#195 Marat Gabidullin - Wagner Group Commander / Russian Mercenary

Summary

Shawn Ryan Show - Episode #195: Marat Gabidullin - Wagner Group Commander / Russian Mercenary

Host: Shawn Ryan
Guest: Marat Gabidullin (Murad Gabadulin)
Translator: John Lechner
Release Date: April 28, 2025

---

1. Introduction

In episode #195 of the Shawn Ryan Show, host Shawn Ryan engages in a candid and insightful conversation with Marat Gabidullin, a former commander of Russia's notorious Wagner Group. This episode delves deep into the origins, operations, and internal dynamics of the Wagner Group, shedding light on its pivotal role in global conflicts and its intricate relationship with the Russian state.

Notable Quote:
Shawn Ryan (00:30): "It's my first ever interview with an enemy combatant, a commander from Russia's infamous Wagner group."

---

2. Origins of the Wagner Group

The discussion begins with the historical backdrop of the Wagner Group. Founded in 2014 amidst the turmoil in Eastern Ukraine, Wagner emerged as a private military company (PMC) with close ties to the Russian state. The group's inception is closely linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a restaurateur with a tumultuous past, including criminal convictions and connections with Vladimir Putin.

Notable Quote:
John Lechner (03:04): "Wagner initially came out of the war in Eastern Ukraine and its founder was Yevgeny Prigozhin... he leveraged those relationships to eventually getting the job of providing meals to the whole Russian military."

---

3. Recruitment and Expansion

Marat Gabidullin explains the recruitment strategies of the Wagner Group, highlighting a blend of military veterans and individuals with troubled backgrounds seeking camaraderie and purpose. Initially a modest force of around 600 fighters, Wagner expanded its ranks through word-of-mouth recruitment and, post-2022, began recruiting directly from Russian prisons to bolster their numbers for the Ukraine invasion.

Notable Quote:
Marat Gabidullin (17:04): "Wagner was a bit different at the time... it was one of several units that were figuring out ways to bring volunteers in to support the separatists."

---

4. Operations in Syria

Wagner's involvement in Syria marked a significant expansion of their operations. Initially sent to support Syrian forces, Wagner's effectiveness quickly became evident as they demonstrated superior combat skills against both ISIS and Assad's army. This effectiveness solidified their value to the Russian military, despite occasional pushbacks and misunderstandings.

Notable Quote:
Marat Gabidullin (30:33): "We demonstrated the whole superiority over enemy and... over the Bashan Assad army."

---

5. The Battle of Khasham

A pivotal moment in the podcast centers around the Battle of Khasham (02:00:00). Wagner forces, numbering approximately 500, engaged with 40 U.S. Special Forces and Kurdish allies. The confrontation resulted in significant casualties for Wagner, with Marat recounting the intense combat and the challenges faced when Russian military leadership denied Wagner's involvement, leaving them vulnerable to American retaliation.

Notable Quote:
Marat Gabidullin (48:41): "Our chief, our commander told us that American were not involved, that they wouldn't get involved."

---

6. Internal Conflicts and the Mutiny

The success and autonomy of the Wagner Group under Prigozhin's leadership eventually led to friction with the Russian Ministry of Defense. As Wagner began to gain prominence and Prigozhin's ambitions grew, the Russian military sought to curb his influence by limiting his access to resources and recruitment avenues. This tension culminated in a mutiny in June 2023, where Wagner attempted to seize control of Russia's southern military command in Rostov, aiming to arrest Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

Notable Quote:
Marat Gabidullin (73:15): "This battle was offensive... He [Prigozhin] was absolutely wrong."

---

7. The Fall of Prigozhin

Prigozhin's failed mutiny led to his demise, with rumors pointing towards internal factions within the Russian government, including the FSB, orchestrating his assassination to quell the threat he posed. Marat emphasizes the unpredictable nature of such power dynamics, stating that while Prigozhin had many enemies, the exact orchestrators of his fall remain unclear.

Notable Quote:
Marat Gabidullin (99:52): "He doesn't know who is the actual person who did it. Prigozhin had many enemies."

---

8. Current Status of the Wagner Group

Following Prigozhin's death, the Wagner Group's autonomy has significantly diminished. Operations previously under Wagner's control in regions like Syria and Africa are now absorbed by the Russian Ministry of Defense, leading to a restructuring of mercenary activities tied closely to state objectives. Marat opines that Wagner, as a distinct entity, no longer exists in its former capacity.

Notable Quote:
Marat Gabidullin (100:58): "Since Prigozhin's death, Wagner Group, in my opinion, ceased to exist."

---

9. Conclusion and Reflections

The episode concludes with Marat seeking asylum in France, expressing his disillusionment with the Russian regime. He directly addresses Vladimir Putin, urging him to leave Russia, underscoring the personal stakes and ideological rifts that have emerged from his experiences with the Wagner Group.

Notable Quote:
Marat Gabidullin (104:47): "Get out. You are the enemy for my country."

---

Final Thoughts

Episode #195 offers a rare and unfiltered glimpse into the inner workings of the Wagner Group through Marat Gabidullin's firsthand accounts. The conversation underscores the complex interplay between private military companies and state power, the ethical quagmires of mercenary warfare, and the personal toll on those involved. For listeners seeking an in-depth understanding of modern Russian mercenarism and its global implications, this episode serves as a crucial resource.

---

Disclaimer: The podcast includes segments sponsored by various companies and promotional advertisements, which have been omitted from this summary to focus solely on the substantive content of the interview.

Transcript

[Sponsor Voice]

This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. Not everyone is careful with your personal information, which might explain why there's a victim of identity theft every five seconds in the U.S. fortunately, there's LifeLock. LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year by visiting lifelock.com podcast terms apply.

[Host]

It's my first ever interview with an enemy combatant, a commander from Russia's infamous Wagner group.

[Translator]

There's a little bit of a language barrier with this one, so bear with.

[Host]

Us because there is some very interesting information in this episode. If you compare with the language barrier, I think you're going to get a lot out of this and learn a lot about Wagner Group, how they came about, their training and the caliber of men that they had working on. Enjoy the show. Murad Gabadulin, welcome to the show.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Thank you. Nice to meet you.

[Host]

John, thank you for being here. Wanted to bring you on here to fill in a couple of gaps with the language barrier.

[John Lechner]

Sure.

[Host]

Marat Gabadulin, born in Ural. You grew up in Uzbekistan and joined the Soviet military in 1984, served as a paratrooper officer and commanded a recon company, then joined Russia's Wagner group. Starting as a grunt, fighting ISIS in Syria and rising all the way to commander. You worked closely with Wagner boss Prigozhin advising the ISIS hunters in Syria and fought in the Battle of Kasham in 2018 against US and Kurdish forces. You then quit Wagner in 2019, authored a book about your time with Wagner, and since then you have moved to France where you are now seeking asylum. This interview has taken place in Paris. Obviously we couldn't get you to the US So we came here to meet you. It's really weird for me to say this, but you are, you are an enemy combatant and you fought in a skirmish In Syria against 40 US soldiers, special forces soldiers. And I'm friends with a couple of those guys and heard their account of that battle. And then we ran into your friend John Lechner and asked to be connected with you. So I just want to thank John, a freelance journalist, writer and researcher who's been in conflict zones across the globe, author of the book Death is Our Russian Mercenary in the New Era of Private Warfare, expert on Russia's moves in Africa, their foreign policy and private military companies. So thank you again for being here.

[John Lechner]

But thanks for having me.

[Host]

I wanted to, I want to dive in on a little bit of the history of Wagner Group.

[John Lechner]

Yeah.

[Host]

And so how did it start?

