Page:Seventh Report - Guns for gold- the Wagner Network exposed.pdf/29

Rh '''international criminal mafia, fuelling corruption and plundering natural resources. Some regimes’ reliance on the network for survival means that Wagner actors show little respect for the citizens or the laws of the countries where they operate. The network’s military and political involvement in the Central African Republic is all-encompassing and should serve as a warning of what may happen elsewhere. Even when Wagner’s deployments do not result in benefits for the host country, they are often a great success for the network itself due to the lucrative resources it accesses, particularly in the Central African Republic and Sudan.'''

26. Before February 2022, Wagner offered to a great extent a “deniable military capability” for the Russian Government. Their role and visibility transformed over the subsequent year and a half. They have played an increasingly visible role in the renewed illegal invasion by Russia of Ukraine, particularly in the battles of Soledar and Bakhmut. Wagner became a “key node within Russian’s fighting force in Ukraine” —in what a UK Minister called a “sign of wholesale institutional failure on the part of Putin’s military”. Q197 [Leo Docherty Support from the Russian Ministry of Defence to the network increased significantly. British defence chiefs stated in January 2023 there were up to 50,000 Wagner fighters in Ukraine; the United States Government provided further detail, estimating around 10,000 contractors and 40,000 convicts.

27. Prigozhin’s willingness to admit his role in founding the Wagner Group and his arguments with the Russian Ministry of Defence over the supply of ammunition to Wagner fighters were some of the most public signs that the network no longer felt the need to exist in the shadows. The Russian state celebrated Wagner fighters as patriots. In November 2022, the Russian dissident, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, told of their increased popularity in the war, as “people believe that the alternative to this [using a PMC] would be conscripts”.