What mission does the Wagner military group have in Ukraine?
3:23
Kyiv, Ukraine (CNN) --
The bodies of the Ukrainians lay side by side on the grass, the ground beside them cratered open.
Dragged to the scene by Russian mercenaries, the arms of the victims pointed to the spot where they had died.
"Let's put a grenade on them," says a voice in hoarse Russian, in what appears to be a plan to set a trap for the bodies.
"You don't need a grenade, we'll just crush them," says another, referring to the Ukrainian soldiers who will come to collect the bodies.
The mercenaries then realize that they have run out of ammunition.
Breaking news and news from Russia's war in Ukraine on October 7
These events seen and heard on video from the battlefield, exclusively for CNN, along with access to Wagner's recruits fighting in the Ukraine, and the candid and rare interviews CNN has conducted with a former Wagner commander who is now seeking asylum in Europe, combine to give an unprecedented look at the state of Russia's main mercenary force.
While supply and morale problems, as well as accusations of war crimes, have been well documented among regular Russian troops, similar crises exist among Wagner's mercenaries, often described as President Vladimir Putin's shock troops. Putin, is a dire omen for Russia's war in Ukraine.
advertising
In the shadow of the Kremlin
Wagner's forces have enjoyed worldwide notoriety for several years.
But as Putin's "special military operation" in Ukraine falls apart, and the announcement of a "partial mobilization" for much-needed recruits has caused more than 200,000 Russian citizens to flee to neighboring countries, the cracks in this supposedly elite force they are showing themselves.
Since its inception in 2014, Wagner's mandate, international footprint and reputation have grown.
Widely considered by analysts to be a Kremlin-sanctioned private military company, its fighters have fought in Ukraine since Russia's 2014 invasion and in Syria, as well as operating in several African countries, including Sudan, Libya, Mozambique, Mali and the Republic of Central African.
With a reputation in Russia as a reliable and valuable force, Wagner's private soldiers have bolstered Moscow's global interests and military resources, already stretched fighting a war in Syria in support of the Assad regime.
As CNN has reported, his deployments have often been key to Russian control of lucrative resources, from Sudanese gold to Syrian oil.
Flaunting modern equipment in recruitment videos, with heavy weapons and even helicopters, they resemble the US Special Forces.
"I am convinced that if Russia did not use mercenary groups on such a massive scale, one would not be able to speak of the success that the Russian military has achieved so far," Marat Gabidullin, a former Wagner commander who was in charge of the war, told CNN. 95 mercenaries in Syria.
In contact with former comrades now fighting in Ukraine, Gabidullin said Russia's use of mercenaries has intensified as the Kremlin's execution of its war has plummeted.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov told CNN that Wagner's troops were being deployed in the "most difficult and important missions" in Ukraine, playing a key role in the Russian victories at Mariupol and Kherson.
Gabidullin employed by Wagner in Syria in 2015.
The Kremlin did not respond to CNN requests for comment.
The meager official information about Wagner and the Kremlin's longstanding denials of his existence and links to the Russian state have only increased his infamy and his appeal, while helping the group cloud analysis of his capabilities. and exact activities.
Yet Wagner — like Russia — is fighting in the Ukraine, according to video testimony from the group's own mercenary fighters.
Lack of experience
More than seven months of fighting have cast a harsh light on the failings of Russia's military action in Ukraine.
Russia's small gains, especially compared to Putin's initial ambitious goals in the war, have come at a huge cost, decimating front-line units and depriving many of them of manpower as well as significant experience. criticism.
Battlefield experience is one of two factors that Wagner Gabidullin's former commander — who left the group in 2019 and has since published a memoir about his time working for them — says separates mercenaries from troops. regular russians.
The other is money.
"The backbone of these groups was always made up of very experienced people who had been through several wars anyway," he told CNN.
After serving as a junior officer in an airborne unit in the last days of the Soviet Union, Gabidullin returned to military life as a Wagner recruit following the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014. He said many key members of Wagner's staff can, like him, having previously fought in the Ukraine, as well as in Syria, gaining valuable combat experience alien to most regular Russian troops.
"They have more weighty and more significant experience than the army. The army is made up of young soldiers who were forced to sign a contract, they have no experience," he said.
It is what makes these paramilitary forces in Ukraine, of which Wagner is just one, so valuable to Russia.
"The Russian army cannot manage [the war] without mercenaries," according to Gabidullin, adding that there is "a very big myth, a very big obfuscation about a strong Russian army."
Currently, at least 5,000 mercenaries linked to the Wagner group are operating with Russian forces in Ukraine, Andrii Yusov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian defense intelligence agency that has been monitoring Wagner in Ukraine, told CNN.
This figure was backed up by a French intelligence source who noted that some Wagner fighters had left the African continent to bolster the group's efforts in Ukraine.
The Kremlin has increasingly relied on Wagner fighters as stormtroopers, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.
Hidden from Russia's official death count and available for deniable operations, they have borne a casualty burden that has been politically sensitive for Putin in Russia.
"Wagner has suffered heavy losses in the Ukraine, especially, and not surprisingly, among young and inexperienced fighters," according to a senior US defense source speaking in September.
A simple equation underlies Wagner's employment of forces, according to Gabidullin: "Russian peace for American dollars."
Mercenaries can earn up to $5,000 a month.
Wagner's fighters have even been offered bonuses — paid in US dollars — for killing Ukrainian tanks or units, according to a senior Ukrainian defense source and based on information collected on Wagner since the start of the war by Ukrainian authorities.
