101. Putin's Secret Army: Wagner's Control Of Africa (Ep 4)

17:41David:Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. So, you know, Mozambique, they win the deal, but it doesn't actually go very well. They find there's a pretty big insurgency and they struggle with it. Mali is another one. And again, you know, this goes back to our earlier point. Mali is an interesting one because the French were there to help push out an Islamist insurgency and deployed loads of troops there, but eventually it's going to pull them out. And so kind of Wagner moves into the gap, the French leave the vacuum in Africa in return for mining concessions. But there's some awful, I mean, you know, we shouldn't underplay how awful some of the reports are of massacres, including by Wagner troops of civilians.

18:23David:You know, there's going to be mass graves in villages, you know, where unarmed men are just being killed because they're suspected, you know, the village is linked to so-called rebels. And so, Wagner's going to get a reputation of kind of real violence and human rights.

18:38Gordon:Is it that Wagner's conducting these on its own or is it in collaboration with government forces that it's working with or for?

18:45David:Well, that's also the ambiguities because they're there as trainers or instructors. which we actually know from some of our other episodes, including where the US has been training and instructing the Colombians.

18:55Gordon:You're not comparing the training and instructing of the Colombians to Wagner, are you, Gordon?

19:01David:You do remember our interview. No, no, no, no. But my point was that the definition of training and instructing is quite elastic. You know, you can get very involved in operations when you're technically only there to train. That's my comparison rather than a moral judgment. And I think here, you know, I think it's Wagner who's doing the dirty stuff. And there's going to be, you know, reports of a massacre of more than 300 civilians, and raids on mines and all these kind of awful things associated with Wagner and what it does. But I think just one more fact about Margaret, which I think is really interesting, which is, you know, we focused on the kind of mercenary side of it.

19:39David:But actually, it's more than that, because one of the things that we talked about early on was the kind of fusion of security work and information warfare with the way in which, you know, Prigozian operates. And that's also what he's offering to these governments. So they don't just offer military trainers, instructors, fighters. They also offer political propaganda campaigns. They offer disinformation, social media campaigns on Facebook to attack enemies and support a government. You know, you get a whole package with Wagner.

20:15Gordon:He hasn't rolled the catering up into that.

20:18David:No, I don't think you also get blinis and things like that. Blean Donalds. Blean Donalds. So you get, you know, it's so interesting because you can imagine when Prigozhin goes to see one of these presidents in his wig, probably takes the wig off when he meets him. But he says, like, I'll give you troops. the Russian military will give you weapons I will give you a propaganda campaign you know which will support your regime and will attack your enemies also you get a presidential advisor security bodyguards technical counter surveillance expertise even people who can do polygraphs to check staff for any threats you know this is as we've seen all along Purgosian understanding what a leader wants and then offering it to them.

21:00David:The whole package which fuses kind of propaganda, warfare, kind of what now people often call gray zone activities, just this whole spread of activities. And he's just good at that. And so maybe there with Pregosian having really, I think,

21:18Gordon:perfected this business model, let's take a break and when we come back, we'll see how he tries to use it to increase his standing in the Kremlin and how that is going to make him some very powerful enemies. See you after the break.

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24:44Gordon:Well, welcome back. The informal motto for Wagner. Gordon has become, death is our business and business is good. Wow. Wow. Put it on the t-shirts. Yeah, that's right. That's the merch. So, Purgotin has perfected this kind of stew, hasn't he? I can't help but think, just to bring it back to the man for a second, that he sees all of this as kind of a pitch to Putin for more and more influence and prestige in kind of the court. Yeah, exactly. And one of the things that we, I guess, might be worth reflecting on too at this point is just how effective are these services that he's providing? Because there's a sense where Purgosian, as we've seen, is a pretty effective salesman and PR man, but are his services really changing outcomes on the ground?

25:39Gordon:Or is it more of a way for him, again, we went back, we talked in the last episode about his effort to influence the 2016 campaign and a lot of the sort of the trolling yeah the creation of these online accounts that are used to sort of you know stir the pot in the states it makes a pretty snazzy thing that he could point to with putin and others to say look what i'm doing but is he kind of over his skis yeah when it comes to selling you know his own influence and kind of, I guess, the effectiveness of Wagner.

26:13David:If you look in Africa, it's effective in some countries. He is building his own brand and the brand of Wagner quite effectively. And I think it is part of him trying to get into the inner circle. If we think of Putin, which I think Mark Gagliotti kind of describes as a kind of like a king in a medieval court, there's definitely an inner circle of courtiers who are Putin's friends from his old days in St. Petersburg. And even though Pogosian was from the St. Petersburg days, he was staff, he was the caterer, he wasn't in the inner circle. And so I definitely think there's this effort in which he is building something to try and get into that inner circle and break into that inner circle.

26:55David:And it goes back to him showing his usefulness, you know, to the Kremlin and what he's doing. And that is part of it beyond the kind of effectiveness on the ground. And so he's developed a kind of toolkit and he's going to use it in Africa. He's going to use it, interestingly enough, the kind of political influence operations as well, closer to home in Belarus, you know, neighboring Russia, to defend President there, Lukashenko. When Lukashenko has some problems with protest, Progozhin is going to go in there and use his kind of influence to try and his media campaign to try and support him. Because also, Belarus has been kind of a hub for equipment going through.

