On the chest - Golden stars for Palmyra. On Heroes of the Fatherland Day, the President's congratulations were received in the Kremlin by Wagner PMC commander Dmitry Utkin and his deputy. On the chest - Golden stars for Palmyra Utkin PMC

The name of the mysterious Wagner, a former Russian officer who created the largest private military company (PMC) in Russia, has again surfaced in the media. It is this PMC that is credited with the destruction of a number of out-of-control field commanders of the DNR/LNR. And now Wagner has allegedly moved away from Donetsk affairs and is solving issues in Syria. "Strana" tells everything that is known about the mysterious Russian commander.

Came from Crimea

According to the Russian website Fontanka, Wagner is a reserve lieutenant colonel Dmitry Utkin. He is 46 years old.

"A professional military man, until 2013 - the commander of the 700th separate detachment of the GRU of the Ministry of Defense stationed in Pechory, Pskov Region. After being transferred to the reserve, he worked at Moran Security Group, a private company specializing in the protection of ships in pirate-prone areas. When MSG managers in 2013 In 2014, they organized the "Slavic Corps" and sent it to Syria to protect Bashar al-Assad, participated in this expedition. Since 2014, he has been the commander of his own unit, which, according to his call sign, received the code name PMC "Wagner," the site writes.

The Russian nationalist publication Sputnik and Pogrom claims that Wagner's activities began in the Crimea.

"Their groups worked together with the army units - they disarmed the Ukrainian army and took control of objects on the territory of the peninsula. PMC (private military company. - "Strana") was ideally suited for a new hybrid war - well-trained fighters, while not formally connected with the Armed Forces RF," writes SIP.

It is impossible to claim that the information is reliable. People's Deputy Julius Mamchur, who was a direct participant in the Crimean events, said in a comment to Strana that he had never heard of Wagner's activities in Crimea.

Cleansing commanders and "cauldrons"

But if there may still be doubts about Crimea, then everyone is talking about the participation of Wagner fighters in the Donbass, including the sources of Strana.

“After the almost bloodless Crimea, the Wagnerites quickly found work in the Donbass. The mercenaries organized rebel groups and reinforced them. Several dozen professional fighters could not turn the tide of the conflict, but became the core for many initially inexperienced militias. territories of two regions, paralyze the work of local authorities, seize arsenals and gain full control over the street," writes Sputnik and Pogrom.

But since the beginning of 2015, there have been rumors that it is the Wagner group that is behind the liquidation of a number of well-known, but out of control, figures of the separatist movement, as well as the so-called "wild militias" - gangs of scumbags engaged in robberies. Among others, the liquidation of the Batman group and the operation against the Cossacks of ataman Kozitsyn were mentioned.

And the Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov adds Alexei Mozgovoy and Pavel Dremov to this list. Naturally, this cannot be said for sure, but the version that it was the Russian special services of PMCs that cleared the “republics” of impudent and uncontrollable commanders and simply lawless people was initially very common on both sides of the front line.

As Strana found out, the Wagner group includes not only Russians, but also Ukrainians. Most of the latter are natives of Donbass. As Strana's sources in the ranks of the separatists say, Wagner pays a good salary - it all depends on the complexity of the operation and length of service. But the price, in any case, is measured in thousands of dollars. “I won’t name the exact amount, but it’s clearly more than the salary of the Minister of Defense of Ukraine. But for many who fight there, it doesn’t matter how much money. These are people who just love to fight. After the war, it’s very difficult for people to socialize. , some commit suicide. Therefore, when they are offered to do their usual work in PMCs, many agree," a source in separatist circles told us.

PMC Wagner is a structure, on the one hand, associated with the state, on the other hand, it also receives private donations. "On the one hand, Wagner is integrated into the GRU, and on the other hand, money and private structures are being poured into it," says the interlocutor of "Strana" and adds that PMCs enter the business where regular Russian troops cannot be used.

“These are very well-trained people, with a strong ideological foundation,” our interlocutor continues. “A random volunteer will not get there. What is the ideological foundation? The Russian world. There are citizens of Ukraine, Belarusians and, of course, Russians. A large number of Ukrainians should not be surprising - in 1990, 80% of the officers in the special forces and the airborne forces were Ukrainians. There are also Ossetians and Abkhazians there. But the backbone is Russians and Ukrainians."

According to our source, the list of PMC tasks is extensive. We are talking about both "cleansing" from objectionable and unbridled field commanders, and about purely military operations. According to the interlocutor of "Strana", the Wagner group also took part in the "closure" of the Debaltsevo cauldron. He did not act alone there - several such PMCs operate in the Donbass.

True, our source categorically denies Wagner's involvement in Mozgovoy's murder. “Wagner has nothing to do with this issue. This is 100%,” he told Strana.

Leaving for Syria

Now Wagner allegedly works in Syria. Fontanka and Russian opposition journalist Arkady Babchenko write about this, in particular.

