Abstract

In this episode, Dr Sergey Sukhankin discusses the evolution of Russian hybrid warfare and the role of Russian private military companies in the Middle East and Africa.

This podcast series is presented by Dr Alessandro Arduino, Principal Research Fellow and Dr Ameem Lutfi, Research Fellow, at the Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore.

Listen to the full podcast here:

Full Transcript:

[Alessandro Arduino]: Welcome to the 20th episode of the National University of Singapore Middle East Institute podcast series Boots off the Ground: Security in Transition from the Middle East and Beyond. In the series we look at the future warfare, which will see uniformed soldiers or boots on the ground being replaced by private military companies, autonomous weapons system and cyber weapons. My name is a Alessandro Arduino and I will be the co-host for the series, along with my colleague, Ameem Lutfi.

We are very glad to have with us today, Dr Sergey Sukhankin who is a Senior Fellow at the Jamestown Foundation and advisor at Gulf State Analytics in Washington, D.C.  His areas of interest include Kaliningrad and the Baltic Sea region, Russian information and cyber security, A2/AD and its interpretation in Russia, the Arctic region, and the development of Russian private military companies since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War. He has consulted or briefed with CSIS (Canada), DIA (USA), and the European Parliament. His project discussing the activities of Russian PMCs, “War by Other Means,” informed the United Nations General Assembly report entitled “Use of Mercenaries as a Means of Violating Human Rights and Impeding the Exercise of the Right of Peoples to Self-Determination.” He is based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

[Ameem Lutfi]: Hi Sergey, thanks for joining us today. We have been talking about Russian and Chinese private military sector on our podcast for some time. We had Dr Candace Rondeaux sometime back to talk about the Wagner group in light of what was happening in Syria. The scatter from the Wagner’s work at that time had not quite settled. I know, in the world of private military, things are changing almost every day so I am wondering if you could start the discussion by getting us up to date with key developments in the area of Russian private military in perhaps, like the last one to two years.

[Sergey Sukhankin]: Thank you, I mean that’s a great question especially looking at the last two years, studying from 2019 this period has been marked by several notable developments.  The first one is related to the theatres where Russian private military deployment or activity and where they basically made their names before. Well, I’m referring to Ukraine, Syria and Libya, where the nature of conflict in each case, by the way, has changed so in many ways – Russia no longer needs these non-state actors. Well, that we call them non-state actors, of course, is questionable in Russia but what is clear is that Russia doesn’t need their active participation in these theatres in terms of fighting in terms of military or paramilitary mission so this has been one notable change which is very interesting.  So what we can see from the ground, including in Ukraine, Syria and Libya, even though Russian PMCs are still present in these theatres, their activities or the nature of their activities, has changed. It has a transformed towards either non-military or paramilitary missions, including consultants for training and controlling local developments and activities.

The second and from my perspective, the more important transformation, is Russia’s deep involvement in the sub-Saharan Africa. This manifested basically in 2019 during the Russia-Africa.   Economic Summit that took place in Sochi, where Russia perhaps for the first time after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 openly declared that Russia is back and that Russia is and really trying to restructure its strategy toward Africa.  Even through Russia started active military cooperation with Africa in 2014-2015, it was the between 2018-2019 that Russia marked the growing presence of paramilitaries in sub-Saharan Africa. Starting of course from the Central African Republic from 2018, but of course the growing importance started to be visible in 2019, and, of course, Mozambique, Sudan and other places. In Africa, with the exception of Mozambique, the Russian paramilitary had not played an active part in military hostilities, which, for obvious reasons, demands very different tasks and skills primarily. I think the Central African Republic is perhaps the best case study here. It requires more of paramilitary tasks, something that is in the way related to what the Soviet military advisors were doing during the Cold War. The kind of services they provide it locally but there is one visible exception today Russia’s interests are driven by profit seeking, and so they are bereft of this ideological compound that the Soviet Foreign Policy was pivoted towards so now it’s a bit different.

And the third interesting development that started to be visible in 2019 is the role of the state –
the Russian state, in this phenomena, that we call Russia’s private military companies (PMCs). Before 2019, the Russian state was ‘tabooing’ this topic and trying to hush down the issue and people who were trying to raise the topic, as we know from several cases. After 2019, both Putin and quite recently, the head of Russian diplomacy, Mr Lavrov, openly admitted that Wagner’s group or other paramilitaries and shadow military companies do exist. This is quite interesting but it manifested into yet another trajectory or development which, from my perspective, is related to the informational pillar or the information confrontation pillar or in the range of activities and tasks that private military companies served in Russia.

