Without the participation of the Russian armed forces, no “people’s republics” would have emerged.

The so-called “PMC Wagner” was specially created to solve the problems of occupying eastern Ukraine, and its only real owner was Russian President Vladimir Putin. Former member of “Wagner” Marat Gabidullin spoke about this in an interview with presenter Ramina Eskhkazai.

“The main owner and only owner of this structure was the president of the country. It was from him that all the instructions came,” said the ex-mercenary.

According to him, the Wagner Group was the result of cooperation between the Russian Ministry of Defense and Yevgeny Prigozhin, who subsequently took over the supervision of the project.

At the same time, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation provided the company with the appropriate territory, a training ground, and supplied the mercenaries with weapons, uniforms, equipment, and ammunition.

“The Ministry of Defense, as a state institution, cannot provide all these things to any paramilitary formation without instructions from above. Naturally, the Minister of Defense and all government agencies participating in this project received orders from above,” says Gabidullin.

According to him, the purpose of creating a private campaign is to maintain the viability of the Novorossiya project. He claims that the so-called “LPR” and “DPR” were too weak and would not have been able to resist the Ukrainian Armed Forces without the help of Russian mercenaries.

“These quasi-states, administrative entities of the LPR/DPR, simply could not resist the Ukrainian armed forces even in the form in which the Armed Forces of Ukraine were at that time. They would have simply been swept away, the problem would have been solved at that stage – they would not have been these… “people’s republics” would not exist,” said the former mercenary.

According to him, the Kremlin ensured the creation of various military formations in eastern Ukraine – from mercenaries of a private military company, “Cossacks” and, for example, a “militia”, which, in fact, consisted mainly of citizens of the Russian Federation.

Gabidullin claims that the local separatists, even having weapons, were unable to resist the Ukrainian Armed Forces, so they would have been defeated very quickly. Moreover, the Kremlin realized that the Gauleiters and their henchmen they appointed were not able to maintain power in the Lugansk and Donetsk regions.

“Even then, in 2014, Russia undertook an intervention on such a limited scale – regular units were introduced into the territory of Ukraine, they also took part in hostilities…” said Gabidullin.

According to him, Prigozhin saw some prospect for himself in the formation of Wagner, in particular, for the implementation of some business projects in certain “unstable” territories.

Gabidullin explained that he then became a mercenary because he was also zombified by Russian propaganda and believed that some “nationalist movement” threatened the Russian-speaking population of Donbass. The man shared his personal impressions of the events he witnessed in 2015. In particular, he was then on his first “business trip” to the territory of Ukraine, to the so-called “Lugansk People’s Republic”. At that time, according to him, the Minsk agreements had already been signed, and no active hostilities were observed.

“I must say that during the 2 months of being in this territory, the realization formed that all this was Russian propaganda… When we were on the line of contact, I saw that the territory controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces was constantly being attacked. Something was burning there all the time …, but on our side everything was calm,” said the ex-mercenary.

He clarified that Russian mercenaries constantly crossed the demarcation line, carried out raids on the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and set up ambushes.

“That is, they literally tormented the defense of the Ukrainian armed forces,” Gabidullin said.

The fate of the Wagner Group

Let us recall that the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov, believes that the information about the dissolution of the Wagner PMC is not true, and the statement about the death of the group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who allegedly died in the Russian Federation in August 2023, cannot be verified.

The Kremlin denies any involvement and says DNA testing proved Prigozhin’s death. But his body was never seen in public.