Russian Attack on Ukraine highlights danger from private military groups

The dark side of the irregular combat forces involved in Russia's attack on Ukraine appeared this week when two former convicts told a human rights group that they had deliberately killed Ukrainian children and civilians while serving as commanders in the Russian group Wagner last year.

In videos published on the Russian website Gulag.net, Azamat Uldov and Alexey Savichev provided a detailed explanation of the brutality they have exercised against civilians in Ukraine. I was not allowed to leave anyone alive, because the order was to kill everything I could face”, Uldrov said, describing how he shot a 5-year-old girl to death.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner group, whose fighters -- including former convicted of violent crimes -- have been instrumental in the several-month battle for controlling Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine -- has denied those charges and threatened the two former soldiers with punishment.

But Sean McFate, a former US officer and private military contractor who is now a professor at National Defence University, said no one should be surprised to see atrocities committed by a military force comprised mainly of convicts.

When sending people from prisons to Ukraine, you create a working group of people with problems and that doesn't end well”, he said in an interview with the Voice of America.

McFate added that the use of mercenaries is often associated parallel with the arms trade and other illegal practices, including trafficking of human beings and narcotics.

Robert Young Pelton, a veteran war journalist who has pursued many conflicts worldwide, said in an interview that the Wagner Group has become a problem not only for Russia's regular forces but for their entire country.

“Russia has professional soldiers who have some of the best special skills”, Mr. Pelton told the Voice of America. But by activating the Wagner group in Ukraine, Russia has created a particularly dangerous precedent as they legally “do not respond to anyone”.

We now have Russians killing people inside Ukraine... and not really held accountable, yet they will be integrated back into society within Russia”, says Mr. Pelton.

On the other hand, Ukraine relies on protecting the country from several foreign groups, including some who play a direct role in fighting.

Among them are donor-led organisations led by American veterans, “Project Dynamo”, which saved civilians from war zones in Ukraine and Afghanistan, and the international group “Mozart”, which evacuated civilians and trained Ukrainian soldiers.

Some of its former members were reshuffled with a new name, “Sonata”, and continues to operate in Ukraine more cautiously, co-ordinating both with Ukraine's high-ranking military officers and with battle front units to understand operational issues and offer technical solutions.

Kiev does not publish the figures, but based on media estimates, approximately 1,000 to 3,000 foreign volunteers are protecting Ukraine now, most of them serve in three battalions of Ukraine's International Territorial Protection Legion, or Ukraine's Foreign Legion.

The Legion was formed shortly after Russia launched its large-scale attack in February 2022, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for the assistance of “every friend of Ukraine wishing to join Ukraine in protecting the country”.

In a written statement on the Ukrainian language of the Voice of America, the International Legion said that many foreigners in regiment fought courageously and won high marks from their friends and commanders, as well as being honoured by the state. State education also took some foreign nationals, who as part of other battalions served in the week-long siege of the “Azovstal” steel plant in Mariupol.

But not all foreigners who have flocked in defense of Kiev have served with high honour.

The New York Times reported that some foreign volunteers have undermined war efforts, abused money, and deserted Russia. The newspaper Kyiv Independent has also reported improper behaviour within the leadership of the International Legion, including physical abuse, threats and sending soldiers to reckless “suicide”.

The problem is that during the war you get what we call the bile and garbage, people who don't know what else to do in their lives”, said Mr. McFate.

The good guys tend to leave because they don't want to get killed with the bad guys. And what you have left is waste from other wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are not all bad, but this is a common problem of the private war”, he said.

When asked how the Ukrainian Foreign Legion controls its volunteers, they told the Voice of America that all soldiers are subjected to an examination by recruits, government biography checks, and exercises before being deployed on the battlefield.

But Mr. Pelton says private contractors “always blur water” when they get into a war. “Within that very narrow segment of foreigners fighting in Ukraine, they are more of a problem than a help because they bring international punishment, uncertainty and moral questions because these foreigners are here. ”

Despite moral and legal uncertainties, some experienced American warriors say they are still willing to fight for the right cause.

One of them is Dan Hampton, one of America's most decorated fighter pilots with 151 missions with a F-16 fighter plane. He is also the author of several books and Director Executive of the private military company MVI International, based in the western state of Colorado.

This is the important issue of Ukraine's war against Russia, this is a black and white conflict. I was going to fight there”, Hampton said in an interview with Ukrainian-language U.S. Voice service on March 9th.

Hampton, retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, suggested that American contractors could help Ukraine with one of its most disturbing problems, its need for an improved air fighting capability.

Ukraine has been demanding for months that the United States and its allies give the country F-16 fighter aircraft, but the United States has so far rejected this, arguing that aircraft are as complex as it would take months, perhaps years to train Ukrainian pilots.

Hampton suggested that if fighter planes were secured F-16s, experienced foreign pilots could fly them while Ukrainian pilots trained or continued flying their existing aircraft. /Vosa