[John Lechner]

Well, so as Marat was telling you, Wagner really began in 2014. And Marat, as he was saying, he joined the company, as they call it. They only on the inside call it the company. Wagner Group itself as an entity never existed. It was sort of just a nickname that was given to it.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Some of my friends told me that in Russia emerged some kind of structure will I can start my life from the very beginning.

[John Lechner]

Wagner initially came out of the war in Eastern Ukraine and its founder was a guy, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who Murat has mentioned a couple of times. This is a guy who was born in the sixties in the Soviet Union and sort of grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. He was a petty thief and kind of a small time gangster in his teenage years. And he goes away to prison at the age of 18, if I remember correctly, for assault and robbery. He and his gang were on a street in Leningrad, became St. Petersburg, and Prigozhin came up behind a woman and strangled her until she almost died. And then they, they robbed her. And he was caught and sent away for, for nine years. And, and when he gets out, the Soviet Union is collapsing around him and he returns to his native St. Petersburg, where first he falls in with some gangsters again in the, in, in the 90s, which Marat had kind of alluded to previously with these various crime bosses and things. And so he falls in with some crime bosses and some, and they set him up as a manager of some grocery chain, grocery store chains. He eventually turns that into becoming a restaurateur of some very kind of fancy restaurants in St. Petersburg that a younger Vladimir Putin enjoyed. And he leveraged those relationships to eventually getting the job of providing meals to the whole Russian military and the Russian school system.

[Host]

So he became close with Putin through his restaurant tours.

[John Lechner]

Well, as you'll see kind of as we go through the story, he manages to connect with Putin. Putin likes him, but he's never able. He would always say that he was about one handshake away from Putin. And so Putin gets to know him. He kind of likes him because he's uncouth. He kind of has that sort of rough kind of attitude, which is somewhat refreshing given kind of the bureaucratic elite that are surrounding Putin. And so Prigozhin eventually gets this job to provide the meals for the Russian military. And so that takes us to around 2014 or so when, well, we have to go back a little bit a little bit further. So while he's doing this work as a contractor, he also is looking for different ways that he can look good and get on Putin's radar. One of the ways he does it is there are massive protests against Putin's return to the presidency in 2012. Prigozhin puts together this documentary that shows how all the protesters are fake, basically supported by the West. He finances it himself. It's not like Putin is doing this, but it's a way to, to virtue signal and show, hey, I'm furthering the cause of Putin's cause and Russia's cause more broadly. And so, as I said, Putin is coming to the presidency again in 2012. There are massive destabilizing protests against it, and he navigates it and gets back into power. But pretty much fairly quickly thereafter, another revolution is happening, this time on Russia's border in Ukraine, what became the Maidan revolution in late 2013. And for Putin, he sees these two things as connected, right? It's the west basically trying to overthrow Russia, overthrow his own regime, and they're doing it wherever they can. And so the Kremlin in early 2014 makes a decision to annex Crimea, which is a peninsula on the Black Sea that is part of Ukraine. It had beforehand been part of Russia during the Soviet period, but it went to Ukraine during the Soviet Union. And Russia's Black Sea fleet is there. This is the only warm water port that they have, and it's important. And so amidst all this chaos, the Kremlin decides to annex Crimea. They use special forces to do it, but then they also rely on these kind of like right wing Russian nationalist chauvinists, kind of the folks in sort of Russia's own nationalist militant movement to provide some of the security on the peninsula for the annexation. And after its success, the Kremlin thinks everything's done and dusted, but kind of unbeknownst to them at the time, or kind of something that was unexpected, was that amidst this revolution in Ukraine, there's also an anti Maidan movement, especially in eastern Ukraine, in this region called Donbas, which is economically and culturally closer to Russia. And so as Ukrainians are taking over government buildings to overthrow the government of Yanukovych, anti Maidan protesters are taking over these buildings in Donbass, in Donetsk and in Luhansk. And this puts Putin and the Kremlin into a difficult situation because unlike Crimea, they didn't want to annex eastern Ukraine. Donbas, it's not that important to Russia, but Putin is kind of boosting his Nationalist credentials by annexing Crimea gives a big kind of rally around the flag effect. And crucially, this is a rally around the flag from people who these nationalists, these Russian nationalists and militant guys who were against Putin's rule in 2012 and were marching against him. And so he can't be seen as letting these separatists in eastern Ukraine hang out to try, but he doesn't want to risk further sanctions from the west, international isolation. And so the Kremlin has to think very quickly, like, how do we support, but not support these separatists in eastern Ukraine? And this is where Yevgeny Prigozhin, the guy who's providing the meals for the Russian military, becomes acquainted with another guy, Dmitry Utkin, who is a former GRU officer, Russian military intelligence. He fought in Chechnya, he was stationed near Estonia. And he had just come back and almost got in big trouble for this kind of misadventure with a Russian PMC in Syria. These two guys come together and they sign an agreement whereby Utkin will provide the tactical knowledge, provide the men, its contractors, and Prigozhin will provide the political backing and the financial support for this mercenary group. That is very closely, if not basically, as Murat was saying, a Ministry of Defense project that they send into eastern Ukraine, right across the border to support the separatists.

[Host]

It's interesting because when I interviewed Erik Prince, we had spoken about Erik Prince earlier, they reached out to Erik Prince to try to help build Wagner group off of Blackwater. Did you know that?

[Murad Gabadulin]

To tell the truth, I completely agree with this opinion. Firstly, Wagner group has nothing to do with the private sector.

[Host]

So what was the recruitment? How do they recruit their fighters?

[John Lechner]

So as Marat was saying, I mean, it's word of mouth, basically, and I think Murat will tell you later as well, the initial group of Wagner which came out of this PMC that had the year before gone to Syria. So before Wagner, there were a number of kind of what we would think of as like Western style PMCs that had popped up. And largely in response to the Somali piracy crisis, which I'm sure you remember, there was an opportunity for these Russian contractors to protect Russian ships that are going through the Gulf of Aden. A number of Russian contractors were even working in Iraq during the War on Terror as well. The issue is that Mercenarism is illegal in Russia technically. And so these firms would basically establish themselves in Hong Kong or the Bahamas or something along those lines, and then the client would provide them with the weapons when they showed up going through a Third country to protect the ship or what have you. And there was this one group called Moran Group, where Dmitry Utkin, after he left the service, went to go work for. And one of the founders of Moran got a contract with a Syrian oligarch in 2013 to at least what the guys thought at the time, to basically protect oil and gas assets from isis. And when they showed up, it turned out that the Syrians wanted them to actually take those assets from isis. And there was almost like a little mutiny among the contractors, but they went ahead and they got ambushed. And Dmitry Utkin actually got the guys out safely during a sandstorm. They all go back to Russia kind of with their tail between the legs. And the fsb, the successor to the kgb, arrests and charges the two commanders who went to Syria with mercenarism. Lutkin, who's like one level below, gets off along with all the rest of the guys. And only a couple of months later, all of a sudden, Russia needs mercenaries. They know who is interested in this type of work because they almost arrested the guy in Syria. And So those same 50 guys or so formed the core of what was just then called the company. And Dmitry Utkin, who is a fan of the German composer Richard Wagner, takes his call sign Wagner in Donbass. And since he was the main commander, eventually it becomes kind of the catch all term for the company more generally.

[Host]

Okay, so. So it sounds like when Marat came in, it was about 600 people.

