As private armies increasingly blur the lines between state power and mercenary force, the prospect of billionaires and politicians commanding their own military forces is no longer just dystopian fiction. 

John Lechner’s five-year investigation into Russia’s notorious Wagner Group reveals a disturbing template for what privatized warfare could mean for America and the world.

In this week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast, Lechner, author of Death Is Our Business, takes us from Wagner’s shadowy beginnings to its evolution into a force that would ultimately challenge Vladimir Putin himself. But the implications stretch far beyond Russia. 

At a time when figures like President Donald Trump have expressed admiration for authoritarian methods and private military solutions, Wagner’s story becomes a cautionary tale about the intersection of wealth, power, and privatized violence.

Lechner explains how this new model of warfare operates beyond traditional military oversight and international law. As Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and other nations follow Russia’s lead in developing private military capabilities, the consequences for global stability become increasingly fraught.

What happens when warfare becomes a private enterprise? How do democracies respond when billionaires can potentially build their own armies? These questions are no longer theoretical, and the answers may determine the future of global conflict — and of the domestic security of the United States and the safety of its citizens. 

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Jeff Schechtman: Welcome to the WhoWhatWhy Podcast. I’m your host, Jeff Schechtman. There was a time when mercenaries captured our romantic imagination, the legendary French Foreign Legion, the Gurkhas, soldiers of fortune whose exploits filled adventure novels and Hollywood films. But like so much else in our modern world, that romance has given way to a far darker reality. Imagine a scenario where Trump, frustrated by military leaders’ reluctance to invade Greenland or Panama or even Canada, turns to private military contractors to execute his vision. Picture a modern day Blackwater, or worse yet, an American Wagner group, unconstricted by military chain of command, congressional oversight, or international law, ready to wage war at the behest of a single individual.

While this may sound like the plot of a political thriller, it’s a scenario that’s become increasingly plausible as the line between State military power and private armies continues to blur. This isn’t mere speculation. It’s the logical extension of a pattern we’re already seeing play out across the globe. A reality that America only recently confronted with the rise of companies like Blackwater in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even more dramatically, we’ve seen it through the Wagner Group, Russia’s notorious private military company. As my guest John Lechner points out, the Wagner Group has taken this privatization of warfare to unprecedented levels, creating a template that should deeply worry anyone concerned about global stability and the future of conflict.

Given Trump’s fascination with Russia, the Wagner Group might offer a disturbing preview of how future conflicts might be fought, through unofficial armies operating in the shadows and available to the highest bidder or the most ambitious autocrat and their wealthy sidekicks. That’s why understanding Wagner Group isn’t just about understanding Russia, it’s about understanding what paid warfare might look like in the decade to come. Their story represents a dark intersection of profit, power, and violence, and may well become a template for future conflicts everywhere.

My guest today, John Lechner, spent five years tracking the Wagner Group across some of the world’s most dangerous places. As a speaker of multiple languages and an experienced journalist, he was uniquely positioned to understand both the Russian and African perspectives on what he calls the Wagner phenomenon. John’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times and The Atlantic, and his new book is Death Is Our Business: Russian Mercenaries and the New Era of Private Warfare. It is my pleasure to welcome John Lechner here to the WhoWhatWhy Podcast. John, thanks so much for joining us.

John Lechner: Thank you for having me.

Jeff: Well, it is a delight to have you here. First of all, tell us how the Wagner Group got started. Where did this come from? How did it come to be?

John: Wagner came out of what we would now call the initial phase or the first phase of the war in Ukraine, particularly after Russia’s annexation of Crimea [inaudible 00:03:20] were a number of events that followed that annexation in Eastern Ukraine with pro-Russian separatist movements that put the Kremlin in a difficult position. Vladimir Putin was enjoying the nationalist boost to his credentials that the annexation of Crimea offered, but he wasn’t looking at the time to annex more territory and risk further international isolation and sanctions.