27:34David:So he's busy and he's building, and that's another sign, he's building a relationship with Lukashenko, who's going to be important, actually, when we get to the final act. So we've talked about Progoshin as the businessman. And yeah, he's about making money. But I think it is much more than that. It's building a kind of power base. Wagner is growing. It's, you know, by 2018, it's about 4 ,300 people in the military side. Still not legal, though, under Russian law to run a mercenary group. So he's kind of, it's what's interesting. It's like you can have a kind of private security force guarding a facility, but you're not supposed to have this.

28:08David:So he's kind of still on the edge of the law, playing within the world of criminality, smuggling gold and diamonds. He's not quite got the status, you know, the inner circle status that I think he wants. Isn't everyone basically

28:20Gordon:on the edge of the law in Russia, though? I mean, you're... Some more than others. Right. Okay, fair enough. But that also does seem an advantage to Putin. Yeah. Right? Sort of obvious one. Even as you're obviously not just tolerating but encouraging this guy, you make sure that there's a legal sword sort of hanging over his head so that you have leverage. Yeah. Right?

28:45David:But also, I think he's moved heavier into the mercenary period. We've seen here this kind of 2017, 18, 19, 20 period. And I think Prakash himself, you see, start to change a bit. It's a bit like Joseph Conrad's famous novel, The Heart of Darkness, in which Kurtz, this kind of colonel, goes into Africa and is changed by it. And I think Prigozian himself starts to become a little bit wilder. You can see it in the pictures that we looked at. But he feels more like a kind of international outlaw than he does a straight businessman. So I think that's the problem. And I think there's an element of him which wants to go legit.

29:20David:He's Michael Corleone in Godfather Part 3. Who wants to go legit. Legit. But he's now found that his thing is being an international mercenary warlord. He can't go

29:30Gordon:back to being a kind of a businessman. I will say, though, that in my time as a management consultant, I saw plenty of overstretched CEOs or executives who also looked increasingly deranged. They were just a few steps away from donning the Purgosian beard.

29:48David:The Purgosian beard and the combat fatigue.

29:50Gordon:Yes, exactly. We can call you a mercenary warlord. Yeah. Right? But he's also a CEO. But he's also a CEO. Yeah, he's a CEO of Compa. He's a very stretched CEO who has a lot of demands on his time. Yeah. Who's running a very large organization. And it's the sort of organization that's brought in at a moment of high stress for its clients, let's say. Yeah. You know? So they're not getting the best, you know, of the Malians. No. Gordon. Yeah. Or the Central African Republic. It's the worst. You know, they're being brought in at the worst possible time.

30:20David:And what? That would stretch anybody. That would stretch anybody. But also the problem for him, I think, is that he's also becoming famous for this because people are watching Wagner. And particularly in the West, they start freaking out because they can see the way Wagner is extending Russian influence around Africa. And they don't know quite how to deal with it. It's moving fast. I mean, that's the thing about Wagner. It's nimble. It's fast. It's moving into the vacuum in the spaces in Africa. And that's a problem.

30:48Gordon:And I do think it is in this period where the Wagner brand or the lore starts to get out in front of the reality of how effective or influential it is on the ground or even with Putin. Yeah. There's a tendency, I think, to overstate. Yeah, I think that's true. How influential they really were, how effective they were. Because, again, as we've said, Prokosian, he's not getting invited into the box at the ice hockey games.

31:14David:No, with Putin. No, that's right. And, you know, 2018 onwards, he's getting sanctioned by the US as well. Heavier sanctions on him personally, many because of the election interference. And so he's also worried about his assets and he's trying to kind of move them around. He's getting his private jets impounded. And I think he is resentful. He's not with the cool kids in Moscow invited to, you know, sit at the ice hockey games. He's just that little bit too wild and dangerous to be legit. I think he leans in, which is what, if you're a management consultant, you probably tell him to lean into the brand.

31:47David:If that's your brand, go for it.

31:50Gordon:I don't know what we would tell him, but it would take three to four months and cost a million dollars. And involve some fancy pitch decks. And involve some very fancy pitch decks.

31:59David:Yeah. But one of the things I love is he then starts to develop his own film studio and finance films. I mean, action films set in Africa involving Wagner troops, and they always involve these kind of heroic fighters battling normally Islamists and the CIA often. And, you know, his PR machine will then fluff them with good reviews. But that's the tourist that you read.