[John Lechner]

So when Marat first came in in April 2015, I think it was getting close to about 600 guys. He can correct me if I'm wrong. And Marat was coming in in April 2015. So this is right around the time that Russia is actually trying to sort of get to a ceasefire and take over these separatist republics at the time. And so when Marat joined, Wagner was a bit different at the time. It was one of many different forces that the MOD was using to support these separatists. And no one thought that it was going to become what it became. And so it was one of several units that were kind of figuring out ways to bring volunteers in to support the separatists. And Wagner at that time had this group of 50 guys or so who had been in Syria, but they also had a unit of Serbian volunteers that were coming through. And so when Murat joined, he was initially part of the International Brigade, which was largely Serbian, and he had a Serbian commander. Eventually the Serbs would be kind of kicked out, kicked by the wayside. Later on, when we got to Syria. But when Murat joined, it was a few months before some of the final big battles, before we saw what was called the Minsk 2 ceasefire between Ukraine and the separatist statelets backed by Russia at the time.

[Host]

Okay, okay. Is it true that they started recruiting out of the prisons?

[Murad Gabadulin]

Conflict situation with a crime boss.

[John Lechner]

With.

[Murad Gabadulin]

A crime boss, with a crime boss? And.

[Host]

What was the situation?

[Murad Gabadulin]

The criminal using any opportunity to take some money from anyone. And this situation emerged on the empty place. But as a result, during the meeting, I shoot him.

[Host]

You shot him?

[Murad Gabadulin]

Shot him. And I was sentenced to three years in prison.

[Host]

Where did you shoot him? Where? In the head?

[Murad Gabadulin]

No, in the body. In the body and then in the head. I was in prison in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia at the time. I served in Siberia. Our regiment was removed from the Kishinov to Siberia after Soviet Union collapsed.

[John Lechner]

So they, I think Wagner at the beginning, and I think this, what Marat will tell you was for the most part guys who had military experience, like Murat, guys who had trouble adjusting to civilian life in some shape or form and wanted to experience the adventure and camaraderie again and largely through word of mouth were recruited to the company when they found out there was this opportunity in Ukraine or eventually later on in Syria and elsewhere. And so for the most part it was guys coming out of the military, maybe they had a brush with the law, like Murat had to put it lightly. But the full convict recruitment program, where if you saw the videos of Prigozhin going around to all of the penal colonies and recruiting prisoners, that only happened after 2022 for Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine, okay, so there were definitely dudes who had served prison time, got out and then joined Wagner. But they, they weren't recruiting from, from the prisons at that time. It was really, I mean, if I remember correctly, Marat's, it was Marat's buddy from his military times who, who recruited him just by word of mouth. He said, hey, I'm doing this. Do you want to, do you want to join?

[Host]

What was the, what was the test? Like you said you had to take some type of a test to get into Wagner group.

[Murad Gabadulin]

You have to meet the time and push up 55.

[Host]

Time, 55 push ups, push up a 3 kilometer run. Were there any tactics involved like room clearance, entering a building? Oh, no, no, nothing like that, no. What are these guys getting paid?

[John Lechner]

They, I mean, I think it depended, but they usually were getting about $2,000 a month during their time on the contract. And so this is pretty good money in Russia for, for guys. So it's definitely a motivating factor.

[Host]

What is it developed into? I mean, they're in Africa.

[John Lechner]

Yeah.

[Host]

They're in Ukraine. Aren't they doing breweries? They're doing all kinds of stuff.

[John Lechner]

Yeah.

[Host]

What all are they involved in?

[John Lechner]

So what I think is interesting about this story, because Marat will, will tell you, you know, this was very much a state supported entity, but. And, you know, we can ask Marat as well. Again, I also don't think it could have become what it was if it weren't for the ambition of its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin as well. And so kind of, if we look at what was happening In Ukraine in 2015, a lot of those units that the MOD was supporting after the ceasefire, they just kind of dispersed, went home, didn't really do much after. But only a few months later, Russia's overtly intervening in Syria. There's nothing covert about it. It's a full air campaign with the Russian military. And Prigozhin and Utkin are very much also lobbying to make sure that he gets his guys into there, because he has now this kind of force at his disposal. And what he's good at is trying to figure out, okay, I have this now what do I do with it? And it was at this point where I think he saw the black waters of the world and he said, okay, I want to do kind of my version of this. And it so happened that Syria was going to be the next opportunity for him to do so. And so Murat was one of the first guys on the ground in Syria. As he'll tell you, the mod didn't really know what to do with them. And a couple of guys got killed and they didn't want casualties right away, so they panicked and sent them home. And it was only until it became clear that Russian air power alone wasn't going to defeat the rebels, rebels against Assad or isis, that Wagner was brought back in, this time on the ground where they take Palmyra, then they get sent home again, then they get back in and Murat will tell you all about the Battle of Kasham. But it gets to that point where it's this mix, right? They have state backing, but Prigozhin is also out there with his guys, basically doing business development. Right. If you have a pmc, where are you going to market your services? You have to go to Africa at some point, otherwise you should fire your BND guy. Already in 2017, Prigozhin is sending his guys out to drum up new business. They first signed a contract with the Sudanese to provide training, and they get access to mining concessions in Sudan. Then they show up in the Central African Republic, where there's really no other kind of competition from other Russians. And so Prigozhin is able to provide training. He offers his, like, information warfare because he has the troll farms, which were kind of very famous in the US during the 2016 elections. And his guys go out and they try to start breweries and they go into gold mining and what have you. They act, as Marauder was saying, very independently of the Kremlin, because these places aren't that important to Russia. And so in the places that aren't important, he has to figure out his own ways to finance these operations. And so they go from the Central African Republic, they're in Libya backing Haftar in his bid to take Tripoli in 2019. Then they show up in Mali, where they sign a deal with the Malian government to go after various jihadi groups. And then ultimately, they are initially left out of the full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and only get brought in when the Russian government's in trouble.

[Host]

So these guys are not. They're definitely not just in Russia's best interest. They're doing their own thing in all these separate parts of the world.

[John Lechner]

Yeah, but I think that it's not, because people always ask, is this a private thing or a public thing? And the answer is both. I mean, we're in Paris right now, but when I'm sitting in Washington, D.C. i try to explain to people, this is the capital of public private partners. Lockheed Martin is a profit driven company. They will frame whatever they're doing as furthering America's national defense and security, but they're also a profit. Profit driven. And so what Prigozhin was very good at was selling back to the Kremlin this dream of kind of Russia's expansion abroad.

[Host]

Gotcha.

[John Lechner]

And he. And he could sell it back to Putin. These different initiatives that were also just happened to be, you know, potentially profitable to him.

[Host]

Interesting, Interesting. All right, let's. Let's move to Syria.

[Translator]

When I started this podcast, it seemed like I had to figure it out all on my own. It was overwhelming. When you're starting something new, it seems like your to do list just keeps growing and it can overrun your entire life. Finding the right, right tool can be such a game changer for millions of businesses. That tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names to brands Just getting started. I use Shopify to power my own business so I can keep bringing you Vigilance Elite Gummy Bears with hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build online and is packed with helpful AI tools to accelerate your content creation. And like a marketing team, Shopify can create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are. Shopify is your commerce expert with world class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping and beyond. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business idea into With Shopify on your side, sign up for your 1 month $1 per month trial period and start selling today at shopify.com Go to shopify.com SRS shopify.com SRS My partner, the award winning precious metals company Gold Co, has a special offer for you right now. You can get a free Gold and Silver Kit. You'll learn about how gold and silver can help you protect your retirement savings. On top of that, you could get unlimited free bonus silver if you qualify. That's right, as a special offer for being a supporter of my show, you could get unlimited free silver when you open a qualified account. So don't wait. The sky is the Limit with everything happening in the world today, it's time to learn about Gold and Silver. Get your free Gold and Silver Kit from my partners at Gold Co today. Are your savings protected? Do you have a hedge against market risk and uncertainty? Learn why gold has been breaking record after record. I believe there's no better time to get your free Gold and Silver Kit. Go to Sean likes Gold.com that's SeanLikesGold.com Ask 10 people to define the word capitalism. This subject comes up all the time, but do you know what it means? Find out with Understanding Capitalism, a free online course from Hillsdale College. They offer more than 40 free online courses. You can learn about the United States Constitution or even the history of the ancient Christian church. Hillsdale recently launched a new course, Understanding Capitalism that I've been watching. In seven lectures, you'll learn about the role of profit and loss, how human nature plays a role in our economic system, why capitalism depends on private property rights, the rule of law, and above all, freedom. I believe all Americans should learn more about economics. Understanding these concepts can make you more informed and even help you grow your own business. Go right now to Hills Hillsdale Edu SRS to enroll in this course, Understanding Capitalism. There's no Cost and it's easy to get started. That's Hillsdale EDU SRS TO enroll for free HILLSDALE EDU SRS.