“Judging by the fact that Fontanka wrote about the Wagner unit, it’s the other way around - PMCs only in form, not in essence. Private military companies are still not an army. They are more focused on performing highly professional tasks than on storming cities. These tasks are closer to those of sabotage and reconnaissance groups," says Babchenko.

Russian media write that the Wagner group was the first to start recruiting fighters for the war in Syria. According to Gazeta.ru, several fighters of this PMC could have died near Palmyra.

The Fontanka website claims that the Wagner training base is now located in the Krasnodar Territory near the Molkino farm. Gazeta.ru confirms the same information, adding that before the start of the Syrian campaign, the training ground was seriously modernized, and new equipment worth more than 50 million rubles was supplied to the training site.

From time to time, the issue of legalizing PMCs is raised in Russia, but the matter has not come to practical implementation. Not so long ago, the government of the Russian Federation declared the inadmissibility of legalizing private military units, pointing out that the existence of such units is prohibited by the Constitution. However, something suggests that this is unlikely to somehow affect Comrade Wagner's further creative plans.

Three Russian journalists - Kirill Radchenko, Alexander Rastorguev and Orkhan Dzhemal - were killed in the Central African Republic (CAR) on Monday, July 30. The Russians went there to investigate the activities of the "private military company Wagner". Journalists and activists have collected a lot of information about her bit by bit over the past few years. DW presents all the most important things we have learned so far.

What is PMC Wagner

The Wagner Private Military Company or the Wagner Group is an unofficial military organization that is not part of the regular armed forces of Russia and does not have legal status on its territory. The military units of PMC Wagner numbered at different times and according to various sources, from 1350 to 2000 people. According to sources in the German newspaper Bild in the Bundeswehr, the total number of mercenaries reaches 2,500 people.

Officials in Russia deny the existence of PMC Wagner. The Kremlin only admits that privately, Russians can participate in hostilities abroad. Mercenary activity is prohibited by Article 359 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, however, proposals are made in the State Duma and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation to legalize private military companies in Russia. Speaking about the goals of Russian journalists in the Central African Republic, the state media of the Russian Federation reported that they were "filming documentaries in the republic about the life of this country."

Where did Wagner come from and what are Prigozhin's interests

Dmitry Valeryevich Utkin "Wagner", born in 1970, is considered the head of the private military company of the same name. Apparently, he took up this activity after his dismissal from the post of commander of the 700th separate special forces detachment of the 2nd separate special forces brigade of the GRU, stationed in Pechory, Pskov region. A copy of the report on his dismissal is on the Web. Nothing is known about its authenticity, but there were no denials either. In 2016, Utkin was seen at a special reception in the Kremlin for the military, distinguished by special heroism. Since June 2017, Utkin has been under US sanctions; the list of the US Treasury states: "Associated with Wagner's private military company."

One of the sources of funding for PMCs in the media is called secret items of expenditure of the Russian Ministry of Defense, as well as businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He is also called "Putin's cook". As RBC found out, Yevgeny Prigozhin participated in several tenders to ensure the maintenance of the base of the Wagner group.

Prigozhin himself, who is also under US sanctions, denies any connection with the Wagner PMC. There is only circumstantial evidence of his involvement. Since the winter of 2016-2017, the Russian company Evro Polis LLC has become interested in the development of gas and oil fields in Syria. According to RBC and Fontanka, she is affiliated with Prigozhin.

In the summer of 2017, Euro Polis entered into an agreement with the Syrian state concern that it would be engaged in the protection and extraction of energy resources at local fields and receive at its disposal a quarter of the volume extracted from those towers that it recaptured from ISIS militants, AP reported with reference to for a copy of the agreement. Security functions, it is believed, should be taken over by Wagner PMC fighters.

Where did Wagner's mercenaries fight?

She grew up, as it is believed, from the Slavic Corps military company, which performed combat missions in Syria back in 2013. The future head of the PMC, Dmitry Utkin, call sign "Wagner", also belonged to the "Slavic Corps". The first evidence of the activities of PMC Wagner was recorded by the Ukrainian special services in May 2014 in the Donbass. In October 2017, the head of the SBU of Ukraine, Vasily Hrytsak, announced the involvement of the "Wagnerites" in the destruction of the military transport Il-76 in eastern Ukraine in June 2014, the storming of the Donetsk airport and the fighting near Debaltseve. There is no independent confirmation of this information.

Since the second half of 2015, evidence of the activity of Wagner PMCs has appeared only in Syria. It is believed that its fighters, in particular, actively participated in the first and second assaults on Palmyra in 2016 and 2017. Since June 2017, the goals of the mercenaries, as reported by the Russian media RBC and Fontanka, have changed. "Fontanka" wrote that the Russian Ministry of Defense has sharply reduced the supply of weapons to PMCs, transferring only obsolete samples.

