Radio War Nerd EP #507 — Wagner Group, feat. John Lechner
Guest: John Lechner, writer & researcher
We're joined by John Lecher, author of the new book "Death Is Our Business: Russian Mercenaries and the New Era of Private Warfare" about the infamous Wagner Group and its co-founders, Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin.
*Buy John's book "Death Is Our Business" (Bloomsbury Books), and John's "Beginner's Chechen" language course. Follow John on Twitter.
*Dmitry Utkin, co-founder of Wagner
Total time: 1:37:57
Direct link to this episode's mp3 here
*
Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd
Sound production by Telescope Audio
Check out the Radio War Nerd Merch store here!
Order your print or ebook of John Dolan's new book Erdogan Pizza: Dispatches from a Violent & Grotesque World
Comments (36)
Always fun to hear the cat adventures. If you’ve got an outdoor cat you can mitigate cat on bird genocide by building kitty an enclosed “Catio”.
got one of them to love going in a cat backpack for walks, but having a hard time getting him to accept the harness/leash
Thank you for the episode. I remember following the minutia of the separatist stuff way back on obscure blogs… totally forgot about the connection to the internet research agency too. What weird sh*t it has all been.
Michigan mentioned! I have to wonder how Hillsdale of all places became such an assembly line of ghouls. Is there any other small college like it?
When I hear Russian PMC I think it’s referring to the Professional Managerial Class.
Weren't the Mamluks Circassian?
No they we're a bunch of different Caucasian ethnicity similar to the janissaries except much more variety because they basically just grabbed any slave who was in good shape.
"He lived his life like it was a movie" - basically a weeb who thinks video games are real life, but it's not considered childish because movies have been around for a century
Я пума is neat to watch for 5 seconds but you gotta wonder when that cat is going to go apeshit
Fantastic episode! This dude rules!
https://www.irrawaddy.com/in-person/interview/paramotors-the-myanmar-juntas-latest-terror-weapon.html Check out this interview with a former Myanmar army officer regarding the use of paramotors in bombing resistance pockets (mostly killing civilians)
Great episode. The movie treatment strikes me as more Cohen Brothers (Fargo in particular) than Shakespeare (closest being Titus Andronicus played properly -- as a comedy).
"You Pinkman? Goodman sent me"
he looks like you could snap a bat over his head and he'd turn around and look at you like you've done something wrong
Thinking of your parrot, Mark.
thanks, she's getting her staples removed today, full recovery and now fully aware that felines ain't horses you ride
Just a coupla industrious Uruk-hai trying to move up in the world.
LOOKS LIKE MEATS BACK ON THE MENU
The Uncle Fester appreciation society achieved a lot.
I was just thinking the same thing.
I went crazy.
Five-star episode
Donbass? Never heard of her. They friends of your?
I think what’s critically underrated, is the need these global powers have, for soldiers with combat experience. Arguably it’s why the French are still somewhat relevant
Utkin really looks like an evil Doc Brown 😅
You have a very unique and original vision 💖 nice work
No one’s saying it, but there’s a bit of a visual similarity between John and the two founders of Wagner. Have they been seen in the same room together, ever?
I wonder how the people who accuse RWN of being Russia-stans would react if they knew that John Dolan was secretly Prigozhin and also Utkin at the same time, somehow. And also they're all just alter egos of Gary Brecher, who was the real person all along.
Utkin's not scary looking he's just bald
With Ukraine turning out to be such a quagmire Russia took its eye off the ball when it came time to back Assad. And I think Trump cares more about Syria than Ukraine, and I think if Zelensky is smart he'd play that connection up.
Is Ukraine a quagmire for Russia though? Pre-surovikin, I definitely think so, but in the last six months seems like it’s more a quagmire for Ukraine
Utkin looks like a 60 year old who lost his mom at the mall
To me he looks like if one of the Harkonnen soldiers in the new Dune films grew some body hair.
Dude looks like he belongs in some German metal band like Rammstein.
Seriously disappointed that there was no play on the megadeth album “killing is my business, and business is good”
Utkin jump scare