And so the Kremlin needed to figure out a way to both support and not support the pro-Russian separatist in Eastern Ukraine. And they turned to these former military officers and Russian military veterans who had participated in some private military companies and brought together financial sponsors for these units, the most prominent of which of course was Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Wagner. And so Wagner began as the private [inaudible 00:04:25] these ad hoc measures to support rebels in Eastern Ukraine, and ultimately grew into an incredible force that no one, including the Russians, didn’t expect at the time.

Jeff: How did it grow? What was it? Was it Prigozhin himself and his abilities? Was it a need at a particular time? Why did it grow so effectively and so quickly?

John: It becomes clear that– There were a number of these forces that were operating in Eastern Ukraine at the time, and most of them went off along their separate ways, especially after the 2015 Minsk to ceasefire between the separatist republics and Kiev. But Prigozhin was an incredibly ambitious person, and he lobbied to get his nascent PMC force into Russia’s over intervention in Ukraine. Multiple times they were thrown out and Prigozhin worked to get them back in.

And following the intervention in Ukraine, this is when the PMC really takes off. And Prigozhin is actively doing business development, sending out associates across Africa, looking to develop new partnerships for his private military business.

Jeff: Talk a little bit about the Africa component. How did that come into play?

John: As I write in the book, Wagner, it’s not something that is particularly unique to the African security landscape. There have been all sorts of private military companies, either European or South African or American, that have worked in this space for a long time. Now that Prigozhin has this PMC, it would be fairly foolhardy for him not to be marketing that PMC to the continent that has the most conflicts and the most demand for those types of services.

And so Prigozhin and his men end up inking deals with Sudan to provide military training in exchange for mineral concessions, then the Central African Republic, and eventually as well, Libya and Mali. And what they start to offer over time and in reaction to the demand on the African continent, is these offensive counterinsurgency operations. They start to offer to do the dirty work that other, or that these local governments feel other countries in the West are not willing to help them out with.

Jeff: Talk a little bit about what they did in Ukraine, and to the extent that it was an extension of what the Russians were doing, and how are they coordinated with what the Russians were doing.

John: There’s always a lot of focus on what was Wagner? Was it a private entity? Was it just the shadowy extension of the Russian state? And the answer is both. I’m sitting here in Washington, DC, and I like to tell people that I’m here in the capital of public-private partnerships. There are plenty of companies here, take Lockheed Martin, for example, that produces fighter jets and other military equipment. They are a profit-driven business, but they would never frame what they do as entirely profit. They say and frame what they do as furthering America’s defense and security. And Russia has these versions of it. Wagner was one of them.

And so the relationship between Wagner and the State really depended on the context of the countries in which they were operating, and no country was more existential to Russia’s security and defense than Ukraine. And so when Wagner entered the full scale invasion after initially being left out, they were working extremely closely, obviously, with the Russian state and falling under the overall Ministry of Defense when it came to strategically planning the overall war effort. However Prigozhin himself had an incredible tolerance for risk, and he put his men into probably some of the most extreme situations to try and deliver outsized victories to Vladimir Putin and overcome his internal rivals within Putin’s inner circle.

Jeff: And how successful were those risky efforts? Did they help or hinder the overall war effort from the Russian perspective?

John: It helped. They certainly helped initially at the beginning. Like I said, Prigozhin was an incredibly ambitious guy. And I think that he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, including the minister of defense, and so they tried to initially keep Prigozhin and his men out. It became very clear early on that as the Russians had expected, the Ukrainians were not going to welcome them with open arms. And as the Russian military got bogged down, they had to rely on Wagner’s ability to recruit men, and also frankly, the experience of Wagner veterans who had been participating in various battles in the intervening years.

And so right away, Wagner starts delivering some victories to the Kremlin in Popasna and elsewhere. And so Prigozhin delivers or starts promising even bigger victories, including taking the city that became very famous, Bakhmut, in 2023. And to do this, Prigozhin received the exclusive right to recruit soldiers from Russia’s prison system, and up to 50,000 convicts ultimately joined Wagner. The deal was that if they fought for six months and survived, they would go free and their criminal record would be expunged. And these men were used in essentially human wave tactics to jump out of the trenches and try to take Ukrainian positions.

