Weakened Putin turns to old GRU rivals to fill mercenary gaps
The war in Ukraine has exposed the fragility of Russia’s private military companies, which have been used by the Kremlin as a proxy force to advance its interests in the region. The most notorious of these groups, the Wagner Group, led by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin, suffered a major blow in June 2022, when some of its fighters staged a mutiny against President Vladimir Putin and attempted to seize control of the Donetsk airport. The rebellion was quickly crushed by loyalist forces, but not before Prigozhin and several of his top commanders were killed in a plane crash in August.
Since then, Putin has been trying to reform Russia’s mercenary system and replace Wagner troops with a new group called Redut, which is widely described as a private military company akin to Wagner. However, a recent investigation by Schemes and Systema, RFE/RL’s Ukrainian and Russian investigative teams, revealed that Redut is not, in fact, a private military company. It is a front: a shadowy recruitment network run by the Russian military’s main intelligence directorate, known as the GRU.
According to the investigation, Redut is a fake private military company that recruits and deploys soldiers for the GRU’s war in Ukraine. The combat units have been involved in key Russian offensives in Ukraine, such as the storming of Mariupol in March 2022 and the siege of Kharkiv in September 2022. The investigation is based on a cache of exclusive battlefield records from one of these Redut units, as well as interviews with Redut fighters and their relatives, conversations with recruiters, and an analysis of Redut contracts, social media profiles of Redut mercenaries, and images and metadata from their mobile phones.
The investigation showed that Redut offers multiple benefits for those who sign up, such as the option to quit without the threat of a court-martial and the ability to earn cash that can be hidden from creditors, courts, and the government. Redut also allows the Russian government and military to maintain a layer of legal distance from the many fighters and units under the umbrella of this ostensibly private organization. However, the investigation also revealed the risks and challenges that Redut faces, such as the lack of proper training, equipment, and coordination among its fighters, as well as the possibility of defection, capture, or death.
Candace Rondeaux, a researcher at the New America Foundation in Washington and the author of a 2019 report titled Decoding The Wagner Group, told Frontline on Times Radio that Redut is a sign of Putin’s weakness and desperation, as he tries to fill the gaps left by Wagner’s demise. She said that Redut will never achieve the social power and influence that Wagner had, and that if it does, then it means that Putin is in trouble. She also said that Redut is part of a larger trend of Russia’s use of ghost forces or backfill forces, which are necessary because of the low recruitment and retention rates in the Russian military.
