After a year of war, it is possible to assess the Russian military strategy in Ukraine. The Kremlin initially applied the art of deception (maskirovka) at the strategic level, claiming that it was not going to attack Ukraine. For several months, Russian officials fiercely dismissed reports by Western intelligence agencies openly predicting an invasion. Operationally, the invasion began with an advance of motorized troops that attacked from three directions simultaneously: north, east and south. The Russian Air Force destroyed critical infrastructure (e.g., power stations) to plunge the country into chaos. In addition, the Black Sea fleet blockaded Ukrainian ports to stop any supplies from third countries. At the tactical level, Russian special forces attempted to create bridgeheads by seizing airports and carrying out acts of sabotage within cities. In effect, the Kremlin launched a blitzkrieg against Ukraine.

The strong resistance of the Ukrainians caught the Kremlin by surprise. Moscow underestimated the Ukrainian military doctrine, which calls for the mass mobilization of the population in the event of a foreign invasion. The Ukrainian leadership initially moved the war into and around populated areas, where the defender has the tactical advantage. Within the urban environment, small groups can easily set up ambushes and hit enemy targets with anti-tank missiles. In fact, urban warfare is the nightmare of all regular armies. The Ukrainian side was well aware that Moscow is still haunted by the “Grozny syndrome”. The first war in Chechnya (1994-1996) resulted in a humiliating defeat for the Russian army. Small groups of determined fighters destroyed entire columns of Russian tanks that had entered the centre and suburbs of the Chechen capital.

Yet, the Russian forces was expected to overwhelm the Ukrainian positions within less than a week. Putin’s battle-hardened army did enjoy numerical and technological superiority. Following the 2008 Georgian war, minister of defence Anatoly Serdyukov’s military reforms changed the force structure of the Russian army. The creation of the battalion tactical group (BTG) was intended to increase the firepower and speed of the Russian forces. Indeed, each BTG has a motorized infantry battalion together with tank and artillery elements; a total of 600-800 officers and men. However, the main disadvantage of BTGs is the relatively small number of light infantry troops (around 200 men) which makes BTG vulnerable to ambushes. During the first three months of the invasion, the Russian BTGs became an easy target for the Ukrainian fighters.

Apparently, the Russian military were not prepared for such a large-scale invasion. Due to poor military planning, the Putin’s army has failed to conduct combined arms operations. This should have come as no surprise. In the 2008 war against Georgia, the involvement of the Russian army was limited in time and geography. Yet, its performance was assessed by analysts as rather poor.  Six years later, the annexation of Crimea took place with a hybrid and bloodless operation. In the Syrian civil war, the Kremlin has mainly used its air power, special forces, and mercenaries to support the Assad regime. In other words, it is the first time since the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan that the Russian military has been called upon to subdue a large country with a hostile population. It should be noted that there was an insurgency in western Ukraine after the end of the Second World War that lasted ten years.

During spring and summer 2022, the Russian military used indirect artillery fire and ballistic missiles to defeat the Ukrainians. This is not the first time in recent history that Moscow resorted to such tactics. During the Second Chechen war (2000-2002), the Kremlin bombed Grozny to the ground without any concern for the international law of armed conflicts. The Russian leadership chose the same siege warfare in certain parts of Ukraine.

Following a three-month siege, the Russian forces managed to capture the city of Mariupol in the Azov region. However, the invaders failed to capture Kyiv and Kharkiv, which are the two largest cities of Ukraine. According to Professor Louis DiMarco two factors could play a decisive role in attacking urban centres: the size of the population and the size of the area. The larger the population and the area, the more forces must be devoted to occupying a city. The American professor has challenged the 3:1 rule in favour of the attacker and advocated a 6:1 ratio for launching an attack in urban areas.

What has come, perhaps, as a surprise is the outsourcing of the Russian military operations to mercenaries. Since the summer of 2022, an unknown number of Russian and foreign mercenaries have joined the regular Russian army in fighting the Ukrainian army in Donbass. The partial “privatization” of the war is an innovation in itself. During the tsarist period, the army was under strict surveillance because officers were the only ones who could challenge the regime. In the Soviet era, the role of the political commissar was to enforce political control over the military through his presence at the strategic and operational levels. The use of private military companies, such as the infamous Wagner, runs counter to Russian military culture that prioritizes political control of the military. However, mass mobilization is neither desirable nor feasible in a middle-class country like Russia. The use of mercenaries allows Moscow to hide casualties from the Russian public opinion that does not massively support the war in Ukraine. The Wagner’s force functions as a small army capable of operational and tactical support when is needed.

The war has entered a new phase since September 2022. The Ukrainian counter-offensive succeeded in recapturing territories in the southern and eastern parts of the country. Yet, the Russian forces managed to stop the Ukrainian offensive before Christmas. Currently, there is a stalemate on the eastern front because of the trench warfare. The Kremlin has mobilised human and material resources for a new Spring offensive in Donbass. Europe and the United States must do whatever is necessary to stop it before it begins.

