Putin may have assassinated the Wagner group boss but armies of ruthless guns for hire are spreading around the globe

IN a windswept Russian prison yard, hundreds of lags crowded around mercenary warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin as he set out his pitiless recruitment terms.

“We will put you straight on the (Ukraine) front line,” he barked. “If you retreat, we will shoot you immediately. If you disobey an order, we will shoot you immediately.

“But if you survive for six months you’ll be pardoned and can go home.”

It could have been a scene from the 1967 war film The Dirty Dozen — in which convicts were promised their freedom if they took part in a World War Two suicide mission.

But the 21st-century mercenary business needs no help from Hollywood in depicting greed, brutality and bloody mayhem — and right now, business is booming.

Governments, private corporations and even terrorist groups are all hiring mercenary paramilitaries.

They are cheaper and more flexible than state-run armies, and offer deniability if things go wrong.

They can also squirm out of accusations of human rights abuses far more easily than governments can.

From Yemen to Ukraine, Iraq to Afghanistan, modern warfare is increasingly fought with private armies.

And a belligerent Russia has long seen the strategic sense of using them alongside its regular forces.

Prigozhin was given a traitor’s send-off — blasted from the skies on board his private jet, likely on the orders of Vladimir Putin.

But his Wagner mercenary group has proved a useful asset to the Russian president, meddling in conflicts across Africa and the Middle East.

‘Covert and lethal’

Wagner rose to prominence in 2014 when its paramilitaries joined Russian forces’ so-called little green men occupying Ukraine’s Crimea region.

In khaki, unmarked uniforms or disguised as pro-Russian separatists, they allowed the Kremlin to suggest they were part of a local militia.

Working in the shadows, Wagner — which employs former special forces troops and veterans as well as convicts — was soon deployed in Syria and propping up African regimes.

Its relationship with the Russian state was initially murky.

It was not until June this year that Putin admitted Wagner was fully funded by the Kremlin.

It was in 2018 that America and the West really took notice of Wagner’s combat abilities after the Battle of Khasham in the Syrian civil war.

In what was described as the single bloodiest clash between US and Russian forces since the Cold War, Wagner fighters attacked US special forces near the city of Deir al-Zour.

A dustbowl outpost next to a Conoco gas plant was being defended by 30 US Delta Force soldiers and rangers from the Joint Special Operations Command, alongside Kurdish and Arab forces.

When the Wagner attack came, anyone who believed mercenary fighters were cheap imitations of the real thing was swiftly disabused.

The 500 or so Wagner fighters advanced in an armoured assault, which included artillery cover, armoured personnel carriers and T-72 battle tanks.

Under heavy shelling, the Delta Forces men dived for cover in foxholes and radioed for help.

The Wagner mercenaries were then pummelled with scores of air strikes by US fighter jets, drones, bombers and helicopters.

But the Russians held firm for four hours before retreating.

No Americans were killed and the US Department of Defense trumpeted the operation as a success.

But military strategist Dr Sean McFate, author of The Modern Mercenary, insists it was not a big win for the Americans.

The former paratrooper and private military contractor said: “It took America’s most elite troops and advanced aircraft four hours to repel 500 mercenaries.

“What happens when they have to face 1,000? 5,000? More?”

He added that Wagner were no “cartoonish rabble depicted by Hollywood and Western pundits” but “like many high-end mercenaries today, they were covert and lethal”.

Wagner’s tentacles now stretch across Africa’s troublespots, making millions from war, oil and gold.

In 2018 it deployed forces to the Central African Republic to intervene on the side of the government to quell a civil war.

In return it received logging rights and control of a gold mine.

And Wagner is willing and able to fight a dirty war for its paymasters.

Few of the atrocities linked to the group have been backed by hard evidence.

But a UN report accused the group of being behind the slaughter of 500 villagers at Moura, in Mali, West Africa in 2022.

All but a few of them were unarmed civilians.

Dr Joana de Deus Pereira, from the British defence and security think tank the Royal United Services Institute, said Wagner will likely continue operations on similar lines despite Prigozhin’s death.

She said: “We have to look at Wagner not only as a single man but as an ecosystem, as a hydra with many, many heads and many diverse interests in Africa.”

Wagner’s merciless efficiency has trodden a barbarous new path for armies for hire.

Yet the mercenary business is as old as warfare itself. The Old Testament tells of soldiers of fortune before the birth of Christ.

After nation states evolved, mercenaries were marginalised as governments sent their own vast standing armies into battle.

Then after the Cold War, Private Military Contractors, or PMCs, began to proliferate.

Often never picking up a gun, they provided transport, catering and training and logistics for local forces.

During the Iraq and Afghan conflicts the US had one contractor for every soldier on the ground.

And while most were not involved in combat directly, 15 per cent were in fighting roles.

In 2007 there was an international outcry over the use of mercenaries after employees of US firm Blackwater massacred 17 civilians, including two children, in Iraq.

US security guards opened fire with machine guns and grenade launchers on a crowd of unarmed people in Nisour Square in Baghdad.

Four were jailed, but later pardoned by President Donald Trump.

The mercenary business has been a natural magnet for buccaneers and adventurers.

In 2004, old Etonian Simon Mann attempted to overthrow the president of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea with 60 battle-hardened mercenaries in what became known as the Wonga Coup.

Known as the “torturer-in-chief”, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo was said to eat his enemies’ testicles and brains to boost his sexual prowess.

Former SAS officer Mann allegedly stood to gain £9million if his attempt to oust the tyrant succeeded.

But the mercenaries were arrested en route in Zimbabwe.

Mann smuggled a note from his cell demanding “a large splodge of wonga” from the coup’s backers to get him out.

He was later sentenced to 34 years in jail before being pardoned by President Obiang in 2009.

In 2005, former PM Margaret Thatcher’s son Mark was given a suspended sentence and fined the equivalent of £128,000 by a South African court for financially assisting the plot.

Yemen’s civil war has also been profitable for mercenaries.

US-run Spear Operations Group was reportedly paid $1.5million (£1.2million) a month by the United Arab Emirates to conduct an unidentified number of assassinations between 2015 and 2016.

The outfit was run by Abraham Golan, an Israeli-American of Hungarian descent living near Pittsburgh.

He told BuzzFeed News: “There was a targeted assassination programme in Yemen. I was running it. We did it.”

Spear’s team were given ranks in the Emirati military, and military officials provided them with weapons and a list of targets.

While it is illegal for an American to conspire to kill people in a foreign country, it is legal to serve in the armed services of certain countries.

Although Wagner has pulled out of Ukraine, Russia has other private armies it has sent to the front line.

Many of Russia’s elite own lucrative private military companies.

Dozens of groups have been spotted fighting in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including Redut, Slavonic Corps and ENOT.

Reports suggest that Russian energy giant Gazprom has established two mercenary groups known as Fakel (torch) and Plamya (flame).

The groups are tasked with protecting overseas assets in countries such as Syria and Ukraine.

Dr McFate added: “Unfortunately, mercenaries are here to stay.

“Those who think the private military industry can be safely ignored, regulated, or categorically banned are too late.”