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'Volodymyr Zelensky: Russian mercenaries ordered to kill Ukraine's president' appeared in The Times on 28 February 2022. The sensational headline leads to a lurid description of an attempt by '400' mercenaries on the Zelenskyy's life; curfews abound, death squads are imagined, and, with a sense of growing inevitability, the mission is linked to the Wagner Brigade. This band of what Al Jazeera described as 'little green men' cast a shadow over the armed foreign policy of Vladimir Putin's Russian Federation since their inception in 2014. Whether this special ops mission is the kind of undertaking they would have been capable of fulfilling is open to debate - certainly in this absorbing and challenging memoir, they would not be.
If an air of mystery hung around the activities of the Wagner Brigade, ubiquitous in descriptions of this organisation were the word Private Military Company (PMC). These were the 'dogs of war', a band of mercenaries operating on the open market, taking advantage of what the author describes as the collapse of the 'monopoly' of the state in the use of military force. It was certainly the perception held by press and politicians alike as the Wagner Group's presence was felt in Syria, across the African continent and then, one last time again, in Ukraine until 23 June 2023. Not the case, the author contends. The Wagner Group was not a Private Military Company. It was a business enterprise with the purpose of ensuring a 'favourable environment for the implementation and smooth functioning of business projects in areas with an unstable political climate.' It was the creation of 'Putin's Chef', Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch whose catering business - Concord - became central in food provisions for the country's army and schools; who grew in favour with the Russian President and who believed he saw opportunity to gain riches, status and influence within the hierarchies of the Russian ruling classes. The Wagner Brigade was a component of this, and it served the Russian government only.
In this memoir a different picture is painted of the means and the manner of this military group. It does not shy away from the brutalities of combat and the brutalities of behaviour of men no longer bound by conventions. It does, however, shy away from the general perception of the group as a simple mercenary group. They were not just guns for hire. Prigozhin, through his association with Dmitry Utkin - Wagner himself - created an effective 'battalion tactical group' which could be employed to the benefit of Russian interests and influence abroad, and which would win for Prigozhin monetary compensation through the advent of business opportunities in a now 'stable' political climate. That was the goal. This book, which provides a singular viewpoint from a man who stood in the eye of the storm. He does not recognise the world view of the Wagner Group. He understands they were government coordinated military organisation that fought and defeated ISIS, that brought a form of stability to Central African Republic, who understood when to cut its losses in theatres of operation that may have held promise but would never deliver.
This memoir captures the Wagner Brigade as an organisation of Icarian daring, who like the Greek boy of myth flew too close to the sun.