Allegedly, PMCs were offered to receive funding in Syria itself, including through the capture and protection of oil and gas fields. In this regard, it is noteworthy that the attack in the area of ​​the Syrian village of Husham, allegedly with the participation of "Wagnerites", was carried out in the area of ​​​​an oil field and, according to some information, was aimed at capturing it.

Interests of Russian PMCs in Africa

The interest of Russian mercenaries in the region was recorded after negotiations between the top Russian leadership and the leaders of Sudan and the Central African Republic in the fall of 2017. According to the British BBC, traces of Wagner PMCs have been seen in Sudan since the end of 2017. Russian journalist Alexander Kots published a video with a Russian instructor training soldiers in Sudan, with the caption "everyday life of a Russian PMC."

According to The Bell, about 100 mercenaries are training Sudanese military units. In exchange, according to the publication, M Invest and Meroe Gold, associated with Yevgeny Prigozhin, signed concession agreements for gold mining in this country.

But armed people from Russia were also seen in the neighboring Central African Republic, and it is possible that we are talking about a new PMC that is not associated with the Wagner group. Officially, it is only known that Russia is studying the possibilities of "mutually beneficial development of the natural resources of the Central African Republic. In 2018, the implementation of prospecting mining concessions began," as the Russian Foreign Ministry said at the end of March.

The Foreign Ministry also said that Moscow "free of charge" supplied for the needs of the Central African army in late January - early February "a batch of small arms and ammunition, and also sent 5 military and 170 Russian civilian instructors to train CAR military personnel.

The first that “civilian instructors” could be members of Russian PMCs was reported by the French radio station Europe1, the AFP agency and the publication Le Monde. According to them, the Russians chose the estate of the former leader of the country, Bokassa, 60 kilometers from the capital Bangui, as their base. An AFP correspondent who was on site said he was unable to take photos or videos.

Private army fighters: who are they

The recruitment of mercenaries, judging by the information about the dead, was going on throughout Russia. Many of those killed in Syria had previous experience of fighting in eastern Ukraine. This is confirmed by both relatives and acquaintances of the dead mercenaries. According to the Ukrainian SBU, there are 277 people who fought in both "hot spots".

Recruitment of private military personnel appears to have been not limited to Russia, but also among the residents of separatist-controlled parts of eastern Ukraine. According to the SBU, as of October 2017, 40 fighters with Ukrainian passports served in the Wagner PMC. Similar information, without specifying exact figures, was previously cited by several Russian media outlets.

How they accept and how much they pay mercenaries

Mercenaries hired by PMCs sign a non-disclosure agreement. The St. Petersburg publication Fontanka reported the most details about the work of PMC Wagner, which claims to have some of the company's internal documentation. Referring to published copies of documents, Fontanka claims, in particular, that all applicants fill out questionnaires with personal information, a photograph, undergo a polygraph test and receive from 160 to 240 thousand rubles a month for their work.

Ruslan Leviev, founder of the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), an activist group that monitors the actions of the Russian military in Syria, clarifies that salaries depend on skills, goals and the location of the operation. During training in Russia, according to CIT, the salary ranges from 50 to 80 thousand, during foreign operations - 100-120 thousand, in the event of hostilities - 150-200 thousand, in the case of special campaigns or major battles - up to 300 thousand .

Where do mercenaries train?in Russia

The "Wagner Group", according to numerous testimonies, is training at a military base near the Molkino farm in the Krasnodar Territory, directly adjacent to the 10th separate brigade of the GRU special forces of the RF Ministry of Defense (military unit 51532). There is no information about other training points.

Losses among mercenaries

The calculation of losses among the "soldiers of fortune" is complicated for a number of reasons: this is the illegal status of PMCs and its fighters, and the company's formal non-accountability to government agencies, and a non-disclosure agreement. As a result, the relatives of the victims often find out about the incident only a few weeks later. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation refuses to record losses among mercenaries.

In October 2017, the SBU provided data on 67 dead, who had experience of military operations both in the Donbass and in Syria. As of December 2017, the Fontanka journalists estimated the total number of established casualties since the beginning of the participation of mercenaries in hostilities in Syria at 73, the CIT team at 101 people.

See also:

• From spring to war

  In early 2011, the "Arab Spring" reached Syria, but the first peaceful demonstrations were brutally suppressed by the police. Then, starting on March 15, mass protests began to flare up across the country demanding the resignation of Bashar al-Assad. It was hardly imaginable that those events would set off a conflict that would drag on for eight long years and claim the lives of nearly half a million Syrians.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Parties to the conflict

After a wave of mass protests swept through the country, Assad began to use the army to suppress them. In turn, opponents of the regime were forced to take up arms. The conflict also included groups of national minorities (for example, the Kurds) and Islamist terrorist groups, among which the so-called "Islamic State" stands apart.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