So that’s how I would define that these are basically the three main developments and changes that have taken place between the period 2018 to 2021.

[Alessandro Arduino]: Thank you, Sergey, your message is very clear – Russia is back but this time, it is more rooted in profit seeking than ideology, as it was in the past.  There is a lot of talk about the Russian PMCs but you differentiate your analyses, especially when you write for Jamestown on War by other Means and you define Wagner group as a ‘quasi’ private military company. So how does this ‘quasi’ affect the plausible deniability and especially now that all the focus is centred on the fall of Kabul and Afghanistan? Do you believe that in the near future there will be any kind of Wagner involvement in Afghanistan or in Central Asia?

[Sergey Sukhankin]: Thank you very much for this question, Alex. I will basically divide your question into two parts. The first one is related to this ‘quasi’ element. Since I have started analysing Russia’s PMCs, what I observed is that they are very different from the Western private military and security companies. In the case of Western PMCs, while they have been spotted using force and weaponry, these cases are exceptional and this is the key difference. Even if these cases do happen, this was not the main goal of Western PMCs. Whereas, if we critically analyse activities of Russian quasi PMCs in Ukraine Syria, Libya, Mozambique, we will see that there were instances where they were using weaponry or offensive tactics and that was basically their main goal. That was their main destination and that is why they were employed in the first place.

The second point is basically on the surface.  Russian private military or quasi private military companies are very different from a legal point of view compared to Western private military security. Russian PMCs don’t exist legally – neither in Russia nor internationally. So officially, they are not entities but instead, are shadow groups. From a legal point of view, they are never to be found anywhere and I believe that their status – or the lack of it – is the pre-condition for their existence. In the first place, they were created to remain in the shadows and perform tasks that neither the Russian army nor the special operations forces can easily do.

The second part to your question is related to Afghanistan. Yes indeed, everyone is talking about it now and it’s become quite topical and trendy. To be honest, there are two things to this. If Russia finds an economic interest in a war in Afghanistan – and I’m not sure if this will happen or not – this might create a foundation for Russian quasi private military contractors to be there but again, given the history, gruesome history of Soviet or Russian involvement in Afghanistan and considering the local mentality and the fact that they abhor and hate foreign presence in their country, I’m not really sure that Russia dares to go. Anything might happen but based on where I stand right now, I don’t believe that Russia is willing to get inside Afghanistan with private military contractors. This will entail rage and hatred from the Taliban – actually, not just the Taliban – but all the groups, even those that are against the Taliban and Moscow does not want to repeat any of the experiences that come from the Cold War or the Afghan war. Speaking about Central Asia, again, I think that Russian positions in Central Asia are quite vulnerable. It doesn’t make a lot of sense for Russia to deploy PMCs there. Russia typically uses PMCs under different circumstances in other countries. Some of the members of Central Asia are members of the Eurasian Economic Union and some of them might become members of the European Economic Union. In other countries, such as Kazakhstan, we can see some anti-Russian sentiments alongside anti-Chinese sentiment. So, I am not really sure that Russia will take this risk by deploying paramilitaries in countries that are, at least, semi-friendly to it.

[Ameem Lutfi]: Thanks, Sergey. Shifting the conversation from a place like Afghanistan, where, as you correctly pointed out, any presence of Russians might be met with hostility from the government and public alike – if we could move from there to places in Africa, where we have cases like Mali, for example,  where the military government inviting or contracting Wagner group as a replacement for French troops that are about to leave and setting the precedent for extended presence. As you would know, Mali is only the tip of the iceberg of Russian private military presence in Africa. I am wondering if you could lay out the various roles and what Russian PMCs have been doing in in places like Mali, Niger, Chad and Sudan? What value do these places hold for Moscow?

