What raccoons tell us about the changing role of Russia’s violent entrepreneurs

This week, I’ll be focusing on the story of private military company (PMC) ENOT Corp. It was recently revealed that several ENOT members are being released from pre-trial detention and returning to the frontlines in Ukraine — bringing the story of the group full circle. The arc of ENOT’s evolution is a reflection of the changing relationship between Russia’s violent entrepreneurs and the state, and so it’s well worth exploring in more detail.

Here’s what you’ll find in this issue:

• The background and slightly ironic self-presentation of ENOT
• How ENOT’s trajectory mirrors the evolution of violent entrepreneurship
• The events that led to ENOT’s downfall
• ENOT’s return to Ukraine

Russia’s neo-imperial racoons

We can start the story by looking at who ENOT are — and what they are not.

ENOT’s name was an acronym, but the full expansion is mostly a meaningless mash of words: the United People’s Communal Partnerships (yedinyye narodnyye obshchinnyye tovarishchestva). I strongly suspect that it started with the acronym and logo and then chose words to fit.

ENOT called its racoon mascot “Lavrentiy Beria”, in honour of Stalin’s famous henchman. This hodgepodge of references and slightly tongue-in-cheek self representation captures something of the flavour of the group. It was not really a true PMC, in that it never had a true corporate identity or earned much money for its activities. Instead, it blended imperial and anti-immigrant nationalism, Orthodoxy, and paramilitary cosplay in support of a “Russian world” agenda.

ENOT’s trajectory as a microcosm of violent entrepreneurship in modern Russia

ENOT’s trajectory neatly captures the evolution of violent entrepreneurialism in post-2011 Putin’s Russia.

When exactly the group emerged is contest, but it rose to prominence as one of the many Russian volunteer groups that operated in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Unlike Wagner, it did not directly participate in fighting, but instead protected “humanitarian” convoys supplying pro-Russian rebels. It was also involved in the creation of the Russian Union of Donbas Volunteers, an umbrella group uniting separatists.

As Russia became less enamoured of free-wheeling actors and sought to bring groups in Ukraine under tighter control, ENOT switched its attention to providing paramilitary training and “military-patriotic” education to young people. It concentrated its attention on the post-Soviet space, but was also active in the Balkans. Claims that it was active in Libya and Syria don’t stand up to scrutiny, however.

ENOT also began collaborating with the security services, providing muscle to support state-led predation. It got into trouble when it started harassing the wrong person, which resulted in the destruction of the group and the imprisonment of its members. We’ll return to this part of the story in just a moment.

In the most recent developments, its members have become the latest beneficiaries of legal changes that allow convicts and suspects to serve on the front lines in Ukraine — an innovation that came through the efforts of that much better-known PMC, the Wagner Group.

If you’re going to shake someone down, make sure they don't have friends in high places

The twist in ENOT’s story came when the Russian police and Federal Security Service (FSB) started rounding up its members. This part of the story tells us a lot about the relationship between violent entrepreneurs and the state.

The downfall of the group stemmed from its involvement in what was essentially a complicated but low-level effort at state-led extortion.

It starts in December 2016, when Anton Baryakshev, an employee of a Moscow office of the FSB, asks ENOT to support an operation against the Aristarkhov family, which was accused of illegally importing electronic equipment. Officially, ENOT were employed as witnesses and technical specialists. Unofficially, they were there to provide muscle for an illegal shakedown by the security services.

The details of this incident are suggestive of a branch of the security services being upset about not receiving a piece of the pie, rather than concerned about stopping criminality. There were no open criminal charges against the Aristarkhov family at the time, but this didn’t stop the FSB and ENOT walking off with millions of rubles worth of equipment and cash.

There were various other similarly dubious interactions with the security services around the same time. Things turned sour for ENOT, however, when in October 2017 the local FSB recruited them to conduct surveillance on someone accused of bank card fraud.

The problem? The target was himself protected by much more influential figures in the FSB! When they tried to use FSB databases to track his phone and vehicle, they set off a trigger. Then the retribution began, and ENOT swiftly found themselves without patrons or friends.

First, the FSB conducted an internal investigation. Then, two ENOT members were arrested in August 2018 for their involvement in a land dispute. Those two cases then merged to provide the basis for the prosecution of the group. In February 2019, ENOT’s leader, Roman Telenkevich, found himself in prison. By the year’s end, he was joined by a total of 11 people, all facing charges of involvement in a criminal group led by the FSB itself.

And so the racoons found themselves savaged by the werewolves in epaulettes. Telenkevich received a 13-year sentence in March 2022. Anton Baryakshev, one of the FSB officers involved, was among those who were also convicted. Aleksandr Mrishchuk, the other FSB officer, and four ENOT members won a temporary reprieve when they were cleared by a military court. The military prosecutor’s office, however, won an appeal and the case was sent for retrial.

Back to the future (or back to Ukraine)

That retrial will now not happen. On 25 February, business daily Kommersant reported that the four ENOT members had signed contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defence. Thus, they become the latest people to take advantage of new rules that allow suspects (as opposed to convicts) to be released from prison to wage Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Telenkevich, as a convict, had taken advantage of this option much earlier. Mrishchuk, however, remains behind bars. The FSB man is presumably less enamoured of war zones.

Thus, the ENOT story has come full circle: it started with adventurism in Ukraine, and it ends with considerably less freedom in the same conflict zone.

This is, in many ways, a microcosm of the PMC story — even if ENOT wasn’t really a PMC. Bottom-up innovation gives way to efforts at state control; the promotion of Russian interests merges effortlessly with criminality; and rehabilitation is won through involvement in Russia’s war on Ukraine.

What it shows us is the value of looking at some of the actors on the periphery of the PMC world. Wagner, understandably enough, has attracted the lion's share of attention. But racoon's deserve their share too.