[Host]

All right, Marat, let's go to when you got on.

[Murad Gabadulin]

The ground in Syria first time in September, in 2015. I think Prigozhin is looking for the opportunity to implement this completely new concept of the using military forces. And he wants to demonstrate the ability compatibility of the mercenaries. And we were delivered to Syria by the scheduled civilian flight of military, Russian military. Firstly look at, looked at us with a surprise. They don't now didn't know who we are and what we meant to do here and how they must to treat us. And after we received the weapon, we take a part in several military action and demonstrated the whole superiority on the superiority over enemy and of course the whole superiority over the Bashan Assad army. But I think at that moment Russian military and Syrian military unit thought that they handle this situation without us. Russian military thought that if they provided Syrian army with a strike support, Syrian army can achieve the victory in this war. But it turned out that Syrian army degradated to the point of inability to wage offensive action.

[John Lechner]

And so, like as Murat is saying, when Russia first intervenes in Syria, one of the reasons that they're doing it, actually it's after the annexation of Crimea and they recognize the importance of Syria at that time for the US and for the west. Because this is, if you remember 2015, this is when ISIS is really at its, at its height with the territorial caliphate. And the US has already intervened, gone back in to fight isis. And so the Russians think that if we go in backing Assad, we can kind of force the US into a joint counterterrorism operation against ISIS that will force them to kind of basically start talking to us again. And so they come in and they're backing Assad. But as Murat's saying, Assad's government, I mean, the forces that he has are incredibly unmotivated. I mean, for obvious reasons given his rule. And the rebels, not just isis, but all the other rebels fighting against them, are a lot more motivated. And the Russians initially wanted it to just be an air campaign, but I mean, as you find out pretty quick, just air campaigns alone rarely work for anybody. And it was clear that Russian air power with Assad's forces on the ground were not going to, was not going to work. They were not going to take the territory back from rebels. And so. But they face an issue at the time, which I think you speak to as well, where they this is kind of a far away intervention for Russia and they haven't figured out yet if they want to have actual Russian troops on the ground. And what Russians will think, the Russian public will think if Russian soldiers are going home in caskets. And there's a sense that they're going to be against this and say, why are we here in Syria? And so one of the reasons that Murat and Wagner were able to get back in is that the Russian military didn't have to report casualties.

[Murad Gabadulin]

For Wagner, and using the mercenaries in this war to take could resolve the very main, very difficult task. The thing is that Russian generals invented the concept of the war with a little bloodshed. And using the mercenaries, they can create some kind of appearances that this concept is working lost of the mercenaries. Didn't it include in the official statistic?

[Host]

Okay, that makes sense. So, so correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole point of Russia going into Syria to include Wagner was to build some type of an alliance with the United States.

[John Lechner]

Yeah, it was an against isis. It was an effort because in part there's always a lot of reasons why, why things happen, but the, the timing of their intervention. Because if you remember, Syria started going into civil war right around the time of the Arab Spring. So this is already like five years before that. The Russians didn't have any particular love for Assad, despite the fact that there was a Russian base in Syria and kind of some history going back to the Soviet Union. What really explains the timing of why they went in was this sense of isolation that they felt after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 in Ukraine. And it was this effort to basically get themselves onto the world stage again in a crisis that they thought was existentially important to the west, which was the defeat of isis. Of course, also when they show up and they're on the ground, Assad also has different ideas for what he wants the Russians to do. And ISIS is less of a concern to him than a lot of the more secular rebels elsewhere as well. And that he wants the Russians to go after those guys, whereas the Russians want to go try and meet up with the Americans as they're closing in on isis, as the territorial caliphate is kind of crumbling down.

[Host]

Interesting, interesting. Well, let's talk about the battle of Kashan between Wagner and U.S. social forces. So like I'd mentioned, I have friends that were in that battle. It sounds like There was around 500 Wagner Group soldiers on the ground. There were 40 U.S. special Forces guys, along with a couple with a Kurdish partner. Force. And so let's just start with the beginning. What were you doing that close to American forces?

[Murad Gabadulin]

From the very beginning, this factory was very important. This factory enclosed all infrastructure of the oil field nearby, around nearby Konaka. And Prigozhin wanted to seize this factory during the battle for the Der Zor. But we have no enough resources. We constantly be forced to attract our forces in order to, in order to achieve a goal, in order to take liberate Der Zorb our lives was very indecisively, acted very indecisively. And we cannot using our forces in order to advance forward.

[John Lechner]

Can I, can I put like a little bit before where so like what was like, why did Prigozhin want to take these Conoco facilities? And so in 2016, Murat and Wagner, they capture Palmyra from ISIS. And Murat has, I think, some of the medals from that and from that time period that they'll show. But after the capture, the Russian military sends Wagner home again. And then a few months later, ISIS recaptures it, Palmyra, and Wagner comes back in. But this time Prigozhin has signed a deal with Assad's government. And part of the deal is that Wagner will participate in the counteroffensive and Prigozhin and his companies get a 25% share of the proceeds of the oil and gas assets that are recuperated. Prigozhin has this massive incentive now to go out against ISIS and capture as much of those assets as he can. And so in 2017, Murat and Wagner are back in Syria. And this is right around the time where ISIS is collapsing. The US Is backing the Kurdish sdf. The SDF is coming from the northeast, south. They're heading for the ISIS's capital, Raqqa. And Wagner and Assad forces are heading north. And at a certain point, there's this factory that Murad is talking about called Conoco, which is sort of the crown jewel of all the assets. It's valued in the hundreds of millions of, of dollars. And it was one of ISIS's like, most valuable assets for fuel smuggling.

[Murad Gabadulin]

The most rich, most profitable oil field in Syria.

[John Lechner]

So Prigozhin wants this, and he's sending letters too, to the Syrian government saying that they're not upholding their end of the bargain, that he's spending all of this money on the offensive and the Syrians aren't paying him. So he sees Conoco as the way to kind of get profitability, get out of the red and into the black. The only issue is that as ISIS is collapsing, everyone is thinking what a post ISIS world is going to look like. So the Kurds with the blessing of, of the US start moving away from Raqqa and heading south towards Deir Ezor. And there's a rush for who's going to get this conical plant when ISIS is gone. And the sdf, the, the Kurdish forces backed by special forces get there first. And then this is where Prian.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Made a mistake. He thought that he can achieve his goal as a result in negotiation with the elders of the Kurdish tribe. But at that time Funca functioners of the SPS was in charge of the, of the whole thing. And the oldest of the tribes, they like Perigurum, they guarantee, they gave a guarantee that Kurdish forces retreat as soon as we started to move forward. But they, despite.

[John Lechner]

How many guys did you have gathered to attack Conoco at that time?

[Murad Gabadulin]

I think about 502 units. Karpathe and 5th assault units. And my group that consists of Syrian fighters. 75, 75, 75. This was only unit of Syrian that took part in this action. No one else. Only Russian mercenaries. And this group of Syrian fighters. Only this. I, I had to advance on the left flank and to take over two stronghold. We advanced on the start line of attack, but American prevented us. They striked on the second echelon. Headquarter artillery position.