32:25Gordon:Yeah, the tourist. That's right. As you've noted here, it only has a 5.3 out of 10 on IMDb. It's not great. Even despite the trolling. even despite the PR machine

32:34David:you put your full PR machine into gear and it gets 5.3 out of IMDb that's not great

32:41Gordon:some of the dialogue in this film though because we've gone down the rabbit hole you know Americans say they fight for democracy Russians fight for justice it's good isn't it

32:54David:this stuff is very on the nose it's very on the nose so I think he's leading into the Wagner brand It's going to encourage more recruits. He's stepping out the shadows a little bit. You know, there's more public references to him on social media and Telegram. There's even a website at one point called joinvagner.com looking for far right sympathizers for the US and Europe who want to fight with them. And, you know, it's an English language. It's an English language. Interesting enough, a far right, which is back to the kind of specifies far right. That seems to be what they're looking for, is the kind of people who want a bit of adventure in a fight and are kind of attracted to the...

33:32David:I mean, remember, Dmitry Utkin, Wagner himself, is kind of a man with SS tattoos, you know. Sure. You're assuming that someone on the far left wouldn't want to join, though. I don't know. I'm guessing. But that's what they seem to be going for, the kind of imperialist nationalist worldview. Join PMC Wagner to protect the peace and tranquility of civilians from terrorists and bandits. It's got a nice ring to it. That's the pitch. Fogosian gives his first interview to the Western press, speaks at the Sunday Telegraph. Interestingly, he is still denying any connection between him and Wagner or the Internet Research Agency.

34:09David:I suppose there's no advantage to actually outright admitting it, right? Yeah. He says, you know, I've got no connection to Wagner. I've got no connection to mercenary groups. What worries me greatly that some people think I have such a connection. I am a pacifist, he says. I was like, pacifist. I think here he's still trying to kind of straddle the mercenary warlord, but not publicly, because he doesn't want to be put under sanctions and he's trying to protect his assets, you know, and there's a reward from the US about him. He's still using the dark arts because Bellingcat, the private investigative open source investigative group, you know, revealed some of the links between Purgosian and people in the Kremlin and the kind of calls he's making between them.

34:51David:And Pregosian is also going to launch lawsuits against Elliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat, for articles and tweets linking him to Wagner and uses, depressingly, London lawyers to go after Elliot Higgins. I mean, why are there so many lawyers in your country that are willing to do these kinds of things, Gordon? Yeah, it's a source of some regret, it's fair to say to me as a journalist, that there are people willing to do that and take Pogoshin's money to go after journalists for investigating him. But those are the kind of techniques he and other oligarchs are going to use. But worth saying that still, you know, relations with the Kremlin are not that easy.

35:30David:The Russian Ministry of Defense, which we know is, you know, uneasy about Wagner, is also building up its own mercy groups. one called Redout or Redoubt which you know had been going for a while and that seems to be like their alternative to Wagner you know and it's the classic kind of Putin thing isn't it we described it as a court he's the king and his trick is never let anyone get too powerful always have alternatives play them off against each other be insecure so you know here you have another mercenary group which you know you can play off against Wagner don't let anyone get too big don't let Pogosian get too big, just keep it in play.

36:07Gordon:So that would be the top-down sort of Kremlin political view of it. The other lens you could take to this idea of the MOD having its own mercenary group is that Wagner has been this entrepreneurial startup that has succeeded in these markets. And this would be the equivalent of the sort of bulking behemoth, which realizes it's missing out on this new high growth opportunity and tries to incubate inside itself its own little version of the startup without much success. Yeah.

36:46David:Yeah. Which is going to try and build up. So now we're coming into 2022. In January 2022, Prigozhin has a big row with Alexeyev, who is the number two of the GRU military intelligence. The row is supposedly in his office. And Alexeyev is the kind of guy who has handled Wagner. You know, he's been the kind of contact person. And it's because Prigozhin is annoyed he's getting locked out by the Ministry of Defence. And Putin is not speaking to him that much. He hasn't had a call for him with Putin personally for six months. So you get a sense here that his rise, his growth of the brand has been useful for the Kremlin, but only up to a point.

37:22David:And it's reached that point. And so as you get to the start of 2022, the Ministry of Defense is kind of like, we're just going to keep you at arm's length. We don't want you to get any bigger or get any more involved. And Putin as well is kind of just keeping him at arm's length a bit, this kind of rough and tough mercenary guy. He's staff. He's staff.

37:43Gordon:And he doesn't like that. Yeah. I think that is, he has aspirations for himself that go beyond just being staff.

37:51David:And here's the problem, because just as at this moment the Purgosian seems to be locked out and he's not getting his calls returned, start of 2022, something big is brewing. Around 175 ,000 Russian troops, regular military, are building up on the borders of Ukraine. Now, most of the time think that this is a bluff to put pressure on Ukraine and that there's not going to be a real invasion and they're going to be wrong.

38:18Gordon:So, Gordon, I think that is a good spot to end this episode. When we come back next time, we'll see how this war in Ukraine, this actual proper massive invasion of Ukraine is going to totally transform Boghossian's fortunes, bring him to the highest of highs and ultimately lead to his demise. That's right. But just a reminder, if you want to hear those episodes now, you can.

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38:53Gordon:We will be doing a three-parter on sort of the secret world of the KGB and Vladimir Putin, showing his rise, his time in the KGB, and his ascent to power. I'll have some special guests for that series. You won't want to miss it. So go and sign up for the Declassified Club to get access. We'll see you next time. See you next time.