101. Putin's Secret Army: Wagner's Control Of Africa (Ep 4)

Summary

The Rest Is Classified — Episode 101: Putin's Secret Army: Wagner's Control Of Africa (Ep 4)

Podcast Date: November 19, 2025
Hosts: David McCloskey (former CIA analyst turned spy novelist) and Gordon Corera (veteran security correspondent)

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Overview

In this gripping episode, David McCloskey and Gordon Corera dissect the Wagner Group’s covert operations across Africa, analyzing how its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, shifted from “Putin’s chef” to globe-trotting warlord with a unique business model. The hosts explore the business, politics, and violence behind Wagner’s rise, its impact on African conflicts, and its ties to the Kremlin—posing hard questions about private military contractors, deniability, and modern Russian imperial ambition.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Wagner’s African Expansion: The Business Model

• Introduction via Film Reference

  • The episode opens with McCloskey reading a (translated) promo for the Prigozhin-financed film The Tourist—a Wagner PR vehicle depicting Russian “instructors” fighting in Central African Republic.

  “[Prigozhin] has gone from caterer… and he is now also financing films. Blending… the mercenary warlord with the PR guru.” (David McCloskey, 03:29)

• Prigozhin’s Transformation

  • Traces Prigozhin’s evolution: caterer → government contractor → PR strategist → mercenary warlord → film financier.
  • Emphasizes outlandish disguises used by Prigozhin on trips to Africa—wigs, beards, sunglasses—mocked as “Sacha Baron Cohen in The Dictator.”

    “If you're gonna watch this on YouTube...look at some of the pictures of Prigozhin's disguises … they're kind of wild.” (Gordon Corera, 06:01)

• Exporting the “Wagner Business Model”

  • Wagner combines Russian military support with a private-enterprise profit motive: “You get a private army… and all you have to give us in return is a cut, little concession.” (Gordon Corera, 08:47)
  • Payment is often in the form of mineral concessions (diamonds, gold) rather than direct cash.

2. Wagner’s Role: Modern Colonialism & Kremlin Strategy

• Resource Extraction as Neocolonialism

  • Corera draws parallels between Wagner and the British East India Company—resource extraction and private armies fueling empire.
  • Governments receive protection; Wagner secures resources, often operating “by dirtier rules than many other Western governments.”

• Overlap & Denial: Kremlin–Wagner Relationship

  • Wagner advances Russian interests while remaining technically “deniable.”

  “He’s doing it for himself. And it’s useful for the Kremlin.” (David McCloskey, 10:33)

• Prigozhin leverages both state and personal gain, keeping the operation lucrative and useful for Putin.

3. Case Studies in African Operations

• Central African Republic (CAR):

  • Wagner extracts gold and diamonds, secures the regime, and negotiates between warring militias for its own benefit.
  • Journalists investigating Wagner’s activities are ambushed and killed, signaling willingness to protect business “by any means.” (12:22)

• Sudan:

  • Deals for gold with President Omar al-Bashir; Wagner adapts to power shifts, offering services to whoever is in control.

  “They don’t really care who they work for… they’re not super loyal… to the particular leader who’s employed them.” (Gordon Corera, 13:17)

  • Massive shipments of gold reportedly flow directly to Russian-controlled bases.

• Libya:

  • Wagner supports Russian-aligned General Haftar; officially present only as a “caterer,” alongside high-level Russian officials (15:29).

• Mozambique & Mali:

  • In Mozambique, Wagner “wins the deal” over other mercenary companies (including Erik Prince's Blackwater), but falters in the face of a strong insurgency.
  • In Mali, Wagner replaces French military presence, accused of involvement in civilian massacres and “dirty work” under the guise of training.

4. The Mercenary Marketplace

• Discussion of the blurred lines between “mercenaries” and “government contractors.”

  “Is it different?... It’s a narrower one than we probably like to think.” (David McCloskey, 18:26)

• Wagner is presented as simultaneously CEO, startup disruptor, and warlord, often a step ahead of both state-controlled rivals and international scrutiny.

5. Wagner’s Full-Spectrum Services

• Not just guns-for-hire: Wagner also provides information warfare, political propaganda, disinformation campaigns, and high-level security services for clients.

“One of the things…was the fusion of security work and information warfare…That's also what he's offering...a whole package.” (Gordon Corera, 20:56)

• “You can imagine when Prigozhin goes to see one of these presidents in his wig… ‘I’ll give you troops…propaganda, bodyguards, counter surveillance…’” (Gordon Corera, 21:12)

6. Brand-Building, PR, and Overreach

• Wagner markets itself aggressively (including English-language “join Wagner” websites targeting far-right adventurers), but the legend often outpaces the reality.

  “It is in this period where the Wagner brand… starts to get out in front of the reality of how effective or influential it is on the ground.” (David McCloskey, 31:15)

• Prigozhin finances action movies (“The Tourist”), stages his own PR campaign, and even sues journalists investigating his activities.