"Caliphate" of terrorists

In April 2013, fighters from the terrorist organization ISIS, formed from a division of al-Qaeda, entered the civil war in Syria. In June 2014, the group announced the renaming of the "Islamic state" and proclaimed "caliphate". According to some reports, in 2015, about 70 percent of the territory of Syria was under the control of ISIS, and the number of militants was 60,000 people.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Cultural heritage as a target for terrorists

The destruction of the ancient oasis city of Palmyra has become a symbol of the barbaric treatment of cultural heritage by ISIS terrorists. In total, more than 300 archaeological sites have been destroyed since the start of the civil war in Syria. In February 2015, the UN Security Council equated the destruction of objects of historical, cultural and religious value by IS militants to acts of terrorism.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Migration Crisis

According to the UN, over the past seven years, 5.3 million Syrians have fled the country. Most of them took refuge in neighboring Turkey (more than 3 million people), Lebanon (over 1 million) and Jordan (almost 700 thousand). But the possibilities of these countries to receive refugees were practically exhausted. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have gone to seek refuge in Europe, sparking a refugee crisis in the EU.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

International coalition against ISIS

In September 2014, US President Barack Obama announced the creation of an international coalition against IS, which included more than 60 states. Members of the coalition launched airstrikes on militant positions, trained local ground forces, and provided humanitarian assistance to the population. In December 2018, US President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of American soldiers from Syria, justifying this with a victory over ISIS.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Islamic Anti-Terrorist Coalition

In December 2015, Saudi Arabia presented its anti-terrorist coalition, consisting of Islamic countries. It includes 34 states, some of which, like the Saudis themselves, are also members of the international coalition led by the United States.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Russian involvement

Since the fall of 2015, the Russian Aerospace Forces have also been carrying out strikes in Syria, according to Moscow, only against ISIS positions. According to NATO, 80% of Russian airstrikes were aimed at Assad's opponents from the moderate opposition. In November 2017, Putin announced the imminent end of his military mission in Syria. The grouping will be reduced, but 2 military bases and some other structures will remain at the disposal of the Russian Federation.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Peace negotiations

On March 14, 2016, on the eve of the 5th anniversary of the start of the civil war in Syria, negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the conflict under the auspices of the UN started in Geneva. The first such attempt in early February ended in failure against the backdrop of the offensive of Assad's army on the city of Aleppo. The second chance appeared after the conclusion of a truce between the parties on February 27 with the assistance of the United States and the Russian Federation.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Use of chemical weapons

According to a joint UN/OPCW report, the Assad regime is responsible for the use of the poison sarin in Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017, and the Islamic State used sulfur mustard during an attack in Oum Hosh in September 2016.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Arrangement for security zones

Since January 2017, in the capital of Kazakhstan, on the initiative of Russia, Turkey and Iran, inter-Syrian negotiations have been held parallel to the Geneva talks on a settlement in Syria. For the first time, representatives of both the Bashar al-Assad regime and opposition forces met at the same table. In May, a memorandum on the creation of four de-escalation zones in northern, central and southern Syria was signed in Astana.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

A year of radical change in Syria

The year 2017 brought radical changes to the situation in Syria. Back in December 2016, Assad’s troops, with the support of the Russian Aerospace Forces, liberated Aleppo, and in the spring of 2017, Homs. And in June, US-Russian agreements were reached to establish the Euphrates River as a dividing line between the Syrian Democratic Forces and Assad's troops.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Defeat of ISIS, but not yet the final victory

In 2018, Assad's troops occupied the strategically important city of Deir ez-Zor and several others. And the opposition "Forces of Democratic Syria" and the Kurdish YPG with the support of the United States - Rakku. On March 3, 2019, a decisive battle took place for the last settlement of Bahgus, which is in the hands of ISIS. After the liberation of the village, only a remote region west of the Euphrates will remain under ISIS control.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Troika in Sochi

In 2017, at a meeting in Sochi, the leaders of Russia, Iran and Turkey, Vladimir Putin, Hassan Rouhani and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, came up with a number of initiatives, calling on Damascus and the opposition to participate in the Syrian National Dialogue Congress, which should pave the way for constitutional reform. In 2019, the leaders of the three states said that control of Syria should return to the government in Damascus.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

New use of chemical weapons in Douma

According to humanitarian organizations, on April 7, 2018, chemical weapons were used again in the city of Duma, the last center of resistance of Islamists and rebels in the region. According to WHO, more than 70 people died during the attack, and 500 residents had symptoms of poisoning. Syrian authorities denied this information. But on March 1, 2019, OPCW experts concluded that chlorine was most likely used in Douma.

Dmitry Utkin, who is considered the commander of Wagner PMC, became the general director of Concord Management and Consulting, the management company of Yevgeny Prigozhin's restaurant holding. Both Utkin and the company are under US sanctions

Dmitry Utkin (left) (Photo: screenshot of the Channel One story)

According to the SPARK-Interfax database, Dmitry Valeryevich Utkin, the full namesake of the alleged Wagner PMC commander, became the general director of Concord Management and Consulting LLC on November 14, according to the SPARK-Interfax database. In this post, he replaced Anastasia Sautina. The surname, first name and patronymic of the new manager coincides with the name of the alleged commander of the Wagner PMC.

