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Death is our business : Russian mercenaries and the new era of private warfare
In 2014, a well-trained, mysterious band of mercenaries arrived in Ukraine, part of Russia's first attempt to claim the country. Upon ceasefire, the 'Wagner Group' faded back into shadow, only to reemerge in the Middle East and in Africa. Dually armed with military and strategic prowess, they created a new market in a vast geopolitical landscape increasingly receptive to the promises of private actors. In this account of the group's origins and operations, John Lechner shows how Wagner partnered with fragile nation states, scored access to natural resources, ousted peacekeeping missions and cashed in on conflicts reframed as Kremlin interests.
BOOK
The Matryoshka Strategy: Russia's Hybrid Tactics in the Sahel
This paper employs the Matryoshka Model to examine Russia's multi-layered strategy in the Sahel, conceptualising its engagement as a hybrid form of hegemonic competition that integrates diplomacy, economic leverage, security cooperation, and covert operations. Russia's approach is characterised by a nested structure of influence, wherein overt state-to-state relations, private military deployments, and information warfare operate in tandem to reinforce Moscow's strategic objectives. The study situates Russia's activities within the broader geopolitical landscape, arguing that its engagement in Sahelian states is not merely opportunistic but part of a deliberate effort to reshape regional power dynamics. By capitalising on governance deficits, security crises, and economic dependencies, Russia has positioned itself as an alternative to Western actors, leveraging military agreements, resource extraction deals, and disinformation campaigns to entrench its presence. This paper contends that Russia's strategy fragments geopolitics and challenges Western security, revealing asymmetric power in the evolving global order.
Journal Article
Beijing’s Shadow Force: China’s Wagner-like Private Security Company in Myanmar’s Civil War
This study examines China’s establishment of a joint private security company with Myanmar’s military junta as an evolution in Beijing’s power projection capabilities. It analyzes how China balances protecting strategic Belt and Road investments while maintaining its non-interventionist diplomatic posture through innovative hybrid security arrangements in conflict zones. Study design/methodology/approach: The research employs multiple theoretical frameworks to analyze this emerging security paradigm, including securitization theory, graduated sovereignty, and strategic hedging. It synthesizes reports from Myanmar’s military-controlled media with comparative analyses of private security companies across different geopolitical contexts, particularly focusing on October 2022-2024 developments in the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor. Findings: The study reveals China’s development of a sophisticated “Wagner with Chinese characteristics” model thatdiffers significantly from Russia’s approach to private military contracting. Unlike the Wagner Group’s overt combat orientation, China’s model emphasizes calibrated influence through corporate structures that provide legal distance while preserving operational control. This arrangement allows Beijing to deploy security elements in sovereign conflict zones without formal military commitment, strategically protecting the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor as an alternative to the vulnerable Malacca Strait. Originality/value: This research identifies an emerging Chinese doctrine for protecting overseas interests that transcends traditional distinctions between private and state security actors. It demonstrates how China is recalibrating its foreign policy toolkit to include “informal forward deployment” capabilities that operate below the threshold of conventional military intervention. The findings provide a framework for understanding similar hybrid security arrangements that may emerge across Belt and Road territories facing persistent instability.
Journal Article
Strategic Competition in Africa and Democratic Backsliding in the Central African Republic
This article focuses on the strategic competition between the West--defined as the European Union and the United State--and Russia, which is currently taking place in Africa, and its implications for security governance in the region. Since 2017, Russia has been increasing its presence in Africa while undermining Western efforts to promote good governance. Multiple military missions and development programs have been halted following recent coups d’état in countries such as Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and the Central African Republic. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Western sanctions have isolated Moscow, prompting Russian leaders to seek new alliances around the globe. Africa has emerged as a key arena in the Kremlin’s fight for influence, positioning itself as a strategic front in Russia’s broader contest with the West. An analysis of recent events in the Central African Republic will assess how this rivalry is reshaping security governance in Africa and identify potential pathways for the West to reengage and restore positive relationships with African nations.