7. Kremlin Control and Wagner’s Limits

• Despite Wagner’s importance, Prigozhin remains on the edge of legality and favor in Moscow—never quite part of the inner circle.

• Kremlin and Ministry of Defence foster competing private armies (e.g., Redout/Redoubt) to keep Wagner from becoming too powerful, reflecting Putin’s style of balancing rivals.

  “Don’t let anyone get too powerful, always have alternatives, play them off against each other…” (Gordon Corera, 35:24)

• The hosts liken Wagner’s trajectory to Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and Michael Corleone’s reluctant transition to a crime boss.

  “There’s an element of him which wants to go legit. He’s Michael Corleone in Godfather Part 3… but…his thing is being an international mercenary warlord.” (Gordon Corera, 29:12)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Wagner’s pitch to African rulers:

  "Just give us 25% of the gold. And in return, if you're a leader, you get a private army… [who’ll] play by dirtier rules than many other Western governments." (Gordon Corera, 08:49)

• On mercenary “branding”:

  “Death is our business and business is good.” (David McCloskey, 25:15)

• On legal ambiguity as a Kremlin strategy:

  “You make sure that there’s a legal sword sort of hanging over him… so that you have leverage.” (David McCloskey, 29:04)

• On PR and reality:

  “We keep calling him a mercenary warlord...But he’s also a CEO...a very stretched CEO.” (David McCloskey, 30:21)

• On PR failings:

  “Even despite the PR machine, you put your full PR machine into it and it gets 5.3 out of IMDb. That’s not great.” (Gordon Corera, 32:59)

• On Putin’s ‘court’ and balancing acts:

  “His trick is never let anyone get too powerful, always have alternatives, play them off against each other, be insecure.” (Gordon Corera, 35:24)

• On Prigozhin’s ambitions:

  “He has aspirations for himself that go beyond just being staff.” (David McCloskey, 38:10)

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Important Timestamps

• 02:47: Introduction; The Tourist film promo as Wagner PR.
• 06:01–07:10: Discussion of Prigozhin's disguises in Africa—mocked for “high comedy.”
• 08:18–10:36: The “business model”—security-for-resources and Russian state overlap.
• 12:22: Killing of Russian journalists in CAR investigating Wagner.
• 13:17: Wagner’s adaptability: support for Sudanese regime shifts.
• 15:31: Prigozhin’s visible presence at high-level meetings in Libya.
• 16:26–17:49: The competitive “mercenary market” in Mozambique; Erik Prince noted as a rival.
• 18:11–18:32: Blurred lines between mercenaries and Western government contractors.
• 19:28–21:10: Wagner’s alleged massacres; the “full package” of military and propaganda services.
• 25:15: Wagner’s informal motto: “Death is our business…”
• 29:12: Prigozhin compared to Michael Corleone—unable to "go legit."
• 31:15: Wagner’s legend overtakes its real-world effectiveness.
• 32:26–33:09: PR through film; review of “The Tourist” and Wagner-themed cinematic propaganda.
• 34:36: Prigozhin sues journalists; use of “dark arts” legal tactics.
• 35:24: Kremlin’s tactics to weaken Wagner’s dominance via competition.
• 37:12–38:10: Indications of Prigozhin’s frustration as he’s edged out of the Kremlin inner circle.
• 38:46: Tease for the next episode: Wagner and the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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Summary Conclusion

This episode offers a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the Wagner Group’s African escapades—where mercenary economics, Kremlin politics, and criminality blur into one. McCloskey and Corera’s blend of dark humor, historical analogy, and investigative detail emphasizes Wagner’s outsized myth, ruthless methods, and the limits of deniable power. As the Kremlin leverages mercenary muscle for global influence, Prigozhin’s ambitions—and volatility—hint at a coming reckoning, setting the stage for episode 5: Wagner’s role in Ukraine and its ultimate consequences.

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For listeners seeking to understand the Wagner phenomenon, this episode is an essential primer on how “deniable” warfare and profit motives collide in modern geopolitics—shaping the fate of nations from Moscow to the Sahel.

Transcript

[David McCloskey]

For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad free listening, early access to series first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter and discounted books. Join the declassified [e-mail] this podcast is.

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[Gordon Corera]

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[David McCloskey]

December 2020 Former police officer Grisha Dimitri Dmitriev arrives in the Central African Republic with a small Group of Russian instructors. Grizza's assignment does not seem complicated because the instructor's tasks are only to teach the local army soldiers the basics of tactics and methods of fighting. However, everything goes wrong. From age a coup in the country, Russian instructors together with their charges, fight back against the bandits. But for Grisha, who has never taken part in military operations, this business trip turns into a living hell. Well, welcome to the Rest is classified. I'm David McCloskey.

[Gordon Corera]

And I'm Gordon Carrera.