[John Lechner]

The armory.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Armory. And then they shift the fire on us.

[Host]

Did you guys fire on them.

[Murad Gabadulin]

From the sky? American uses at the beginning? American uses only aviation.

[Host]

Two Spectre gunships and two Apaches Helicopters.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Yeah, combat. Combat drones. Spooky and combat helicopter.

[Host]

And so what was going through your head when you knew that? So U.S. special operations initiated the attack.

[John Lechner]

No, no, no, you should, what you should, what you should tell them is start from the beginning of the morning because this happened on February 8th, right?

[Murad Gabadulin]

The night, the night of February, between 7 and 8 February.

[John Lechner]

And. And you were in the room the day before or a couple of days before where Utkin, he comes in and he says we're going to take this from the Americans.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Yeah.

[John Lechner]

And you. And someone said are the Americans going to be there? And he said yeah, yes.

[Murad Gabadulin]

I don't know why. But Prigozhin decided that American were not involved and that the Americans.

[John Lechner]

I don't know why.

[Murad Gabadulin]

The thing is the Prigozhin have one future.

[John Lechner]

It's like personality trait from time to time.

[Murad Gabadulin]

His ego.

[Host]

His ego.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Ego rose above the common sense.

[John Lechner]

Maybe something that it might be, it might look cool. And no one has done this before. If we get a piece of paper and Marat can show where the Americans were and how Wagner came over with the arrows and stuff. That way people can get. No one's done this before.

[Translator]

It's spring, the sun's out and it's time to feel comfortable every time you step out, feel relaxed in True Classic shirts. They are designed to accentuate the important areas like your arms and chest, while giving your midsection some breathing room. True Classic has everything you need to look great and be comfortable this spring. Crew necks, short sleeve comfort knit button ups, comfort knit chino shorts and more. Whether you're running errands or attending events, you can definitely feel the difference in the quality when you're wearing your favorite classic shirts from True Classic. True Classic offers premium clothes at an affordable price. Their best selling T shirts, jeans and more come in three, six and nine packs. The more you bundle, the more you save. Plus get free shipping on all orders. A hundred percent perfect fit guarantee and easy returns this spring. Level up your style with clothes that actually fit right. Go to my exclusive [e-mail] SRS to save. That's TrueClassic.com SRS shop now and elevate your wardrobe today.

[Host]

24 chefs. 24 culinary showdowns for 24 hours straight. Which chef will outcook, outpace, outlast the competition?

[John Lechner]

No chef escapes the clock.

[Host]

All new 24 and 24. Last chef standing Sunday night at eight. See it first on Food Network stream next day on Max.

[John Lechner]

So do you want to show you have the river Euphrates. Then you want to show where Conoco is. And then where Wagner in the US Was.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Euphrate Cornica. We were completely destroyed.

[Host]

So this is.

[Murad Gabadulin]

This is our position. This is your position. Factories is Quantico.

[John Lechner]

Yeah.

[Host]

And this is the Kurds in the.

[John Lechner]

U.S. no, no, in the U. S are in here in the Conoco facility. This is Wagner's two positions right here.

[Host]

They're inside the facility.

[John Lechner]

No, no, no. Facility is around like this and then they go and attack that the US Was inside. The US Was inside the facility.

[Host]

So you. So Wagner initiated an attack?

[Murad Gabadulin]

Initiated? It was a planned action with signs of the false artillery assault from the Kurdish.

[Host]

And you guys, you knew that US Special operations were in the factory?

[Murad Gabadulin]

Yes. You know about it? Were you worried? Don't worry. Our chief, our commander told us that American were not involved, that they wouldn't get involved. Yeah, as I already said, I don't know why, but Prigozhin was convinced that American forces were not involved. Wow.

[Host]

What's this distance here? What's the distance here? How many kilometers.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Between my units and first stronghold? About 300 meters.

[Host]

300 meters, that's it.

[Murad Gabadulin]

We moved very close to this position and we, we have already ready to attack, but American prevented us from the any.

[John Lechner]

What you know too is that what your buddies will say who are there. So the other key thing is this is the Euphrates right here. And so during this kind of counter ISIS operation, the Russians and, and the Americans are trying to figure out ways that they can deconflict, right. So that no one is actually shooting each other because there's a lot of, there's a lot of guys running around in this, in this area now. And so they, they create this kind of line of de confliction between US backed forces in Syria and Russian backed forces. And the line is pretty much the Euphrates river, which is right here. And that's established. But the issue for Prigozhin is that the most profitable oil fields are right across on the other side of the deconfliction line. And so Marat and Wagner, what they're doing prior to this is they're building up their forces, they're testing a little bit the line of the confliction probably because they cross the river and there's this one little spot that is still Russian territory. And so the Americans are watching this on the drones and, and they're seeing the buildup, they see it all day. And eventually in the evening they start calling the Russians over the deconfliction line that they have between the US and Russian militaries. And they say are these your guys? And the Russian military says no, no.

[Murad Gabadulin]

They denied, they denied to. He denied to prison.

[John Lechner]

Confirm.

[Host]

Confirm what did you initiate the assault with?

[Murad Gabadulin]

I have, I was supported firstly by the artillery. Artillery?

[Host]

So you were hitting Conoco with artillery?

[John Lechner]

What was they were fake. They were doing. They were faking artillery training because they had set themselves up close.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Mortal?

[John Lechner]

Yeah. Mortars? Yeah.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Americans very quickly suppressed the activity of any kind of artillery. And I left without any support. I have a automatic rifle machine gun, automatic grenade launcher. AGS 17 and some kind and two machine gun have heavily machine gun. Nothing against the well.

[John Lechner]

The fifth unit had tanks, right? There were two tanks.

[Murad Gabadulin]

This tank was on the right side from me. I saw the tank only at the last time before this tank was destroyed. I heard the shoot, I heard the sound of shooting. And I come out of the position and I saw our tank. And firstly I decided this is good for me. But immediately after I glanced on him he was destroyed by the rocket. And, and there was absolutely no. And there was a big explosion. This tank was completely destroyed.

[Host]

What was going through your head when the Americans retaliated To save my life.

[Murad Gabadulin]

So save lives of my people. I cried him run away from here. Run away in any way. Run away. But, but only small group. Only with a small group.

[Host]

Small group.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Two, three person. Not, not gathering. Yeah, but you wanted to disperse, but it was in vain. They unfortunately, I will in any way gather together and fall on the fire from the helicopter. And I lost 23 fighters. 23 fighters was killed.

[Host]

Were you close with them? Were you friends with them?

[Murad Gabadulin]

It was very little time to. To become a friendship. I was appointed on this position two and half week before this event.

[Host]

23 dead, 28 wounded. Is that correct?

[John Lechner]

In his unit.

[Host]

In your unit?

[John Lechner]

Yeah. I mean, I think the thing that is also kind of important for people to realize is, you know, it's getting towards the evening and Wagner, they're feigning drills and then they attack, right? And the US is calling and they call three times over the deconfliction line to the Russian Ministry of Defense and they say, are these your guys? And three times the Ministry of Defense says no. And so, as you know and your buddies know, that's when the US had the green light to effectively defend themselves against this attack. And I think it's fair to say that the. The U.S. defended itself in a way that would send a message as well. And the amount of air power that came in was probably disproportionate to the threat and designed to send a message because I mean the amount of.

[Murad Gabadulin]

I think Americans didn't care of. Didn't care of. Of the facility of the Russian army. They was ready to strike in any case. And they, yeah, they were very. I think they absolutely didn't fear to use their weapons.

[Host]

That's generally the sentiment. I mean, these guys are at war. That's what they want to do.

