Dmitry Utkin ("Wagner") pictured here on the far right together with Russian president Vladimir Putin and other Wagner commanders. This image is believed to date from December 2016.
Mercenaries are illegal under Russian law, but that doesn’t stop them from being a central element of the Kremlin’s geopolitical adventurism, whether in Ukraine or, even more clearly, Syria. The tale of Wagner, a St Petersburg outfit at the heart of the fighting in Syria, says much about the privatisation of statecraft and the mobilisation of private enterprise in modern Russia.
