EFFECTS OF PRIVATE MILITARY CONTRACTORS ON CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN GRAND STRATEGY OBJECTIVES
Date
2025-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
The Wagner Group, Russia's premier private military outfit, defined Russian grand
strategy doctrine for over a decade acting on the behalf of the Kremlin. After the fiery end of the
Wagner Group as a private actor following an attempted mutiny in 2023 on the Kremlin by the
group's leader, Evgeny Prigozhin, scholars and Russia-watchers around the world documented
the vast myriad of effects that the Wagner group has had on proxies and regions of interest
abroad. However, the use of Wagner contractors has also had a remarkable impact on Russia
itself. In this paper I argue that Russia's pervasive use of the Wagner Group and semi-state
contractors has been one of the biggest weaknesses of contemporary Russian grand strategy, and
that even Wagner's marginal wins in a few of these proxies have contributed to the failure or
stalling of other Russian objectives in the same states. Despite the mutiny ending Prigozhin's
tenure as Wagner's leader, the group is still active in everything but name, and will affect how
Russia conducts grand strategy in the future.