[David McCloskey]

And that is the promotional blurb for a film that I'm sure all of our of our, you know, English speaking and understanding audience will remember. It is a film called the Tourist. It's not the Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie version of the Tourist. It is a film that is financed by Yevgeny Prigozhin to promote I think really the brand image of the Wagner group and in particular its exploits in Africa. And we last Gordon hung out with Yevgeny Prigozhin as he was sort of undergone really an amazing transformation over the course of the first three episodes of this series. He has gone from caterer, government services, sort of contractor, PR sort of machine financier and promoter. And he's now a mercenary warlord and he is now also financing films. Yeah, blending I guess the mercenary warlord with the PR guru.

[Gordon Corera]

We had described him as kind of like a version of Gordon Ramsay.

[David McCloskey]

I think the shining terms is this tenuous analogy.

[Gordon Corera]

I feel like this is the episode where he really moves. I mean, perhaps trolling the American election is also not Gordon Ramsay, but this is.

[David McCloskey]

We've hung on too long already for.

[Gordon Corera]

Gordon Ramsay and his lawyers. We are definitely not making any analogy with Gordon Ramsay at this point as he becomes mercenary warlord in Africa. That is definitely not fairly stepped out.

[David McCloskey]

Of his chef's hat, out of the kitchen.

[Gordon Corera]

So the key thing we've seen in the last episode was that he developed a business model for the Wagner Group, named after this Dmitry Utkin Wagner in Syria and Ukraine. And it's a kind of group which is operating in alliance with the Russian military. But not always a very happy alliance, a kind of tense alliance, but also is trying to make its own money and do its own business deals. But now Prigozhin is going to move to try and take that model global effectively and to kind of build it further afield into new conflicts. And Prigozhin and his private jet will be spotted all over Africa. He often travels now under a fake name and wearing disguises and wigs. And we should say that if you are gonna watch this on YouTube or you're on social media, it's worth looking at some of the pictures of Prigozhin's disguises that he uses in Africa because they're kind of wild. Because Prigozhin is this balding, heavyset man.

[David McCloskey]

He looks like Sacha Baron Cohen in the Dictator.

[Gordon Corera]

Sacha Baron Cohen in the Dictator. That is exactly what it is. I mean, they're high comedy. I can't believe he actually used some of these. I mean, like massive, big fake beards.

[David McCloskey]

Admittedly, especially the one here in the bottom left where he's got those big shades on.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

You really can't tell it's him?

[Gordon Corera]

No, he just looks like an old man playing at being a soldier. Quite weird. And then there's another one where he's just got these kind of eyes. He's clearly maybe doing a selfie and he's in some weird uniform. I mean, so you think he looks.

[David McCloskey]

Like Alistair Campbell in the bottom right one?

[Gordon Corera]

Not in any way.

[David McCloskey]

David, Maybe a little bit.

[Gordon Corera]

No, not in any way. Just to, just to clarify, we're going.

[David McCloskey]

To see, we're going to finally determine if Alistair actually listens to this podcast.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah. Cuz.

[David McCloskey]

Because there will be a response. There'll be a response to that.

[Gordon Corera]

So he's going in these kind of crazy disguises. Although it's not that low key, but it's kind of semi low key because I guess he still remember we'll come back to this kind of claiming he doesn't run Wagner, you know, publicly. He's saying, I had nothing to do with the research agency. This, this strange man with the beard and the glasses does. So that's why, I guess he's using these disguises because he's got to go broker the deals. But he doesn't want to be seen as, you know, Prigozhin doing it on the whole.

[David McCloskey]

And yet his jet is going.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah, his jet is being spotted all over and he's got a team of kind of media exper, professors, linguists, as well as mercenaries that are looking for business opportunities. And Africa is a continent where, you know, depressingly there are conflicts, there's violence, there are governments who need help against providing security. Providing security, but against, you know, militias, rebels. ISIS is on the rise in parts of Africa. The Islamic State group. So there's a kind of logic to it. You know, a couple are interesting to kind of understand what Prigozhin is doing. Central African Republic, one of the kind of early places, landlocked country Full of gold and diamonds. So already you can see the attraction for Mr. Prigozhin, who's learned in Syria that oil and gas, natural resources are good for business.

[David McCloskey]

Some kind of mineral or natural resource concession is a helpful way for him to make the business model work.

[Gordon Corera]

Exactly. Islamists, other groups, militias, gangs, foreign powers. France had been there, pulls out. There's a vacuum. Prigozhin and Russia move in. It's a training program where he's saying, we can help protect your regime. We can fight off any opponents, and militias, we can secure and guard the natural resources. And all you have to give us in return is a cut, little concession.

[David McCloskey]

You make it sound sinister, Gordon.