L'articolo The Russian Military Strategy in Ukraine: An Early Assessment proviene da InsideOver.

As tension heats up in Libya, the conflicting sides are finding themselves in a race against time. Despite the unceasing negotiations and the international pleads for ceasefire, Government of National Accord (GNA)-affiliated forces are getting ready for a major offensive in Sirte, the most crucial strategic point for Libyan National Army (LNA) leader General Khalifa Haftar at the moment.

Over the last few months, a massive recruitment operation has been taking place in several areas of Syria, as a desperate effort by the LNA to bolster its manpower and establish a new balance in the operational theater across Libya. The deployment of foreign fighters to Libya is also closely related to the proxy nature of the Libyan conflict, with the roles of Turkey and Russia being  especially fundamental.

Ankara Deployed First Mercenary Forces From Syria to Libya

Haftar wasn’t the first to use mercenaries in the Libyan conflict. By late 2019, when Turkish President Recep Erdogan made clear that the Turkish aspirations towards Libya were far from superficial or simplistic. To that end, a significant number of Syrian rebels were recruited by Turkey and sent to Tripoli. The individuals to take over this mission had previously formed a part of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, fighting against President Bashar al Assad in Syria, and allegedly participating in anti-government and anti-Kurdish operations in Afrin, Azaz, Idlib, Manbij and tal Abyad.

Even though the GNA and Turkey have consistently denied that Syrians fighters were transferred to Libya, according to reliable reports thousands of Syrian rebels who had been formerly fighting in the Syrian civil war have joined the Libyan conflict over the last six months. The foreign fighters are lured by a mixture of religious and political motivations, alongside an attractive financial deal. Ankara is playing the card of radical Islamism and adding support to the transnational movement of the Muslim Brotherhood, while an impressive — by regional standards — salary of approximately 2,000 USD per month is being provided to the hired fighters. According to the same sources, despite the fact that Turkey is responsible for the total funding of these grey operations, the GNA handles all payments to the deployed forces.

Haftar Forces on the Verge of Collapse and the Massive Russia-Backed Recruitment Operation

While the developments on the ground indicate Haftar could ultimately prevail in the long-lasting conflict, the gradual GNA gains since last March have gradually shifted the balance drastically. At the moment LNA forces are under severe pressure, struggling for their very survival. Since the first signs of this balance shift appeared, an aggressive Russian-coordinated effort began to deploy Syrian mercenaries in support of Haftar in Libya.

According to Syrian sources, the recruitment process is being conducted and overseen by Russian authorities through an umbrella network of Syrian security companies. The recruits are coming from several rural areas and villages across Syria, such as As-Suwayda, Harran, Nimreh, Qanawat, and Shaqqa. There are also instances of recruitment taking place in major Syrian cities with a strong Russian presence, including Damascus, Homs, Lattakia, and Tartus. The recruits agree to join various operations starting from simple tasks, such as guarding oil facilities and other targets of high importance, and expanding to actual engagement in battle.

How Does Recruitment Work?

Once recruited the fighters are going through a 2-week training course in the Khmeimim Air Base and then they are flying directly to Benghazi. As most of the recruits have already participated in military operations, during the decade-long severe Syrian civil war, it seems that the training is not a priority considering the time-sensitive nature of their scheduled deployment. There are instances of recruits who flied to Libya without undergoing any training at all, as part of their recruitment process. It has been confirmed through local sources that Khmeimim Air Base is being predominantly used as the primary training facility and point of departure.

Cham Wings Airlines, has been reported to be involved in the air transfer of the mercenaries from Latakia Governorate to Western Libya. Earlier this year, Cham Wings opened an office in Benghazi. In an official statement in March the GNA Ministry of Interior accused the company of transferring mercenaries from Syria to the Libyan front. Cham Wings is a private Syrian company, which has been sanctioned by the US Government over alleged ties with the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; the airline has also been accused in the past of transferring fighters from Russia to Syria, possibly members of the “Wagner Group,” to support the government forces in the Syrian conflict. Key Russian players coordinating the whole operation are reportedly acting on behalf of either the GRU, the Russian Military Intelligence Service, or the infamous “Wagner Group.”

Motivation and Coercion

Leaked documents indicate that the contracts which Syrian mercenaries are signing -issued in both Arabic and Russian — provide a monthly salary ranging between 2,000 and 3,000 USD. Even though inconsistencies in payment have been reported, with some unconfirmed statements suggesting that the salary received has been only a fraction of the agreed sum of money, there is no solid evidence to back this claim.

