 front line,' he barked. 'If you retreat, we will shoot you immediately. If you disobey an order, we will shoot you immediately. 15 Immortalised thanks to their role in the Ukrainian conflict, Wagner operates all over the globe Credit: Reuters 15 Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash earlier this month Credit: AP 'But if you survive for six months you'll be pardoned and can go home.' It could have been a scene from the 1967 war film The Dirty Dozen — in which convicts were promised their freedom if they took part in a World War Two suicide mission. But the 21st-century mercenary business needs no help from Hollywood in depicting greed, brutality and bloody mayhem — and right now, business is booming. Governments, private corporations and even terrorist groups are all hiring mercenary paramilitaries. They are cheaper and more flexible than state-run armies , and offer deniability if things go wrong. And they can squirm out of accusations of human rights abuses far more easily than governments can. From Yemen to Ukraine, Iraq to Afghanistan , modern warfare is increasingly fought with private armies. And a belligerent Russia has long seen the strategic sense of using them alongside its regular forces. Prigozhin was given a traitor's send-off — blasted from the skies on board his private jet , likely on the orders of Vladimir Putin . But his Wagner mercenary group has proved a useful asset to the Russian president, meddling in conflicts across Africa and the Middle East. 'Covert and lethal' Wagner rose to prominence in 2014 when its paramilitaries joined Russian forces' so-called little green men occupying Ukraine's Crimea region. In khaki, unmarked uniforms or disguised as pro-Russian separatists, they allowed the Kremlin to suggest they were part of a local militia. Working){kind=link}
IN a windswept Russian prison yard, hundreds of lags crowded around mercenary warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin as he set out his pitiless recruitment terms.
“We will put you straight on the (Ukraine) front line,” he barked. “If you retreat, we will shoot you immediately. If you disobey an order, we will shoot you immediately.
“But if you survive for six months you’ll be pardoned and can go home.”
It could have been a scene from the 1967 war film The Dirty Dozen – in which convicts were promised their freedom if they took part in a World War Two suicide mission.
But the 21st-century mercenary business needs no help from Hollywood in depicting greed, brutality and bloody mayhem – and right now, business is booming.