102. Putin's Secret Army: Criminals And Cannibals - Russia's War In Ukraine (Ep 5)

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1:52Well, welcome to The Rest is Classified. I'm David McCloskey. I'm Gordon Carrera. And I still feel exposed without an opening quote, Gordon. Do you? Let's try it. I will say we have a, for those of you who enjoy these opening quotes, we have a phenomenal one, but it's just going to be later in the episode. Yeah, we're saving it. We're saving it as a proper cliffhanger. It's a speech, not a quote. It's a speech. Yes, exactly. That's a great point. It's a motivational speech that I intend to give my children when they're old enough. Yeah, when they're old enough. When they're old enough and considering the potential that joining a mercenary company may offer.

2:34So if you tune in to The Rush is Classified for quotes, you don't just get a quote, you get a speech. So hang on the line for that. But we are going to the sort of the later chapters of this exceptional story of Yevgeny Pregosian and the Wagner Group. And we have been on this journey with Mr. Pregosian through his time as a caterer, as Putin's chef, as a PR guru, as a mercenary warlord. Last time, we sort of did a global tour of all of Wagner's sort of business opportunities in Africa, in the Middle East. And we're now, I guess, Gordon, in early 2022, February of 2022, the Russians are amassing nearly 200 ,000 troops on the border with Ukraine.

3:25And the Wagner story, which starts in Ukraine, is now going to come back full circle on the backs of the Russian invasion.

3:35David:That's right. So the Russian military have got their plan to topple President Zelensky in Ukraine. It's a good plan. It's a good plan, but no plan survives first contact with the enemy. And the original Russian plan was that it was all going to be over in 72 hours. Just a reminder, we did a series on this earlier in the year. That's right. Episodes 31 through 34. Well done, David. Of The Rest is Classified. Top marks. Thank you. So if you want to know the plan, what happens, Western intelligence, go back and listen to that. But the Russian military had their dress uniforms and instruments with them, ready for a parade when they got into Kiev, as they think they'll just walk in and then be able to march around.

4:16David:And instead, they meet fierce Ukrainian resistance, of course, and that plan collapses. But the crucial thing is the signs are that Wagner, this mercenary group, are not part of this original plan. Prigozhin, as we've seen last time, had been struggling actually to get his calls returned from military intelligence. He was having rows with them. He's getting the cold shoulder from Defence Minister Shoigu. And there were rumours, I remember at the time covering the invasion, you know, that Wagner teams were undercover in Kiev. They were assassins who were going to take out Zelensky. But actually, it doesn't look like they were there at all.

4:50David:You know, it might have been other mercenary groups who might have been there. And you know, of course, the reputation for Wagner means everyone's going to talk about them because they've got this reputation for violence. So Pregosian has been left out of the original plan. It's an original plan run by the Russian Defense Ministry. But now it fails. The Kremlin needs to rethink. The 72-hour war is suddenly turning into something very different. It's an opportunity for a mercenary. So, you know, finally, on March 19th, nearly a month after the invasion, Pogosian gets the call. He gets the call from Alexeyev, the number two in the GRU, his contact.

5:25David:Now they need his help. who are probably like, we got to call this guy. Yeah, we got to win. I hate having to make this call. Prigozhin really seems to, and Wagner, they seem to do really well in environments where someone else's plan has collapsed. And you're like, I guess we need to call Prigozhin and Wagner. And you can sense they didn't want to do it. The Redut merceries will be wiped out. Which is a Redut is the Russian Ministry of Defense's answer To Wagner. To Wagner. So it's their attempt to recreate this sort of entrepreneurial spirit of this small startup. And they've all been killed in Ukraine.

6:10David:And of course, 175, maybe more thousand Russian troops for the original invasion plan. Now they realize that's not going to be enough because the Ukrainians are resisting. The Ukrainians have mobilized their population for war. But crucially, the Russians haven't mobilized their entire population and army for a war, and they don't want to. Putin is nervous about that, because after all, it's not a war. It's not an invasion. It's a special military operation. Very special. Very special. Which means you told your public it's just a special military operation. You can't then kind of mobilize everyone and kind of conscript your population.

