Jun 15, 2026 · 6 min · 4 segments
We take a look at the 2023 mutiny of the Wagner Group and the history of Prigozhin's outfit. We’re joined by John Lechner, author of DEATH IS OUR BUSINESS, a book about the PMC. Hit the tip line…
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Liz FranczakHostBut that, but that's what I always try to, try to do in the book too, is, um, like I, I, I think it's important no matter what you cover, especially if you want to cover or kind of engage in, uh, looking, analyzing, or looking at other societies that are foreign to your own, is that it's a much, it's a much better...
You'll learn a lot more by, by looking at how like a political economy or a system works and saying like, "Oh, what is kind of the equivalent for us?" Right?
And then once you start thinking about, "Well, what's equivalent, equivalent for us?" You start real- realizing that incentives are kind of incentives everywhere.
Um, and, and so it, it, it's kind of not surprising, I think, that to switch from a, um, from a command economy essentially to a market economy, uh, there, there...
Even if you could have, there hasn't been really a lot of time for things to become institutionalized, and so, uh, corruption feels a lot more like personalized still in Russia, where you're, where you're speaking about y- still about individuals as kind of embodying a specific institution or a specific patronage network in a way that like doesn't make as much sense, uh, in the, in the US because we have such longstanding institutions.
And a lot of the things that we would look at in Russia as, as sort of corruption, we, i- is now a euphemism here in terms of like the revolving door and-
And, and like the revolving door makes sense, uh, and, a- and why the revolving door exists, right? And the, the thing that was always so strange about, especially at the height of whenev- in 2023, right? Everyone's like, "What is Wagner?" And they're asking me like, "What is Wagner? Is it, is it a, just the arm of the Kremlin or is it a private entity?" And I'm like, "It's both." I, I'm sitting here in Russ- in, in Washington DC right now, right? This is the, this is the capital of public-private partnerships, right? Lockheed Martin is a, a, a private company that absolutely defined is dedicated to increasing shareholder value.
But they would never, they would never say that, right? They, they always are framing what they do as furthering America's greater national security, uh, interests, right? And, and, and why wouldn't you, if you're Lockheed Martin, hire, uh, someone from, uh, DoD, DoW, whatever you wanna call it? Because those are the people who are gonna be best positioned to sell y- to, to sell to the government.
They, Wagner, we can talk into how it was created, but of course Wagner had straddled, uh, the, the, the public and private space.
Just like any, any company, uh, here in, in the US that has kind of any touches in any way upon weapons or violence will have to have some sort of level of integration with the US government too.
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But that, but that's what I always try to, try to do in the book too, is, um, like I, I, I think it's important no matter what you cover, especially if you want to cover or kind of engage in, uh, looking, analyzing, or looking at other societies that are foreign to your own, is that it's a much, it's a much better...
You'll learn a lot more by, by looking at how like a political economy or a system works and saying like, "Oh, what is kind of the equivalent for us?" Right?
And then once you start thinking about, "Well, what's equivalent, equivalent for us?" You start real- realizing that incentives are kind of incentives everywhere.
Um, and, and so it, it, it's kind of not surprising, I think, that to switch from a, um, from a command economy essentially to a market economy, uh, there, there...
Even if you could have, there hasn't been really a lot of time for things to become institutionalized, and so, uh, corruption feels a lot more like personalized still in Russia, where you're, where you're speaking about y- still about individuals as kind of embodying a specific institution or a specific patronage network in a way that like doesn't make as much sense, uh, in the, in the US because we have such longstanding institutions.
And a lot of the things that we would look at in Russia as, as sort of corruption, we, i- is now a euphemism here in terms of like the revolving door and-
And, and like the revolving door makes sense, uh, and, a- and why the revolving door exists, right? And the, the thing that was always so strange about, especially at the height of whenev- in 2023, right? Everyone's like, "What is Wagner?" And they're asking me like, "What is Wagner? Is it, is it a, just the arm of the Kremlin or is it a private entity?" And I'm like, "It's both." I, I'm sitting here in Russ- in, in Washington DC right now, right? This is the, this is the capital of public-private partnerships, right? Lockheed Martin is a, a, a private company that absolutely defined is dedicated to increasing shareholder value.
But they would never, they would never say that, right? They, they always are framing what they do as furthering America's greater national security, uh, interests, right? And, and, and why wouldn't you, if you're Lockheed Martin, hire, uh, someone from, uh, DoD, DoW, whatever you wanna call it? Because those are the people who are gonna be best positioned to sell y- to, to sell to the government.
They, Wagner, we can talk into how it was created, but of course Wagner had straddled, uh, the, the, the public and private space.
Just like any, any company, uh, here in, in the US that has kind of any touches in any way upon weapons or violence will have to have some sort of level of integration with the US government too.
