#195 Marat Gabidullin - Wagner Group Commander / Russian Mercenary

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This is my first ever interview with an enemy combatant, a commander from Russia's infamous

Vox. This is my first ever interview with an enemy combatant, a commander from Russia's infamous Wagner Group.

There's a little bit of a language barrier with this one, so bear with us because there is some very interesting information in this episode.

If you can bear with the language barrier, I think you're going to get a lot out of this and learn a lot about Wagner Group, how they came about, their training, and the caliber of men that they had working on. Enjoy the show.
Murad Gabadulin, welcome to the show. Thank you.
Nice to meet you. John, thank you for being here.
Wanted to bring you on here to fill in a couple of gaps with the language barrier. Sure.
Murat Gabadulin, born in Ural, you grew up in Uzbekistan and joined the Soviet military in 1984. Served as a paratrooper officer and commanded a recon company, then joined Russia's Wagner Group starting as a grunt fighting ISIS in Syria and rising all the way to commander.
You worked closely with Wagner boss Pergozhin advising the ISIS hunters in Syria and fought in the battle of Kashyam in 2018 against U.S. and Kurdish forces.
You then quit Wagner in 2019, authored a book about your time with Wagner, and since then you have moved to France where you are now seeking asylum. This interview has taken place in Paris.
Obviously we couldn't get you to the U.S. so we came here to meet you.
It's really weird for me to say this, but you are an enemy combatant, and you fought in a skirmish in Syria against 40 U.S. soldiers, Special Forces soldiers, and I'm friends with a couple of those guys, heard their account of that battle.
And then we ran into your friend, John Lechner, and asked to be connected with you. So I just want to thank John, a freelance journalist, writer, and researcher who's been in complex zones across the globe.
Author of the book, Death is Our Business, Russian Mercenaries in the New Era

of Private Warfare, expert on Russia's moves in Africa, their foreign policy, and private military companies. So thank you again for being here.
Thanks for having me. I wanted to dive in on a little bit of the history of the Wagner Group.
Yeah. And so how did it start? well, so as Murat was telling you, Wagner really began in 2014.
And Murat, as he was saying, he joined the company, as they call it, they only on the inside call it the company. Wagner group itself as an entity never existed.
It was sort of just a nickname that was given to it.

Some of my friends told me that in Russia emerged some kind of structure where I can start my life from the very beginning. Wagner initially came out of the war in eastern Ukraine, and its founder was a guy, Evgeny Prigozhin, who Murat has mentioned a couple of times.
This is a guy who was born in the 60s in the Soviet Union and sort of grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. He was a petty thief and kind of a small-time gangster in his teenage years.
And he goes away to prison at the age of 18, if I remember correctly, for assault and robbery. He and his gang were on a street in Leningrad, which became St.
Petersburg, and Fregosian came up behind a woman and strangled her until she almost died, and then they robbed her and he was caught and sent away for nine years. And when he gets out, the Soviet Union is collapsing around him, and he returns to his native St.
Petersburg, where first he falls in with some gangsters again in the 90s, which Murat had kind of alluded to previously with these various crime bosses and things. And so he falls in with some crime bosses himself, and they set him up as a manager of some grocery store chains.
He eventually turns that into becoming a restaurateur of some very fancy restaurants in St. Petersburg that a younger Vladimir Putin enjoyed.
And he leveraged those relationships to eventually get getting the job of providing meals to the whole Russian military and the Russian school system. So he became close with Putin through his restaurant tours.
Well as you'll see kind of as we go through the story he manages to connect with Putin. Putin likes him but he's never able he would always say that he was about one handshake away from Putin and so Putin gets To know him, he kind of likes him because he's never able he would always say that he was about one handshake away from putin and so putin gets to know him he kind of likes him because he's uncouth he he he kind of has that sort of rough kind of attitude which is somewhat refreshing given kind of the bureaucratic elite that are surrounding putin and so prigozhin eventually gets gets this job to provide the meals for the Russian military.
And so, that takes us to around 2014 or so when, well, we have to go back a little bit further. So, while he's doing this work as a contractor, He also is looking for different ways that he can look good and get on Putin's radar.
One of the ways he does it is there are massive protests against Putin's return to the presidency in 2012. And so Prigozhin puts together this kind of documentary that shows how all the protesters are fake, basically supported by the West.
And he finances it himself. It's not like Putin is doing this, but it's a way to virtue signal and show, hey, I'm furthering the cause of Putin's cause and Russia's cause more broadly.
And so, as I said, Putin is coming to the presidency again in 2012.

There are massive destabilizing protests against it.

And he navigates it and gets back into power.

But pretty much fairly quickly thereafter, another revolution is happening, this time on Russia's border

in Ukraine, what became the Maidan revolution in late 2013. And for Putin, he sees these two things as connected, right? It's the West basically trying to overthrow Russia, overthrow his own regime, and they're doing it wherever they can.
And so the Kremlin in early 2014 makes a decision to annex Crimea, which is a peninsula on the Black Sea that is part of Ukraine. It had beforehand been part of Russia during the Soviet period, but it went to Ukraine during the Soviet Union and Russia's Black Sea fleet is there.
This is the only warm water port that they have, and it's important. And so amidst all this chaos, the Kremlin decides to annex Crimea.
They use special forces to do it, but then they also rely on these kind of like right-wing Russian nationalist chauvinists, kind of the folks in sort of Russia's own nationalist militant movement to provide some of the security on the peninsula for the annexation. And after its success, the Kremlin thinks everything's done and dusted.
But kind of unbeknownst to them at the time or kind of something that was unexpected was that

amidst this revolution in Ukraine there's also an anti-Maidan movement especially in eastern Ukraine in this region called Donbass which is economically and culturally closer to Russia and so as Ukrainians are taking over government or government buildings to overthrow the government of Yanukovych, anti-Maidan protesters are taking over these buildings in Donbass, in Donetsk, and in Luhansk. And this puts Putin and the Kremlin into a difficult situation because unlike Crimea, they didn't want to annex eastern Ukraine, Donbass.
It's not that important to Russia.

