The Russians were working for a paramilitary company called Wagner, which has hundreds of contractors on the ground in Syria, helping both the Russian military and pro-regime forces. ... Ruslan Leviev, an activist with the Conflict Intelligence Team in Moscow, a group that monitors Russian involvement in Syria, told CNN that while estimates of the number of varies, "we lean towards 20 to 30 of dead Russian citizens."
As the media’s attention was centered on Russia’s "Wagner private military company", our team looked into a new unit called the "Turan PMC". Information about a "new private military company" first appeared in April. However, for a long time no conclusive proof of its existence had been published.
According to first posts, the group’s fighters came from ex-Soviet Central Asian and Caucasus states. According to an article on a pro-Kremlin blog "Russkaya Vesna", the unit would conduct "anti-guerilla operations".
The Hollywood image of a professional mercenary, the mysterious "Wagner PMC" who assassinated unruly commanders in Eastern Ukrainian Kremlin-backed "Luhansk republic", as well as partial freezing of the Donbas war which made lots of separatist fighters lose their "jobs", led to new "private military companies" allegedly sprouting since 2015, as posts on social media claimed. "MAR PMC", "E.N.O.T. Corp", "Cossacks" etc. were mostly formed by former fighters who failed to adapt to civilian life. A closer look showed that those groups mostly were security firms or training centers, not full-fledged "private military companies". None of them took part in actual fighting on anyone’s payroll. While at first the "Turan PMC" seemed to be one of those "dud groups", photos have been surfacing since November 2017 which warrant closer attention: ... more
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