[Gordon Corera]

Just give us 25% of the gold. And in return, if you're a leader, you get a private army. You get Russian weapons to go with them. They'll do what you want. They'll play by dirtier rules than many other Western governments. And you don't even have to pay them direct because you can just take it from the profits. So it's not even like you need to give them cash. You know, they're just going to take a kind of skim a bit off the top. There's going to be gems, diamonds, gold. They're going to take control of this massive gold mine, chasing away other miners. There's pictures of this huge gold mine, which at first have been worked by hand, but then they're going to come along and kind of industrialize it, and it's going to bring in massive amounts of income. Prigozhin is actually going to start negotiating peace deals in the country between different militias, basically so he can get free passage to move some of the golden things around. One of the interesting questions is, how far is this Moscow and how far is it, you know, Prigozhin? And the answer is, it's, as ever with this story, it's quite hard to tell.

[David McCloskey]

I think it's more Prigozhin.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

As we've seen, very entrepreneurial.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

Very willing to take action and risk.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

The subtext to a lot of the story in Africa is sort of, frankly, the retreat of. Of the French.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah, yeah. Retreat, the French. Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

I think Prigozhin is kind of stepping in and saying, look, Moscow's not gonna stop me.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

You know, there's an overlap of interest here, and he just kind of does it.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah. But I think that's absolutely right. He's doing it for himself. But I also think, you know, it's useful for the Kremlin. It is useful for The Kremlin. It's useful for Kremlin. I think that's right.

[David McCloskey]

He's doing it for himself. And it's useful for the Kremlin because.

[Gordon Corera]

Often what you see with these African deals is there's a kind of Kremlin diplomatic deal and then Wagner moves in. And of course, if you're the Kremlin, Wagner is kind of you want to project Russian power, power around the world. The whole thing about Putin is you want to be a global power, not just like a regional power. That's the image of Russia and the sense that Russia lost that role and now Putin is restoring it. And of course, Wagner is a kind of low cost way of projecting power across Africa, of making yourself useful to governments, of building relationships and doing it on the cheap. And there is this way in which it's a kind of modern form of colonialism. Resource extraction in war zones guarded by Wagner mercenaries, financed by the profits they extract. The British system. The East India Company in the earliest days was a private company which basically takes over India and has its own armies and militias and eventually gets absorbed into the state. But there's a kind of age old aspect to this, but just kind of placed into the modern Russian context, I guess there is also a dark side because, you know, as news starts to emerge about this, people start investigating it. And in July 2018, three well known Russian journalists working for a kind of media company linked to the Kremlin, critic Khodorkovsky, a kind of former oligarch who fell out with Putin, are going to go to the Central African Republic to investigate, you know, the links between Wagner, Prigozhin's Concord Company and what's happening there. They're trying to go to a gold mine, but instead their car is taken the wrong route, they get ambushed and all three are killed. You know, none of their possessions are taken. It's claimed it's by kind of Islamist rebels, but investigations will show that the driver had been in touch with officials who in turn were in touch with Wagner. So you suddenly look like Prigozhin is kind of killing Russian journalists who are investigating his activities there. So it's a sign of how far he's willing to go to kind of protect to some extent these businesses. Sudan, another one, Prigozhin, turns up on his private jet, don't know which disguise he was using for a kind of deal for gold with President Omar Al Bashir, who's under indictment from the International Criminal Court. Again, Putin is also meeting with Bashir and signing a deal because The Kremlin's got interests. Russia wants to set up naval bases at Port Sudan on the Red Sea. And here's Wagner offering security support. And what's so interesting here is Wagner is offering security support for Bashir's forces. Omar Al Bashir gets booted out of office, and then Wagner go and work for the people who've taken over. So they don't really care who they work for. They're not super loyal, I think it's fair to say, to the particular leader who's employed them.

[David McCloskey]

Yes. I think Prigozhin has shown throughout the course of his career, I think a certain pragmatism.

[Gordon Corera]

Pragmatism. And then I love this fact. From 2021 until mid-2022, at least 16 planes loaded with gold departed Sudan for a Russian controlled air base, which again.

[David McCloskey]

We only get to Wagner provides a lot of benefits to Putin. Right. As we've said, it's deniable, it's low cost. If it's raising money.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

There's also, you know, there's a cash flow. Yep. That again, we don't know.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

But I guarantee you that, you know, Prigozhin cut Putin in.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah, someone will be cutting.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah, there's a cut. Right. And so again, you know, I remember speaking with a former chief of station who worked in Moscow for a long time and, you know, he told me, think about Russia as a business.

[Gordon Corera]

It's.

[David McCloskey]

It's easier to think about the country as a business. You can use a lot of mental models, but if you use business, you're usually going to be on the money. And here again, this is another way for the Kremlin to raise money and not to raise money for the state necessarily, but for individuals. Right. So I think it's yet another reason why this kind of adventurism would be attractive to Putin.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah. Some of the other examples touch on briefly are interesting as well. Libya, big civil war since the overthrow of Gaddafi. It's one of those conflicts, the civil war, where you get lots of other countries pile in with proxies to support one group or the other. Interestingly, November 2018, Prigozhin was filmed at talks between Russia's Defense Minister and General Haftar, who'll be Russia's proxy in the fight, even though Haftar had once lived in Virginia. But hey. But Haftar is now, is now their man. And it's interesting that Prigozhin is visible at this meeting, you know, alongside his kind of rival, the Defence Minister, Shoigu, Sergei Shoigu. And Gerasimov, the head of the Russian military. And Russian officials respond by saying that he's there in his role as a caterer organizing an official dinner.