But Putin is kind of boosting his nationalist credentials by annexing Crimea.

It gives a big kind of rally around the flag effect.

And crucially, this is a rally around the flag from people who, these nationalists,

these Russian nationalists and militant guys who were against Putin's rule in 2012 and were marching against him.

And so he can't be seen as letting these separatists in eastern Ukraine hang out to dry.

But he doesn't want to risk further sanctions from the West, international isolation.

And so the Kremlin has to think very quickly, like, how do we support but not support

these separatists in eastern Ukraine? And this is where Yevgeny Prigozhin, the guy who's providing the meals for the Russian military, becomes acquainted with another guy, Dmitry Utkin, who is a former GRU officer, Russian military intelligence.

He fought in Chechnya. He was stationed near Estonia.
And he had just come back and almost gotten in big trouble for this kind of misadventure with a Russian PMC in Syria. These two guys come together and they sign an agreement whereby Utkin will provide the tactical knowledge, provide the men as contractors, and Purgosian will provide the political backing and the financial support for this mercenary group that is very closely, if not basically, as Murat was saying, a Ministry of Defense project that they send into eastern Ukraine right across the border to support the separatists.
It's interesting because when I interviewed Eric Prince, we had spoken about Eric Prince earlier, they reached out to Eric Prince to try to help build Wagner Group off of Blackwater. Did you know that? To tell the truth, I am not completely agree with this opinion.
Firstly, Wagner Group has nothing to do with the private sector. So what was the recruitment? How did they recruit their fighters? So as Murat was saying, I mean it's word of mouth basically.
And I think Murat will tell you later as well. The initial group of Wagner, which came out of this PMC that had the year before gone to Syria.
So before Wagner, there were a number of kind of what we would think of as like Western style PMCs that had popped up. And largely in response to the Somali piracy crisis, which I'm sure you remember, there was an opportunity for these Russian contractors to protect Russian ships that are going through the Gulf of Aden.
A number of Russian contractors were even working in Iraq during the war on terror as well. The issue is that mercenarism is illegal in Russia, technically.
And so these firms would basically establish themselves in Hong Kong or the Bahamas or something along those lines. And then the client would provide them with the weapons when they showed up going through a third country to protect the ship or what have you.
And there was this one group called Moran Group where Dmitry Utkin, after he left the service, went to go work for. And one of the founders of Moran got a contract with a Syrian oligarch in 2013 to, at least what the guys thought at the time, to basically protect oil and gas assets from ISIS.
And when they showed up, it turned out that the Syrians wanted them to actually take those assets from ISIS. And there's almost like a little mutiny among the contractors, but they went ahead and they got ambushed.
And Dmitry Utkin actually got the guys out safely during a sandstorm. They all go back to Russia, kind of with their tail between the legs, and the FSB, the successor to the KGB, arrests and charges the two commanders who went to Syria with mercenarism.
Lutkin, who's like one level below, gets off along with all the rest of the guys. And only a couple of months later, all of a sudden, Russia needs mercenaries.
They know who is interested in this type of work because they almost arrested the the guy in Syria and so uh those same 50 guys or so formed the core of what was just then called the company and Dmitry Utkin uh who uh is a fan of uh the German composer uh Richard Wagner takes his call sign, in Donbass. And since he was the main commander, eventually it becomes kind of the catch-all term for the company more generally.
Okay. So it sounds like when Marat came in, it was about 600 people.
So when Marat first came in in April 2015, I think it was getting close to about 600 guys. You can correct me if I'm wrong.
And Marat was coming in in April 2015. So this is right around the time that Russia is actually trying to sort of get to a ceasefire and take over these separatist republics at the time.
And so when Marat joined, Wagner was a bit different at the time. It was one of many different forces that the MOD was using to support these separatists.
And no one thought that it was going to become what it became. And so it was one of several units that were kind of figuring out ways to bring volunteers in to support the separatists.

And Wagner at that time had this group of 50 guys or so who had been in Syria, but they also had a unit of Serbian volunteers that were coming through.

And so when Murat joined, he was initially part of the International Brigade, which was largely Serbian, and he had a Serbian commander. Eventually the Serbs would be kind of kicked out, kicked by the wayside later on when we got to Syria.
But when Murat joined, it was a few months before some of the final big battles, before we saw what was called the Minsk II ceasefire between Ukraine and the separatist statelets backed by Russia at the time. Okay, okay.
Is it true that they started recruiting out of the prisons? In a conflict situation with a crime boss. With a crime boss? With a crime boss.
What was the situation? The criminal using any opportunity to take some money from anyone. And this situation emerged on the empty place.
But as a result, during the meeting, I shot him. You shot him? Shot him.
And I was sentenced to three years in prison. Where did you shoot him? Where? In the head? No, in the body.
In the body? In the body. And then in the head.
I was in prison in Krasnojaersk in Siberia. At that time, I served in Siberia.

Our regiment was removed from the Kishinov to Siberia after the Soviet Union collapsed.

So, they, I think Wagner at the beginning, and I think this is what Murat will tell you, was for the most part, guys who had military experience like Murat, guys who had trouble adjusting to civilian life in some shape or form and wanted to experience the adventure and camaraderie again. And largely through word of mouth, were recruited to the company when they found out there was this opportunity in Ukraine or eventually later on in Syria and elsewhere.
And so for the most part, it was guys coming out of the military. Maybe they had a brush with the law, like Murat had, to put it lightly.
But the full convict recruitment program, where if you saw the videos of Purgosian going around to all of the penal colonies and recruiting prisoners, that only happened after 2022 for Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Okay.
So there were definitely dudes who had served prison time, got out, and then joined Wagner, but they weren't recruiting from the prisons at that time. It was really, I mean, if I remember correctly, it was Murat's buddy from his military times who recruited him just by word of mouth.
He said, hey, I'm doing this. Do you want to join? What was the test like? You said you had to take some type of a test to get into Wagner Group.
After me, time. And push up, 55 times.

