Joana de Deus Pereira writes:

The German word doppelgänger literally translates as ‘walking double’ and alludes to paranormal ‘duplicates’ that can manifest in many ways: you can see them in your peripheral vision, meet them somewhere on a lonely road, or see them while looking in the mirror – you see them, but they do not exist. This description very much applies to the Wagner Group, the largely invisible, officially non-existent, unregistered, mighty and resourceful private army with obscure ties to the Kremlin.

Purportedly born in Ukraine, in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Wagner has been playing a key role in the country since the first outbreak of conflict in 2014. Wagner mercenaries have allegedly been spotted in Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities – an observation in line with UK intelligence, which indicates that over 1,000 mercenaries have been displaced from other operating areas in Africa and are about to enter in the conflict. However, if the modus operandi is the same as 2014, it is almost certain that Wagner forces were already positioned in key separatist enclaves in Ukraine awaiting the signal to move.

Operating within a blurry bubble where state and non-state actors merge into an intricate and nebulous network of power, Russia’s doppelgänger army has been deployed to carry out operations in areas where the Russian army cannot legally be involved. They are not subject to ‘body bag syndrome’ (a loathing of casualties that reduces public support for military missions) and they offer plausible deniability, allowing the Kremlin to exert power with invisible hands and providing leeway for Russian foreign policy messaging. The distinguishing factor between Wagner and other private military companies (PMCs) is that they have been actively involved in combat activities in Syria and Libya, acting as a proxy for Moscow.

Officially, Wagner does not exist, and it is not framed under Russian law as Russia has outlawed mercenaryism under Article 359 of its criminal code. As such, a mercenary without a legal framework cannot be deceased in combat. They vanish without a name, a body or a trace of existence. In short, Wagner is a phantom state-sanctioned force running without the official limitations and red lines of a conventional state agency. [Continue reading…]