What we do currently know is that numerous contractors have left from Khmeimim to Libya, receiving a stipend of 500 USD each prior to their deployment and a promise that they will receive the rest of the agreed compensation upon their return. There are also additional provisions in the contract covering for any medical support that the contractors might need and providing a reimbursement to the fighters in case they are seriously injured, and a compensation to the family in case a contractor is killed in service. There are no clear indications around the insurance reparations, however according to the data available the figures do not seem to be particularly high.

At the same time, local sources have confirmed on condition of anonymity that in many instances the recruiters are choosing Syrian citizens who have been subject to criminal prosecution or investigation. This way the individuals can be indirectly forced to accept their deployment to Libya and the contract terms can be negotiated accordingly.

As additional rapid developments are set to take place in the Libyan front quite soon, it remains to be seen if the massive recruitment of Syrian mercenaries could pay off for the Libyan National Army and its foreign backers.

L'articolo The Syrian Mercenary Battleground in Libya proviene da InsideOver.

A growing system that could revolutionise, if it has not already done so, the way in which war is waged. Private military contractors are no longer simple mercenaries paid by some small emirate or warlord. These paramilitary organisations have become fully-fledged parallel armies used increasingly by the superpowers in order to manage conflicts in which they do not want to (or cannot) deploy their own soldiers and control areas of strategic interest in which the authorities of allied states have difficulties (economic, logistical or simply military).

There is nothing romantic, if there ever was, in the mindset of the contractors. But once the field has been cleared of ethical questions (which every use of these men entails), it should be clear that they can no longer be deemed secondary when it comes to understanding wars. Their use is now not only well-established but also extremely widespread. And the industry that has been created with their deployment (the Italian newspaper La Repubblica has reported that the business is worth almost USD 400 billion) confirms the utmost importance of a sector that now has a political, diplomatic and economic value equivalent to that of fully-fledged armed forces parallel to those of national authorities.

Contractors in the pay of Moscow

The question has become particularly important in the last few weeks because numerous investigations have brought to light the presence of Russian nationals (who cannot be defined as soldiers because they do not belong to the armed forces) within the ranks of General Khalifa Haftar. The strong man of Cyrenaica has always enjoyed a privileged relationship with the Kremlin which has been confirmed by numerous visits to Moscow as well as by relationships based on interwoven interests not only with the Russian energy giants but also with various sectors of Russian intelligence and diplomacy (and the allies of Vladimir Putin). Further, this relationship was confirmed in the siege of Tripoli when, with the announcement of the so-called “zero hour” by the Field Marshal, the presence of Russian “mercenaries”, in particular the Wagner Group, became clear. Their presence had already been feared by the British secret services who had pointed out the possible presence of Russians in Derna well before the advance on Tripoli and the simultaneous possibility of a Syrian scenario for Libya. This was a possible scenario in respect of which MI6 had obviously conducted an in-depth analysis, given that the reality is not, it would seem, far from London’s warning.

The presence of Russian contractors in Libya is of course only a part of the Kremlin’s strategy in relation to Libya and all the conflicts in which it is directly or indirectly involved. Because if it is true that the Wagner Group is operating alongside Field Marshal Haftar in order to control the war that has devastated Libya since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, it is also true that Cyrenaica (and now Tripolitania as well) are just two of the areas in which Wagner is operating on behalf of Moscow. Russian mercenaries were killed in Mozambique in November in an operation that caused not a little perplexity in the international community. Not only because of the violence with which the Russians were killed but also because of the physical presence (unfortunately confirmed by their deaths) of fighters in the service of the Kremlin in a country in which Russia has had strong political links since the days of the Soviet Union. Money, arms and energy – the tracks upon which Russian strategy in Africa runs – also involved Mozambique. And the presence of Russian militiamen has made plain that Russia needs to ensure that its interests are safeguarded.

These interests that are not very different from those that Russia has in the Central African Republic where, not by chance, there are other contractors also from the Wagner Group who made the headlines due to the death of some journalists (Orkhan Dzhemal, Aleksandr Rastorguyev and Kirill Radchenko)  who were travelling from Bangui to Bambari. The Russian government described it as a robbery. But the same local and African media blamed Wagner and the alleged trafficking of the organisation with the local authorities. This episode has remained shrouded in mystery. What is certain however is that nobody has denied the presence of Russian mercenaries in the country whilst the local authorities hid behind the authorisation given to Russia by the UN to support the efforts of the Central African Republic to monitor the territory.

