Sewa Security Services personnel are seen during a graduation ceremony held at the Berengo base on 4 August. (Florent Vergnes/AFP/Getty Images)
One of my areas of interest these days are what is going on with other country’s PMSC industries?
I am very familiar with the US and the Western market of force, primarily because I have blogged about it for years and have worked as a contractor for US companies since 2004. So I have fingerspitzengefühl or a finger tip feel for this market. But what about the other stuff out there? That is the eternal question for this blog that I like to explore. I try to answer that question based upon open source information and any input from the readership. I also look at it from a contractor’s point of view.
But I always make sure that people know that most of my stuff is derived from open source information. I am also limited by language and culture, and I leverage some tools like Google Translate and others to gain a basic understanding. But it is tough and I do not have a finger tip feel for these other markets–at least to the level I am used to for this industry.
The other tough one is trusting folks online. In social media, I am constantly interacting with folks from all over the world. Most are legitimate, but there is a good percentage of folks that are not. Or they are pushing an agenda or some angle so to speak. This is what I have run into with my studies about the Russian PMSC market.
With that said, I try to gain consensus or find some kind of truth in the noise of all that is going on with this discussion. Or better yet, just collect it all up and let the reader decide. So this post is dedicated to some of the interesting things that I have found during my journey of understanding.
Academic: The point of departure for this journey is an academic one. The Jamestown Foundation had a fantastic conference last summer that included a pretty extensive discussion on all things Russian PMSC. Some points that stood out to me are listed below, and I took copious notes while watching this conference. The point they were making in the conference is that the Russians are playing by a different set of rules than the west, and they are experimenting with and exploring all the different things they can do with their industry. They are expanding and evolving. The Russians do not care about things like ROE’s. All they care about is if these forces will help achieve a strategic objective. This is what I had to say while listening to this talk and I recommend watching it.
My thoughts…. if the russians have no rules, why do we? We limit our use of PMSC’s, because of self imposed limitations. The Russians have no limitations, and are fully exploring their use of PMSC’s. They train their Russian contractors, for war fighting. period. That is our weakness, and this is what Russia is exploiting. They know it is a very big deal for us to send troops, with congressional approval, to go anywhere in the world. The Russians just send their private armies.
We freak out when Russia sends their mercenaries, and Russia says ‘and what?’ What are we going to do about it? And that is the point.
Syria lesson? Moscow achieved their goal there. They had surprise.
The west has marginalized PMSC’s…..The Russians are building them up to achieve goals throughout the world. So we ridicule, reduced and criticize our industry, the Russians are amping it up.
Learning: The next bit of information that I stumbled upon was Russia’s interest in PMSC’s. Where did they learn about this industry or get inspiration about PMSC’s? It’s hard to say, but I imagine everything the US was doing in Iraq and Afghanistan was of interest. What was also of interest to the Russians are what folks like Eeben Barlow and myself had to say about the industry on our blogs and social media.
Awhile back, I found an article on twitter where Eeben Barlow was specifically mentioned. My comment at the time is that I guess the Russians read his blog. lol And looking at my own blog stats, I have had traffic from Russia. So I know they read this stuff. I should also note that Eeben made the trek to Russia to speak at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum.
On the flip side though, if they actually paid attention to what folks were writing and discussing, they might have approached their contract in Syria a little different. The Slavonic Corps disaster was pretty bad. PMC Wagner also had a few disasters of their own, and specifically the Battle of Khasham. Perhaps they should crack open a book like Composite Warfare and do some more research on how to do this stuff?
But they are learning and they are expanding operations. That is what I will get into below.
Training: In Chechnya, there is a new project going down that is certainly to raise some eyebrows. They are building a massive training center that will be modeled after Jordan’s King Abdullah Special Operations Training Center. Why is that of interest? With a training center comes networking and recruitment pools. Blackwater was able to do the same with their training center. Currently PMC Wagner folks train at a facility in Krasnador.
Media: As a blogger, I am always checking out the latest videos and articles that have been released about the industry. What I thought was interesting were the actions of RT, or Russia’s media outlet called Russia Today. Every once in awhile they will do a story on contractors. It’s just they only do stories on other people’s contractors. lol
My thoughts with RT is why haven’t they done stories about PMC Wagner and what they are doing in Syria or Ukraine? Or better yet, all the news they are making deploying to Africa and Latin America? It is just odd.
The interesting thing here is patterns. The show SophieCo, which the host is the grand daughter of Eduard Shevardnadze, has done a multitude of shows on PMSC guys. Specifically, Erik Prince, Simon Mann, Eeben Barlow, and more recently Cobus Claassens. The funny thing is that she is not at all interested in the topics and you can tell that she is just getting her questions piped into her ears via a mic system. So whomever her team is are the ones asking the questions. And their questions are interesting.
It seems like they are probing to see what works and doesn’t work for PMSC’s. Perhaps another example of ‘learning’, or they are just filling programming space with interesting news… Who knows? But you don’t see the west clamoring to interview Eeben or Cobus or Simon, nor do you see journalists asking ‘key to success’ questions to these types of guests.
I have also seen RT put out blatantly propagandist type stuff in regards to the US and it’s relations with PMSC’s. I was taken aback by how many Blackwater stories they did, and how some of them were just outright junk. lol
The point here is to create division between the citizenry of the west and the PMSC’s they use. Like I mentioned before, I have yet to see RT do any serious journalism on their own PMSC industry…
Sightings: This one is about all the latest sightings of Russian PMSC’s. Two specific companies that have come to light are Sewa Security Services and Vegacy Strategic Services. Sewa was sighted in the Central African Republic training and protecting folks. I have no idea who Sewa Security Services is and where they came from. Some speculate they are PMC Wagner under a different name, and others have said they are just Russians pretending to be a PMSC? Who knows… Sewa was supposedly sighted in the Sudan, but I am really not 100 percent on that.