55 push ups.

Push up.

A three kilometer run.

Were there any tactics involved?

Like room clearance, entering a building?

Oh, no.

No.

No, nothing like that.

No.

What are these guys getting paid?

They, I mean, I think it depended, but they usually were getting about 2,000.

I'll see you next time. Oh, no.
No, nothing like that. What are these guys getting paid? I mean, I think it depended, but they usually were getting about $2,000 a month during their time on the contract.
And so this is pretty good money in Russia for guys. So it's definitely a motivating factor.
What has it developed into? I mean they're in Africa, they're in Ukraine, aren't they doing breweries? They're doing all kinds of stuff. What all are they involved in? So what I think is interesting about this story, because As Marat will you you know this was very much a state-supported uh entity but and and you know we can ask marat as well again i i also don't think it could have become what it was if it weren't for the ambition of its founder yovgeny as well and and so uh kind so if we look at what was happening in Ukraine in 2015, a lot of those units that the MOD was supporting after the ceasefire, they just kind of dispersed, went home, didn't really do much after.
But only a few months later, Russia's overtly intervening in Syria. There's nothing covert about it, right? It's a full air campaign with the Russian military.

And Purgosian and Utkin are very much also lobbying to make sure that he gets his guys into there because he has now this kind of force at his disposal and what he's good

at is trying to figure out, okay, this now what do I do with it and and it was at this point where I think he he saw the black waters of the world and he said okay I want to do kind of my version of this and it so happened that Syria was going to be the next opportunity for him to do so um and so uh Murat was one of the first guys on the ground in Syria um as he'll tell you uh they the MOD didn't really know what to do with him and a couple of guys got killed uh and and they didn want casualties right away. So they panicked and sent them home.
And it was only until it became clear that Russian air power alone wasn't going to defeat the rebels against Assad or ISIS that Wagner was brought back in. This time on the ground where they take Palmyra, then they get sent home again, then they get back in and Murat will tell you all about the Battle of Khashoggi.
But it gets to that point where it's this mix, right? They have state backing, but Purgosian is also out there with his guys basically doing business development, right? If you have a PMC, where are you going to market your services? You have to go to Africa at some point. Otherwise, you should fire your B&D guy.
And so already in 2017, Prigozhin is sending his guys out to drum up new business.

They first signed a contract with the Sudanese to provide training, and they get access to mining concessions in Sudan. Then they show up in the Central African Republic, where there's really no other kind of competition from other Russians.
And so Pigozhin is able to provide training. He offers his information warfare because he has the troll farms, which were kind of very famous in the U.S.
during the 2016 elections. And his guys go out and they try to start breweries and they go into gold mining and what have you.
They act as marat was saying very independently of the kremlin because these places aren't that important to russia and so in the places that aren't aren't important he has to figure out his own ways to finance these these operations and so they go from the central african republic they're in libya backing backing Haftar in his bid to take Tripoli in 2019.

Then they show up in Mali, where they sign a deal with the Malian government to go after various jihadi groups. and then ultimately they are initially left out of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022

and only get brought in when the Russian government's in trouble. So these guys are not they're definitely not just in Russia's best interest they're doing they're doing their own thing in all these separate parts of the world.
Yeah, but I think that it's not

... they're doing their own thing in all these separate parts of the world.
Yeah, but I think that it's not, because people are always asked, is this a private thing or a public thing? And the answer is both. And I mean, we're in Paris right now, but when I'm sitting in Washington, D.C., I try to explain to people, like, this is the capital of public-private partnerships, right?

Lockheed Martin is a profit-driven company. They will frame whatever they're doing as furthering America's national defense and security, but they're also profit-driven.
And so what Purgosian was very good at was selling back to the Kremlin this dream of kind of Russia's expansion abroad.

Gotcha.

And he could sell it back to Putin, these different initiatives that were also just happened to be potentially profitable to him.

Interesting. Interesting.

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This ad is paid for by Silencer Shop. All right, Marant, let's go to when you got on the ground in Syria.

First time in September in 2015, I think Prigurin

is looking for the opportunity to implement this completely new concept of using military forces. And he wants to demonstrate the ability, combatability of the mercenaries.
And we were delivered to Syria by the scheduled

civilian flight of civilian military, Russian military looked at us with a surprise. They didn't know who we are and what we do here and how they must treat us.
After we received the weapon, we took part in several military actions and demonstrated the whole superiority over over enemy.

And of course, the whole superiority over the Bashar Assad army. But I think at that moment, Russian military and Syrian military thought that they would handle this situation without us.
The Russian military thought that if they provided the Syrian army with a higher stride support,, Syrian army can achieve the victory in this war.

But it turned out that the Syrian army degraded to the point of inability to wage offensive action. And so, like as Murat is saying, when Russia first intervenes in Syria, one of the reasons that they're doing it, actually, it's after the annexation of Crimea, and they recognize the importance of Syria at that time for the U.S.
and for the West. Because this is, if you remember 2015, this is when ISIS is really at its height with the territorial caliphate.
And the U.S. has already intervened, gone back in to fight ISIS.
And so the Russians think that if we go in backing Assad, we can kind of force the U.S. into a joint counterterrorism operation against ISIS that will force them to kind of basically start talking to us again.
And so they come in and they're backing Assad. But as Murat's saying, Assad's government, I mean, the forces that he has are incredibly unmotivated.
I mean, for obvious reasons, given his rule and the rebels, not just ISIS, but all the other rebels fighting against them are a lot more motivated. And the Russians initially wanted it to just be an air campaign.
But, I mean, as you find out pretty quick, air campaigns alone rarely work for anybody. And it was clear that Russian air power with Assad's forces on the ground was not going to work.
They were not going to take the territory back from rebels. But they face an issue at the time, which I think you speak to as well, where this is kind of a faraway intervention for Russia.
and they haven't figured out yet if they want to have actual Russian troops on the ground

and what Russians will think, the Russian public will think, if Russian soldiers are going home in caskets. And there's a sense that they're going to be against this and say, why are we here in Syria? And so one of the reasons that Murat and Wagner

were able to get back in

is that the Russian military didn't have to report casualties for Wagner. And using the mercenaries in this war to take

to

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to чтобы решить очень сложный вопрос. Русские генералы The thing is that Russian generals invented the concept of the war with a little bloodshed.
And using the mercenaries, they can create some kind of appearances that this concept is working. The loss of the mercenaries didn't include in the official statistics.