6:48David:So where do you turn? And the answer, of course, is Wagner. And this is going to transform Wagner from a kind of smallish mercenary fighting force, low thousands, mainly fighting far away in Africa, to a really significant army fighting on Russia's borders, which is, of course, something which is inherently dangerous. That's called foreshadowing. Yeah, it is. Well done. A little bit of plot foreshadowing there. So Prigozhi is going to pull his existing teams from Africa to come and join the fight. massive influx of new recruits by june 2022 thought to be 25 000 wagner fighters in the east of ukraine they're going to get tanks artillery aerial support from mod at its peak wagner is going to have 85 000 troops now that is it's worth saying is bigger than the current serving british army which tells you something about the state of the british army that it's that Wagner's fighting force, you know, at its peak was bigger than the entire serving British army.

7:50David:And it's going to grow from 25 ,000 maybe at the start of the war up to this 85 ,000. Where are they getting all these men, Gordon? Well, David, where are they getting all these men from? The answer, of course, is somewhere that Evgeny Progosian knows incredibly well. Prison. Where else would you go to get a mercenary fighting force? Where he came from. And I guess there are a lot of advantages to this, right? One is that you don't have to go into the Russian population. Yeah. The second is that to then lose these people, you kind of don't care if you're the Russian state. It probably helps you to some degree to empty out your prisons.

8:30Yeah. Right. And I would imagine that some of these men have experience with violence. Exactly. Exactly.

8:37David:So summer of 2022, Purgosian personally turns up in Russian penal colonies, often flying in by helicopter, gathers the prisoners in the courtyard to address them. And of course, he knows how to talk to them. He was one of them. This is where our story started. That's right. Teenage Purgosian getting into trouble with the law and ending up in penal colonies. He's got that tattoo of the woman on his back, which we don't know exactly what this woman looks like, but it was inked in with soot and urine. In his prison colony. So he's got the street crack. Yeah, but he's traveled a long way. I mean, so he's now 60, I guess.

9:12David:Yeah, he's 60 years old. He's now the big man. I mean, it must be crazy for him. He'd started 40 years ago in the prison colonies, getting beaten up or whatever it was. It's a heartwarming story. And he's lived the dream. Now he's a kind of billionaire or multimillionaire businessman flying into the prison colony saying to these guys, you could be like me. You could live the dream. you could escape, you could do something. Really what he's offering them though is to be cannon fodder in Ukraine. Is that right? That's true. So there's a great video of him, which is maybe secretly filmed, maybe leaked, no one's quite sure, speaking in Moldovia, which comes to light in September 2022, where he gathers hundreds of inmates in a yard and then offers them a deal.

9:52David:And this is where we come to our rather wonderful speech. Yes, not a quote. Not a quote, a speech, which I think is so good. Should I read this, Gordon? I've of course been preparing extensively. Channel you. Okay. I'm the representative of a private military company. You may have heard of it. It's called the PMC Wagner. The war in Ukraine is hard, not even close to the Chechen wars and others. My ammunition consumption is about twice as high as during the Battle of Stalingrad. The first sin is desertion. No one backs out. No one retreats. No one surrenders. During your training, you'll be told about two grenades you must have with you in case of imminent surrender.

10:35The second sin is alcohol and drugs. The third sin is pillaging, including sexual contact with local women, flora, fauna, men, whatever. The minimum age that we accept is 22. If you are younger, we need a paper from your next of kin giving their permission. The maximum age is 50, but this number is conditional. I repeat, it is conditional. If you are strong, we will conduct an interview and basic tests to see how strong you are. Physical fitness is essential. We also conduct careful examination of those who are incarcerated for sexual offenses. But we understand that people make mistakes. Who do we need?

