in 2014.
Why men join Wagner?
The Soviet Union and, later, Russia has been involved in a series of wars, international and internal. The most important of these were the Soviet-Afghan war in 1980s, the Chechen wars in 1990s. In both cases, the retired military soldiers have been left with various degrees of psychological syndromes, vulnerabilities to adapt to the civil life which in turn had generated in some men the need of military action. In addition to the Afghan and Chechen psychological disorders, the Russian propaganda (especially television and movies) have been militarily biased. There are probably hundreds of war (action) films produced since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The end of the Second World War or for the Russians – the end of the Great Patriotic War is celebrated with extraordinary glorification, military parades, salute.
Thus, “soldiers”, “mercenaries”, “volunteers” continue to go like in the action films the military group “Wagner” abroad and that is happening in a rather paradoxical situation, when Russian annual recruitment of young soldiers to the (domestically located) army, is problematic, there are huge numbers of those who try to bypass the ordinary military service. The more positive foreign military involvement is definitely explained by the necessity of a smaller number of applicants, their activities are also financially compensated and in addition (to some extent) psychological curiosity in participation in mystified secret operations is an important factor here.
Where have the Russian military-experts-security people reached in the world so far?
Besides the Ukraine, “Wagner” has been heavily involved in conflict and civil war in Syria, but in addition to the Middle East, Russia has now taken the very next comprehensive step – in Africa.
Africa is an unusual continent in many ways and for many countries all over the world. For the current US administration of Donald Trump, Africa is perhaps a less important one as the first and foremost policy is the “US First” or “Make America Great Again.” Ambiguous African policy contains only bilateral economic beneficial cooperation principle and not spending any dollars for aid purposes across a large continent. However, any conflicts should be solved beforehand. All in all, the US policy towards Africa means a great emptiness towards that large mass of land with many countries, nations and ideologies that China and Russia are ready to fulfill, albeit in different ways.
China has by far the largest investments in this continent. The European Union, for its part, has been the main donor of humanitarian aid in comparison with other countries and regions of the world. Russia also seems to be interested in Africa by now. It is known that direct investments by the Russian Federation in 2005-2015 had increased by almost 200 percent. About 13 percent of the Russian arms’ sales have gone annually to Africa.
Russia’s New World Order in Africa
The beginning of 2018 seemed to be a peculiar African Spring in Russian diplomacy. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov visited Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola, Ethiopia, Rwanda, South Africa. The Deputy Foreign Minister in turn visited the Congo. Foreign Minister Lavrov took Russia’s commitment to Africa as element of the “New World Order”. Part of the latter is related not so much to the economy, business as to the military aspect. Sudan’s long-standing president, Omar al-Assad, also tried to maintain power with the help of Russian troops, but was overthrown on April 11, 2019. A year earlier, in spring of 2018, the leaders of five African countries – Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mauritania – appealed to Russia for help them to fight with terrorism – against ISIS and Al Qaida.
In the summer of that year, three independent Russian journalists were killed in the Central African Republic (CAR) during the mission to find materials about the Wagner group in that country. There were reportedly thousands of soldiers in the Russian private company in that African state. In addition to the data in the English newspaper The Daily Telegraph, Russia has militarily advised Zimbabwe, and the Russian military group has also been seen in Madagascar, near oil wells.
In April of 2019 Russia sent its 30 men-peacekeepers-unit within the UN international framework to the CAR, to legitimize the presence of Russian military in the country.
In addition, Russia is militarily linked to Libyan political mess; and as a following step – it has also arrived in South America, Venezuela in the beginning of 2019.
At the end of 2018, the Russian President Putin was asked about the military private company Wagner and its foreign activities. President Putin explained that private company “Wagner” was performing as a normal business enterprise within the limits of the labor market. If the laws of the Russian Federation were not violated, all companies (including Wagner) should follow their private business interests at every point of the world at any time. Thus it’s just a business, however, perhaps not related so much to economic interests of a country and its activities.