Giles, Keir and Valeriy Akimenko
2019
Use and Utility of Russia’s Private Military Companies
Journal of Future Conflict
Russia’s use of non-state military organisations to provide outsourced expeditionary military forces is currently the focus of intense interest. Internationally, this is because of concern over the potential for abuse of this new element of state power by Russia and the rapid growth in the number of theatres where it has been employed. Since the use of Russian PMCs was reported first in Crimea and east Ukraine, and later more prominently in Syria, the span of their presence has widened considerably, from Libya and a range of African nations to Venezuela. Russia's extensive use of non-state actors to perform a wide range of functions including information warfare, intelligence collection, logistics, subversion, destabilisation and now combat appears set to continue and increase as Russia probes for weaknesses and opportunities and expands the boundaries of permissible action.
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