Okay, that makes sense. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole point of Russia going into Syria to include Wagner was to build some type of an alliance with the United States against ISIS.
it was an effort because, in part, there's always a lot of reasons why things happen, but the timing of their intervention. Because if you remember, Syria started going into civil war right around the time of the Arab Spring.
So this is already like five years before that. the Russians didn't have any particular love for Assad

despite the fact that

there So this is already like five years before that. The Russians didn't have any particular love for Assad, despite the fact that there was a Russian base in Syria and kind of some history going back to the Soviet Union.
And what really explains the timing of why they went in was this sense of isolation that

they felt after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 in Ukraine.

And it was this sense of isolation that they felt after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 in Ukraine. And it was this effort to basically get themselves onto the world stage again in a crisis that they thought was existentially important to the West, which was the defeat of ISIS.
Of course, also when they show up and they're on the ground, Assad also has different ideas for what he wants the Russians to do. And ISIS is less of a concern to him than a lot of the more secular rebels elsewhere as well.
And that he wants the Russians to go after those guys. Whereas the Russians want to go try and meet up with the Americans as they're closing in on ISIS, as the territorial caliphate is kind of crumbling down.
Interesting. Interesting.
Well, let's talk about the Battle of Kashan between Wagner and U.S. Special Forces.
So, like I mentioned, I have friends that were in that battle. It sounds like there was about 500 Wagner Group soldiers on the ground.
There were 40 U.S. Special Forces guys couple with the Kurdish partner force.

And so let's just start with the beginning. What were you doing that close to American forces? From the very beginning, this factory was very important.
This factory enclosed all infrastructure of the oil field nearby, nearby Konaka. and Prigozhin wanted to seize this factory during the battle for the Devzor.
But we have not enough resources. We are were forced to attract our forces in order to achieve a goal in order to take a liberate their zone.
Our allies were very undecisively acted, very undecisively, and we cannot use our forces in order to advance forward. Can I put a little bit before? Why did Purgosian want to take these Konoco facilities? In 2016, Murat and Wagner, they capture Palmyra from ISIS.
And Murat has, I think, some of the medals from that time period that they'll show. But after the capture, the Russian military sends Wagner home again.
And then a few months later, ISIS recaptures it, Palmyra, and Wagner comes back in.

But this time, Pergoshan has signed a deal with Assad's government. And part of the deal is that Wagner will participate in the counteroffensive.
and Purgosian and his companies get a 25%

share of the proceeds of the oil and gas assets that are recuperated. And so Purgosian has this massive incentive now to go out against ISIS and capture as much of those assets as he can.
and so in 2017

Murat and Wagner

are back in Syria. And this is right around the time where ISIS is collapsing.
The US is backing the Kurdish SDF. The SDF is coming from the northeast, south.
They're heading for ISIS's capital, Raqqa. And Wagner and Assad forces are heading north.
And at a certain point, there's this factory that Murat is talking about called Kanaka, which is sort of the crown jewel of all the assets. It's valued in the

hundreds of millions of dollars. And it was one of ISIS's most valuable assets for fuel smuggling.
The most profitable oil field in Syria. So, Pergozian wants this.

And he's sending letters to the Syrian government saying that they're not upholding their end of the bargain, that he's spending all of this money on the offensive and the Syrians aren't paying him. So, he sees Konoko as the way to kind of get profitability, get out of the red and into the black.
The only issue is that as ISIS is collapsing, everyone is thinking what a post-ISIS world is going to look like. So the Kurds, with the blessing of the U.S., start moving away from Raqqa and heading south towards Deir Azor.
And there's a rush for who's going to get this conical plan when ISIS is gone. And the SDF, the Kurdish forces backed by special forces, get there first.
And then this is where Furgzhin made a mistake. He thought that he can achieve his goal as a result in negotiation with the elders of the Kurdish tribe.
But at that time, the function of the SPS was in charge of the whole thing. And the oldest of the tribes, they live, Prigozhin.

The Kurdish elders? They gave a guarantee that Kurdish forces retreat as soon as we started to move forward. But they just died.
How many guys did you have gathered to attack Conoco at that time?

I think about 500 units. the Carpathian and the 5th assault unit and my group that consists Syrian fighters.
75 men. This was only a unit of the Syrian that took part in this action.

No one else. Only Russian mercenaries and this group of Syrian fighters.
I had to advance on the left flank and take over to stronghold. We advanced on the start line of attack, but Americans prevented us.
They

They strike on the second echelon, headquarter, artillery position, and then they shift the fire on us. Did you guys fire on them? From the sky, American uses, at the beginning American uses only aviation.
They had two Spectre gunships and two Apaches, Yeah. Combat drones, spooky and combat helicopter.
So what was going through your head when you knew that US Special Operations initiated the attack? No, no, no. What you should tell them is start from the beginning of the morning, because this happened on February 8th,? February what? The night.
The night of February. Between 7 and 8 February.
And you were in the room the day before or a couple of days before where Utkin, he comes in and he says we're going to take this from the Americans. And someone said, are the Americans going to be there? And he said, yeah.
Yes, I don't know why, but Prigozhin decided that Americans wanted to be involved. And I don't know why.
The thing is, the Prigozhin have one future, It's like a personality trait.