Syria and the Ukraine

From Africa to the Middle East, Russian contractors of the Wagner Group (generally ex-soldiers and ex-members of the GRU) are however definitely present in Syrian territory. Indeed, the mercenaries have often been used by the Kremlin specifically to ensure that Moscow’s regular forces do not have to intervene in difficult situations or in any case where it would be reasonable to assume that the troops would face a very high degree of risk. The war in Syria was (and is) an enormous commitment for Putin: dead soldiers are never accepted by public opinion. But in this case too there has never been an insignificant number of risks. Photos of Russian “civilians” in military uniform, tanned as a result of the scorching sun of the desert, who arrived in Russia on often anonymous flights from the Middle East have on several occasions made plain their deployment in theatres of operation. And in February 2018, for four interminable hours, American soldiers and the US air force had an extremely fierce clash with Wagner fighters, probably 500 of them. There were dozens of dead in the ranks of the mercenaries on the plain of Deir Ezzor: there is no official figure. But what is certain that for the first time US and Russian forces (albeit paramilitaries) faced each other in Syria, causing dozens of casualties.

Similarly it is not known exactly how many Russian contractors have died in the Ukraine where these forces have for years been definitely present in the armies of the pro-Russian republics and across the entire eastern Ukrainian front. In particular, it has been confirmed that contractors were used in the battles of Debaltseve and Starobesheve. No official figure has ever been released in relation to the number of casualties in this case either. The whole matter is shrouded in mystery.

Mercenaries and the Pentagon

Russia is clearly not the only power to use contractors. Indeed, in reality the United States has for some time now been engaged in a strategy that provides for the greater use of private military companies in the management of war scenarios where Washington is no longer interested in having a massive troop presence.

The first and most important scenario in which this strange cohabitation exists between contractors and soldiers is Afghanistan. In the United States’ longest war, the fighters of the private agencies employed by the American government have numbered in the thousands. And there have been thousands of deaths: a sign that when it comes to mercenaries it is always wrong to produce the biased interpretation that only non-western powers and states use them. An investigation by the Washington Post has even confirmed that the number of victims amongst the contractors in the service of the United States exceeds (by a long way) that of soldiers, reaching the record figure of 3,814 fallen. An enormous figure if one considers the very little publicity given to the use of these private companies by the Pentagon but which demonstrates that the strategy conceived by Donald Trump (and Erik Prince) relating to the “privatisation” of the Afghan war should not be seen as something disconnected from US strategy. On the contrary, contractors have always been an essential component of the strategic plans of the US armed forces in a war that for some time now has been seen by public opinion as a complete failure and devoid of any utility.

But this war, even if it cannot be won, certainly cannot be abandoned. It is also for this reason that the White House has given the order to try to privatise it. Furthermore, a private company costs less than regular forces (tens of millions of dollars less) and a dead soldier, in terms of social perception, is worth much more than a civilian who goes to war with a company. As La Repubblica recalls, the Congressional Budget Office has clarified that “an infantry battalion in a war costs 110 million dollars a year, whilst a private military unit costs 99 million”. It goes without saying that 20 million less, every time, means a not insignificant saving. And it is an investment that America has put so much into that the federal government spent in five years (between 2007 and 2012) about 160 billion dollars on these companies. Their services can be used in various contexts, from the training of regular troops to conflicts where the United States does not want to make plain that it is full involved, even though it has an interest in supporting the ally in the field.

Contractors in the service of Beijing

China is not immune from the use of contractors either. Indeed, the figures demonstrate that the business of private military companies is growing so much that they are now companies with an enormous turnover that Beijing uses to control all the areas in which it does not want to use its regular forces. The same objective as that of the USA and Russia has therefore been set by the Dragon which, with the New Silk Road, knows it cannot leave the interests and infrastructures that it is constructing all over the world in the hands of forces that, above all in developing countries, do not guarantee that the territory is clearly controlled. And, above all, they do not guarantee loyalty to their Chinese ally or its interests.

For this reason, it must come as no surprise that in the last few years China has made a clear decision to use PMCs. Indeed, the Chinese government has taken a further step forward. Whereas previously the country’s giants largely used foreign private companies because, as also reported by Eastasia, Chinese contractors were considered inexperienced now preference is given to the use of Chinese companies who in this way train in the field and above all prevent the dollars invested by the Chinese authorities from ending up in a river generally connected to other powers (the United States and Russia first and foremost). This is also demonstrated by the contracts signed by Blackwater with China for operations that Beijing has always wanted to keep strictly confidential.

But above all this makes it easier to keep Chinese interests in some way under wraps within the great cauldron of the bureaucracy of the empire. The Chinese government has sent private companies to protect its workers in South Sudan and Iraq, but has also secured the interests of the corridor with Pakistan, the ports of the New Silk Road and the so-called “Pearl Necklace” of the Indian Ocean. Further, as reported by Xinhua, the investments made in security abroad have already cost the Chinese authorities tens of billions of dollars. And this business is bound to increase given the growth of Chinese interests outside its territory. The reluctance of Beijing to send troops outside the country makes everything clearer.

L'articolo The Dark World of Private Military Contractors proviene da InsideOver.