[Murad Gabadulin]

No?

[Host]

Yeah, and they did it.

[John Lechner]

And you said, I mean, the US brought in like two Apaches.

[Host]

Two Apaches and two Spectre gunshots and Spectre Gunship.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Russian generals, Russian generals was completely confused by this situation. Russian generals didn't have an ability to take responsibility and to make a decision.

[John Lechner]

Independently.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Independently. And when he encounter with this situation, he confused. Absolutely.

[John Lechner]

Because the question is, right, why did the Russian Ministry of Defense deny that it was Russians who were attacking? And there is an argument I think to be made. Prigozhin his gamble in trying to take Conoco was that when The Americans saw that it was Russians coming, the Americans would want to avoid any direct confrontation, World War three, and they would back away and retreat along with the Kurds. And he was incredibly mistaken in that calculation. And what I think he wasn't counting on and what Murad is saying is that when the Americans were calling into the Ministry of Defense, you have some poor guy on the line who is also not going to be responsible for World War Three. And so the, the quickest thing that you're going to do is not say, yeah, those are my guys attacking US Soldiers. You're going to say, don't know anything about it, don't know what you're talking about and try to go to your higher ups to cover your own. But so ultimately it was, you know, it was probably, he probably got Prigozhin, probably had kind of a wink and a nod from the Ministry of Defense that he was going to try to do this. And if it worked out, it's a great Russian victory for everybody. Assad, the Russians, Prigozhin. And if it doesn't, in the Ministry of Defense's mind, it's just Wagner guys who are getting killed.

[Host]

Wow. How long did the battle go on for?

[Murad Gabadulin]

How, how long? About six hours. Six hours from the, from the midnight to, to, to morning now Midnight and morning 18 nine Russian machineries were skilled in this battle and 23 Syrian fighters from my union was killed.

[John Lechner]

How many?

[Murad Gabadulin]

About 200, 200 wounded. Two units, 200 wounded, two assault units was completely destroyed. I mean weapon take technique and like.

[John Lechner]

300 casualties.

[Murad Gabadulin]

The next. On the next day, Russian authority proclaimed that no one Russian suffered in this event. Wow. No one.

[John Lechner]

And you were responsible for counting the bodies, right?

[Murad Gabadulin]

And reporting it years ago. And I must to bring the body of the dead. Of the kill of the dead. Suryan in the town, in the city was headquarter of my battalion.

[John Lechner]

Oh, so he was there for the ceremony of the, the burial.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Ah, burial.

[Host]

Yeah, I was. Before we get there. What, what, what ended it? Why did they stop if they didn't kill everybody? What stopped it?

[Murad Gabadulin]

After, after I coming back from this battle, I gave an order to send my people to bring a body and a weapon on the battlefield. Brought from this area all body and all weapons that was left on this area during the battle.

[John Lechner]

So eventually in the morning, the Ministry of Defense got in touch with the Americans and it was agreed, the Americans agreed to a two hour pause so that the Russians could collect weapons and dead.

[Host]

So if the, if the Ministry of Defense of Russia initially denied this three different times. Then how do they contact the US to ask to clean up the bodies?

[Murad Gabadulin]

They can. They could said so in the very beginning. And if they say yes, okay, we I will give an order to retreat. And they if Russian generals to gave in order to retreat. Nothing happened, everything will be fine. But Russian generals didn't know what to do in this situation.

[John Lechner]

But eventually they told the Americans we need to go collect. So eventually they said there might be some Russians there to the Americans.

[Murad Gabadulin]

The thing is this has already happened.

[John Lechner]

Yeah. There's no denying it anymore.

[Murad Gabadulin]

We were destroyed. The whole field was covered with corpses and burned tank and trucks of our units. Everyone who can move left this area. And.

[Host]

So there was only bodies come.

[Murad Gabadulin]

To the bank of the river.

[Host]

So there were only bodies left.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Yeah.

[John Lechner]

And then the agreement was made that they have two hours to go back to to the area to collect the debt.

[Host]

How does that make you feel now? Knowing that the Russian military had denied three different times that it was Russians on the ground and then also told the Russian people that there were no Russians that were killed in that battle.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Firstly, I think the American acted as it according to the situation. If I were on their place, I will do the same action. It's rules of war. If you under attack, you must to protect themselves and waged and counterattack. Secondly, I think it was bad thing from the side of our chief. It was the Prigozhin. And Wagner was absolutely wrong in this situation. It's absolutely wrong. But.

[John Lechner]

By Wagner he means.

[Murad Gabadulin]

This battle was offensive, was defensive action from the outside. We was under attack of Kurdish forces. And despite of the heavy losses, we can stay. We can stay on our place and to protect and protect our position. But what surprised me very much that many of our guys that took part in this battle accepted this version.

[Host]

Wow. Wow.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Accepted this version that it's nonsense. But this is true. I spoke with some guys and trying to remind him that. Do you remember we we are going to assault. No one attacked us. We initiated this event. Only we have responsibility for the circumstances of this battle.

[Host]

I think probably every American that fought that day is going to watch this. Do you have anything personally to say to them?

[Murad Gabadulin]

What can I say them? As I already said, they acted according to the rule of war. It was our initiative. Nothing.

[Host]

So how long after the battle did you leave Syria?

[Murad Gabadulin]

One year.

[Host]

One year.

[John Lechner]

But this is when you left Wagner for Redut, right?

[Murad Gabadulin]

Yes, when I left Wagner, I joined Redut.

[John Lechner]

It only defended or like did security for. It was a different. It was a different pmc. But their only job as a PMC was to secure.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Secure.

[John Lechner]

Yeah, Static security, exactly.

[Murad Gabadulin]

It was not for me.

[Host]

Let's take a quick break.

[Kaley Cuoco]

Hey there, travelers. Kaley Cuoco here. Sorry to interrupt your music, great artist, BT Dubs, but wouldn't you rather be there to hear it live? With Priceline, you can get out of your dreams and into your dream concert. They've got millions of travel deals to get you to that festival, gig, rave, sound bath, or sonic experience you've been dreaming of. Download the Priceline app today and you can save up to 60% off hotels and up to 50% off flights. So don't just dream about that trip. Book it with Priceline.

[Jim Jackson]

Go to your happy price.

[John Lechner]

Priceline.

[Jim Jackson]

This episode is brought to you by Max Presenting HBO Original Comedy special Bret Goldstein, the Second Best Night of youf Life. Emmy winning actor, writer and comedian Brett Goldstein brings his irresistible charm and quick wits stateside for his first ever HBO series, Stand Up Special. Goldstein sheds his testy Roy K Facade to share his hilarious insights on love, sex, masculinity, and more. Brett Goldstein, the second Best night of your life. Now streaming exclusively on Max.

[Host]

All right, Marant, so you get back to Russia. How much longer was it until the Ukraine war kicked off?

[Murad Gabadulin]

After this event, this war began and I left my country.

[Host]

John, what was with the. What was the mutiny all about?