[Sergey Sukhankin]: Thank you for the question. Well, first and foremost I’d like to see the actual corroboration of the rumour that Russian paramilitary presence in Mali is indeed taking place.
As far as I know, it’s not just France, the European Union or the United States that are bitterly opposing Russia on this. It is also some neighbours of Mali – some African countries also kind of feel ill at ease with the possibility of Russian private military contractors being deployed in this country. This, by the way, I believe came from Senegal and maybe some other countries. I am also not sure if the local government is not using the spectre of Russian PMCs to hammer out and leverage more lucrative deals with France or maybe for some other reasons.

So what I will do is that I will speculate on why Russia might want to use the private military contractors in this part of the sub-Saharan Africa. Well, first and foremost, I recently wrote a piece for Jamestown Foundation on Russia’s potential deployment of its PMCs in Mali, where I basically outlined three main prospects. You’re indeed correct about what we’ve been seeing since 2019 and this is perhaps what I should have said in the very beginning of this podcast – Russia has been increasingly concentrating on the Sahel G5 mega region, which is rapidly becoming one of the most interesting main targets for Russia in sub-Saharan Africa. Maybe the logical question is: Why is Russia interested in this war-torn and economically impoverished region? Three things that I would love to outline here.

First and foremost – again, you rightfully said it – Mali, akin to the Central African Republic, may be viewed as one of those smaller bridges that Russia could use in order to make its comeback to Africa more real. Of course, Russia, from a strategic, economic and business point of view, is much more interested in establishing closer ties with players such as Angola, Nigeria or the South African Republic.  However, for obvious reasons, Russia’s room to manoeuvre when it comes to these larger and more economically developed players is significantly more curtailed than compared to Mali or the Central African Republic. So from this point of view, Mali, the Central African Republic and similar players that comprise the Sahel G5 region may become one of the bridges that give Russia the opportunities to perform and showcase this comeback to Africa.

The second important element here is related to economic and business interests that Russia has in Western Africa. Well, we know that Mali does have some impressive deposits of gold and Russian geologists and experts predict that Russia might not have enough gold in the next 35 years. So, Russia might be really interested in finding inroads to sub-Saharan Africa, which, as we know, has an abundance of gold. The second more important reason, perhaps, is that Mali is bordering Guinea which we know has one of the largest deposits of bauxites in the world. Russia is one of the top five producers of aluminium, which uses bauxites. Based on my research among Russia’s insiders, what I found is that a couple of months ago after the military coup in Guinea, Russia was seriously upset and worried about the prospect of losing Guinea or at least, having its access to bauxite reduced as Russia does not have any real alternative. So, from an economic and strategic point of view, ties and connections in Western Africa is one of the things that Russia really values and this is one of the reasons why Russia might want to have paramilitary on the ground.

The third is more of a geopolitical and hypothetical one but what we must know is that for years, Russia has been considering opening a base in Sudan and Russia is envious of America’s connections to Senegal. From the geo-economic point of view, Senegal provides the leeway for maritime transportations across the Atlantic Ocean. Let’s say we are to replace Sudan with Mauritania, which has a very similar geostrategic and geographic location, Russia could actually try to compete with other players in terms of transportation. So, if Russia is able to increase foothold in this line between Mauritania to Sudan, this basically divides Africa into two parts and at the same time, provides Russia with an opportunity to increase its presence both in the Red Sea which is strategically important, of course, for various types of maritime transportation and the Atlantic Ocean. I know it sounds very ambitious but Russia is a large player so it does have certain goals of its own.

[Alessandro Arduino]: Thank you, Sergey. Now, still keeping our focus on Africa, I’m asking you two questions for the price of one. First part of the question is, in Africa, what kind of persons/contractors do Russian PMCs deploy?  What are their recruiting trend? For example, are they linked to Russian military or intelligence sectors? What is their age group? And if there is any difference from the contract or employee previously in Syria and Libya?

Second part of the question: What kind of lessons did Wagner group or other PMCs learned in Syria and Libya? What costly mistakes are they to avoid while deploying in Africa?

[Sergey Sukhankin]: Excellent. Thank you, Alex. I will also answer your question in two parts. So the first one about recruitment patterns – first and foremost, it is becoming increasingly hard to find any credible information on this because many Russian journalists – investigative ones – have been silenced. Some of them physically eliminated, as we know what happened in the Central African Republic, some others fell off windows and the rest are sent to prison. As I said, it is becoming very, very difficult to find credible information but I am going to speculate based on the tasks that PMCs are performing in Africa. Based on that, and some rumours we have been hearing from Russia, I would say that indeed, the principles of recruitment have changed.  So compared to – and I would start here with – Ukraine, Syria and then Libya, I would say that indeed Russia is now recruiting more professional personnel who may be on active military service or active military duty.