[David McCloskey]

We're back to the Gordon Ramsay comparison.

[Gordon Corera]

Exactly. Seems somewhat implausible. But again, Russia wants to back Haftar. It's going to supply weapons, mercenaries to him. And about 300 Wagnerites set out, along with artillery, tanks, drones. Some come from Syria as well, some come from Sudan. Haftar at one point looks like he's going to take Tripoli. Then the Turks get involved and bring in these new drones and things like that and actually push them back. So it's not a great success. And it's the same actually in Mozambique. They're going to get involved actually, with an insurgency against isis. Again, a country with lots of gas and resources. One of the interesting things about Mozambique, just briefly, is that there's a quote here from John Lechner's book, Death Is Our Business. Everyone and their uncle were pitching to the Mozambicans. A South African mercenary remembered, and Wagner was clearly one of them. And so you get this sense that actually there's a kind of.

[David McCloskey]

There's a market.

[Gordon Corera]

There's a market. Yeah. And you know what pitch deck looks like says that Erik Prince, you know, who is famously Blackwater US guy, is supposedly there pitching to the, you know, the Mozambicans. I've got some mercenaries. The South Africans are there pitching their mercenaries to it. And Prigozhin wins the deal. The deal, yeah.

[David McCloskey]

He must have had some snazzy PowerPoint slides that he brought with him.

[Gordon Corera]

I think it's possibly the fact that Russia was going to pay off some debts and bring some tanks. That's like. That's better than a good picture on PowerPoint.

[David McCloskey]

We like to think these markets don't exist.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

And we like to think that, oh, they're sort of. Sort of naughty, you know, and we can. But there's a reality that there's. I mean, there's a business opportunity here.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

For entrepreneurial guys and girls. Mostly guys.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

But entrepreneurial people who have sort of, you know, violent people at their disposal.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

And capacity.

[Gordon Corera]

Right.

[David McCloskey]

I mean, it just.

[Gordon Corera]

And he's been there through history. It is. I mean, we talked about that previously. You know, you go back to kind of go back to ancient times and Carthage, but you also go back to Italian, you know, city states, all these kind of conflicts. 1960s in the Congo, you have mercenary. So it's always been there, this business. But we kind of like to not look at it that much.

[David McCloskey]

What is the difference do you think, between a mercenary and a government contractor? Because if we took Blackwater in Iraq.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

As an example, we would call that a government contract. It's a government contractor. Right. In our context and system, we'd say, okay, that's a. There is that. Is it different? Yeah, it's a. I don't know. It's a.

[Gordon Corera]

It's in my head. There's a slight difference as well, where a company is contracting with its own government to provide additional help versus selling its wares to whatever government will pay the highest bidder. I don't know. I'm not sure what the difference is.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah, it's interesting if there is one, it's a narrower one than we probably like to think.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. So Mozambique, they win the deal, but it doesn't actually go very well. They find it's a pretty big insurgency and they struggle with it. Mali is another one. And again, this goes back to our earlier point. Mali's an interesting one because the French were there to help push out an Islamist insurgency and deployed loads of troops there, but eventually it's going to pull them out. And so kind of Wagner moves into the gap. The French leave the vacuum in Africa in return for mining concessions. But there's some awful. I mean, we shouldn't underplay how awful. Some of the reports are of massacres, including by Wagner, troops of civilians. You know, there's going to be mass graves in villages, you know, where unarmed men are just being killed because they're suspected. You know, the village is linked to so called rebels. And so Wagner's gonna get a reputation. Kind of real violence.

[David McCloskey]

Is it conducting these on its own or is it in collaboration with government in some cases that it's working with or for?

[Gordon Corera]

That's also the ambiguities because they're there as trainers or instructors, which as we actually know from some of our other episodes, including where the US has been training and instructing the Colombians.

[David McCloskey]

You're not comparing the training and instructing of the.

[Gordon Corera]

Well, I'm suggesting Wagner. Are you, Gordon, if you do remember our interview. No, no, no, no. But my point was that the definition of training and instructing is quite elastic. You know, you can, you can get very involved in operations when you're technically only there to train. Yes, that's my comparison rather than a moral judgment. And I think here, you know, I think it's Wagner who's doing the dirty stuff. And there's going to be, you know, reports of a massacre of more than 300 civilians and raids on mines and all these kind of associated with Wagner and what it does. But I think just one more fact about Wagner which I think is really interesting, which is we focused on the kind of mercenary side of it, but actually it's more than that because one of the things that we talked about early on was the kind of fusion of security work and information warfare with the way in which Prigozhin operates. And that's also what he's offering to these governments. So they don't just offer military trainers, instructors, fighters. They also offer political propaganda campaigns. They offer disinformation social media campaigns on Facebook to attack enemies and support a government. You know, you get a whole package with Wagner.

