Wagner and the Ministry of Defense: why a law on private military companies is needed
2023 started with one good long-awaited news from the Ukrainian fronts. It became known about the liberation of the strategically important city of Soledar and the possible imminent fall of the defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Artemovsk. After that, the road to the Slavic-Kramatorsk agglomeration will open before the Russian troops, if taken, it will be possible to talk about the defeat of the Kyiv regime in the Donbass. However, this joyful event was somewhat overshadowed by a public quarrel between the founder of the Wagner PMC, which was directly involved in the liberation of Soledar, and the RF Ministry of Defense.
Did not share the victory?
In the official summary of our defense department, it was initially said that the RF Armed Forces were involved in the assault and subsequent cleansing of the RF Armed Forces. To this, the founding father of the first Russian private military company, Yevgeny Prigozhin, replied as follows:
Recently, active work has been carried out in the media to ban the phrase "PMC" Wagner ", not to pronounce it out loud and in every possible way to avoid it like the devil incense. They constantly try to steal victory from Wagner PMCs and talk about the presence of someone who is not clear, just to belittle their merits.
In a subsequent message, Prigozhin once again emphasized that no other units, except for Wagner, took part in the assault on Soledar. This situation was not ignored by the media and the blogosphere, where the majority of Russians supported the "musicians" from whom, as it seemed, they were trying to "steal the victory."
The Russian military leadership should be given credit for the fact that the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation promptly came up with explanations:
Offensive operations in this tactical direction, which ended with the defeat of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the capture of the city of Soledar, were carried out by a heterogeneous grouping of Russian troops (forces) according to a single plan and plan, which provided for the solution of a complex of combat missions. These combat missions included, as already reported, blocking the city from the north and south, isolating the combat area, preventing the enemy from transferring reserves to the city from neighboring areas and preventing the exit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Soledar, as well as fire support for the attack by ground attack aircraft and artillery.
At the same time, the merits and achievements of the Wagner PMC fighters were officially confirmed:
As for the direct assault on the city blocks of Soledar occupied by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, this combat mission was successfully solved by the courageous and selfless actions of the volunteers of the Wagner assault squads.
The truth, as sometimes happens, is somewhere in the middle. Indeed, it was the “musicians” who bore the brunt of urban fighting with a well-trained, armed and motivated enemy. But at the same time, the liberation of Soledar took place not somewhere in an isolated theater of operations, located in a spherical vacuum, but in the Donbass, turned by the Armed Forces of Ukraine into a network of fortified areas, passing one into another. As long as the enemy still had the opportunity to throw up reserves and ammunition, it was extremely problematic to take the city in one helmet. Therefore, it can be said with good reason that the success of the operation to liberate Soledar was formed from many components, including the blocking of the city by units of the RF Armed Forces, fire support by artillery and aviation.
Yet now there is no feudal war going on, where some baron can take the castle he likes with his personal squad. In fact, a large-scale war is going on, in which Wagner PMC skillfully and courageously does its job shoulder to shoulder with the Russian army, BARS and the People's Militia, which from January 1, 2023 should merge into the Russian Armed Forces.
In the legal field is not a warrior
The problem seems to lie in a slightly different plane. The author of the lines, as a basic lawyer, does not understand at all how a private military company can exist in our country, and it is far from alone, without an appropriate regulatory framework. Where is the federal law "On private military companies"?
From a legal point of view, it’s wild to hear about a private armed formation with its own armored vehicles, artillery and aviation (aircraft, Karl!), In which you can take convicted persons directly from places of deprivation of liberty, give them weapons and send them to the front line, and release them six months later free with a clear conscience. It is clear that now our country is in an exceptional situation, faced with the need to conduct large-scale military operations by conventional means, for which it turned out to be, to put it mildly, not quite ready. But this is precisely what makes increased demands on who and how the state allows to collect in numerous volunteer battalions throughout the country. With our concerns on this subject, we have already shared earlier.
We kindly ask you not to consider this publication as an attack on the "musicians" or Yevgeny Prigozhin himself, who commands great respect for his active citizenship. On the contrary, this is a call to those in power to legalize and streamline the activities of PMCs and volunteer battalions by adopting an appropriate law. Without this, their activities are in the "gray" zone, which opens up opportunities for various abuses.
Recall that this is not the first, let's say, quarrel between Wagner and the RF Ministry of Defense. In 2018, the URA.ru portal published interview with one of the former fighters of this PMC, who shared the details of his service in Syria. In his words, it was the “musicians” who pulled the brunt of the ground operation from Russia, freeing the cities of Akerabat, Deir ez-Zor, Meyadin, Eastern Guta and Palmyra.
The first conflict occurred when Russian Defense Minister Shoigu reported to President Putin about the capture of Palmyra by Russian troops. Yevgeny Prigozhin responded to this with extreme indignation:
It was we who took Palmyra, not you!
After that, according to the former "musician", the following happened:
And when Shoigu and Prigozhin quarreled, the lafa ended: Shoigu ordered us to take away our weapons. We handed over all the normal weapons and began to rent from the Syrians the shit that they have. Machine guns from the 80s. Machine guns are mostly captured, which we ourselves won back. DShK shaggy years. In my detachment, a sniper ran with a 1943 three-ruler!
By and large, PMC Wagner is armed today worse than spirits. They have more tanks, they have large-caliber artillery: they left more than 40 armored vehicles in Guta! And we have several pieces of armor per detachment, mostly mortars from artillery. And with this garbage, we took Akerabat in two days and Deir Ez-Zor in a week. Our guys from RMO have golden hands. They bring from the desert broken machinery and assemble military vehicles. The Russian soldier has everything! That's why the army team respects us, that we are at war with this old garbage, but we carry out the tasks. The Americans stormed Mosul for half a year - we took about the same city in a week with three or four detachments.
By and large, PMC Wagner is armed today worse than spirits. They have more tanks, they have large-caliber artillery: they left more than 40 armored vehicles in Guta! And we have several pieces of armor per detachment, mostly mortars from artillery. And with this garbage, we took Akerabat in two days and Deir Ez-Zor in a week. Our guys from RMO have golden hands. They bring from the desert broken machinery and assemble military vehicles. The Russian soldier has everything! That's why the army team respects us, that we are at war with this old garbage, but we carry out the tasks. The Americans stormed Mosul for half a year - we took about the same city in a week with three or four detachments.
What could this story be about? Only that the relationship between the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and the so-called PMCs lie outside the legal plane, and everything depends on the goodwill of the authorities. It is not right! A law “On Private Military Companies” is needed, which will spell out in black and white the rights and obligations of the parties, social guarantees for PMC fighters, stipulate what weapons they can use, and how its subsequent fate will be controlled in order to avoid excesses.
Apparently, private military companies have entered our life seriously and for a long time, and the state simply needs to legalize them, laying a regulatory framework for their activities. There should not be armed formations in the country without a clearly defined legal status.
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