Reason being: the risk of losing this personnel is significantly lower than in Syria, Libya or Ukraine where Russian PMCs were involved in military operation, even if only on a limited scale or they could have been captured easily because the situation on the ground was oscillating from one part to another and the risk remained very, very high.  Today, I believe, the two main tasks that are performed by Russian private military contractors – again I’m using the Central African Republic as my case study here –  is reduced to securing important local people and members of the government. The second one is related to consultants and training and the third, apparently related to physical protection of local gold mines and other mineral deposits. This requires a lot of professionalism, of course but this does not require active participation in activities related to combat or other paramilitary operations. Of course, these might happen, no one rules them out because these are extremely unstable places but the bulk of the activities and their natures are different. That is why Russia might want to keep the level of personnel involved or deployed there as high as possible – this is my belief, this is what I think.

Answering the second part of your question on lessons, well, I would not call these mistakes on Russia’s part, costly. Afterall, Russia’s reputation did not suffer a lot. Moscow is still a stakeholder in all these conflicts in Syria, Libya, and Ukraine. Basically, Russia achieved what it wanted and public opinion in Russia is ambivalent. Not many people are really aware – if you ask a commoner what private military is, I can guarantee you that 99% would not be able to answer that. When liberal Russian media was asking people about causalities near Dombass or even in Libya, the majority of the Russian audience were saying “well they had it coming, they were mercenaries, they knew what they were doing was illegal and that they were doing this for the money”. For most, there is a stark difference between the 18 year olds who were losing their lives in Chechnya or Afghanistan and the happenings in Syria or Libya. So, Russia’s reputation did not suffer a lot. Even given those casualties, Russia was able to maintain its presence in all these conflicts and again here, the public opinion is kind of alright. The general public is not worried about it – I bet the majority of them don’t even know that Russia that is involved in these countries through the use of paramilitaries and mercenaries. Some, I would say, may even support this.

The second thing you asked about – the lessons – I think the main lesson that Russia has drawn out of these stories is that it should go ahead with this endeavour in the future because based on what it has achieved and received out of these conflicts, far exceeds what it has lost. In many ways, yes, the Russian mercenaries did suffer a couple of upsetting losses, partly in Ukraine but more in Syria and Libya and some in Mozambique but ultimately, they did not damage Russia’s reputation and I think Russia is fine with this. Initially, I believe, the Russian side was a bit concerned but later on, looking at how Western reaction has been changing and how Russia has actually been gaining popularity among repressive and oppressive African regimes, I think Russia is kind of fine now.

[Ameem Lutfi]: Thank you. If I could build on that, if one could say the experiment has been successful and the lesson Russia is getting out of it is that it should go ahead with this since it works, then who do we credit for designing and cultivating the Russian private sector? I am basically thinking about a couple of prominent figures – one is General Gerasimov and the other is Yevgeny Prigozhin. So if you could put these two figures next to each other and talk about their philosophy, position and how much did they actually contribute to the development of the Russian private military sector, what would it be?

[Sergey Sukhankin]: I will take a slightly different approach – won’t be concentrating on Gerasimov or Prigozhin but instead, will tell you an interesting experience I had when I was doing a large project with Jamestown. In 2010, I believe it was the head of Russia’s general staff, Nikolay Yegorovich Makarov, who was actually the first one to have introduced and entertained the idea of private PMCs and the strategic value of them so I believe the credit should go to General Makarov.

Again, the idea is not a new one in many ways.  Let’s go back to what the Soviet Union was doing in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa – especially Algeria. In many ways, what they have been doing in these theatres since 2014 – the shift from ideology to profit aside – from the operational point of view, this is commensurate with what the Soviet Union was doing back then. So, in many ways, what Gerasimov did – Actually, I honestly don’t know who took the decision and this is the idea I have been trying to convey since I started working on Russian PMCs: there is a consortium of actors behind PMCs and I wouldn’t say that it’s just one institution or body within the Russian state architecture.

