John Lechner
speaker
145 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard Apr 2025
John Lechner’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
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 was 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 guy in Syria. And so those same 50 guys or so formed the core of what was just then called The Company. And Dimitri Utkin, who is a fan of the German composer Richard Wagner, takes his call sign, Wagner, in Donbas.
And since he was the main commander, eventually it becomes kind of the catch-all term for the company more generally. Okay.
So when Marat first came in in April 2015, I think it was getting close to about 600 guys. He 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 Murad 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.
So they, uh, the, I think Wagner at the beginning, and I think this, what Murat will tell you was, uh, for the most part, uh, guys who had military experience like Murat, uh, guys who had trouble adjusting to civilian life and in some shape or form and, and wanted to experience the adventure and camaraderie again, uh,
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 Murad had, to put it lightly.
But the full convict recruitment program, where if you saw the videos of Prigozhin 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, Marat's, it was Marat'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? Yeah.
No. 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. Yeah. it's definitely a motivating factor.
What all are they involved in? So, what I think is interesting about this story, because Murat will tell you, you know, this was very much a state-supported entity, but And we can ask Murat as well. Again, I also don't think it could have become what it was if it weren't for the ambition of its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, as well. And 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 Progozhin
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, I have this, now what do I do with it? And it was at this point where I think 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. And so Murad was one of the first guys on the ground in Syria. As he'll tell you, the MOD didn't really know what to do with him. And a couple of guys got killed. And they didn't 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, the rebels against Assad or ISIS, that Wagner was brought back in. This time, you know, 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?
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