RBC sent an official request to representatives of Yevgeny Prigozhin. An RBC source close to Prigozhin confirmed that this is the alleged commander of the Wagner PMC.

Concord Management and Consulting LLC, according to information on the company's website, is part of Concord Group of Companies (co-owner is St. Petersburg businessman Evgeny Prigozhin). The firm is the managing company of Prigozhin's restaurant holding. She owns several restaurants in Moscow (River Palace ship-restaurant) and St. Petersburg (Russian Ampir, Russian Kitsch, Polenta), as well as the Chocolate Museum chain of boutiques. In addition, Concord Management and Consulting is building the Northern Versailles settlement near St. Petersburg. “According to the idea, it will be a palace and park ensemble in the spirit of the residences of the monarchs of past centuries,” the company’s website says.

Prigozhin's company "Concord M" supplies food for the Administration of the President of Russia. Businessman 90% of lunches in Moscow schools, related structures for cleaning in the barracks and educational institutions of the Ministry of Defense.

The St. Petersburg edition of Fontanka repeatedly called Utkin the commander of Wagner's private military company. For the first time, as RBC sources told, the Wagner group appeared in the Middle East shortly before Russia began to officially deploy its military bases in Syria. Almost 2.5 thousand people served in the group. The participation of PMC Wagner in the Syrian campaign was first reported by Fontanka in October 2015. According to Fontanka and The Wall Street Journal, Wagner fighters also took part in the battles in southeastern Ukraine on the side of the self-proclaimed DNR and LNR.

Wagner, according to Fontanka, is Utkin. The group commander is a reserve officer and previously served in the Pskov brigade of the GRU. In December 2016, Utkin was invited to a reception in honor of the celebration of Heroes of the Fatherland Day in the St. George Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Utkin was present at the reception. “I don’t know how he is known, Dmitry really was. He is a holder of the Order of Courage, he was from the Novgorod region, ”Peskov.

Dozens of mercenaries from a Russian private military company. There is no official data on this, as well as on the number of dead and wounded: the numbers given in the media vary from “dozens of dead” to 200 people. If so, then this is the largest one-time loss of Russia during the Syrian campaign. Who carried them?

What is PMC Wagner

For the first time, Fontanka wrote about the private military company (PMC) Wagner and its participation in the Syrian war in October 2015. In 2013, Russian managers of the private military company Moran Security Group, Vadim Gusev and Yevgeny Sidorov, formed a detachment of 267 "contractors" to "protect fields and oil pipelines" in warring Syria, according to the publication's sources. The detachment received the name "Slavic Corps". Its participants subsequently formed the “Wagner Group”, which, according to the publication, took part in the hostilities in Ukraine on the side of the LPR and DPR and participated in the disarmament of Ukrainian military bases in Crimea. In the investigations of several media at once, it was said that the training of the fighters of this PMC takes place in Krasnodar, at the Molkino training ground - this camp began to function around the middle of 2015.

At the end of 2015, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) wrote about the participation of the “Wagner group” in the battles on the side of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, also citing sources. In the same article, WSJ journalists spoke about the death of nine people from the "Wagner group" in Syria.

In 2016, from 1,000 to 1,600 PMC employees were in Syria at the same time, depending on the tension, RBC magazine wrote, citing a source familiar with the operation.

Who leads the PMC

The founder of the "Wagner group", as various media wrote, is Dmitry Utkin with the call sign "Wagner". Reserve officer, until 2013 he commanded the 700th separate detachment of special forces of the 2nd separate brigade of the Special Forces of the GRU of the Ministry of Defense. After being transferred to the reserve, he worked at the Moran Security Group, participated in the Syrian expedition of the Slavic Corps in 2013. Since 2014, Utkin has been the commander of his own unit, which, according to his call sign, received the code name “Wagner PMC”. Since the autumn of 2015, its activities have been transferred to Syria. There, as the RBC magazine wrote, the “Wagner group” was secretly supervised by the GRU (now called the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation).

What are the losses of Russia in Syria

In December, during a surprise visit to the Khmeimim base, Vladimir Putin solemnly announced the start of the withdrawal of Russian wars from Syria. By that time, there were official losses of the Russian army in Syria. But, according to Reuters, in just 9 months of 2017, at least 131 people died in Syria (officially - 16 people).

Where did this number come from? Reuters obtained a certificate of death of Russian citizen Sergei Poddubny, issued by the consular department of the Russian Embassy in Syria on October 4. The reference number is 131. The numbering of such certificates is updated annually, the consulate informed the agency. This means that the number of each certificate corresponds to the number of deaths registered by the consulate so far since the beginning of the year. The consulate also stated that they do not register the death of military personnel. Members of the "Wagner Group" are not military personnel. The Ministry of Defense never comments on her losses.