Let’s take a look at what has been happening in Syria, Libya or Ukraine – at least several actors have contributed. It is obviously the Russian general staff; people like Gerasimov. They are basically the brainstorming mechanism of the Russian armed forces, as it is sometimes known as dubbed.
The second actor is the Russian Special Forces – as we know it, it officially belongs to GU units and no trainings could have been done without them being aware of this. The third actor is Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs – this is a little bit unconventional but when the Russian PMCs were spotted in the Balkans when they were organising youth training camps, it was the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs that actually stood behind this initiative. I also wrote about this for Jamestown and it was quite surprising to me but it was Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs that stood behind it.

Returning to your question, I think that Prigozhin was chosen as a middleman in many ways; he was not a well-known person before that and he’s not an oligarch, really. He is actually a tycoon with a lot of money but his ability to influence political decisions in Russia are minimal – he’s somewhat close to Putin but not as close as other oligarchs or someone from this category so he is basically a smokescreen. Again, based on information we were able to receive from Russia – earlier, of course but not now – Prigozhin never really understood what PMCs are. What he did understand though was about the commercial part of PMCs – Prigozhin had a criminal record which had nothing to do with murders of banditry but it was something different. Prigozhin was interested in this and I believe the Russian state and to be more specific, the power ministries or power bodies in Russia such as the GU definitely, the Ministry of Defence and the FSB maybe, played the main role in the development of this phenomena. So again, I don’t think that we should pay too much attention specifically to Prigozhin but rather, to the Russian state and its foreign policy where it is trying to activate it as well as large businesses and other public bodies and institutions.

[Alessandro Arduino]: Thank you. I totally agree with you, Sergey. I think in the US especially, there is a lot of attention given to what has been called the Gerasimov doctrine but in some ways, it is the Primakov doctrine because besides the privatisation and financial parts, he was also considering the MENA region as Russia’s soft underbelly and still I think that among the general staff, this is the idea that is still kept in focus. Having said that, we can shift from Prigozhin but also looking at his work with the Internet research agency – the term used for this is a Russian one called ‘dezinformatsiya’ and we are now looking at boots off the ground but in your opinion, can we foresee privatisation or small screen in which we are going to witness an increase of digital mercenaries? Let’s say, privatisation of FSB and GRU hacking capabilities?

[Sergey Sukhankin]: Thank you, Alex. Well, we must not rule out this option, given the trend – the development in Russia and in Russia’s general understanding of information confrontation because in Russian parlance, information confrontation is based on cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns etc. so all these elements constitute the ‘information confrontation’ category. I also wrote a book chapter for Jamestown about this phenomenon which is very interesting and of course, it requires a separate discussion. However, now, building on what you said, I believe we have seen instances of this in Central African Republic where Russia has been quite effective and efficient in spreading anti-French disinformation – either anti-French information or misinformation campaigns. In Syria, there is a very interesting case study of FAN agency that has been rumoured to have collaborated with Wagner’s group on the ground to know when they were making their broadcasts right from the scenery. So, let’s say the Russian side or the Syrian troops have just concluded a paramilitary or military operation against ISIS or opposition forces and then, out of the blue, FAN comes about – it’s the first among Russian and Western agencies that is able to interview the local Syria troops. They are able to kind of cover the development whereas Western agencies are prohibited or scared of going there (for obvious reasons) and we cannot blame anyone.  Those guys [FAN] are the first ones on the theatre, in the scenery and they are basically benefiting the most out of it. In the future, of course, I think this is possible.

I wouldn’t call it privatisation of cyberattacks, cyber confrontation and misinformation, though.
The word ‘private’ here is very conditional and I think, like you said it before, if we critically analyse activities of Russian private military contractors, PMCs and quasi-private military companies, there is a great deal of the Russian government’s involvement. The word ‘private’ is then superfluous in many ways. That’s why I think we need to come up with something new or a different term, when it comes to this Russian entity because in a way, these are mercenaries but at the same time they are not the classical mercenaries since they are acting on behalf of the Russian state, making them not private, per se. As I said before, yes, we must not rule out further co-operation and activities in the informational or cyber domain but we’ll have to see how it goes – how it develops and unravels but as I said before, we have already seen it in some instances in the Central African Republic and in other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. In Mozambique or in Madagascar rather, the Russians tried to influence the local elections but that didn’t work out. Maybe that was just the beginning attempt to tackle the turf and try to see how things are going or maybe, that was not their strategic objective. We will have to wait and see how things develop in the future.