[David McCloskey]

He hasn't rolled the catering up into that.

[Gordon Corera]

No, I don't think. You also get bleenies and things like that.

[David McCloskey]

Bleedonalds.

[Gordon Corera]

Bleedonalds. So you get. You know, it's so interesting. Cause you can imagine when Prigozhin goes to see one of these presidents in his wig, probably takes the wig off when he meets him, but he says, like, I'll give you troops. The Russian military will give you weapons. I will give you a propaganda campaign which will support your regime and will attack your enemies. Also you get a presidential advisor, security, bodyguards, technical counter surveillance expertise, even people who can do polygraphs to check staff for any threats. This is, as we've seen all along, Prigozhin understanding what a leader wants. Yes. And then offering it to them. The whole package which fuses kind of propaganda warfare, kind of what now people often call grey zone activities. Just this whole spread of activities. And he's just good at that.

[David McCloskey]

And so maybe there with Prigozhin having really, I think, perfected this business model, let's take a break and when we come back, we'll see how he tries to use it to increase his standing in the Kremlin and how that is going to make him some very powerful enemies.

[Gordon Corera]

See you after the break.

[David McCloskey]

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[David McCloskey]

But welcome back. The informal motto for Wagner Gordon has become Death is our business and business is good.

[Gordon Corera]

Wow.

[David McCloskey]

Wow. Put it on the T shirts. Yeah, that's right.

[Gordon Corera]

That's the merch.

[David McCloskey]

So Prigozhin has perfected this kind of stew, hasn't he? I can't help but think, just to bring it back to the man for a second, that he sees all of this as kind of a pitch to Putin.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

For more and more influence.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

And prestige in kind of the court.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

You know.

[Gordon Corera]

Exactly.

[David McCloskey]

And one of the things that we, I guess, might be worth reflecting on too at this point is just how effective are these services that he's providing? Because there's a sense where Prigozhin, as we've seen, is a pretty effective salesman and PR man. But are his services really changing outcomes on the ground? Is it really?

[Gordon Corera]

Or.

[David McCloskey]

Or is it more of a way for him? Again, you know, we went back, we talked in the last episode about his effort to influence the 2016 campaign. And a lot of the. The sort of. The trolling.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

The creation of these online accounts that are used to sort of, you know, stir the pot in the States. It makes a pretty snazzy thing that he could point to with Putin and others to say, look what I'm doing. But is he kind of over his skis when it comes to selling his own influence and kind of, I guess, the effectiveness of Wagner?

[Gordon Corera]

If you look in Africa, it's effective in some countries. He is building his own brand and the brand of Wagner quite effectively. And I think it is part of him trying to get into the inner circle. If we think of Putin, which I think Mark Galeotti kind of describes as a kind of like a. A king in a medieval court, there's definitely an inner circle of courtiers who are Putin's friends from his old days in St. Petersburg. And even though Prigozhin was from the St. Petersburg days, he was staff, he was the caterer, he wasn't in the inner circle. And so I definitely think there's this effort in which he is building something to try and get into that inner circle and break into that inner circle. And it goes back to him showing his usefulness, you know, to the Kremlin in what he's doing. And that is part of it, beyond the kind of effectiveness on the ground. And so he's developed a kind of toolkit, and he's going to use it in Africa. He's going to use it, interestingly enough, the kind of political influence operations as well. Closer to home in Belarus, you know, neighboring Russia, to defend president there, Lukashenko, when Lukashenko has some problems with protest, Prigozhin is going to go in there and use his kind of influence to try. And his media campaign to try and support him. Because also Belarus has been kind of a hub for equipment going through. So he's busy and he's building. And that's another sign. He's building a relationship with Lukashenko, who's going to be important, actually, when we get to the final act. So we've talked about Prigozhin as the businessman, and, yeah, he's about making money. But I think it is much more than that. It's building a kind of power base. Wagner is growing. It's, you know, by 2018, it's about 4,300 people in the military side. Still not legal, though, under Russian law to have a run a mercenary group. So he's kind of. It's what's interesting. It's like you can have a kind of private security force guarding a facility, but you're not supposed to have this. So he's kind of still on the edge of the law, playing within the world of criminality, smuggling gold and diamonds. He's not quite got the status, you know, the inner circle status that I think he wants.

[David McCloskey]

Isn't everyone basically on the edge of the law in Russia, though?

[Gordon Corera]

I mean, you're some more than others, Right?

[David McCloskey]

Okay, fair enough. But that. That also does seem an advantage to Putin.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah, right.

