Hiring a sword

The use of the militants of the private military company Wagner in the Syrian war cost from 5.1 to 10.3 billion rubles. Such calculations are given by RBC with reference to the data provided by a number of sources.

Part of the expenses - which one, is not specified - the state took upon itself. The rest of the financing was provided by some "high -ranking businessmen", whose names the interlocutors of the publication refused to name even with the offsires turned off.

Wagner militants are training in military unit No. 51532 on the Molkino farm in the line of the Kuban city of Goryachiy Key - the base of the 10th separate brigade of the GRU special forces. He does not pay for the rental of buildings and the PMC.

In several tenders, the firms of Megaline and Teplsintez, associated with the St. Petersburg oligarch Evgeny Prigozhin, participated in the maintenance of the NPS-51532. Another company related to the oligarch is the “restaurant plus” - published an announcement about the recruitment of employees in the canteen of the military base.

Prigozhin is called "Putin's personal restaurateur." Concord M, owned by the oligarch, is one of the main power suppliers to manage the Presidential Affairs.

In Syria, Wagner PMC appeared shortly until September 30, 2015, when Russia openly intervened in the war in the Middle Eastern country. In the vicinity of Latakia - the birthplace of Syria, the Assad clan - and Aleppo almost 2.5 thousand Russian militants were placed. They were led by the transfer of GRU and the FSB.

Salary mercenaries are paid in cash and are not officially issued. Purchases of weapons and equipment are classified.

Regarding the salaries of militants in the Kuban base, it is reported that, according to different interlocutors, they amounted to from 60 to 80 thousand rubles. The average employment salary in Syria, according to the military - the source of the publication, is 150 thousand rubles; Given the combat and compensation, the total amount rarely exceeds 250-300 thousand. Another interlocutor speaks a sum of up to 500 thousand rubles, not counting the bonus.

It is on Wagner’s militants, according to RBC sources, that the main losses of Russia are killed and wounded. Different interlocutors call the number of those killed different: one speaks of 27 dead, the other is at least about 100. Meanwhile, the driver of the North -Humanities -51532 claims that the mercenaries make up only half of the dead and a third of the wounded in Syria.

Compensation to the relatives of the dead militants are, according to various sources, from 1 to 5 million rubles (5 million - standard compensation to the family of the deceased military personnel). It is noted that money for relatives of mercenaries, not officially executed, has to knock out. Compensation for the injury is, as claimed, 500 thousand rubles.

In early August, the British Sky News television channel gave other data on the number of dead mercenaries - it was reported that the number of killed militants is from 500 to 600 . Meanwhile, the information about salaries in Wagner's PMC published similar ones - the TV channel reported that it draws up an equivalent of 3 thousand pounds, that is, about 250 thousand rubles.

On the connection of Wagner's PMCs with Prigozhin's structures and the "troll factory" in June wrote Fontanka.ru. After that, the site of the publication was subjected to DDOS-Atak, several journalists were installed, and in addition, the unknown tried to find out the personal data of the author of the article .

The day before, the Foundation for the fight against corruption appealed to the FSB demanding to initiate a case against Prigozhin on the fact of an illegal conspiracy during tenders for the repair of objects of the Ministry of Defense. In January, the FBC already stated that the firms affiliated with the oligarch illegally received more than 40 billion rubles from the military department to provide soldiers and officers with food, as well as for energy and water supply of military bases.