[John Lechner]

Yeah, so I think Murat, as he's saying, he goes back, he finishes his work in Syria. But I mean, after the Battle of Kasham in which Murat participated already by this point, we were talking about it earlier. Wagner is in Sudan by this point, by around the same time as the Battle of Hashem, they first start arriving the Central African Republic, and then they're showing up in all sorts of places in Africa, Libya, and in Mali. And over there, Prigozhin is acting kind of independently like. Like we were talking about. But as the Battle of Khasham kind of showed, Prigozhin himself is not always on the same page as the Ministry of Defense and Minister of Defense Shoigu. And he's sort of a rock in their shoe. Very often you have to imagine, here's this guy who is kind of technically supposed to, with his forces, be subordinate, but he also has a mind and ambition of his own. And he can occasionally get in front of Putin himself. And you can imagine what he's saying about the people that he doesn't like in front of Putin. So imagine you're the boss of an employee, but the employee's dad is the CEO, right? I mean, you know that there's another channel that goes up if you try to, if you try to boss them around. And so even though the Ministry of, of Defense and Wagner are cooperating in Africa quite a bit, there's still that interpersonal tension. And so when Putin makes a decision to launch the full scale war in Ukraine in February 2022, he gives the planning of it over to the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense and they want nothing to do with Prigozhin. And so their thinking at the time is that this is going to be a quick, easy victory and we can do it kind of in their mind, by the book, without having to use guys like Prigozhin. And so in the initial month or so of the invasion, Wagner is actually left out. And Prigozhin is pissed about it. He's calling up the guys in the gru, trying to figure out why his guys aren't in it, and then trying to get his guys into it. And meanwhile, the very quick operation to take Kyiv does not go as planned and the Russian military is suffering setbacks. And so Prigozhin now has his opportunity to get his guys into the war. And the thing about Wagner that I think Murat will tell you too, is that in the intervening years, really since Chechnya and a very brief war with Georgia, not a lot of guys in the Russian military have real battle experience. Not a lot of people have been, been, have been shot at. And so when, when Wagner comes in with its commanders, they start delivering some quick battlefield victories. And so this puts Prigozhin all of a sudden in this like, great position. He's able to come out of the shadows and he becomes a hero of Russia. He declares himself, oh, he denied it always that he was tied to Wagner group. Now he decided Clare's I was always the founder of Wagner and he's on state television. And as Marat said, this is a guy who already has a big ego, right? And, and, and the way that he always gets around his rivals is by gambling big like at, like at Hisham. And so he starts also promising things that he's going to do something that the generals would, would never do. And ultimately what he ends up promising is that he's going to basically Wagner is going to take Bakhmut, this kind of middle sized city, from Ukrainian forces. And the way that he's going to do it is he gets exclusive permission for a time to go to all of Russia's prisons and recruit prisoners to the front line. And so he shows up and he goes himself. I mean, he's a guy who does a lot of things himself.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Yes, he was deprived for the resources of the mobilization.

[John Lechner]

Yeah, he wasn't allowed to have actual soldiers. And so he gets the convicts. And so he shows up at these Russian penal colonies and they gather all the prisoners into the prison yard. He comes in and his help helicopter. And he comes in and he speaks in front of all of the prisoners and he says, I have an offer for you. You can come and fight for me for six months, and if you survive, you're a free man and your criminal record is expunged. And he tells him that my losses are worse than Stalingrad, which obviously resonates with Russians. And ultimately about 50,000 guys sign up. And the tactic that Prigozhin is going to use to take Bakhmut is the human wave tactic. These convicts, they get two weeks training, usually I think just inside kind of the border with Ukraine and around Luhansk. And then after that they're sent to the front and basically they're put in small units. And each small unit, one unit will go out, attack the Ukrainian position. Eight guys might be killed, but two guys get into the trench and they do some damage before getting killed. And before the Ukrainians have a chance to recover, another unit of convicts is coming through. And so it's a very inefficient way to wage war, but it is effective over time. And so.

[Murad Gabadulin]

The thing is that the main reason for this operation was to attract as many Ukraine forces as possible in order to prevent from the attack on the other areas. Areas of the front line.

[John Lechner]

Yeah.

[Murad Gabadulin]

And as you can imagine, it's a.

[John Lechner]

Huge front line now, right in, in Ukraine, in the beginning, the first phase of the war in Donbas, you know, it's a, it's a little section of, of the Donbas region now. It's, you know, like a thousand kilometers long maybe or something. And so he's, he's also engaged with, with the Ukrainians. And the Ukrainians are sending some of their best guys to defend Bakhmut, while for the Russian government, they're losing in their mind some of the worst people in society. Right. These convicts. And so, you know, it's like a 4 to 1 ratio in terms of losses, but it's something that the Russians and Prigozhin are willing to do for the reasons that Marat said. But you know, at this point, though, Prigozhin is like an Internet, like we all know who Prigozhin is. Right. During the Bakmu campaign. He becomes like the face of the war itself. CNN is trying to reach him, the New York Times is trying to reach him for an interview. He's, you know, he's huge back home in Russia. He's like, finally, everything that he, you know, his ego is matched now by his popularity.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Yes, in this term, the Wagner group completely fit his mission in this war. They achieved their goals that would stand before him, before them. They attract many, a lot of Ukraine forces and give the opportunity for the Russian army to prepare, mobilizing reserve, and to build the defensive line in the area of Zaporovsky district.

[John Lechner]

But still, I mean, there's still a lot of enmity between the Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, and Prigozhin. And so at some point, inevitably, especially since Prigozhin is having all of this success, like Murat mentioned, the Ministry of Defense is going to want to check him. And so the first way that they do it is they start cutting off Prigozhin from convict recruitment. So he's promised to Putin, I'm going to take Bakhmut. But his means of doing so now is disappearing. He needs a lot of bodies to take Bakhmut. The Ministry of Defense is cutting him off of those bodies. Not because they're against prisoner recruitment, they just start doing it themselves. But the difference is, and this is always the issue for Prigozhin is when he was doing it, he had the permission by like, a wink and a nod from the presidential administration. When the Ministry of Defense does it, Russian Parliament officially makes it legal for them to recruit from prison. So there's always a way that Prigozhin can get screwed over in whatever he's doing. So he's getting cut off. And so now he starts going public with the Ministry of Defense saying, I'm not getting enough ammunition for what we're trying to do. And the Ministry of Defense is screwing over Wagner by not giving us enough ammunition, the ammunition that we need. And so now this spat starts going very public over social media, and then ultimately, Shoigu and Prigozhin at this point hate each other's guts in the Ministry of Defense. Then kind of like their final kind of counter attack on Prigozhin is they get the Kremlin to agree that all, all soldiers fighting in Ukraine on behalf of Russia have to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Only those who fight on the front line.

[John Lechner]

Those on the front line, yeah. And so for Prigozhin, you can imagine he's this big guy now in Russia, he's got thousands and thousands of men ostensibly under his command. And he recognizes that this is making him political, too. And so all of a sudden, the Ministry of Defense is taking those men out from underneath him. And I think for him, what he saw was the writing on the wall that at the very least, when I no longer have Wagner group, it means that I'm going to kind of disappear into obscurity, which he wasn't able to do at that point. He couldn't just retire and be quiet. He was incapable of that. But also, without those men, he's no longer. He doesn't have political leverage anymore, and it could result in his ultimate demise. And so he has to figure out a way, how do I convince Putin to choose between me and Shoigu? Because Putin is choosing Shoigu right now. And so the decision is made that Wagner is going to turn back from Ukraine into southern Russia, and they're going to capture and kill the Minister of Defense.

[Host]

Wow.

[John Lechner]

And so on June 23, 2023, Wagner crosses back over. Prigozhin claims that the Ministry of Defense hit them with a rocket attack, which seems to be not the case. But it's the pretext, absolutely false attack. But the pretext is now that we're going to go capture, we're going to go arrest Shoigu and another general, Gerasimov. And so they. They go back into Russia and they. They take over. They surround and take over the southern Russian, Russia's southern military command in Rostov. And they're looking for Shoigu, but Shoigu has already escaped. And so the generals who are there, they try to talk Prigozhin down.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Yes, Prigozhin thought that when he proposed to make a choice between him and between Shoigu, Prigozhin will choose, of course, him.