Up to 50% overall would die in those types of operations. And so it was an incredibly inefficient tactic, but one that was effective, tragically, over time.

Jeff: What were the economics from Wagner’s point of view? When they went into these endeavors in Africa, it was clear how they were being paid and where the money was coming from. What were the economics of their activity in Ukraine?

John: Well, again, when it came to these operations that were of existential interest to the Russian state, the money came from the state itself. Probably from the federal budget in some shape or form. In places like you mentioned, in Africa, like the Central African Republic, which were not of great interest to the Russian state. It was the poorest, least developed country in the world. It’s one that’s near and dear to my heart, having spent a lot of time there, but unfortunately, it’s not important to the US or France or Russia.

Prigozhin had to find ways to self-finance his operations, and so he would go into gold mining, diamonds, timber, whatever he had an opportunity to pursue because he had to make up for that lack of budget, and hope that, in the long term, those investments would become profitable.

Jeff: And did they?

John: Not as much as people think, to be perfectly honest. These are very complex civil wars, conflictual environments. And in places like the Central African Republic that are extremely isolated, there are no paved roads, it’s a country the size of Texas, in civil war, gold mining and these types of endeavors might sound very attractive. But ultimately, after all the investment that’s needed to actually exploit them at a scale that would be interesting, you can wind up not turning that much of a profit in the end.

Jeff: Were Wagner’s efforts in Ukraine, certainly initially, more successful than the Russian troops?

John: And even after Prigozhin’s mutiny, his legacy in Ukraine lives on as the Russian military has developed a lot of the tactics that Wagner used as well.

Jeff: And that was really my next question. To what extent did the Russians learn from Wagner’s tactics, and what were some of those tactics that were unique to Wagner?

John: Wagner allowed for talented commanders to have a degree of flexibility along the front to make their own decisions. The use of convicts was also something that first was pioneered by Wagner and then eventually by the Ministry of the Defense as well. Some of the harsher methods as well in terms of the execution of deserters and the threat of punishment became adopted by the Russian state as well.

Jeff: As we look at it from the West, what lessons can we learn about warfare and about potential military conflicts going forward from the way Wagner Group conducted its efforts in Ukraine?

John: Good question. When we look at Ukraine, I think the West is learning much more in terms of just how warfare looks between two modern nation states that are at war with each other in essentially a total. And I think the West has learned much more about what that kind of war will look like in terms of the use of drones, the use of advanced technology in a conflict where most soldiers who are casualtied out are not due to getting shot by bullets, it’s due to the use of these drones, very cheap and effective drones that can swarm, as well as missiles, HIMARS, and the like.

I think they are learning a lot watching that type of conflict because, for the most part, during America’s global war on terror, they had to deal with insurgencies, IEDs, the occasional ambush often from people lightly armed. How the Russian state leaned on these private commercial forces I think is something that has broadly created a market for this highly state-backed but also commercial force, particularly in places like Africa, where you’re starting to see Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and even some local African countries as well, like Rwanda, adopt some of those services to offer other countries.

And as you mentioned earlier, I think Wagner still fits in within the overall general trends in privatization and outsourcing that have existed prior to it’s arrival on the scene. And under this administration, there is, as you mentioned, great interest in having PMCs take on the cartels, for example, and potentially be placed in other conflicts.

Jeff: Was there anything unique or different in any profound way with respect to how Wagner operated that was substantially different from other PMCs in the past, whether it be Blackwater or historical groups like this?

John: Well, that’s an interesting question because mercenarism is nothing new, right? It’s existed for as long as we know. And the nation state, which filled public armies, is something that actually is relatively new in terms of the long [unintelligible 00:16:36] of history. And so, in a way, we’re somewhat returning to the pre-modern use of mercenaries in terms of their prevalence. But I think what is different now is perhaps that mercenaries are around or that private military companies exist. But the fact that the scale and the scope of the resources that they have at their disposal, which is the product of globalization more generally, is very different.

