The relationship between PMCs and the state

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State relations

Varese (2001:59): “In an effort to raise money and reduce the outflow of quality personnel to private security agencies, the state itself started to sell private protection. In 1989, the Interior Ministry (MVD) issued an order allowing local Soviet policemen to enter into contracts with the co-operatives to provide security services for commercial establishments.”

Volkov (2002:26): “The image of the state as one private protection company among others does more justice to the reality in question than a view of the state as the source of public power.”

Volkov (2002:123): “At a certain point, alliances with local authorities became necessary for the efficient protection of invest­ments. However weak and fragmented the rule of law, state justice and en­forcement remained a potent instrument of authorities at various levels and as such could not be ignored by other participants.”

Volkov (2002:124): “As the lead­ership of economically more successful groups integrates into the legal busi­ness world and develops relations with political authorities, many of the mid-level and especially rank-and-file members of their groups become ob­solete. Former criminal authorities now prefer to retain lawyers and hire state police and security to enforce contracts and protect their businesses.”

Volkov (2002:127): “The role of the state is often seen by scholars in negative terms in connection with corruption and rent-seeking as the con­version of administrative capital. The opportunistic behavior of bureaucrats at various levels and arbitrary administrative actions have only further un­ derscored the way the state has withered away as a public governing institu­tion.”

Volkov (2002:127): Talks of “the quiet conversion of large segments of state ‘power ministries’ into a private pro­tection industry. The high coercive potential of the former Soviet state, which became redundant with the major international and internal changes, was unlikely to disappear overnight but rather altered its institutional form. The conversion of the state's coercive and information-gathering capacity into a marketable asset required new organizational forms compatible with the changing economic system, in which the state was no longer the primary owner. Private protection and secutity companies thus emerged, staffed by former state security and police employees.”

Volkov (2002:127-128): “The creation of a private security industry did not appear on the agenda of those who designed Russian reforms. Rather, a combination of short­-term political decisions aimed at reducing the power and capacity of the old Soviet state security institutions, adaptive responses of the state security personnel to these policies, and the institutional demands of emerging mar­kets led to the rapid formation of this new business sector. Unlike the pri­vatization of the economy, which was the primary reform plan from the start, the privatization of protection and enforcement came as an unin­tended and ambiguous development.”

Volkov (2002:132): FSB allowed for assigned staff (prikomandirovannye sotrudniki) - people placed within enterprises and organisations while still formally employed by the organisation. “This provision allowed thousands of acting security officers to hold positions in private companies and banks as ‘legal consultants,’ as the position was modestly called. Using their ties with the state organizations and information resources of the FSB, they performed what has become known as ‘roof’ functions - protecting against extortion and cheating by criminal groups and facilitating relations with the state bureaucracy.”

Volkov (2002:132-133): “A long-term solution for the commercial use of the personnel and of the informational and technical resources of the KGB and MVD was found by legalizing the informal security and rule enforcement business. The legal framework for such activities was provided by the federal law on private de­tective and protection activity" adopted on 11 March 1992 and the special government decree of 14 August 1992, which specified certain aspects of its application. Also on 14 August, the MVD adopted the ‘Regulations on Ex­tradepartmental Protection,’ which allowed local directorates to set up spe­cial protection subdivisions and emergency response groups operating on a commercial basis. The latter solution provided local MVD branches with a stable source of extrabudgetary support and made them even less dependent on the central authorities.”

One-reason why an actor like Prigozhin was able to become influential and establish his personal fiefdom was that there was space to do so. He was operating in the foreign policy arena, "where there are server interested parties than in domestic affairs" (Lo, 2015:10), and in the sphere of military operations, in which the country's supreme decision-maker, Putin, has shown limited interest in details (Lo, 2015:9)

United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (2024:14): “These entities receive political backing and diplomatic support in the countries in which they operate and often from where they originate, and their activities may be an extension of State foreign policy. In an oft-repeated pattern, mercenaries and related actors arrive in-country shortly after military cooperation agreements or other State-to-State bilateral agreements. The diplomatic efforts pave the way for the proxies in the form of mercenaries and related actors who then participate in the armed conflict and commit violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, including war crimes, such as the indiscriminate targeting of civilians.”