Sewa Security Services in CAR.
Vegacy Strategic Services just popped up on my radar and they are a new Russian company that I have never heard of before. They were sighted in Syria training Palestinian militia or the Liwa al-Quds. Vegacy actually has a website and I was able to find some youtube stuff on them. You can also go to twitter and find some interesting stuff on them with a search. Check it out.
Vegacy Strategic Servics in Syria.
So far with Vegacy, it looks like they are just involved with training and I have not seen any war fighting videos or pictures. That’s not to say that they are not fighting in Syria, because they are certainly armed to do so. It was also interesting that the author that shared a bunch of these photos, also had photos of their trainees on tanks. Is Vegacy teaching armored warfare? Hmmm.
Finally for sightings, there were reports of PMC Wagner deploying to Venezuela. I have yet to see any photos of that deployment and really can’t confirm if that is the case. There was a brief mention of it in the SASC below, but only that Russians were ‘flying’ to Venezuela.
US Reaction: This is the last one to bring up, because this is the US reaction to Russian PMSC’s. Of course after the Battle of Khasham, there was a lot of news groups covering the US side of that deal. But I was not able to find anyone that interviewed the PMC Wagner folks that were involved with that battle. The accounts of how many deaths were all over the place, and I still have not been able to peg exactly how many were killed. It actually came out recently that the bodies of those that were killed were kept in morgues in Syria until after the elections in Russia?
Of course that is by design with the Russians, because they benefit from a lack of information about their activities. They do not have a truly free press to cover this kind of stuff. (3 journalists were killed in Africa trying to cover PMC Wagner activities)
Their press, like I mentioned up top, only likes to cover the things that Russia wants everyone to know. I think it would be awesome to see a western media group actually interview PMC Wagner. Or have RT interview these folks and actually hear what they have to say. I just don’t see it happening, but you never know. Especially if we see some of these other Russian PMSC’s do interviews.
In a recent Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing, they had the leaders in charge of Africa and Southern Commands talking about the happenings in Africa and Latin America. What perked me up was the discussion about Russian PMSC’s. Here is the one article that I saw written about this. It has the key points that General Waldhauser brought up specifically about the matter.
Top US General warns Russia using mercenaries to access Africa’s natural resources
Russia is using mercenaries and arms sales to gain access to Africa’s natural resources, the top general overseeing US military operations in Africa said Thursday.
“By employing oligarch-funded, quasi-mercenary military advisors, particularly in countries where leaders seek unchallenged autocratic rule, Russian interests gain access to natural resources on favorable terms,” Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, the commander of US Africa Command told the Senate Armed Services Committee in prepared written testimony.
“Some African leaders readily embrace this type of support and use it to consolidate their power and authority. This is occurring in the Central African Republic where elected leaders mortgage mineral rights — for a fraction of their worth — to secure Russian weapons,” he wrote.
“They want to have influence on the continent,” Waldhauser told the committee Thursday when asked about Russia’s activities in Africa.
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“I would just point to the Central African Republic right now where the Wagner group has about 175 trainers, where some of the individuals are actually in the President’s cabinet and they’re influencing the training as well as the same time having access to minerals in that part of the country,” Waldhauser said, referring to the Russian military contracting firm that has been linked to operations in Syria.Russia’s role in the Central African Republic came to the forefront after three Russian journalists were shot and killed there last year.
The journalists had traveled to the African nation in July 2018 to investigate the activities of Russian private military contractors and to find out how the contractors were involved in exploiting the Central African Republic’s mineral wealth.“With minimal investment, Russia leverages private military contractors, such as the Wagner Group, and in return receive political and economic influence beneficial to them,” Waldauser wrote.
“Recently, the President of the Central African Republic installed a Russian civilian as his National Security Advisor. The President also promised the armed forces would be deployed nationwide to return peace to the country by forces likely trained, equipped, and in some cases, accompanied by Russian military contractors,” the statement said, adding “Russia’s ability to import harsh security practices, in a region already marred by threats to security, while systematically extracting minerals is concerning. As Russia potentially looks to export their security model regionally, other African leaders facing similar instability and unrest could find the model attractive.”
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Asked about the difference between Russian and Chinese activity on the continent Waldhauser said, “Recently in the elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where Joseph Kabila just went out of office, one of his opponents said the Chinese bring the money and the Russians bring the muscle.”Waldhauser also wrote that Russia was increasing its involvement in Libya, a country that continues to be beset by violence as rival factions seek to increase their control of the oil-rich nation.
While the US has backed the UN-recognized and Tripoli-based Government of National Accord, Moscow has established links to both the GNA and a rival faction in the east led by Gen. Khalifa Haftar.
“Russia is more deliberate in Libya as they invoke Gadhafi -era relationships and debts to obtain economic and military contracts,” Waldhauser said, referring to the former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi who was ousted in a NATO-backed military intervention in 2011.
“These agreements are aimed at accessing Libya’s vast oil market, reviving arms sales, and gaining access to coastal territories on the Mediterranean Sea, providing Russia closer access to Europe’s southern border,” Waldhauser said.
That is about the most I have ever heard from a US general in regards to another country’s PMSC industry. That should tell you something about it’s significance. The Russians are making their moves out there, and PMSC’s are definitely a part of their strategy. They are learning and evolving and expanding…. The Russians are not afraid to delve into both Defense Industry and Offense Industry, and that is very much apparent. Especially how PMC Wagner or Slavonic Corps were used in Syria and Ukraine. The question is, are they getting good at what they are doing? Is it a successful experiment for them? Time will tell and that is why I am watching this closely. –Matt