Wagner uses convicts with minimal training or even military experience. The volunteers receive as little as three weeks training. In Butusov’s words: ‘It should be recognized as an advantage of “Wagner” that the PMK command plans combat operations taking into account the real capabilities of its personnel. The tasks are set as primitive as possible.’ This is one of the main factors for ‘success’, albeit success is relative when the cost is hundreds of casualties.
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Wagner makes ‘massive’ use of 152mm artillery, tanks firing in direct or indirect fire mode, and Lancet kamikaze drones to soften a defensive position. Some attacks may be supported by an air strike or attack aviation. ‘Armoured vehicles [tanks/AFVs] in the vast majority of cases do not accompany the infantry, [but] protect themselves from damage, and work from a distance.’
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These are costly infantry attacks in the style of World War I. The all arms assault familiar to a British soldier is rarely witnessed. The reason why the tank was invented is lost.
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Wagner reprises the Russian penal battalions of the war. High losses are accepted. More convicts can always be recruited (according to Russian researchers ‘the probable number of prisoners recruited for the war in the Russian Federation is up to 23,000 people’). There are no social or political consequences (‘It’s either prisoners or your sons’). The dead are not accounted or even recovered. The maimed chance their luck with compensation payments that are not always paid. Butusov explains: ‘Losses do not reduce the combat effectiveness of units, as commanders and staffs of units, weapons operators, intelligence and control remain a permanent composition that is not expended in assault actions.’
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Like the Red Army penal battalions, discipline is punitive. ’Independent withdrawal is allowed only for the wounded. Voluntary departure without a command or without injury is punishable by shooting on the spot.’
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