Are PMCs legal in Russia

Mercenary in Russia is prohibited, the military can only work for the state. For participation in armed conflicts on the territory of another country, the Criminal Code provides for up to seven years in prison (Article 359), for recruiting, training and financing a mercenary - up to 15 years.

But the activities of PMCs in Russia have been trying to legalize for many years. The latest initiative is quite recent - in mid-January, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on State Construction and Legislation, Mikhail Yemelyanov, announced that a bill on PMCs would be submitted to the lower house within a month. A little earlier, the creation of a legislative framework to protect the interests of Russian mercenaries was supported by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

It is assumed that the law will allow PMC fighters to be involved in counter-terrorist operations abroad, as well as in the protection of various objects such as oil and gas fields. PMCs will be banned from developing, buying or storing weapons of mass destruction. But the law was going to provide for social guarantees for Russians who work for PMCs - now they officially do not have any rights and benefits provided for contractors.

Anastasia Yakoreva, Svetlana Reiter

Editorial note. Continuing the topic of methods, tactics and means of the Kremlin's hybrid warfare, we also publish an investigation by the Russian publication Fontanka about the private military company Wagner (PMC Wagner).

Editorial note . Continuing the thememethods, tactics and means of the Kremlin's hybrid warWe also publish an investigation by the Russian edition of Fontanka about the private military company Wagner (PMC Wagner). What are the only testimonies about the methods of disposal of her cannon fodder - growth attacks and huge losses are included.

Russia's losses in Syria number in the dozens of dead. But the press service of the Ministry of Defense is not lying: the fighters do not belong to the military department. Nevertheless, landsknechts from PMC Wagner receive real military orders.

The fighters of the non-existent de jure private military company suffer losses in Ukraine and Syria, and at the same time do not spoil the official statistics. There are dates of life and death on the grave crosses, but they speak about the place of the last battle in an undertone and only among their own. Fontanka found out where you can see the truthful list of Russian losses - in decrees not published anywhere signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The battalion with heavy infantry weapons and armored vehicles, known as the "Wagner PMC", does not formally exist. Such a unit cannot be found either in law enforcement agencies or in the register of legal entities; fighters are absent in the formal lists of personnel. It cannot exist: in Russia there is no law on private military companies, and there cannot be a civil organization that has armored combat vehicles, portable anti-aircraft systems and mortars in its arsenal. But she is.

Formed on the basis of the “Slavic Corps”, battered in Syria in 2013, the conditional PMC under the command of a man with the call sign “Wagner”, according to Fontanka, has been operating in the Crimea since the spring of 2014, and then on the territory of the Luhansk region.

Since the autumn of 2015, the main efforts have been transferred to the territory of Syria. Her story can be read in Fontanka's investigation "Slavic Corps Returns to Syria" .

Not everyone believed that story about the "semi-legendary" PMC. Skeptics have few words of nameless fighters, they demand names and supporting documents. Fontanka is ready to provide them.

"Wagner"

Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Utkin, 46 years old. A professional military man, until 2013 he was the commander of the 700th separate special forces detachment of the 2nd separate brigade of the Special Forces of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense stationed in Pechory, Pskov Region. After leaving the reserve, he worked for the Moran Security Group, a private company specializing in the protection of ships in pirate areas. When MSG managers organized the "Slavic Corps" in 2013 and sent it to Syria to defend Bashar al-Assad, he participated in this failed expedition. Since 2014, he has been the commander of his own unit, which, according to his call sign, received the code name “Wagner PMC”.

Known for his commitment to the aesthetics and ideology of the Third Reich, hence the call sign in honor of the mystic composer. In Lugansk, the personnel shocked, changing the usual field panama for a steel helmet of the Wehrmacht, but the commander's quirks are not discussed.

Allegedly killed in January 2016 near Donetsk Ozeryanovka, but in fact he is alive and well. Now he is either in Syria or in a training camp in Molkino.

He does not like to be photographed, but we found him on old frames.

Dmitry Utkin (Wagner)

The officer with the call sign "Chub" (or "Chupa") is the deputy commander for combat training. Unlike the Wagner, which is not favored for its adherence to straightforward tactics in the style of “Machine guns are not machine guns - checkers are naked”, “Give me a position, you son of a bitch!”, “Chub” earned the sincere respect of the personnel: “There would be more commanders like that, and it would be all right. He thought with his head and did not send people for meat.

Sergei Chupov

Real name - Sergey Chupov, 51 years old, reserve major. Killed near Damascus. Ruslan Leviev's Conflict Intelligence Team and RBC told about his death. They traced the life path of the major: a combined arms school in Alma-Ata, Afghanistan as part of the 56th separate airborne assault rifle, transfer to the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 46th brigade, Chechnya, and in the late 1990s - transfer to the reserve.

