Wagner, said to be operated by Yevgeny Prigozhin, Vladimir Putin’s former chef, sends secret combat teams around the world to look after Russian interests abroad. Many have ended up fighting in Ukraine. But with casualties mounting in Russia’s regular army, analysts said army commanders were relying more on “volunteers” from organizations like Wagner. Britain’s Ministry of Defense warned on Monday that Wagner himself is “lowering recruitment standards and hiring convicts”. “Very limited training is given to new recruits,” he added. Wagner’s new recruitment drive has resorted to using roadside billboards in Russia as well as social media to entice new fighters to join its ranks. Part of the field is being taken away by corrupt and incompetent Russian soldiers. Instead, Wagner sees himself as the shadowy guerilla bad boys of the Russian military. Wagner’s Telegram social media account, called “The Reserve Side of the Medal,” has 290,000 subscribers and is full of photos and rock music videos showing his fighters carrying modern rifles and promising travel and adventure. They look tough and burly, compared to the often tough conscripts of the Russian army. Some photos showed Wagner’s mercenaries posing with sledgehammers, a nod to their reputation for routine brutality. In Syria, Wagner mercenaries were filmed killing an anti-regime fighter with a sledgehammer. They cut his head open and then sawed it off. Wagner, named after the military insignia of the founder of Russian special forces, also plays his namesake, the German composer Richard Wagner, referring to himself as an “orchestra” looking for “musicians.” A recruitment photo shows five Wagner mercenaries posing in the devastated city of Severodonetsk, Donbas. They held guitars, trumpet and saxophone.
