Combatant from the Russian mercenary group tied to ‘Putin’s chef’ grants Meduza the first interview of its kind
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The Wagner private military company (PMC) entered the war in Syria in 2015. Since then, it has been involved in a dozen localized conflicts around the world. Despite its hundreds of mercenaries killed in action, direct confrontation with the U.S. military, and reported links to the Kremlin, it remains a very secretive organization. Meduza has managed to find a person willing to give the first-ever interview about the Wager PMC in his own name — that person is Marat Gabidullin, who started out as an rank-and-file Wagner combatant and rose to become the commander of a reconnaissance company.
During his four years with the Wagner group, Gabidullin secretly received a state award, survived a serious injury, and even managed to write a memoir — a book which he claims is entirely nonfictional (only the protagonists’ call signs have been changed). Speaking to Meduza special correspondent Liliya Yapparova, Gabidullin described the experiences behind his memoir, how he came to the decision to go public about authoring the book, and why he hopes the publication will bring the Wagner PMC’s alleged owner — Russian catering magnate Evgeny Prigozhin, also known as “Putin’s Chef” — “to his senses.”