[David McCloskey]

Is it? In a sort of obvious one is even as you're obviously not just tolerating, but encouraging this guy.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

You make sure that there's a legal sword sort of hanging over him so that you have, you know, leverage. Yeah, right.

[Gordon Corera]

But also, I think he's moved heavier into the mercenary period we've seen here, this kind of 20, 17, 18, 1920 period. And I think Prigozhin himself, you see, start to change a bit. It's a bit like Joseph Conrad's famous novel, you know, the Heart of Darkness, in which Kurtz, you know, this kind of colonel goes into Africa and is changed by it. And I think Prigozhin himself starts to become a little bit wilder, you know, and you can see it in the pictures that we looked at, but he feels more like a kind of international outlaw than he does a straight businessman. So I think that's the problem. And I think there's an element of him which wants to go legit. He's Michael Corleone, you know, in Godfather Part 3, who's, like, legit. Who wants to go to Gajit legit. But. But he's now found that his thing is being an international mercenary warlord. He can't go back to being a kind of a businessman.

[David McCloskey]

I will say, though, that, you know, in my. In my time as a management consultant, I saw plenty of overstretched CEOs or executives who also looked increasingly deranged. They were just a few steps away from donning the Prigozhin beard, you know.

[Gordon Corera]

Beard and the combat fatigue.

[David McCloskey]

Yes, exactly. We keep calling him a mercenary warlord.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah, Right. But he's also a CEO.

[David McCloskey]

He's also a CEO.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah, he's CEO.

[David McCloskey]

He's a very stretched CEO.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

Who has a lot of demands on his time.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

Who's running a very large organization. And it's the sort of organization that's brought in at a moment of high stress for its clients, let's say, you know, so they're not getting the best, you know, of the Malians. No, Gordon. Or the Central Africa public. It's the worst. You know, they're being brought in at the worst possible. That would stretch anybody.

[Gordon Corera]

That would stretch anybody. But also the problem for him, I think, is that he's also becoming famous for this, because people are watching Wagner, and particularly in the west, they start freaking out because they can see the way Wagner is extending Russian influence around Africa, and they don't know quite how to deal with it, because it's moving fast. I mean, that's the thing about Wagner. It's nimble, it's fast, it's moving into the vacuum in the spaces in Africa. And that's a problem.

[David McCloskey]

And I do think it is in this period where the Wagner brand or the lore starts to get out in front of the reality of how effective or influential it is on the ground. Or even with Putin.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

There's a tendency, I think, to overstate.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah, I think that's true.

[David McCloskey]

How influential they really were. How effective they were. Because again, as we've said, Prigozhin is not getting. He's not getting invited into the box at the ice hockey games with Putin.

[Gordon Corera]

No, that's right. And, you know, 2018 onwards, he's getting sanctioned by the US as well. Heavier sanctions on him personally, many because of the election interference. And so he's also worried about his assets and he's trying to. To move them around. He's getting his jet, private jets impounded. And I think he is resentful. He's not with the cool kids in Moscow, invited to, you know, set the ice hockey games. He's just that little bit too wild and dangerous to be legit. I think he leans in, which is what? If you're a management consultant, you probably tell him to lean into the brand. If that's your brand, go for it. Rather than.

[David McCloskey]

I don't know what. But it would take three to four months and cost a million dollars.

[Gordon Corera]

It involves some fancy pitch decks and.

[David McCloskey]

Involves some very fancy pitch decks. Yeah.

[Gordon Corera]

But one of the things I love is he starts. He then starts to develop his own film studio and finance films, and, I mean, action films set in Africa, involving Wagner troops and they always involve these kind of heroic fighters battling normally Islamists and the CIA often. And you know, his PR machine will then fluff them with good reviews. But that's the tourists that you read.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah, the tourists, that's right. As you've noted here, it only has a 5.3 out of 10 on IMDb.

[Gordon Corera]

Not great.

[David McCloskey]

Even despite the trolling.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah, Even despite the PR machine you put your full PR machine into and it gets 5.3 out of IMDb. That's not great.

[David McCloskey]

Some of this, some of the dialogue in this film, though, because we've gone down the rabbit hole.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah, let's do it.

[David McCloskey]

You know, Americans say they fight for democracy, Russians fight for justice.

[Gordon Corera]

It's good. This stuff is.

[David McCloskey]

It's very on the nose.

[Gordon Corera]

It's very on the nose. So I think leading into the Wagner brand, it's going to encourage more recruits. He's stepping out the shadows a little bit. There's more public references to him on social media and Telegram. There's even a website at one point called joinvagner.com looking for far right sympathizers for the US and Europe who want to fight with them. It's an English language looking interesting enough. A far right, which is back to the kind of. It specifies far right that seems to be what they're looking for is the kind of people who want a bit of adventure and a fight and are of. Attracted to the. I mean, remember Dmitri Utkin? Wagner himself is kind of man with SS tattoos, you know, so. Sure.

