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Guest: John Lechner, writer & researcher

We're joined by John Lecher, author of the new book "Death Is Our Business: Russian Mercenaries and the New Era of Private Warfare" about the infamous Wagner Group and its co-founders, Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin.

*Buy John's book "Death Is Our Business" (Bloomsbury Books), and John's "Beginner's Chechen" language course. Follow John on Twitter.

*Dmitry Utkin, co-founder of Wagner

Total time: 1:37:57Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

*

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Sound production by Telescope Audio

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Files

Comments

Pay

Utkin jump scare

NYCM&AHole

Dude looks like he belongs in some German metal band like Rammstein.

NYCM&AHole

Seriously disappointed that there was no play on the megadeth album “killing is my business, and business is good”

NYCM&AHole

Actually dude looks like Wolf Hoffmann of ACCEPT

etienne

peace sells, and really absolutely no one is buying

NYCM&AHole

I believe that’s blackmail the universe by megadeth

Hans Anders

Utkin looks like a 60 year old who lost his mom at the mall

a clash of purple

To me he looks like if one of the Harkonnen soldiers in the new Dune films grew some body hair.

Nosreffej

He looks like Danny Devito covered in hand sanitizer from that episode of Always Sunny

etienne

military intelligence two words combined that can't make sense possibly I've seen too much hanger 18 I know too much

Peter Z

I'm thinking nude William Sadler as Colnel Stuart at the start of Die Hard 2.

Jennifer Wiren

With Ukraine turning out to be such a quagmire Russia took its eye off the ball when it came time to back Assad. And I think Trump cares more about Syria than Ukraine, and I think if Zelensky is smart he'd play that connection up.

William

Is Ukraine a quagmire for Russia though? Pre-surovikin, I definitely think so, but in the last six months seems like it’s more a quagmire for Ukraine

Jennifer Wiren

I mean initially, yes. They wanted an armoured blitz and that didn't happen. Now it's more attrition based and less of a quagmire.

William

No one’s saying it, but there’s a bit of a visual similarity between John and the two founders of Wagner. Have they been seen in the same room together, ever?

IRIDYSCENZIA

You have a very unique and original vision 💖 nice work

Google Hushabye Vally

he looks like the type of psychotic murder who'd immediately fold in response to competant self defense.

NYCM&AHole

The album Endgame grew on me over the past presidential administrations

Jack Sylvia

Utkin really looks like an evil Doc Brown 😅

etienne

he lost me with that stupid song about how the cops needs more guns to catch criminals. like i know he was always Like That but that was just annoying

NYCM&AHole

Was that United abominations?

William

I think what’s critically underrated, is the need these global powers have, for soldiers with combat experience. Arguably it’s why the French are still somewhat relevant

William

Donbass? Never heard of her. They friends of your?

a clash of purple

I wonder how the people who accuse RWN of being Russia-stans would react if they knew that John Dolan was secretly Prigozhin and also Utkin at the same time, somehow. And also they're all just alter egos of Gary Brecher, who was the real person all along.

etienne

44 Minutes. just like the one point in history where Dave went from an interesting crank to just a run off the mill chud

NYCM&AHole

Oh I always figured that was just a song about the crazy ass north Hollywood bank shootout. That was such a wild time in the 90s.

Stephen Norrie

The Uncle Fester appreciation society achieved a lot.

Matt McCartney

Just a coupla industrious Uruk-hai trying to move up in the world.

NYCM&AHole

LOOKS LIKE MEATS BACK ON THE MENU

Chubby Justin

he looks like you could snap a bat over his head and he'd turn around and look at you like you've done something wrong

Shfifty_five

"You Pinkman? Goodman sent me"

J P 3

Great episode. The movie treatment strikes me as more Cohen Brothers (Fargo in particular) than Shakespeare (closest being Titus Andronicus played properly -- as a comedy).

Doug Cartel

Я пума is neat to watch for 5 seconds but you gotta wonder when that cat is going to go apeshit

Doug Cartel

"He lived his life like it was a movie" - basically a weeb who thinks video games are real life, but it's not considered childish because movies have been around for a century

CR

I was just thinking the same thing.

CR

Or nude Michael Rooker in Mallrats

xnfec

Weren't the Mamluks Circassian?

Dill Gherkin

When I hear Russian PMC I think it’s referring to the Professional Managerial Class.

parker

No they we're a bunch of different Caucasian ethnicity similar to the janissaries except much more variety because they basically just grabbed any slave who was in good shape.

Liquidated Damages

Michigan mentioned! I have to wonder how Hillsdale of all places became such an assembly line of ghouls. Is there any other small college like it?

j

Thank you for the episode. I remember following the minutia of the separatist stuff way back on obscure blogs… totally forgot about the connection to the internet research agency too. What weird sh*t it has all been.

Dissipatio

Always fun to hear the cat adventures. If you’ve got an outdoor cat you can mitigate cat on bird genocide by building kitty an enclosed “Catio”.

Mark Ames

got one of them to love going in a cat backpack for walks, but having a hard time getting him to accept the harness/leash

Mark Ames

thanks, she's getting her staples removed today, full recovery and now fully aware that felines ain't horses you ride