Journal Article
Wagner Group Flows: A Two‐Fold Challenge to Liberal Intervention and Liberal Order
Focusing on Wagner Group (WG) forces, liberal interveners too readily dismiss the scope of WG’s Africa engagements, including economic and political “flows” that, in combination, challenge liberal interveners’ taken-for-granted access in several states on the African continent. Operationalising the notion of “flows,” we present an analysis that foregrounds both the scope of WG’s Africa engagements and the challenges. We portray WG as a broad enterprise by attending to military, economic, and political flows. This broadening is relevant to how WG is understood to challenge liberal interveners. Besides country-specific challenges to liberal interveners’ access (notably in states where they have been asked to depart or co-exist with WG), a broader reading of WG’s Africa presence also foregrounds challenges at a different level, namely to liberal interveners’ assumptions about the inevitable attractiveness of the liberal international order. A liberal order that Russia has utilised WG’s Africa presence to contest. As such, challenges at the level of liberal order go beyond WG’s Africa presence and must, therefore, be viewed alongside other challenges to liberal intervention and order, from the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. If liberal interveners’ missteps and historicity, as well as the scope of WG’s Africa engagements, remain underappreciated, then various challenges specific to the WG, but also broader challenges to liberal interveners’ assumptions about liberal order as self-evidently attractive, are too readily dismissed. Liberal actors’ dismissiveness may invite misguided responses and unintentionally become an enabling factor for WG’s influence in Africa.
Journal Article
The Changing Dynamics of Franco-Malian Relations: The Resurgence of the Military Coup and the Growing Influence of Russia in Mali
The 2013 French military operation in Mali presented daunting challenges in West Africa. Critical among these are the resurgence of coup d’états and the growing intervention of Russia, which is eclipsing France’s credibility in the Sahelian region. In light of the unfolding scenario, this study makes three arguments: First, the failure of the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA) to combat the jihadi insurgency in the country reignited France’s military intervention in Mali in disregard for the Africanised security initiative, which Paris had previously vowed to preserve. Secondly, the study contends that the failure of the French military operations in Mali created a conducive environment for a military coup, a trend that has continued to gain traction in the Sahel. Finally, the paper argues that the growing Russian-linked Wagner forces in Mali, ostensibly to stabilise Mali, fight insurgents in the Sahel, and end ‘French neo-colonialism’ in West Africa, pose a graver risk to the region. Drawing on qualitative methods sourced through contextual-descriptive reviews, the findings showed that the resurgence of military coups was partly caused by the failure of the African Union/ECOWAS and France to uphold their defence policies in Mali. It concludes that the resurgence of military coups, the failure of AU/ECOWAS and France, as well as the growing influence of Russia, have had devastating effects on democracy, security, and good governance in Mali. It recommends that lines of communication be opened to the Malian junta for the transition to democratic governance and that the AU, ECOWAS, and Western allies deepen their diplomatic ties with allies who are fighting for democracy and human rights.
Journal Article
Penal Battalions and Genocidal Warfare
The expendability of penal battalions has provided genocidal regimes with ample fodder for conventional wars, genocidal warfare, and cases in which such conscripts may become either perpetrators or victims. The unresolved charges of those who massacred civilians in Bucha, Ukraine, in 2022 extend to include suspects from a private military security company (PMSC) known as the Wagner Group. Vladimir Putin’s regime has regularly contracted Wagner since its founding in 2014 in operations that led to its adaptation and development as a tool for war and very likely also the world’s firstfor-hire band of perpetrators. This study tracks histories of penal battalions before outlining the evolution of Wagner as a significant force in global politics and conflict. The findings suggest that prosecution, prevention, or intervention will become even more difficult than it already is for institutions of international law. The apparent successes and rapid growth of Wagner tend to indicate that the use of penal battalions in genocidal wars is not confined to the pages of history. The unaccountability of such suspects could increase both the recruitment of many more genocidal offenders and further risk the expendability of what Richard L. Rubenstein identified as surplus populations. By framing penal battalions that die en masse in genocidal wars, the case of the Wagner Group may ultimately include civilian victims in Ukraine, perpetrators for-hire, and victims within the group’s own battalions that the Kremlin deployed to die across the war’s frontlines.
Journal Article
Populist civil society, the Wagner Group, and post-coup politics in Mali
The military coup of August 2020 upended Mali’s fragile liberal democratic order. The junta-led transitionary government defies international pressure to fasten the return of democratically-elected rulers and constitutional rule. The ability of the junta to shape the course of Malian politics rests on two interconnected pillars. First, there is public resentment towards the post-1991 political class and France’s military involvement in the country. The forces representing that resentment view the junta as change makers and have formed influential political organisations that oppose there turn to the status quo ante. Second, there is the security co-operation with Russian mercenaries, which provides the transitionary government with an alternative security partner. The paper traces the origins, evolution, and the future strength of these pillars. It concludes by outlining future political scenarios and the future role of the military in Malian politics.
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