Ekaterina Girnyk15:09, 05/29/23

Corporate-backed companies are said to pay significantly higher wages than volunteer battalions affiliated with Wagner or the Department of Defense.

With a shortage of people willing to die in the war in Ukraine , security firms created by Russia’s largest state corporations are sending employees to the front lines to prove their loyalty to the Kremlin.

According to The Wall Street Journal , Russian President Vladimir Putin seems reluctant to start a new large-scale mobilization after last fall’s draft. Instead, the Kremlin has partially outsourced recruiting to the private sector and companies that depend on ongoing government contracts.

In recent months, state-owned companies such as Gazprom have set up private security units for this purpose, and existing companies controlled by former Russian army officers have recruited new members. In recent months, most of them have sent men to fight in Ukraine, often as auxiliaries under the Ministry of Defense, according to soldiers, analysts and former Russian officials.

It is noted that these companies partially imitate Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner PMC, they are smaller than Wagner – only a few thousand recruits.

At the same time, the WSJ notes, according to Prigozhin, public job postings and former Russian officials, corporate-backed companies pay significantly higher wages than volunteer battalions linked to Wagner or the Defense Ministry. Some of them are also better trained. Analysts and recruits say the troops often report to the Department of Defense, unlike Wagner fighters, who operate largely independently.

The WSJ notes that in February the Russian government issued a decree allowing Gazprom, Russia’s largest energy company, to set up its own security firm, one component of which is now Potok. Two divisions that grew out of the Gazprom security company were then transferred to the direct subordination of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Weeks after the government decree establishing Gazprom’s private security companies, its recruits revealed on social media that they were fighting on the front lines in Ukraine, specifically in Bakhmut.

The WSJ notes that while private military companies are technically illegal in Russia, security companies have received an unofficial blessing from the Kremlin to act in the interests of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

(C)UNIAN 2023