ContractsProf Blog

Editor: Jeremy Telman
Oklahoma City University
School of Law

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Contracts and the War in Ukraine

This is the sixth in an occasional series of posts about contracts issues that have arisen in connection with the war in Ukraine.  We have covered: a canceled contract with a Russian pianist; insurance claims arising out of Russian cyberattacks; the de-platformization of RT America; Turkey's interpretation of the Montreux Convention; and the exclusion of Russian  racers and sponsors from Formula 1 race teams.   Today, we cover Russia's leading band of mercenaries, the Wagner Group, with the help of Yaroslav Trofimov's reporting in the Wall Street Journal.

Wagner GroupAccording to Trofimov's reporting, the Wagner Group is a private military company owned by Putin associate and Russian oligarch, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is wanted by the FBI for alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.  For his part, Mr. Prigozhin, who has been photographed at Wagner bases in the Donbas region and who was recently awarded the Hero of Russia, Russia's highest honor, says he knows nothing of the group.  

The Wagner Group has become essential to Russia's military campaign in Ukraine, especially since the elite units of Russia's army failed in their mission to take Kyiv and suffered heavy losses early in the war.  The Wagner Group's soldiers, according to the WSJ, have a motivation that ordinary soldiers lack -- high pay.  The base pay is reported to be nearly $6000/month, with bonuses for successful missions and bounties for killing Ukrainian soldiers. 

Wagner is reported to be recruiting aggressively in Russian cities, and such recruitment is necessary, because Wagner units take losses of 10-15% on at least some of their missions.  For example, the Russian assault on the Donbas region stalled when Wagner Group forces were routed in an attempt to cross a river in May.  They re-grouped and, after the Wagner Group took out Ukrainian fortification near Poposna, Russian forces were able to take the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.  Mr. Prigozhin himself is said to be recruiting in Russian prisons, leveraging his own experience that includes ten years in Soviet prisons.  Outsiders note that those being recruited lack military training, and that 200 such recruits have already died in Ukraine.  

Although the Wagner Group owns and operates its own tanks, artillery, air defenses, multiple-launch rocket systems, and aircraft, some argue that it is not really a private army but an integrated component of the Russian military.  Such statements may be motivated by a desire to entitle Wagner Group detainees to POW status under the Geneva Conventions, but given the restrictive definition of the term "mercenary" in Additional Protocol I, Wagner Group members would not likely qualify as mercenaries and thus likely would be treated as combatants upon capture.  

H/t Paula Dalley

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/contractsprof_blog/2022/08/contracts-and-the-war-in-ukraine.html

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