And in some respects, some of these PMCs have the power like Wagner Group to rival some nation states.

Jeff: What about technology? Was the Wagner Group able to get the technology that they needed that was competitive with what the Russian troops could get or was it better?

John: Depended on the conflict again. Very often, they complained in Syria that they were not equipped to the same degree as the Russian military. And that was a serious source of complaint because they felt that they were actually the ones going out in front and suffering the worst casualties. In Africa, they had a lot of difficulty receiving top equipment.

At the same time, the equipment that they did have at their disposal that Prigozhin was able to leverage from his own personal closeness to Vladimir Putin and other Russian elite surpassed what other PMCs in the area were able to provide at the time. But once we get to Ukraine, they are taking the biggest risks, and they certainly had access to the same equipment that the Russian military had.

Jeff: Talk a bit about Prigozhin and what his vision was for this.

John: That is interesting. Prigozhin, I think, in the book and in life, comes across as one of those uniquely ambitious charismatic people. The sort that you find in some Silicon Valley founders, perhaps. The difference being the industry in which he worked. In many ways, he was a guy who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, he was an ex-con himself, and he was always looking to overcome that lower class status. And he never was quite accepted into Putin’s inner circle, the true elite that run the country. And to overcome his rivals who were keeping him out, I think he used Wagner as a way to show his worth.

And there’s a way to look at everything that Wagner was doing and the incredible ambition as really the product of Prigozhin’s own efforts to rise within Putin’s system and overcome his rivals.

Jeff: Talk about the soldiers that fought for Wagner Group. What did they think of Prigozhin? What did they think of this whole effort?

John: Well, they tended to think very highly of Prigozhin as a leader. They tended to be very proud of the work that they did. You know what, most mercenaries now are not what we would think of as pure mercenaries, right, who will fight for whichever country pays the most, including against their own country. Most of these guys, like in other PMCs, they come out of the militaries in which they serve. They have a tendency to get out and miss the camaraderie that comes with the military, the adventure. And they don’t like or are bored with civilian life and being the Russian version of a mall cop. And the money is good as well.

And so they consider themselves Russian patriots at the same time and what they did as furthering the interest of the Russian state, even though in some places, like in Africa, Wagner was ahead of the Russian state and very much like Francis Drake planting a flag in an area and declaring it for the crown, trying to create what Russia’s interests were in a given place as well.

Jeff: How did Prigozhin fall out of favor with Putin and the Russians?

John: Well, he first fell out of favor with the Minister of Defense Shoigu. And as I mentioned, he’s promising bigger and bigger victories, to take Bakhmut from the Ukrainians. And to do so, he needs convicts as human waves. Eventually, the Ministry of Defense starts putting the screws on Prigozhin and they cut him off from the conduct recruitment and his means of delivering victories. This is a time when he doesn’t have access to Putin himself. And so ultimately when the Ministry of Defense also declares that they’re going to kick all Wagner personnel away from him, he mutinies.

And he decides that he’s going to create a fake conflict whereby Putin has to choose between either himself or Minister of Defense Shoigu. And it seems that he wanted to make the choice easier by capturing and killing Shoigu himself. And so in June, 2023, Prigozhin mutinies, his forces cross from Ukraine back into Russia. They take the southern military command. Shoigu is not there. Their efforts to talk Prigozhin down lead to nowhere and Wagner starts marching north in a column to Moscow.

Jeff: And to what extent did that impact the war itself? What impact did it have on the battle on the ground?

John: It was highly destabilizing to the Russian political system for the moment, but already by that point, Wagner and Prigozhin had pulled his men out of the fight and there were efforts to reallocate resources. And so in terms of its effect, like were the Ukrainians able to take advantage and gain significant territory? That wasn’t the case. But it was nonetheless a highly destabilizing event, to say the least.

Jeff: If that event hadn’t happened, would in fact Wagner Group and Prigozhin have had additional successes?

