Life Inside Wagner Before and After Prigozhin
Angry Planet4 Apr 2025

Life Inside Wagner Before and After Prigozhin

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com


For mercenaries, death is a business. It’s all about finding the right market. Wagner and other Russian mercenary groups have found willing markets in Africa. Journalist John Lechner spent years in Africa among the mercenaries and he’s on the show today to tell us about what he learned.


Lechner tells us how Wagner’s men think the U.S. media killed Prigozhin, why every theater (or market) is different, and the training regimen of a fresh convict recruit. It’s all in his new book Death Is Our Business: Mercenaries and the New Era of Private Warfare.


The threats change…but the mercenaries stay the same.


  • Interlinking militant Islam and the rise of modern mercenaries
  • Russian mercenaries before Wagner
  • Prigozhin rising
  • Putin’s Chef was the father of ‘Hybrid War’
  • Wagner in Africa
  • ‘No one said mercenary life was gonna be easy.’
  • Life inside Wagner
  • ‘Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.’
  • You can’t judge intent by results
  • The Russian “royal” court is full of self starters and entrepreneurs


The Tip of Russia’s Spear


Death Is Our Business


Pardoned for Serving in Ukraine, They Return to Russia to Kill Again


Taliban Bureaucrats Hate Working Online All Day, ‘Miss the Days of Jihad’

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