From time to time, his ego.

His ego.

Ego... ...roses above the common sense.
Maybe it's something that might look cool um and no one has done this before

if we get a piece of paper and marat can show where the americans were and how wagner came over with the with the arrows and stuff that way that way people can get No one's done this before.

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We were completely destroyed. So this is our position.
This is your position. The factory is Konico.
And this is the Kurds in the US. No, the Kurds in the US are in here in the Quantico facility.
This is Wagner's two positions right here. They're inside the facility.
No, no, no. Facility is around like this.
And then they go and attack that way. But the U.S.
was inside the facility.

So, Wagner initiated an attack?

Yes.

It was planned action with signs of the false artillery assault on the Kurdish.

And you guys, you knew that U.S. special operations were in the factory? Yes.
We know about it. Were you worried? We knew about it.
Don't worry. Our chief, our commander told us that Americans wanted involved.
But they wouldn't get involved? Yeah. As I already said, I don't know why, but Prigozhin was convinced that American forces were not involved.

Wow. What's this distance?

What's the distance? How many kilometers? between my units and first stronghold, about 300 meters. 300 meters? That's it? We moved very close to this position and we have already been ready to attack, but Americans prevented us from any...
What you know too is that what your buddies will say who are there so the other key thing is this is the Euphrates right here and so during this kind of counter-ISIS operation the Russians and the Americans are trying to figure out ways that they can de-conflict so that no one is actually shooting each other. Because there's a lot of guys running around in this area now.
And so they create this kind of line of de-confliction between US-backed forces in Syria and Russian-backed forces. And the line is pretty much the Euphrates River, which is right here.
And that's established. But the issue for Purgosian is that the most profitable oil fields are right across, on the other side of the deconfliction line and so murat and and wagner what they're doing prior to this is they're building up their forces they're testing a little bit the line of deconfliction probably because they cross the river and there's this one little spot that is is still Russian territory.

And so the Americans are watching this on the drones. And they're seeing the buildup.
They see it all day. And eventually, in the evening, they start calling the Russians over the deconfliction line that they have between the US and Russian militaries, and they say, are these your guys? And the Russian military says, no.
No. They denied.
They denied. They denied to...
They denied to confirm. What did you initiate the assault with? What was the equipment, weapons? I have...

I was supported firstly by the artillery. So you were hitting Conoco with artillery? What they were first doing was they were faking artillery training.
Because they had set themselves up close. Mortal.
Yeah, mortars.

Mortal artillery. Americans very quickly suppressed the activity of any kind of artillery.
And I left without any support. I have an automatic rifle, machine gun, automatic grenade launcher, AGS-17, and two machine guns.
But there was nothing against the... Well, the fifth unit had tanks, right? There were two tanks? No.
This tank was on the right side from me. I saw the tank only at the last time, before this tank was destroyed.
I heard the sound of shooting and I came out of the position and I saw a autonic. And firstly I decided this is good for me.

But immediately after I glanced on him, he was destroyed by the rocket. And there was absolutely no, there was a big explosion.
This tank was completely destroyed. Because what was going through your head when the Americans retaliated? To save my life.
To save my life of my people, I cried to him, to run away from here. Run away, in any way, but only a small group.
Only a small group. Two or three persons, not gathering.

You wanted to do this first. But it was in vain.

Unfortunately, I will in any way gather together and fall on the fire from the helicopter. I lost 23 fighters.

23 fighters.

23 fighters were killed. Were you close with them? Were you friends with them? Did you meet with the fighters? It was very little time to become a friendship.
I was appointed on this position two and a half week before this event. 23 dead, 28 wounded.
Is that correct? In his unit only. In your unit.
Yeah. I mean, I think the thing that is also kind of important for people to realize is, you know, it's getting towards the evening and Wagner, they're feigning drills and then they attack right and uh the u.s is calling and they call three times over the de-confliction line to the russian ministry of defense and they say are these your guys and three times the ministry of defense says no and so as you know and and your buddies know, that's when the U.S.
had the green light to effectively defend themselves against this attack. And I think it's fair to say that the U.S.
defended itself in a way that would send a message as well. And the amount of air power that came in was probably disproportionate to the threat and designed to send a message.
Because, I mean, the amount of of i think i think americans didn't care of uh

didn't care of uh of the

facility of the uh russian army i don't really care they they they was ready to strike in any case. And they I think they absolutely didn't fear to use their weapons.
That's generally the sentiment. I mean, these guys are at war.
That's what they want to do. And they did it.
And you said, I mean, the US brought in like two Apaches. Two Apaches and two Spectre gunships.
Which Spectre gunship is? Russian generals. Russian generals was completely confused by this situation.
Russian generals didn't have ability, an ability to take responsibility and to make a decision independently. And when he encountered this situation, he was confused.
Absolutely. Because the question is, right, why did the Russian Ministry of Defense deny that it was Russians who were attacking?

And there is an argument, I think, to be made.

like Purgosian, his gamble in trying to take Conoco was that when the Americans saw that it was Russians coming, the Americans would want to avoid any direct confrontation, World War III, and they would back away and retreat along with the Kurds. And he was incredibly mistaken in that calculation.
And what I think he wasn't counting on and what Murad is saying is that when the Americans were calling into the Ministry of Defense, you have some poor guy on the line who is also not going to be responsible for World War III. And so the quickest thing that you're going to do is not say, yeah, those are my guys attacking u.s soldiers you're going to say don't know anything about it don't know what you're talking about and try to go to your higher-ups to cover your own butt and so ultimately it was you know it was probably he probably got promotion probably had kind of a wink and a nod from the Ministry of Defense that he was going to try to do this.

And if it worked out, it's a great Russian victory for everybody, Assad, the Russians, Prigozhin.

And if it doesn't, in the Ministry of Defense's mind, it's just Wagner guys who are getting killed.

