In Season 2, Episode 6 of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi chats with defense researcher Jack Margolin about his new book on the Wagner Group. They focus on its operations in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the country’s central place within the Wagner subculture.
They also discuss the ever-present profit motive for the Wagner Group’s leaders and how grievances born in Syria festered and fostered resentment for many years, before exploding with the Wagner mutiny in June 2023. Margolin also delivers an update on the Group’s organization and leadership after the death of Prighozin, and on its current structure in Africa.
“[They] focused on this understanding of Slavic culture as being the inheritor of traditional values, but also attaching that to pre-Christian imagery, so you’d see a lot of runes, a lot of celebration of these Slavic pagan deities.”
Find the Guns For Hire podcast on the app of your choice
Guns for Hire podcast is a production of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Initiative. Taking Libya as its starting point, it explores the causes and implications of the growing use of mercenaries in armed conflict.
The podcast features guests from many walks of life, from ethicists and historians to former mercenary fighters. It seeks to understand what the normalization of contract warfare tells us about the world we currently live in, the future of the international system, and what war could look like in the coming decades.
Image: Syrian army soldiers stands on the ruins of the Temple of Bel in the historic city of Palmyra, in Homs Governorate, Syria April 1, 2016. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki SEARCH “PALMYRA SANADIKI” FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH “THE WIDER IMAGE” FOR ALL STORIES
Sledgehammer: The Wagner cult in Syria
In Season 2, Episode 6 of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi chats with defense researcher Jack Margolin about his new book on the Wagner Group. They focus on its operations in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the country’s central place within the Wagner subculture.
They also discuss the ever-present profit motive for the Wagner Group’s leaders and how grievances born in Syria festered and fostered resentment for many years, before exploding with the Wagner mutiny in June 2023. Margolin also delivers an update on the Group’s organization and leadership after the death of Prighozin, and on its current structure in Africa.
Find the Guns For Hire podcast on the app of your choice
About the podcast
Guns for Hire podcast is a production of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Initiative. Taking Libya as its starting point, it explores the causes and implications of the growing use of mercenaries in armed conflict.
The podcast features guests from many walks of life, from ethicists and historians to former mercenary fighters. It seeks to understand what the normalization of contract warfare tells us about the world we currently live in, the future of the international system, and what war could look like in the coming decades.
Further reading
Podcast Apr 24, 2024
American Hit Squad in Yemen
By Alia Brahimi
Host and Nonresident Senior Fellow Alia Brahimi speaks with BBC investigative journalist Nawal Al-Maghafi about her film on American mercenaries in Yemen.
Podcast Jan 10, 2024
Mercenaries and Gaza
By Alia Brahimi
Host and Nonresident Senior Fellow Alia Brahimi speaks with Iraq expert Renad Mansour about what motivates the non-state actors who are leading the bid to avenge Gazans.
Podcast Jul 30, 2024
‘I was a Blackwater mercenary in Iraq’
By Alia Brahimi
Host Alia Brahimi is joined by former Blackwater contractor Morgan Lerette to reflect on Loretta’s experience a private military contractor in Iraq.
Through our Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, the Atlantic Council works with allies and partners in Europe and the wider Middle East to protect US interests, build peace and security, and unlock the human potential of the region.
Image: Syrian army soldiers stands on the ruins of the Temple of Bel in the historic city of Palmyra, in Homs Governorate, Syria April 1, 2016. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki SEARCH “PALMYRA SANADIKI” FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH “THE WIDER IMAGE” FOR ALL STORIES
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