11:18We need only stormtroopers. 60 % of my guys are stormtroopers and you'll be one of them You won't be any different from us You'll be treated the same Sometimes even with more loyalty than I show to my own men Who've been fighting for years and have gone through dozens of wars The bodies of those who die are taken to the place you specify in your will to your relatives Or will be buried where you specify All those who die are buried in heroes plots in the towns where these exist Those who don't know where to be buried are buried next to the Wagner Chapel in Gorachy Klirch in Russia. After six months of service, you can come home with a pardon.

12:00Those who wish to stay with us can do so. And there is no option that you would go back to prison. Those who join but on the first day say that they are in the wrong place will be considered deserters and we will shoot them. Guys, do you have any questions?

12:17David:That's brilliant. I mean, you channeled it beautifully, David. Particularly the warning of having sex with flora or fauna, which is one of the more bizarre. Or men, whatever. Or whatever. Which is one of the more bizarre. I mean, it's just like, that is Progosian, isn't it? That's the kind of rough, tough, you know. If you had decided to have sex with the plants. Yeah, then you're... Or the animals. That's a no-no. That's a no-no. I mean, and then I love it. He ends the speech and he goes, decision time is five minutes. By the time we leave, time's up. In other words, he gives that speech to these prisoners and he goes, five minutes, decide.

12:55Think about it. You're in, you're out. It is wild. I mean, it also seems like, you know, if you're in a Russian penal colony, you might really consider this.

13:04David:Yeah. This seems like not a bad deal. You take the deal. I mean, it depends. To me, it kind of depends, just putting myself in the place of a Russian penal colonist, if that's the right word. I don't know if it is. I think prisoner is the right word. Prisoner is the right word.

13:24David:I think it would depend on where I was in my sentence. Like, if I'm about to be released, I'm like, I'll just wait rather than go. Whereas if you're at the start of a 30-year sentence and you're like, six months fighting, and then maybe I get out, full pardon, then you kind of go, maybe it's worth a shot. There's a few things which I think are fascinating about it. One is, it's a big move within the Russian state to be able to offer a pardon to any prisoner who joins up. You know, your record is wiped out. I mean, it's a sign. You can't do that unless you have the Kremlin's say so. And from the very top, because you're overriding, you know, prison sentences, the judicial system, everything.

14:07the vaunted Russian judicial system is being overwritten. I mean, it is though when you get to the guts of it, it is a, it is a pretty frightening thing because as he, as he says in that speech, you could have a serial rapist. Yeah. I mean, he says we kind of don't want sexual offenders. And essentially what he says is we don't want them, but kind of we'll check you out and have some conversations that we might accept you. So you could have people who've done some awful things. Yeah. Yeah. Who then go fight and then get, get released. It's loose back into Russia.

14:37David:Yeah. So, I mean, you supposedly get whole units of sex offenders. I mean, you know, which is kind of wild. You get cannibals. Is there a cannibal unit? It's a cannibal unit. But you get people who are cannibals. They never made it there. They just ate each other on the way to the front. I don't know what they do. If your son, daughter, wife, husband has been killed by someone and they've gone to prison and then suddenly they're getting released, I mean, that's going to cause quite a lot of anger. So, the families of kind of victims of these murderers are angry. Yeah, they fight for six months and then you get a pardon.

15:09David:So you then get a whole wave of prisoners who are going to get released after six months, who are murderers and who will then go on to murder more people. Pardon Mercery kind of douses his sister with petrol and burns her alive in Nizhny Novgorod, having been released under this thing. So you're getting nasty people who are taking this deal and then they're going to do nasty things, but needs must. Needs must. Needs must. That's Putin's Russia. That's why Ivan the Cannibal came back home. You know, never thought we'd see that guy again. But he ate somebody and then he went to Ukraine for six months.

15:47Now he's home. Now he's back. And you see him down the road. Hanging around the Moscow suburbs. Yeah. And so close - He ate somebody. He ate somebody.