Wow. How long did the battle go on for

how how long uh about six hours six hours from the uh from the midnight to

to mo to morning about midnightnight to morning. Eighteen nine Russian machineries were killed in this battle, and 23 Syrian fighters from my union were killed.
How many wounded? About 200. 200 wounded? 200 wounded.
200 wounded. Two assault units was completely destroyed.
I mean, weapon, technique. Like 300 casualties total.
on the next day, Russian authority proclaimed that no one Russian suffered in this event. No one.
And you were responsible for counting the bodies, right? Yes, of course. I must bring the dead, the dead, the Syrian, In the city, we were at the headquarter of my battalion.
Oh, so he was there for the ceremony of the burial. Ah, burial.
Yeah, before we get there, what ended it? Why did they stop? If they didn't kill everybody, what stopped it? After I came back from this battle, I gave an order to send my people to bring a body and a weapon on the battlefield. brought from this area all body and all weapons that was left on this area during the battle.
So eventually in the morning the Ministry of Defense got in touch with the Americans, and it was agreed, the Americans agreed to a two-hour pause so that the Russians could collect weapons and dead. So if the Ministry of Defense of Russia initially denied this three different times, then how do they contact the US to ask to clean up the bodies?

They can, they could say this, say it so in the very beginning. And if they say, yes,Да, хорошо, я буду дать еще раз укрепить».
Если русские генералы дали еще раз укрепить, то ничего не случилось. Все будет хорошо.
Но русские генералы... nothing happened.
Everything will be fine. But Russian generals didn't know what to do in this situation.
But eventually they told the Americans we need to go collect. So eventually they said there might be some Russians there, to the Americans.

The thing is, it has already happened.

We were destroyed. The whole field was covered with the corpses and burned tanks and traps of our units.
Everyone who can move, lift this area and come to the bank of the river. So there were only bodies left.
And then the agreement was made that they have two hours to go back to the area to collect the debt. How does that make you feel now, knowing that the Russian military had denied three different times that it was Russians on the ground, and then also told the Russian people that there were no Russians that were killed in that battle?

Firstly, I think the Americans acted according to the situation. If I were on their place, I will do the same action.
It's the rules of war. If you are under attack, you must protect themselves and wage counterattack.

Secondly, I think it was a bad thing from the side of our chief. It was...
the... Пригожин and Wagner were absolutely wrong in this situation.
It's absolutely wrong. But...
By Wagner, it means Utkin. Yeah.
This battle was a defensive action from the outside. We were under attack of Kurdish forces, and despite of the heavy losses we can stay we can stay on our place and protect our position.
But what surprised me very much that many of our guys that took part in this battle accepted this version. Wow, wow.
Accepted this version, but it вы помните, мы идем в ассалт. Ни-и-и No one attacked us.
We initiated these events. Only we have responsibility for the circumstances of this battle.
I think probably every American that fought that day is going to watch this. Do you have anything personally to say to them? What can I say to them? They, as I already said, they acted according to the rule of war.
It was our initiative. Nothing.
So, how long after the battle did you leave Syria? One year. One year? But this is when you left Wagner for Redout, right? Yes, when I left Wagner, I joined Redoute,

and only protected.

It only defended or did security for...

It was a different PMC,

but their only job as a PMC was to secure...

Secure...

Yes, static security.

Static security, exactly.

It was not for me.

Let's take a quick break.

Thank you. secure.
Secure. Yes.
Static security. Static security.
Exactly. It was not for me.
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Alright All right, Murat, so you get back to Russia. How much longer was it until the Ukraine war kicked off? After this event, this war began, and I left my country.
John, what was the mutiny all about? yeah so i think you know murat as he's saying he he goes back he he finishes his uh work in syria but i mean after the battle of khasham in which murat participated i mean already by this point we were talking about it earlier wagner is in sudan by this point uh by around the same time as the battle of hashom they first start arriving the central african republic and then they're showing up in all sorts of places in africa libya and in mali and over there progression is acting kind of independently like we were talking about. But as the Battle of Hasham kind of showed, Pergozian himself is not always on the same page as the Ministry of Defense and Minister of Defense Shoigu.
and he's sort of a rock in their shoe very often you have to imagine here's this guy who is kind of technically supposed to with his forces be subordinate but he also has a mind and ambition of his own and he can occasionally uh get in front of putin himself and you can imagine what he's saying about the people that he doesn't like in front of Putin.

So, you know, imagine, you know,

you're the boss of an employee,

but the employee's dad is the CEO, right?

I mean, you know that there's another channel

that goes up if you try to, you know,

if you try to boss them around.

And so even though the Ministry of Defense and Wagner are cooperating in Africa quite a bit, there's still that interpersonal tension. And so when Putin makes a decision to launch the full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022, he gives the planning of it over to the general staff and the Ministry of Defense, and they want nothing to do with Purgosian.
And so their thinking at the time is that this is going to be a quick, easy victory, and we can do it, kind of in their mind, by the book without having to use guys like purgosian and so in the initial month or so of the invasion uh wagner is actually left out and purgosian is pissed about it he's calling up the the guys in the gru uh trying to figure out why his guys aren't in it and then trying to get his guys into it. And meanwhile, the very quick operation to take Kyiv does not go as planned and the Russian military is suffering setbacks.
And so Purgosian now has his opportunity to get his guys into the war. And, you know, the thing about Wagner that I think Murat will tell you too is that in the intervening years, really since Chechnya and, you know, a very brief war with Georgia, not a lot of guys in the Russian military have real battle experience.
Not a lot of people have been shot at. And so when Wagner comes in with its commanders, they start delivering some quick battlefield victories.
And so this puts Purgosian all of a sudden in this great position. He's able to come out of the shadows, and he becomes a hero of Russia.
He declares himself, oh, he denied it always that he was tied to Wagner Group. Now he declares, I was always the founder of Wagner.
And he's on state television. And as Murat said, this is a guy who already has a big ego, right? and the way that he always gets around his rivals

is by gambling big, like at Hashan.

