Page:Seventh Report - Guns for gold- the Wagner Network exposed.pdf/8

6 has often served and furthered Russian foreign policy goals, as shown by the significant funding, support and (in some cases) direction it received from the Russian state. Although complex to determine which individuals and entities sit within the ‘Wagner Network’, we consider that they all share an ultimate connection to Prigozhin’s financial interests and normally benefit the Russian state indirectly or directly.

4. Our inquiry also examined the Wagner Network through a wider lens, considering the legal and policy challenge of ‘Private Military Companies’ (PMCs) that states use as malign proxies (paragraphs 75–91). PMCs encompass a diverse set of organisations and are not clearly defined by international law (paragraph 77). We use ‘PMC’ in a general sense in this report to mean a private company (or set of companies) that sells military services in exchange for compensation. Although the Wagner Network is often described as a PMC, we acknowledge that it is not one in the conventional sense of the term in the UK, given the network’s i) illegal status in Russia; ii) close relationship with the Russian state, and iii) extensive activities outside the defence sphere, with evidence of economic, electoral and influencing operations (paragraph 14).

5. Russia’s renewed illegal invasion of Ukraine confirmed many long-standing but contested assumptions about the Wagner Network: namely, that it operated with a high level of support from, and co-operation with, the Russian Ministry of Defence (paragraph 8); that it has been primarily state-funded; and that the Russian government facilitated its activities directly, despite its illegal status as an arms-length body that has provided plausible deniability for the Russian Government. Wagner’s activities in Ukraine