[Alessandro Arduino]: I totally agree and as you know, most of my work is on Chinese private security companies and the biggest question is about where the state ends and the ‘private’ starts, in China and I think with some respect, we can apply the same analysis to the Russian sector too. Ameem, back to you.

[Ameem Lutfi]: This is a very interesting conversation but I want to move the geography a bit. There has been some news of Russian private military involvement in places as far off as Venezuela or closer in Belarus, for example. How do you see these places outside of Africa and the Middle East?  Are these isolated incidents or is the Russian PMCs involvement part of a bigger project or foreign policy objective?

[Sergey Sukhankin]: Thank you, it’s an excellent question. Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer but what I do know however, is that basically, Russia PMCs (if we are referring to their systematic use), they are typically employed in theatres where two main things come together: Russia’s economic or geo-economic interest and its geopolitical interests so we could try to forecast and predict where to expect an appearance of Russian private military contractors based on this combination. When we see a combination of geo-economic and geopolitical interests we can indeed anticipate and expect the presence of Russian PMCs. This is also kind of what I outlined in one of my initial papers on PMCs under the scope of the same project with Jamestown – there are certain conditions or preconditions where Russian PMCs typically appear. It is in theatres that have a combination of the following qualities: first, these are places that are endowed with important natural resources. Second, these places are typically politically weak and destabilised which allows the Russians to impose their conditions and pursue their interests easily. Thirdly, these countries are typically economically weak and financially broken.  Hence, they are price-oriented and have to balance quality and costs. Again, if you think of places like Nigeria, Angola or some other players in Africa that have enough economic means, they will be able to reach out for different opportunities and options. The last element is that Russian mercenaries and PMCs typically appear in countries that are either politically isolated or subject to different types of international sanctions. So, if we combine all these factors, we could try to probably forecast were Russian private military and PMCs could appear.

Belarus, as you said before, it’s a shadow story with the Wagner group. What their real task is, it’s still quite unclear so if we combine these elements — economic profitability, political weakness, ongoing civil war or confrontation, international isolation and international sanctions — then we could try to maybe forecast potential areas where Russian PMCs could appear. It could change in the future – I don’t know – but based on what we’ve seen so far, this is the portrait. If you are to look at it as a jigsaw puzzle, these are smaller pieces that when we combine, gives us a picture.

[Alessandro Arduino]: Thank you and as you mentioned Belarus, if I recall correctly, when some contractor allegedly from Wagner was arrested there, they found a paramilitary patch in Russian language that loosely translated to ‘our business is killing and business is good’.  Now, let’s move our focus to Southeast Asia and other areas like where we are now, namely Singapore, which is a leading logistics hub in Southeast Asia. All our previous guests foresee an increasing role for Singapore in the very niche insurance sector related to security and kidnapping around some anti-piracy insurance and maybe a regulator hub for the Asian private security market.  What do you see Singapore as in this context – a competing ground or even a platform for the provision of Russia private security service?

[Sergey Sukhankin]: Oh, thank you that’s a very complex question. As a person who doesn’t know Singapore that well, aside from the economical part and seeing Singapore as one of the main crossroads in terms of trade and transportation, it all depends on the extent of political or economic ties between Singapore and Russia. Based on my other research that I am doing on LNG, oil and climate change, I see that Russia is quite interested in collaborating with Singapore in many areas related to renewable and non-renewable energy, climate change etc. but first and foremost, coming back to what I said in the beginning, Russia’s model of PMCs is very different from their analogues in the West, South Africa and Australia so I don’t think that Russia will be willing to officially register its PMCs. In a way, this is a shadow or shady instrument that is used by the Russian state and military to pursue certain objectives and goals in strategically important areas. From this perspective, I don’t think that Singapore is likely to become a competing or rivalling hub for Russian PMCs – for now at least, I don’t see any grounds to see this change.

