The Wagner Group isn’t Russia’s only private army

Allowing a psychopath to form a private army of violent criminals may not, on reflection, have been Vladimir Putin’s greatest idea. But Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutinous Wagner Group is by no means the only private army operating in Russia. Over the past couple of months no fewer than five armies have been fighting on Russian soil. Only one of them, the official Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, is directly subordinate to the Kremlin.

The 12,000-strong semi-irregular forces of Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov, officially known as the 141st Special Motorised Regiment but more famous as the ‘Kadyrovsty’, are effectively the Praetorian Guard of a regional leader. The 25,000-strong Wagner Group have shown themselves ready and willing to follow their leader into open rebellion. And on the other side, two Ukraine-backed groups of insurgent Russian citizens known as the Freedom of Russia Legion (FRL) and the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) have taken and held villages in Russia’s Belgorod Province in a series of cross-border incursions.