Sergey Chupov was buried on March 18, 2016 at the cemetery near Moscow Balashikha, on the plate the date of death is February 8, 2016.

Both CIT investigators and RBC journalists suggested that Chupov could have reinstated his service in the Armed Forces and participated in the Syrian conflict as an officer of the Special Operations Service or some kind of "negotiator".

Apparently, this is not the case. According to Fontanka, Sergey Chupov has been in the Wagner group since its formation. He did not work for Moran Security and was not in the Slavic Corps, but already in May 2014, together with Utkin and a group of veteran instructors (almost all former MSG employees), he flies from Moscow to Rostov, and from there he leaves for the Vesely farm , next to which the first PMC training base is being equipped (later the camp will be moved to Molkino, Krasnodar Territory).

Data on the time of death also differ. February 8, 2016 is indicated on the grave cross, but according to the recollections of participants in the events, this could have happened in January.

Courage and Courage

The only documentary confirmation of the existence of an informal battalion, somehow recognized by official structures, Fontanka found in documents signed by the President of Russia.

Fontanka was told that Wagner fighters receive state awards for military operations in Ukraine and Syria.

“On February 23, on May 9 - in Molkino awarding. A gray-haired uncle arrives in a leather flight officer's jacket, he looks like a Chekist with the rank of no less than a major general. First, to those who are alive in the ranks, to whom the Order of Courage, to whom - "For Courage". Then he reads out those who are not in the ranks - posthumously.

The first reaction of Fontanka was distrust. The established procedure for presenting for awarding medals and orders excludes such a possibility. The submitted documents prove otherwise.

Crosses from Debaltseve

On March 6, 2015, Andrei Elmeev and Andrei Shreiner were buried on the Alley of Heroes of the Banykinsky cemetery in Togliatti. Both of them were 43 years old, both have the same date of death - January 28, 2015. As the site tltgorod.ru reported, “two Togliatti militiamen who died during the armed conflict in the Donbass.”

The graves of Schreiner and Elmeev. Screenshot from tltgorod.ru

This is not entirely accurate. Both Elmeev and Schreiner, indeed, died in January 2015 in the battles near Debaltseve, but they had nothing to do with the real militia. As they had nothing to do with the regular Russian army, since they had been in the reserve for a long time and worked under a contract for Wagner. Their names were read out in the ranks on May 9, 2015: "to award the Order of Courage - posthumously."

Andrey Shreiner

Screenshot from cargo200.org

Andrey Elmeev

The Order of Courage is a common distinction for the fallen Wagnerites, veterans assured Fontanka, so these are not the only orders of PMC employees. There have been mentions of awards before. Thus, there were reports of the posthumous awarding of the Order of Courage to a 37-year-old fighter of the Slavic Corps and PMC Wagner, Vladimir Kamynin from St. Petersburg, who was buried in September 2014 at the Sestroretsk cemetery.

Vladimir Kamynin

Then Fontanka did not find confirmation of the award, but, taking into account new information, it tends to believe in the order.

Crosses from Syria

The tradition is continued on Syrian soil. 38-year-old Don Cossack Maxim Kolganov, comrade of the ataman of the village of Zhigulevskaya, died on February 3, 2016. As reported on the official Internet forum of the Don Cossacks forumkazakov.ru, "when performing a combat mission"; the location of the assignment is not specified.

As far as Fontanka knows, the Wagner PMC fighter, gunner-operator of the BMP Maxim Kolganov performed a combat mission near Latakia. Colleagues of the deceased shared some photos.

Maxim Kolganov at the tactical shooting range in Molkino

Kolganov near Lugansk

Maxim Kolganov. Latakia

Maxim Kolganov

To top it off - a pillow with awards, which was carried in front of the coffin: the medal "For Courage" and the Order of Courage.

Maxim Kolganov's awards

We asked veterans to comment on photos recently circulated online by supporters of the Islamic State banned in Russia. The authors claimed that the photo shows Russians killed in battle.

The group photo, as our experts suggested, was apparently taken not in Syria, but in the summer of 2014 in the Starobeshevsky district of the Donetsk region. One of those present in the photo was identified as a fighter with the call sign “Hose”, who subsequently died in Syria in mid-December 2015: he was blown up by an anti-personnel mine while returning with a group of seven people from a reconnaissance exit.

It was not possible to identify the rest, but, looking at the photo with a fighter on a bunk bed, the veterans recognized the residential module of the Wagner PMC near Damascus.

Photo posted on the Internet of the terrorist organization ISIS, banned in Russia

Invisible Battalion

How many Wagner fighters died in Syria can be said either by the “personnel department” of the PMC, or by the Wagner itself, or by the department of the Presidential Administration, which prepares decrees on posthumous awards. Our interlocutors talk about dozens. The company, which entered Syria in September 2015, left it at the end of December of that year, but, as those who returned, out of 93 people returned alive and unwounded, a third. The main losses began in January - February in the battles for Palmyra. The difficulty of documenting the victims is that even employees in the same platoon do not always know not only the names, but also the names of each other. “Curiosity is not welcome. With whom you chew lead side by side - sometimes they did not know the names. Who did what, who did what, they don’t talk about it, ”Fontanka was told.