Maybe in the future, things will change especially if Russia chooses to legalise its PMCs and effectively transform them into private military security companies but based on what I am seeing right now, Russia does not have this desire. The issue of legalisation has been raised in Russia several times and allegedly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and some other powerful ministries were in support of this but when the vote came, everyone was against it, suddenly. More importantly, it was the Russian Ministry of Defence that was against it.  So, for some reason, Russia wants and needs to keep these actors illegal because as long as they are illegal, from the legal point of view, they don’t pose competition to those companies that exist officially.  So based on this, at least for the next couple of years, Russia will not become a competing hub for Singapore, Hong Kong or other places but in the future, anything is possible and it might change so we’ll see how this unfolds. It all depends, as I said before, on Russia’s position and its goals and objectives.

[Ameem Lutfi]: Thanks. This has been an absolutely fascinating discussion but unfortunately, we’re running out of time. Since we’re on the question of the future,  I want to pose a question that we’ve been asking all of our guests – What do you see as the future of warfare and security management in complex environments in the coming 30 years, for the Russian private military and industrial sector?

[Sergey Sukhankin]: Thank you very much for this question. Unfortunately, I don’t have this gift of forecasting accurately so I cannot predict things but based on what I am seeing now, the kind of discussions that are ongoing in Russia’s military circles and what I am seeing in the Russians’ defence industrial complex, I can try to answer your question. I will break it down into two parts. In the first one – again, it’s very hard to forecast even for the next five years – based on what is going on with robotisation, the implementation of artificial intelligence and it’s usage in the military. Based on Russian leading military analysts and what Russia’s military officials are saying, what they are prioritising is the so called “human factor” (known as chelovecheskiy factor in Russian) – it will still be the human beings who will be in charge and controlling robots, even in terms of artificial intelligence so I believe that this “human factor” will not go anywhere and this means that Russia is likely to continue using its PMCs. For specific and other non-state actors, we will see how this may evolve in the future for specific geopolitical and economic objectives in different parts of the world. I also did a research project on this and so far, there have been several proposals on what needs to be done about the PMCs. While one option is complete and full legalisation of the PMCs – this might happen in the future – and if it does, then the nature of their activities will be very different. Of course, they won’t be used as regular troops like in Syria or in other parts but I don’t think this is what is going to happen in the next couple of years, at least.

The second option is to use some soft of a hybrid model. In other words, what Russia is doing now is kind of a combination of special operations forces and illegal/semi-legal PMCs and this is the most realistic option. The third option, something that they found in an interesting research by one of the leading ultra-conservative military analysts, is to transform PMCs with employment of Cossacks, and other paramilitary groups into so called “territorial defence units”. Those forces that will be ensuring or securing strategic stability within Russia to deal with the so called ‘Orange Revolutions’ – they would be able to control parts of the border etc. To me, the most realistic option is the second one where Russian PMCs will retain their de facto illegal status but they will be performing certain actions that lie somewhere in between.

Regarding your question about Russian defence industrial complex, developments in this area will be defined by three main processes. First, the visible attrition of workforce and the lack of qualified experts – something that is undeniable but we don’t know how Russia is planning to cope because this is a serious challenge. Even though the Russian defence industrial complex has been able to come up with some interesting achievements (some of them quite unique), the strategic trend is there. The second trend is basically Russia’s ability to find new markets because now, the country is expanding into sub-Saharan Africa but many of these countries are penniless, insoluble and they cannot pay for the services that Russia is providing. By following this path, Russia is risking sliding into the kind of mistakes that the Soviet Union did by providing weaponry services for African countries and this is clear a path to nowhere. The last point: role of military circles within Russia that tends to increase. If this continues, then and, by the way, Russian military industrial complex and I did the research, is economically unsustainable and unprofitable so if Russian military circles will retain and reinforce their current position, this means that Russia would have to spend more money and again, this is a path to nowhere. We’ll see where it goes. We know that Russia tends to surprise people but the trend is there. We’ll see how it develops.

[Alessandro Arduino]: Thank you very much, Sergey. Now that we are starting to talk about military industrial complex, I do believe we can go on for hours especially looking at Russia’s S-400 making inroad from the Middle East to Turkey but unfortunately, we have reached the end of our podcast.
I would like to thank you again for joining us today. It’s been a very informative and challenging discussion. I would like to thank our listeners and also briefly mention that since we have been discussing about disinformation, our next guest will be Elliot Higgins who is the founder of Bellingcat and the Brown Moses blog. Elliot Higgins focuses on the weapons used in the conflict in Syria and open-source investigation tools. Thank you again, everybody.