And so he starts also promising things that he's going to do, something that the generals would never do.

And ultimately, what he ends up promising is that he's going to, basically Wagner is going to take Bakhmut, this kind of middle-sized city, from Ukrainian forces. And the way that he's going to do it is he gets exclusive permission for a time to go to all of Russia's prisons and recruit prisoners to the front line.
and so he shows up and he goes himself. I mean, he's a guy who does a lot of things himself.
Yes, he was deprived of the resources of the mobilization. Yeah, he wasn't allowed to have actual soldiers and so he gets the convicts.
And so he shows up up at these Russian penal colonies and they gather all the prisoners into the prison yard. And he comes in in his helicopter and he comes in and he speaks in

front of all of the prisoners and he says, you know, I have an offer for you. You can come and

fight for me for six months. And if you survive, you're a free man and your criminal record is expunged.
And he tells them that my losses are worse than Stalingrad, which obviously resonates with Russians. And ultimately, about 50,000 guys sign up.

And the tactic that Prigozhin is going to use

to take Bakhmut is the human wave tactic.

And so these convicts, they get two weeks training,

usually, I think, just inside the border with Ukraine and around Luhansk and then after that they're they're sent to the front and basically they're put in small units and the each small unit go one unit will go out attack the Ukrainian position you know eight guys be killed, but two guys get into the trench, and they do some damage before getting killed. And before the Ukrainians have a chance to recover, another unit of convicts is coming through.
And so it's a very inefficient way to wage war, but it is effective over time. The main reason for this operation was to attract as many Ukrainian forces as possible in order to prevent the attack on the other areas of the front line.

As you can imagine, it's a huge front line now in Ukraine. In the beginning, the first phase of the war in Donbas, it's a little section of the Donbas region.
Now it's like a thousand kilometers long maybe or something. think and so he also engaged with the Ukrainians.
And the Ukrainians are sending some of their best guys to defend Bakhmut. While for the Russian government, they're losing, in their mind, some of the worst people in society, these convicts.
And, it's like a four to one ratio in terms of losses. But it's something that the Russians and Prigozhin are willing to do for the reasons that Murat said.

But, you know, at this point, though, Purgosian is like an internet, like we all know who Purgosian is, right?

During the Bakhmut campaign, he becomes like the face of the war itself.

CNN is trying to reach him. The New York Times is trying to reach him for an interview.
He's huge back home in Russia. He's like finally everything that he, his ego is matched now by his popularity.
Yes, in this term, Wagner Group completely fulfilled his mission in this war. They achieved their goals that would stand before them.
They attract many uh They attracted a lot of Ukrainian forces and gave the opportunity for the Russian army to prepare a mobilizing reserve and to build the defensive line in the area of Zaporozhsky district. Murat mentioned, the Ministry of Defense is going to want to check him.
And so the first way that they do it is they start cutting off Pergozhin from convict recruitment. So he's promised to Putin, I'm going to take Bakhmut, but his means of doing so now is disappearing.
He needs a lot of bodies to take Bakhmut. The Ministry of Defense is cutting him off of those bodies.
Not because they're against prisoner recruitment, they just start doing it themselves. But the difference is, and this is always the issue for Prigozhin, is when he was doing it, he had the permission by like a wink and a nod from the presidential administration.
When the Ministry of Defense does it, Russian parliament officially makes it legal for them to recruit from prison. So there's always a way that Pergozhin can get screwed over in whatever he's doing.
So he's getting cut off. And so now he starts going public with the Ministry of Defense saying, I'm not getting enough ammunition for what we're trying to do.
And the Ministry of Defense is screwing over Wagner by not giving us enough ammunition that we need. And so now this spat starts going very public over social media.
And then ultimately, Shoigu and Furgoshin at this point hate each other's guts. In the Ministry of Defense then, kind of like their final counterattack on Prigozhin is they get the Kremlin to agree that all soldiers fighting in Ukraine on behalf of Russia have to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense.
On those who fight on the front line. Those on the front line.
Yeah. And so for Purgosian, you can imagine, he's this big guy now in Russia.
He's got thousands and thousands of men ostensibly under his command. And he recognizes that this is making him political, too.
And so, all of a sudden, the Ministry of Defense is taking those men out from underneath him. And I think for him, what he saw was the writing on the wall, that at the very least, when I no longer have Wagner Group, it means that I'm going to kind of disappear into obscurity, which he wasn't able to do at that point.
He couldn't just retire and be quiet. He was incapable of that.
But also without those men, he's no longer, he doesn't have political leverage anymore, and it could result in his ultimate demise. And so he has to figure out a way, how do I convince Putin to choose between me and Shoigu because Putin is choosing Shoigu right now.
And so the decision is made that Wagner is going to turn back from Ukraine into southern Russia and they're going to capture and kill the minister of defense. Wow.
And so on June 23rd, 2023, Wagner crosses back over. Prigozhin claims that the Ministry of Defense hit them with a rocket attack, which seems to be not the case.
That is a false в Россию, и взялись в Союзу-Союзу-Союзу-Милитарный команд. И они собираются за Шойгу.
Yes, Prigozhin thought that when he proposed to make a choice between him and Shoigugu, Pryghozhin will choose, of course, him. Putin will choose Pryghozhin.
And he also thinks too, or is hoping in the back of his mind, that all of that popularity that he had, from being on social on social media and being on Russian TV on the front lines of Bach move means that the soldiers in the Russian military itself are on his side too. And so he goes and they've taken the military command and the generals who are there are trying to talk him down and they're not able to do it and so progosian announces that they're gonna have a march for justice on moscow and the column of wagner the wagner column turns from southern russian military command and starts heading up the highway uh to moscow and i mean this is i mean i think everybody was glued to their TV screens to see Wagner call him heading on Moscow and the mayor of Moscow.
They started digging up the highway around Moscow to prevent their potential arrival. Wagner shoots down, I think, a number of helicopters and planes.
About 13 people are killed. But each time, you know, he's getting, Prigozhin is getting closer and closer to Moscow.
And he's also kind of going into empty space. And so now he's trying to communicate Putin that all he is trying to do is take out his rivals, Shoigu and Gerasimov.
He's not trying to overthrow Putin himself. No.
But the issue is, the closer he's getting to Moscow, the more he could accidentally be unleashing a coup, because it's going to be such a destabilizing moment. And so, at some point, he's trying to say, I'm not overthrowing the government, but now it's getting close to looking like he might overthrow the government if he gets into Moscow.
And behind the scenes, the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, is negotiating between Putin's side and Purgosian. And eventually, he gets Purgosian to agree to halt the march.
I think for Purgosian himself, he was a little bit relieved because he was realizing that events were going out of his control. They I mean they were hardly in his control beforehand, but they were as the closer he was getting to Moscow and they got within 150 miles, things were really starting to get out of control and he backs down.
And you could make an argument that the guy who had, you know, an insane risk tolerance, you know, from going against Americans in the battle of Khasham and risking his neck saying he's going to take Bakhmut, this was perhaps the one moment where he should have doubled down and gone all the way to Moscow, but he chose not to. and...
No, Prigozhin didn't want to take over the power. I think Prigozhin eventually realized that he didn't take into account one simple thing.
Putin doesn't need the Ministry of Defense, professional Ministry of Qualifying and Efficiency of the Ministry of Defense. He needs a close alliance, a supporter.
And when Prigozhin realized that in any case He cannot achieve his goal.