In Syria, according to rough estimates, there is a Wagner unit of about four hundred people. All in all, in a ghostly PMC of personnel and weapons, as in a reinforced battalion, or, as they say now, a battalion-tactical group. When the journalist, asking, suggested that a detachment of 250-300 people had been formed in Molkino, he caused sincere laughter from the interlocutor:

“Are you kidding me? Count. Three reconnaissance and assault companies, each with 90 to 100 people. Three platoons with LNG and AGS - fire support company. Air defense company with "Needles". Communication company. Guard squad. Medical unit. Plus civilians - service personnel. Without civilians - 600 people.

Serbian guests

The highlight of the Wagner is a platoon of Serbs, which began to form in the summer of 2014. According to Fontanka's interlocutors, the commander of the internationalist soldiers was a Serb with the call sign "Wolf" named Davor, an old comrade of "Wagner", allegedly their acquaintance began even before Ukraine and even before the "Slavic Corps". Fontanka became interested in the militant foreigner and became convinced that he was an extraordinary person.

Davor Savicic, a Serb citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, now permanently residing in Russia, by the age of 36 managed to survive the charge of blowing up and killing six people in the Bosnian Beranam in 2001, wanted by Interpol, sentenced to 20 years in prison and canceled judgment on formal grounds.

According to eyewitnesses, the Serbs came to Savicic's unit both in 2014 and 2015. Only in the spring of 2015, four acquaintances of Savičić allegedly arrived, leaving the French Foreign Legion for the sake of Wagner.

“I don’t know what Molkino is, I don’t have any connection with Syria at all, I’m from Bosnia and Herzegovina and I’m building in Khimki,” was the answer. The owner of the page with the name Davor Savicic and his photos in his profile and albums claimed that he was not familiar with any "Wagners and Beethovens".

Davor Savicic with Wagner fighters

After the journalist asked him to comment on a photo in which Savicic was captured in the summer of 2014 in the company of Wagner fighters, veterans of the Slavic Corps, known by name to the editors, the version changed slightly. Savicic softened his position, saying that he had actually fought as a volunteer in 2014 near Luhansk, but his campaign allegedly lasted only three days, after which he was shell-shocked when an armored personnel carrier fired at a checkpoint and went to get medical treatment. As for the people with whom he hugs in the photo, they are random acquaintances: “I asked them to call the phone, well, they drank three beers each.”

With forced sincerity, Internet user Davor Savichich assured us that he had not been near Krasnodar since the spring of 2015, when he went there to work on a construction site, and now he is engaged in peaceful construction: “If you need repairs in an apartment, tiles, parquet, contact us.”

The correspondent almost believed him, and probably would have believed him completely if it weren’t for documentary evidence that Savichich visited Molkino no later than January 2016, and in October 2015 he was seen on the same plane and sitting next to Sergey Chupov.

with hostility

The percentage of losses, uncharacteristic for private military companies, as a rule, performing local and highly professional tasks in the combat zone that do not involve going on the attack, those who returned alive explained the “tactics of the Second World War”:

“Only there are not enough bayonets for AK, otherwise it’s just the Second World War. As it was near Debaltseve - people were driven out into the field with equipment, and the team: your task is to take the fortifications, take the checkpoint. And forward, just like meat. When they started laying down on us with a hundred and twenty, with Kords, with RPGs in technology - people ... they just vomited. Straight from the RPG - only the arms and legs remain. Without training in Molkino, no one will be sent into battle, but what they will have time to teach is just elementary shooting so as not to die immediately. Those who have combat experience - they still somehow more or less live, but still, not that.

In Syria, Fontanka was told, the Ura tactics continued:

“What are we doing there? Let's go with the first wave. We direct aircraft with artillery, displace the enemy. The Syrian special forces are cheerfully following us, and then Vesti-24, along with ORT with cameras at the ready, go to interview them.”

Flag of ISIS banned in Russia in the Museum of Novorossiya in St. Petersburg

The last question we managed to ask was about who agrees to go into battle with a fifty-fifty probability for 240,000 rubles a month. The interlocutor assured that there are much more people who want to get to Wagner than there are vacancies:

“Have you left your Petersburg for a long time? In addition to Moscow and St. Petersburg, there is no work anywhere. If you're lucky, then 15-20 thousand a month is considered not bad, and the prices for food, as if we live in Antarctica. There is a queue in Molkino. In general, if PMCs were officially, as abroad, it would be great. With us, we are nobody and there is no way to call.

Screenshot of one of the thematic groups on the VKontakte website