15:53David:Now he's home. Close to 50 ,000 prisoners sign up, it's thought. I mean, no one knows for sure. 50 ,000 prisoners are going to get out this way. So it's not exactly Band of Brothers. Yeah, I was going to say, it's kind of, it's like the opening of Saving Private Ryan, isn't it? It's more what it is. I mean, they are given what I would assume would be the worst assignments on the front, right? It has to be, right? Because they're just so low value to the Russian state. They're completely cannon fodder. They get a week of training. and then you know i've been out to ukraine a couple of times since the war started and i remember you know ukrainian people on the front line soldiers who i'd interview who would talk to me about seeing what they would call meat waves and i mean it's a pretty nasty concept but it was basically that the russians would just throw waves of people at the ukrainian lines who were cannon fodder knowing they would be killed just to exhaust the ukrainians run down their ammo exhaust them And then when they felt they were exhausted, then you send in your proper troops who are going to try and break through.

17:03David:So that is what they're using these kind of Wagner conscripts for and what they'll use them for. It's a kind of brutal, intense warfare where you just don't care about human life and you kill anyone who turns around. And Prigozhin was very clear in that speech that deserters will be killed. Deserters are going to be killed. And there's one particular case that becomes very famous about the kind of punishment. There's a guy who's 55, so already over that 50-year-old barrier that Prigozhin had claimed that was there for the crew. I get these barriers are pretty loose. It's pretty loose. A guy called Nevgeny Nuzhin, who was a murderer, and he was serving a 24-year sentence for murder, joins Wagner to get out after seeing Prigozhin personally in his prison.

17:45David:He had only four years left to serve. So in August, he gets recruited from his prison. he arrives in occupied Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine. He's formed into one of these assault squads. At one point, he's being assigned to recover corpses. It's a little bit vague, but apparently he surrenders to the Ukrainians, gives an interview in which he talks about this, but then for some reason, it appears, he gets swapped back to the Russian side in a prisoner swap. Not a good idea. Now - It's the wrong direction to go. Wrong direction to go when you've apparently surrendered to the Ukrainians. Graphic content warning for the kids, if you're listening with your kids.

18:24This is the point in the episode where you're giving the graphic content warning. Is that right? I'm sorry, after the cannibals. After the cannibals. Yeah, sorry. The brigades of meat waves. Sorry, the meat waves. Yeah, okay. The brigades of sexual predators who are thrown at the Ukrainian lines. Even more graphic warning.

18:41David:November 2022 a video appears of this Evgeny Nuzin looking in a bad way in what appears to be a seller his head is taped to a concrete block and he confesses to desertion a man then gets a sledgehammer and smashes his head in which as we've seen before is the kind of the Wagner way of dealing with this the video goes viral on TikTok I mean it gets like millions millions millions of views which is again about the kind of dark fan culture around Wagner and Prigozhin himself says it seems to me that this film should be called a dog's death for a dog it was an excellent piece of direction and could be watched in a single sitting you know again he's this movie producer yeah thing I hope no animals were harmed during filming the same month the video comes out the European Parliament adopts a resolution designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and it's urging for Wagner to be placed on the kind of terrorist list alongside al-Qaeda and ISIS.

19:43David:And Prigozhin or someone sends a sledgehammer engraved with the Wagner logo and smeared with fake blood in a violin case to the European Parliament. I mean, you know, it's your kind of mafioso horse's head in the bed. And it's very theatrical, which I think appeals to him too. I guess he's also getting to a point of no return where, I mean, I don't know if there was ever a point where he was considering going back the other way, but he's being asked to take on a role in Ukraine or being given the opportunity, I think, to do something that's obviously putting him into a tremendous amount of conflict and tension with the actual Russian military.

20:25Yeah.

20:26David:And I think that's the problem for him is that he is kind of going for a walk on the dark side now, which is going to be dangerous for him. And maybe they're accorded with Progosian having gone full dark side. Let's take a break. When we come back, we will see how his incredible ambition for himself and Wagner will ultimately lead to his downfall. Hi, this is Gary Lineker from Goalhangers. The rest is football. This episode is brought to you by Wise. It's only when you start moving money between currencies that you really think about the exchange rate, the fee, and what might be hidden away in the small print.

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