2/24/23

Wagner's reach

Wagner’s reach

The Russian dictatorship relies on Wagner Group for getting things done abroad. Wagner is Russia’s homegrown private military contractor (PMC), named in honor of Hitler’s favorite composer. Although it has only existed for a few years, it has become a major force within the Russian state’s foreign and domestic operations, much of which revolves around organized crime.

This past Saturday, Politico published the reports of its extensive investigations into the past and present workings of Wagner and its supposed owner, the Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin. The reporting relied on European and American government sources familiar with Wagner. The article is well worth reading.

If anyone exemplifies the modern Russian leadership’s similarity to an organized crime syndicate, it is Prigozhin. To begin with, he came out of the Soviet prison system, apparently with a certain level of gangster street cred. He has profited from Putin’s rise, spotted for years at his patron’s side, invariably described as “Putin’s caterer,” due to his main known line of business. His connections to Putin have helped him become a billionaire.

The Politico article provides the broad outlines of how Wagner operates beyond its paramilitary work, engaging hacker collectives and troll farms in an attempt to influence politics in developed industrial nations. The report doesn’t mention it, but I would not be surprised if Wagner were involved in financial hacking schemes like ransomware attacks on public institutions and companies in the West—probably through obscuring layers of shell corporations.

Most worrisome is how Wagner appears to have helped create a political influence vacuum for developed nations in Africa to work in, and then offered itself and its services to fill the void. As America and Europe’s former colonial powers have lost their nerve in trying to help these countries advance and develop, Wagner has inserted itself into political protection rackets and illicit mining and resource extraction trades, human trafficking, and de facto slave labor.

Wagner has made countries like the Central African Republic (CAR), Mali, Burundi, and Madagascar dependent on Russia and Russian mercenaries. Documents also show Wagner was involved in attempting to turn Mexican politics in a direction more hostile to the U.S. and U.S. interests. The group’s activities in the America’s is not discussed in greater detail, but the Russians have certainly been involved in propping up regimes hostile to the U.S. throughout Central and South America—Wagner has undoubtedly played some role.

As the global analyst Peter Zeihan says, the American public has lost its stomach for positively shaping foreign affairs in our long-term interests. Wagner has helped to speed up the process while offering itself and Russia as brutally effective alternatives.

The Politico report sticks to the Russian and international affairs angles of the story. Yet there is a lot of Wagner’s story that involves extreme violence and depravity, not to mention criminality and what used to be called narco-terrorism. I won’t get into any of that here, either. Suffice it to say, they have been practicing and honing their brutality in dark corners of the world, and we gave them a certain safe space for it by abandoning Syria years ago. When we pull back, others move in and arrange things to work for their own interests and against ours. The resulting instability eventually makes it back to our shores.