Ex-mercenary unpacks about Putin's shadow troop: "Army can't make it in Ukraine without Wagner"

Created: 07/05/2022 05:04

By: Franziska Schwarz

Ex-Wagner mercenary Marat Gabidullin (archive picture from 2015) © Private/Marat Gabidullin/Econ Verlag/dpa

For four years, Russian mercenary Marat Gabidullin killed in the service of the Wagner Group in war zones in Syria and Ukraine.

Now he has written a book.

Moscow/Berlin – According to estimates from Europe in April, up to 20,000 mercenaries killed for Vladimir Putin in the escalating Ukraine conflict.

The private military and security company Wagner, which is said to currently have around 5,000 active fighters, is notorious.

Now an ex-member has written a book about his time there: Marat Gabidullin.

The German title of the work: “Wagner.

Putin's Secret Army".

"It's as if you get a normal job," reported the 55-year-old in a video interview with the

Show papers, demonstrate military proficiency, pass a physical and medical aptitude test.

Be warned, and not squeamishly.

You can die, be traumatized or wounded and you have to decide if you want to accept that.

If so, you can start, said Gabidullin from his job interview.

In 2015 he joined the Wagner Group because of a "difficult period": "I was depressed, saw no prospects and didn't know what to do with myself." According to his own statements, he had already served in the Russian military.

Mercenaries of the Wagner group in the Ukraine war: "Russian state saves money"

The Wagner group also plays a role in Sudan, Mali and Libya.

Kremlin boss Putin always denies a connection, he speaks of companies with commercial interests.

On the other hand, Ksenia Bolchakova and Alexandra Jousset reported in their documentary "Wagner, Putin's Shadow Army" that the group was in many places exclusively working for the Kremlin.

“By sending in mercenaries, the state saves on the pension entitlements and salaries it has to pay to regular army soldiers.

And it also makes it possible to make the dead disappear,” write the French filmmakers, according to dpa.

They had also questioned gabidullin.

The Ukraine War in Pictures - Destruction, Resistance and Hope

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Gabidullin is said to have received up to 3,000 euros a month in the Wagner Group, and belonged to it until 2019.

In his book, he complains about poor weaponry, mistakes in the conduct of battles and a sometimes extremely brutal approach by completely brutalized Wagner people, summarizes the dpa.

His first assignment in Ukraine in 2015 was not a good one.

When he was in Luhansk, I realized that reality was different from Russian propaganda, Gabidullin said in the

interview.

The administrators in the self-proclaimed People's Republic behaved like "Red Army soldiers at the beginning of the 20th century": "Some losers were given the opportunity to live out their ambitions," judged Gabidullin.

The affected population is developing “a kind of Stockholm syndrome”.

But "80 to 85 percent" of the Russian population believed the propaganda.

That also applies to the Wagner Group.

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Ex-mercenary group in the Ukraine war: "Russian army can't do it without Wagner"

The heads of the organization, which shows a portrait of the German composer Richard Wagner on its propaganda videos, are the Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigoshin and Lieutenant Colonel Dmitri Utkin.

As a sign of his admiration for the music, Utkin wears the combat name "Wagner".

After his career in the Russian military intelligence service GRU, he is said to have founded a rapid reaction force under his combat name from veterans of special forces from 2014 onwards.

Gabidullin himself justifies his going public with the fact that he sees the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a mistake.

He never wanted to fight against a brother nation.

The dpa sees in his book, however, an attempt at justification and no remorse.

According to Gabidullin, there were no women in the Wagner group.

In the Ukraine war, Russia currently still has enough men for the “rapidly diminishing Wagner ranks”.

But that could change soon, Gabidullin told Die

: "But I don't think the day is far away when women will join." His verdict: "The Russian army will not be able to achieve success in Ukraine without Wagner ."