He gave an order to turn around. And that sealed his fate, ultimately, three months later.
As far as the conflict between the Ministry of Defense and Prigozhin, this conflict was permanent. The main reason, from the moment of the creation of the Mercenary Brigade, And from the moment when Prigozhin became a sole curator of this project,

this conflict began. The main reason, of course, is money.

При Гожин, Wagner Group was funded by passing the Ministry of Defence. And Shoigu was deprived of the opportunity to use this money to profit from this flow of the money.
Because that's how you make big money in Russia is by skimming off of the state budgets. So everything is a battle over the flow of budget because the more budget that comes your way, the more you mine your own.
Yes of course. The precaution was that the Wagner Group was funded directly from the state budget.
And it went all the way down. And so one of the reasons that, like, one of the ways that people were making money in Donbass in 2014, 2015, right, is you're a commander and you tell, you say, you tell the Ministry of Defense, oh, I have 200 guys under my command.
the Ministry of Defense pays your salaries but you actually have 150 or 125 guys

under my command, the Ministry of Defense pays your salaries, but you actually have 150 or 125 guys under your command. Not the case in the term of the Prygожins.
Prygожins don't act in this way. He was at a bigger level.
He was at a bigger level. He was at a bigger level.
He was at a bigger level. He was at a bigger most...
...the small money laundering. So...
...was he assassinated? Yes. Do you think the...
...the state killed Prigozина? No. I don't know who exactly was the actual person who did it.
Who is the actual person who did it and uh пригosian uh had a many enemies so you're saying it could have been anybody it might not have been the ministry of defense or putin himself i think a lot of people uh would put it on uh the fsb which is the kind of the Russian successor to the KJB, which handles domestic threats for Putin. Of course, the final decision, Putin made a final decision, of course.
Putin made the final decision. With his his permission that can happen.
Who came up with the exact plan? Who was executive. Time will show.
So what is Wagner Group today? Right now? Since the previous death, Wagner Group, in my opinion, ceased to exist. So everything became subordinate to the Ministry of Defense.
but the thing was is that you know kind of as we were talking about like the relationship

between wagner and the thing was is that you know kind of as we were talking about like the relationship between wagner and the state was also different in each place and and so in syria like when marat was there you know they get everything from the ministry of defense they're probably paid through the ministry of defense they're working very closely they have russian air power that's support i mean this is like a ministry of defense operation when you get to like the central african republic there's not as much support from the kremlin and so and so some kind of autonomy there's a degree of independence they're opening up breweries like ministry of defense doesn't want breweries or they have these gold mines and so when purgosian is gone the ministry of defense has to figure out how do we take over all of these things because purgosian wasn't just involved with mercenaries like murat he had troll farms he had like chocolate museums in st kingersburg he had the mining companies The main body of this project was not Wagner Group. Wagner Group was only part of this project.
Wagner Group was the military group that was used for the creation of the favorable environment to promote a business project. Of Purgosian.
So, like Wagner, what basically... Wagner Group is a part of the project.
Wagner was a way for Purgosian to overcome his status as an ex-con and try to show his worth to eventually join Putin's inner circle. He was never really able to do it.
But when he died, it was relatively easy for the Ministry of Defense in places like Syria or Libya just to have guys sign new contracts and to take over. But where they were independently in like the Central African Republic the guys showed up and they were like they couldn't understand it there's breweries there's all sorts of things going on and so the decision is made if it's not broke let's not fix it and let them just kind of keep doing their thing.
The industrial project in Central African Republic is a resource for the benefit of the president of Russia and his inner circle. So I think some account numbers got changed in terms of the transfers.
It's a little bit difficult to take over. Yeah, because they don't understand it fully.
Only the guys who work there know how it works. But Badman Group is over.
It's over. Well guys, thank you.
Thank you for so much for being here today and for sharing all that information. And I just want to ask you one thing.
You know, we'd had a conversation earlier about your feelings on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And now you're here in France seeking asylum.
I'm just curious if you have anything to say to Putin. What will he say to Putin? What will I say to Putin? Get out.
Get out. Get out.
You are enemy for my country.

You are the main problem for my country.

And you are in his inner circle.

Thank you both for being there.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.
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Together we drive.