According to the UK Ministry of Defence, Wagner fighters have also been assigned to specific sectors of the front line, operating almost like normal army units, marking a radical departure from their history of distinct and limited missions in Ukraine.
'Oleg', former Wagner mercenary, speaks with CNN
Yusov also said that the Wagner is increasingly being used to plug holes in the Russian front line.
This was also confirmed by a senior US defense official, who added that Wagner is being used on different front lines, unlike Chechen fighters, for example, who are massing around the Russian offensive targeting Bakhmut.
This has led to significant logistical challenges, he says, with the need to supply Wagner's troops with ammunition, food and support for prolonged operations, all while Ukraine has increased its attacks on Russian logistics.
In August, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry broadcast body camera footage of Wagner fighters to CNN showing the mercenaries complaining about a lack of bulletproof vests and helmets.
In another video, a fighter complains about orders to attack Ukrainian positions when his unit is out of ammunition.
shoes to fill
Wagner's ranks have also been thinned by battlefield losses.
In response, they have resorted to unusually public recruitment.
Advertisements have surfaced in Russia calling for new recruits for Wagner.
Emblazoned with a phone number and a photo of combatants dressed in camouflage, their catchphrase—"The 'W' Orchestra awaits you"—alludes to Wagner's old nickname "orchestra."
The wide net cast by the group's recruitment efforts coincides with a change in its secret past.
Even Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin finally admitted his role as Wagner's boss in late September, after spending years trying to distance himself from the mercenary group through repeated denials, and even taking Russian media to court. they investigated.
A Wagner advertising poster in Russia, part of the group's recent public recruitment.
Wagner's invitations to contact recruiters have also spread through social media and the Internet.
One recruiter contacted by CNN was offering a monthly salary of "at least 240,000 rubles" (about $4,000) with the duration of a "business trip" — code for a deployment — of at least four months.
Much of the recruiter's message listed the medical conditions that barred applicants from enlisting: from cancer to hepatitis C to substance abuse.
In contrast to its image as an elite military organization, a Wagner recruiter admitted something surprising about recruits when contacted by a CNN reporter: No military experience is necessary.
The message ended with a code word—"Morgan"—that applicants had to give at the door of Wagner's facility in Krasnodar, Russia.
Recruits in jail
In September, a video surfaced in which it appeared that Prigozhin was recruiting prisoners from Russian jails for Wagner.
His offer: a promise of clemency for six months of combat service in the Ukraine, propping up the Russian invasion.
It's a move that would have been unthinkable months ago for the private military company, once considered one of the most professional units in the Kremlin's arsenal.
"An act of desperation" is how Wagner Gabidullin's former commander described the appeal.
Prigozhin's apparent prison recruitment campaign coincides with Russia's broader efforts to mobilize the country's prison population for combat, offering thousands of dollars in monthly salaries and tens of thousands of dollars in death pay to families. of the recruits.
For both Wagner's colleagues and his Ukrainian opponents, this is worrying.
"[Wagner] is ready to send anyone, anyone," Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Belousov told CNN.
"There are no longer any criteria of professionalism."
Human rights defenders in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus win the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize
Working on Ukrainian investigations into possible Russian war crimes, Belousov fears that this lax recruitment will increase the scale of war crimes.
Although direct recruitment from prisons is a new step, Gabidullin said a criminal record had not been a barrier to employment at Wagner.
He himself claims to have served three years in prison for murder and told CNN of prominent Wagner commanders who had served around the world with the group after prison sentences.
the enemy within
Wagner's struggles in the Ukraine have set in motion a broader problem: discontent in his ranks.
For a group that depends on the attractiveness of their salaries and work, that's critical.
From intercepted phone calls, Ukrainian intelligence services noted a "general decline in morale and psychological state" of Wagner's troops in August, Ukrainian defense intelligence spokesman Yusov said.
It is a trend that he has also observed in Russian troops in general.
Wagner's lowering of draft requirements also points to demoralization, he said, and the number of "truly professional soldiers who are willing to willingly fight with Wagner" is also falling.
Former commander Gabidullin, who says he speaks with his former comrades almost daily, explained that this demoralization was due to his dissatisfaction "with the general organization of the fighting": "The inability [of the Russian leadership] to make competent decisions, to organize the battles".
For a mercenary who contacted Gabidullin for advice, that incompetence was too much.
"He called me and said, 'It's over, I'm not going to be there anymore. I'm not going to be involved in this anymore,'" Gabidullin told CNN.
And with Russia's prospects for victory in Ukraine—or even for claiming a positive outcome—seem dim, life as a Russian mercenary doesn't have the same allure it once might have.
"The money may not be worth it anymore," Ukrainian prosecutor Belousov said.
In one of the many videos coming out of the Ukraine front lines, the grim reality of Wagner's war is evident in footage provided to CNN, purportedly showing the group's operations.
In one clip, a fallen Wagner mercenary lies, dead, almost at peace, his left hand gently clutching the black earth.
All around them, the battlefield burns with corpses and the burning wreckage of their armored vehicles.
Occasional gunshots crackle through the smoke.
"Sorry, brother, sorry," says the soldier's comrade, lightly stroking his back, stripped of his shirt from the battle that killed him.
"Let's get out of here, if we get shot, we'll lie down next to him."
Amandine Hess, Darya Markina, Victoria Butenko, and Josh Pennington contributed to this report.
War in Ukraine Vladimir Putin