[John Lechner]

Putin will choose Prigozhin. And he also thinks, too, or is hoping in the back of his mind, that all of that popularity that he had from being on social media and being on Russian TV on the front lines of Bakhmut means that the soldiers in the Russian military itself are on his side, too. And so he goes, and they've taken the military command and the generals who are there are trying to talk him down, and they're not able to do it. And so Prigozhin announces that they're going to have a march for justice on Moscow. And the column of Wagner, the Wagner column turns from southern Russian military command and starts heading up the highway to Moscow. And I mean, this is. I mean, I think everybody was Glued to their TV screens to see, like, Wagner column heading on Moscow and the mayor of Moscow, they started digging up the highway around Moscow to prevent their, you know, their potential arrival. Wagner shoots down, I think a number of helicopters and planes. About 13 people are killed. But each time, you know, he's. He's getting. Prigozhin is getting closer and closer to Moscow, Moscow, and he's also kind of going into empty space. And so now he's trying to communicate to Putin that all he is trying to do is take out his rivals, Shoigu and Gerasimov. He's not trying to overthrow Putin himself, but the issue is the closer he's getting to Moscow, the more he could accidentally be unleashing a coup because it's going to be such a destabilizing moment. And so at some point, he's trying to say, I'm not overthrowing the government. But now it's getting close to looking like he might overthrow the government if he gets into Moscow. And behind the scenes, the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, is negotiating between Putin signing Prigozhin, and eventually he gets Prigozhin to agree to halt the march. And I think for Prigozhin himself, he was a little bit relieved because he was realizing that events were going out of his control by. I mean, they were hardly in his control beforehand, but the closer he was getting to Moscow, and they got within 150 miles, things were really starting to get out of control, and he backed down. And you could make an argument that the guy who had an insane risk tolerance from going against Americans in the Battle of Kasham and risking his neck saying he's going to take Bakhmut. This was perhaps the one moment where he should have doubled down and gone all the way to Moscow, but he chose not to.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Prigozhin didn't want to take over the power. And I think Prigozhin eventually realized that he didn't take into account one simple sin. Putin don't need the Ministry of Defense, professional Minister of the Qualifying and Efficiency, Minister for Defense. He need a close alliance, supporter and.

[John Lechner]

Soldier himself.

[Murad Gabadulin]

When Precaution realized that in any case he cannot to achieve his goal, he gave another turnaround.

[John Lechner]

And that sealed his fate.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Ultimately, three months later, as far as a conflict between the Ministry of Defense and Prigozhin, this conflict was permanent. The main reason, from the moment of the creation the Brigade Mercenaries Brigade, and from the moment when Prigozhin become a sole curator of this project, this conflict began. Yeah, because it works for System the main reason, of course, money. Yeah, precaution. Wagner Group was funded by passing the Ministry of Defense. And Shoigu was deprived from the opportunity to use this money to profit from this flow of the money, because that's.

[John Lechner]

How you make big. Russia is coming off of the state budgets. So everything is a battle over the flow of budget, because the more budget that comes your way, the more you can find your own.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Of course, our precaution was Wagner Group was funded directly from the state budget.

[John Lechner]

Yeah. And it went all the way down. And so one of the reasons that like one of the ways that people were making money in, in Donbas in 2014, 2015. Right. Is you're a commander and you tell, you say, you tell the Ministry of Defense, oh, I have 200 guys under my command. The Ministry of Defense pays your salaries, but you actually have 150 or 125 guys under your command.

[Murad Gabadulin]

So not the case in the term of the Prigozan. Prigozhin don't.

[John Lechner]

He was at a bigger.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Some. Some.

[John Lechner]

Small. Small money. That's small money laundering though.

[Host]

So was he assassinated?

[John Lechner]

Yes. And do you think the Gasodars will be.

[Murad Gabadulin]

I don't know who exactly to was a.

[John Lechner]

Who was the actual person who did it?

[Murad Gabadulin]

He doesn't know who is the actual person who did it. Prigozhin had many enemies.

[Host]

So you're saying it could have been anybody. It might not have been the Ministry of Defense or Putin himself.

[John Lechner]

I think a lot of people would put it on the fsb, which is. Is the kind of the Russian successor to the kjb, which handles domestic threats for Putin.

[Murad Gabadulin]

As of course, in the decision.

[John Lechner]

The final decision.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Final decision. Putin made a final decision, of course, only with his permission that what can be happened.

[John Lechner]

Yeah. Who came up with the attack plan?

[Murad Gabadulin]

Who was executives?

[Host]

Yeah.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Time will show.

[Host]

So what is Wagner Group today, right now?

[Murad Gabadulin]

Since Prigozhin death, Wagner Group in my opinion, ceased to exist.

[John Lechner]

So everything, everything became subordinate to the Ministry of Defense. Okay, but the thing was, is that you kind of, as we were talking about, like the relationship between Wagner and the state was also different in each place. And, and so in Syria, like when Marat was there, you know, they get everything from the Ministry of of Defense. They're probably paid through the Ministry of Defense. They're working very closely. They have Russian air power that support. I mean, this is like a Ministry of Defense operation. When you get to like the Central African Republic, there's not as much support from the Kremlin and so.

[Murad Gabadulin]

And so some kind of autonomy.

[John Lechner]

There's a degree of independence. They're opening up breweries. Like Ministry of Defense doesn't want breweries or they have these gold, gold mines. And so when Prigozhin is gone, the Ministry of Defense has to figure out how do we take over all of these things? Because Prigozhin wasn't just involved with mercenaries like Marat. He had troll farms, he had like chocolate museums in St. Petersburg, he had mining companies.

[Murad Gabadulin]

The main body of this project was not Wagner Group. Yeah, Wagner Group, only part of this project group, the military group that was you used for the career, for the creation of the favorable environment to promote a business project of Prigozhin.

[John Lechner]

So like Wagner, what basically is part of the. Wagner was a way for Prigozhin to overcome his status as, you know, an ex con and try to show his worth to eventually join Putin's inner circle. He was never really able to do it, but so when he, when he, when he died, the. It was relatively easy for the Ministry of Defense in places like Syria or Libya just to have guys sign new contracts and to take over. But where they were acting independently in like the Central African Republic. The guys? Yeah, the guys, the guys. The guys showed up and they were like, they couldn't understand it. There's breweries, there's all sorts of things going on. And so the decision is made, if it's not broke, let's not fix it. Let them just kind of keep doing their thing.

[Murad Gabadulin]

The industrial project and central up there. This is a resource for benefit of the President of Russia and his inner circle.

[John Lechner]

Yeah. So I think some account numbers got changed in terms of the transfers.

[Host]

Okay.

[Murad Gabadulin]

A little bit difficult to take over.

[John Lechner]

Yeah. Because they don't understand it fully. Only the guys who work there know how it works.

[Murad Gabadulin]

But Wagner Group is over.

[Host]

It's over. Well, guys, thank you, thank you for so much for, for being here today and for sharing all that information. And I just want to ask you one thing. You know, we, we'd had a conversation earlier about your feelings on, on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and now you're here in France seeking asylum. I'm just curious if you have anything to say to Putin.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Get out.

[Host]

Get out.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Get out. You are enemy for my country. You, you are the main problem for my country and you and his inner circle.

[Host]

Well, thank you both for being there.

[John Lechner]

Thank you, sir.

[Host]

Appreciate it.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Thank.

[John Lechner]

Foreign.

[Jim Jackson]

Veteran Jim Jackson takes you on the court. You get a chance to dig into my 14 year career in the NBA, but also get the input from the people that will be joining. Charles Barkley. I'm excited to be on your podcast, man.

[Murad Gabadulin]

It's an honor.

[Jim Jackson]

Likely entrepreneur, filmmaker, Academy Award winner.

[Murad Gabadulin]

Nixon.

[Jim Jackson]

Now you see, I got you. But also how sports, brings life, passion, music, all of this together. The Jim Jackson show, part of the Rich Eisen Podcast Network. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.