[David McCloskey]

You're assuming that someone on the far left wouldn't want to join, though.

[Gordon Corera]

I don't know. I'm guessing. But that's what they seem to be going for, the kind of imperialist, nationalist worldview. Join PMC Wagner to protect the peace and tranquility of civilians from terrorists and bandits.

[David McCloskey]

That's got a nice ring to it.

[Gordon Corera]

That's the pitch. Prigozhin gives his first interview to the Western press, speaks to the Sunday Telegraph. Interestingly, he is still denying any connection between him and Wagner or the Internet Research Agency.

[David McCloskey]

I suppose there's no advantage to actually outright admitting it, right?

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah. He says, I've got no connection to Wagner, I've got no connection to mercenary groups. Worries me greatly that some people think I have such a connection. I am a pacifist, he says. Sounds like a pacifist. I think here he's still trying to kind of straddle the mercenary warlord, but not publicly because he doesn't want to be put under sanctions. And he's trying to protect his assets and there's a reward from the US about him. He's still using the dark arts because bellingcat, the private investigative, open source investigative group, revealed some of the links between Prigozhin and people in the Kremlin and the kind of calls he's making between them. And Prigozhin is also gonna launch lawsuits against Elliot Higgins, the founder of Bell and Cat, for articles and tweets linking him to Wagner, and uses, depressingly, London lawyers to go after Elliot Higgins. I mean, why are there so many.

[David McCloskey]

Lawyers in your country that are willing to do these kinds of things? Gordon?

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah, it's a source of some regret. It's fair to say to me as a journalist that there are people willing to do that and take Prigozhin's money to go after journalists for investigating him. But those are the kind of techniques he and other oligarchs are going to use. But worth saying that still, relations with the Kremlin are not that easy. The Russian Ministry of Defence, which we know is uneasy about Wagner, is also building up its own mercenary groups, one called redout or redoubt, which had been going for a while, and that seems to be their alternative to Wagner. And it's the classic kind of Putin thing, isn't it? We described it as a court and he's the king. And his trick is never let anyone get too powerful, always have alternatives, play them off against each other, be insecure. So, you know, here you have another mercenary group which you can play off against Wagner. Don't let anyone get too big, don't let Prigozhin get too big. Just keep it in play.

[David McCloskey]

So that would be the top down, sort of Kremlin political view of it. The other lens you could take to, you know, this idea of the MOD having its own mercenary group is that Wagner has been this entrepreneurial startup that has succeeded in these markets. And this would be the equivalent of like the sort of bulking behemoth which realizes it's missing out on this new high growth opportunity and tries to incubate inside itself its own little version of the startup without much success.

[Gordon Corera]

Yeah, yeah. Which is going to try and build up. So now we're coming into 2022. In January 2022, Prigozhin has with Alexeev, who is the number two of the GRU military intelligence. The row is supposedly in his office. And Alexeev is the kind of guy who has handled Wagner. He's been the kind of contact person and it's Because Prigozhi is annoyed. He's getting locked out by the Ministry of Defense and Putin is not speaking to him that much. He hasn't had a call for him with Putin personally for six months. So you get a sense here that his rise, his growth of the brand has been useful for the Kremlin, but only up to a point. And it's reached that point. And so as you get to the start of 2022, the Ministry of Defense is kind of like, we're just going to keep you at arm's length. You know, we don't want you to get any bigger or any, or get any more involved. And Putin as well is kind of just keeping him at arm's length a bit. This kind of rough and tough mercenary guy.

[David McCloskey]

He's staff.

[Gordon Corera]

He. Staff.

[David McCloskey]

And he doesn't like that. Yeah, I think that is. He, he has aspirations for himself that go beyond just being staff.

[Gordon Corera]

And here's the problem, because just as at this moment, the Prigozhin seems to be locked out and he's not getting his calls returned. Start of 2022, something big is brewing. Around 175,000 Russian troops, regular military are building up on the borders of Ukraine. Now, most of the time think that this is a bluff to put pressure on Ukraine and that there's not going to be a real invasion and they're going to be wrong.

[David McCloskey]

So, Gordon, I think that is a good spot to end this episode. When we come back next time, we'll see how this war in Ukraine, this actual, proper, massive invasion of Ukraine, is going to totally transform Prigozhin's fortunes, bring him to the highest of highs and ultimately lead to his demise.

[Gordon Corera]

That's right. But, but, but just a reminder, if you want to hear those episodes now, you can joining the Declassified [e-mail] and you'll get access to our special miniseries, won't you?

[David McCloskey]

That's right. We will be doing a three parter on sort of the secret world of the KGB and Vladimir Putin showing his rise, his time in the KGB and his ascent to power. Some special guests for that series. You won't want to miss it. So go and sign up for the Declassified Club to get access to. We'll see you next time.

[Gordon Corera]

See you next time.