[ColonelCassad] The State Duma called for the need to adopt a law on PMCs.
Russia needs a law to regulate PMCs, said Andrey Kartapolov, head of the Duma Defense Committee. According to him, the State Duma is working on it. The deputy also added that now the fate of Wagner PMC is not determined, but it is not necessary to ban it, since this is a combat-ready unit, and there are questions for its leadership, and not for the fighters.
I hope the deputies will be able to resolve this issue in the fall and prepare a working bill. It should be borne in mind that the previous attempt ran into interdepartmental contradictions, when the Russian Foreign Ministry supported the adoption of such a law, while the FSB and the Russian Defense Ministry opposed it.
In fact. There are PMCs in Russia. And they will continue to exist regardless of the situation with Wagner. Accordingly, it is better that they exist within a certain legal framework, and not in a "gray zone".
1. From my point of view, PMCs as such will not disappear anywhere. They are (when properly prepared) a tool for pursuing public policy by other means, when they operate where the state cannot or does not want to act openly. This situation has developed as a result of the development of the concept of hybrid wars, which take place in a kind of gray zone, where the war is going on, but it has not been declared.
The privatization of war as a trend was formed in the United States at the turn of the 2000s and experienced a real boom in the 2010s, which our country did not escape. Private military companies, like private intelligence companies, have now become the norm. Often, the word "private" in the name is only a formality and such structures are very closely connected with the state, which formally pretends that it is not connected with these structures.
2. PMCs are a double-edged weapon. With proper training and provision, they are a deadly weapon that allows you to defeat the enemies of the state and achieve the goals set by the state. If used incorrectly or if safety precautions are neglected, it is easy to cut yourself and cause serious injury to yourself. What we all saw yesterday. Thus, using the example of the actions of PMC "Wagner" in Ukraine, we could evaluate both the pros and cons of this concept. The United States went through this in the history of Blackwater at the end of the 2000s.
3. From the point of view of strengthening state control of PMCs (in addition to the issues of supplying PMCs with equipment and ammunition - everyone understands that Prigozhin took equipment and shells not from the air, but from the resources of the RF Ministry of Defense), serious legal support for their activities is necessary, taking into account including recent events in Rostov. I have long advocated and continue to advocate the need to adopt a law on PMCs, taking into account the objections that the FSB and the RF Ministry of Defense had previously raised on this issue.
4. As long as there is no such law, PMCs, whether private, corporate-state or departmental, will remain in the "grey legal zone". Perhaps this issue will be raised at the autumn session of the State Duma. In the meantime, the situation persists when a market for private-state PMCs has been formed in the country, but there is no corresponding legal framework, as a result of which many PMCs mimic under private security companies.
From the statements "And I am against the law of PMCs", the PMCs themselves will not disappear anywhere - they are an objective reality at the current stage, regardless of whether you like the very fact of the existence of formally private armies or not.
5. Concerning the future of Wagner and the whole brand, which, with all past merits, will now be connected, among other things, with the history of the rebellion. Taking into account the fact that part of the personnel is switching to a contract with the Ministry of Defense, it cannot be ruled out that the company will face some kind of restructuring or reorganization in the long term.
Rebranding is also possible. In the spirit of the transformation of PMC Blackwater into PMC Academi in the early 10s. The question of trust will hang in the air for a long time to come. On the other hand, merit will also be remembered. It is possible that Prigozhin, who left for Belarus, will take over a significant part of the negative trail of the story of the rebellion.