John: They may have but it would’ve been difficult for them to keep going. After Bakhmut there’s another city that’s just like Bakhmut. It’s an incredibly slow slug for the Russian military going up against, again, a modern European NATO-trained military. And so the access to convict recruits was not limitless. And so I think they could have still logged success but would they have made a massive difference? Would the Russians be in Kyiv right now? I don’t think so.

Jeff: Is there any debate or question about the fact that Prigozhin was assassinated?

John: No. And as I mentioned, Prigozhin, he decides to call off the mutiny. The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, intervenes and talks both sides down, and ultimately, Prigozhin gets on his plane three months later and the plane explodes mid air. And the Russian government, Vladimir Putin himself, made very little effort to [unintelligible 00:24:30] the Russian public of their hand behind it. And so it’s almost certain that the Russian state was behind it, that the spectacular way in which he was killed was certainly designed as a message.

Jeff: What does the West learn about private military companies going forward? What might we expect based upon the experiences of the Wagner Group?

John: I think what we’ll see is we’ll see these private military companies in many cases become incredibly powerful in some cases, like in the Russian context. They can become a destabilizing force. I don’t see that happening in the US anytime soon but certainly in other areas of the world. And we are increasingly in a world where so much is outsourced that very often these militias or these PMCs have an equal monopoly on the use of force as the governments themselves. And it’s becoming easier and easier to ship young men from one conflict to another in what is the dark underbelly of globalization.

Jeff: And how does a company like Blackwater, for example, in its heyday compare to Wagner group?

John: Very different. Blackwater, even in its heyday, was largely protecting convoys, protecting occupation officials in Iraq, for example, or set buildings. Blackwater was not engaged, it didn’t have a mandate to go take oil fields from rebels, for example. And this is where they really differ from Wagner Group because the flexibility of the Russian system basically allowed for Wagner to have any mandate that local governments essentially wanted from it. And so they could either primarily act in a defensive logistical way or just provide military training or they could provide a full counterinsurgency.

Jeff: And what happened to Wagner Group after Prigozhin’s death?

John: There’s been an effort to subordinate Wagner Group to the Ministry of Defense, and that has largely occurred, but the handover has been easier in some places and more difficult in others. And so in Syria and in Libya, it has been relatively easy to simply have the men sign new contracts with the new ministry of defense entity. In the Central African Republic, which wasn’t again of that much importance to the Russian state, the officials came down and they looked at everything going on and they couldn’t understand it and a decision was made, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Whereas in a place like Mali where there still is multiple overlapping civil wars with Wagner running around in the countryside, it’s been very difficult for them to figure out a way to hand over these forces. They’re fixing the plane in the air.

Jeff: And are there groups in the world similar to Wagner forming today, be they in Russia, be they in Africa, wherever? In your research and all the years that you’ve spent looking at this, do you sense that there are other Wagner groups out there?

John: They created a market for their services, and so it’s inevitable that other security entrepreneurs like Prigozhin are going to try and fill the void. I think I mentioned earlier that Turkey is increasingly in this business in Africa. There’s a scene in my book in Libya where the Turks are shipping Syrians to fight on one side of the conflict and Russia ships in Syrians to fight on the other. And so SADAT, the Turkish PMC, is active, the UAE, United Arab Emirates, is very active in this space, and under the Trump administration, it could be that we see DMCs with a new mandate as well to participate in offensive operations against, say, the cartels in Mexico.

Jeff: John Lechner, his book is Death Is Our Business: Russian Mercenaries and the New Era of Private Warfare. John, I thank you so very much for spending time with us.

John: Thank you so much for having me.

Jeff: Thank you. And thank you for listening and joining us here on the WhoWhatWhy Podcast. I hope you join us next week for another WhoWhatWhy podcast. I’m Jeff Schechtman. If you like this podcast, please feel free to share and help others find it by rating and reviewing it on iTunes. You can also support this podcast and all the work we do by going to whowhatwhy.org/donate.