Guns for Hire
Episodes
Fighting mercenaries: A Ukrainian soldier’s perspective
05 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageAlia sits down with Dimko Zhluktenko, a Ukrainian drone pilot and analyst within the Unmanned Systems Forces of the Ukrainian ...
Narco noir: Drugs, gangs and mercenaries in Latin America
01 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by Dr Vanda Felbab-Brown, a renowned expert on non-state armed groups and organised crime. They begin by discus...
“Youth as merchandise”: Iraqi mercenaries in Ukraine
06 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by the Iraqi political analyst Mohammed Salih to discuss the legions of Iraqi men turning up on the frontlines ...
Death is our business
08 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by John Lechner to discuss his new book, Death is Our Business: Russian Mercenaries and the New Era of Private ...
"Yes, really": American PMCs (back) in Gaza
04 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageIn this emergency episode, Alia is joined by the international human rights lawyer and former senior UN official, Craig Mokhib...
"Do not come for adventure here": Mercenaries in DRC
28 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageHost Alia Brahimi is joined on the podcast by the African politics and security expert Ben Shepherd. After 300 Romanian mercen...
“No, really”: American PMCs in Gaza
30 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageAlia chats with modern warfare expert Dr Andreas Krieg about the sudden deployment of three private military companies to the ...
A mercenary client collapses
23 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageAlia sits down with acclaimed author and former CIA analyst, David McCloskey, to discuss the spectacular collapse of a major m...
Air force for hire
30 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by the mercenaries expert Alessandro Arduino, who is also a top China analyst. They discuss recent seismic leap...
Sledgehammer: The Wagner cult in Syria
23 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageHost and Nonresident Senior Fellow Alia Brahimi chats with the defence researcher Jack Margolin about his new book on the Wagn...
"Borrowed servants"? PMCs and sadism at Abu Ghraib
26 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by the international criminal lawyer Katherine Gallagher to explore her litigation against a prominent PMC for ...
I was a Blackwater mercenary in Iraq
27 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by former Blackwater contractor Morgan Lerette. In a wide-ranging conversation about Morgan's experiences,...
Mercenary meatgrinder: The price of Bakhmut
26 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by the Russian reporter and photojournalist, David Frenkel, to consider the staggering toll of the “Bakhmut m...
What makes Colombian mercenaries so interesting?
29 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageHost Alia Brahimi speaks with Dr Andrés Macías, a Bogota-based expert on Colombian mercenaries. They begin by discussing t...
American hit-squad in Yemen
24 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageIn the season two opener of the Guns for Hire podcast, Alia chats with Emmy award-winning BBC investigative journalist Nawal A...
Mercenaries and Gaza
09 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageIn Episode 10 of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi is joined by Renad Mansour, an expert on Iraq, Iran and allied g...
What's Charlie Sheen got to do with it?
28 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageIn episode nine of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi speaks with the Russia analyst Sergey Sukhankin about the 2019...
Prosecuting the Wagner Group
26 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageLawfare is the use of legal systems for strategic advantage. One of its pioneers, the international human rights lawyer Jason ...
Tracking mercenaries
21 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageAs humans share more of their experiences online for the world to see, the blank zones are shrinking. In episode seven of the ...
Semtex teddy bear: The mercenary build-up in Libya
24 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageHost Alia Brahimi is joined by the Libyan security expert and Atlantic Council Nonresident Senior Fellow Emadeddin Badi. They ...
Mercenary bloodline: The war in Sudan
06 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageIn this bumper episode on the war in Sudan, host Alia Brahimi speaks with the former US government expert on Sudan, Cameron Hu...
“What just happened?” The Wagner Group mutiny
30 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageHost Alia Brahimi speaks with renowned Russia expert Mark Galeotti about the striking developments which saw mutinous mercenar...
What's so bad about mercenaries?
30 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by the philosopher Professor Tony Coady, who examines the key characteristics of mercenaries, including the mot...
What Russian mercenaries tell us about Russia
27 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageHost Alia Brahimi talks to the Russian defense analyst Dr Pavel Luzin about what the proliferation of Russian mercenaries abro...
Defeating the Wagner Group
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageIn the launch episode of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi speaks with the author and former mercenary Dr Sean McFa...
Promo
22 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Send Alia a Text MessageIntroducing a new podcast series from the Atlantic Council in Washington DC. Taking Libya as its starting point, the Guns for ...