The group of Russian mercenaries Wagner, deployed in several African countries and on the front in Ukraine, is “a formidable opponent” and a model that will “evolve,” said the chief of staff of the French land army.
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“Let’s look at the Wagner militia, their demonstration,” General Pierre Schill remarked Monday at a meeting with the Association of Defense Journalists (AJD).
“They are sending us a message telling us that if we have to face these militias elsewhere, they can pay very expensive blood money to achieve their goals and they will be a formidable opponent,” he said.
Wagner has established himself as a key aid to the Russian Army in Ukraine in recent months, notably on the front lines at the Battle of Bachmout (East). On Sunday, their leader Evguéni Prigojine claimed to have captured the town of Krasna Hora, a few kilometers north of this major city in the Donetsk region.
“A year ago I insisted on the hybrid war on the verge of conflictuality (…) of the influence of the message sent (…). Wagner and this type of tools used by the Russians is precisely a tool of this threshold that will inevitably develop, ”General Schill pointed out.
“Are all private military companies the same or will they be the same? Probably not, there is a certain level of state support behind it,” he said, referring to the very close ties between Yevgeny Prigoyine and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Wagner asks us questions because he’s fighting to get his place in the Kremlin one way or another and is paying a heavy price for it, and tells us he’s a formidable opponent,” he said.
According to him, the Russian invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago has not yet ended its geostrategic consequences.
“We are probably at an era change on the same scale as the fall of the Berlin Wall,” he said, citing changes “that took several years and shaped three decades.”
“We have seen the use of force by a number of states increase,” he noted, referring to China and Iran. “There is a questioning of international law that has emerged since World War II. A certain number of countries tell us: your right is contingent, western, we dispute it”.