General Pierre Schillle, Chief of Staff of the French Army in Villepinte on June 13, 2022. Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP
General Pierre Schill predicts that this model of private military company will develop after the group’s deployment in Africa and Ukraine.
The group of Russian mercenaries Wagner, deployed in several African countries and on the front in Ukraine, is “a formidable adversary» and a model that goes «grow“, estimated this Monday the chief of staff of the French army.
“Let’s look at the Wagner militia, the demonstration they’re doingobserved General Pierre Schill during a meeting with the Association of Defense Journalists (AJD). “They send us a message telling us (that) when we have to face these militias elsewhere, they are able to pay very expensive blood money to achieve their objectives and it will be a formidable opponent.“, he added.
Major role alongside the Russian military
Wagner has established itself in recent months as a major auxiliary to the Russian army in Ukraine, particularly on the front line in the battle of Bakhmout (east). On Sunday, its leader Evguéni Prigojine claimed to have taken the town of Krasna Hora, a few kilometers north of this large city in the Donetsk region. “A year ago, I insisted on hybrid warfare, around the threshold of conflictuality (…), of the influence of the message sent (…). Wagner and this type of tool used by the Russians, it is exactly a tool of this threshold, which will inevitably developinsisted General Schill.
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“Are all private military companies equal or will they be equal? Probably not, there is a degree of state support behind“, he said, referring to the strong ties between Yevgeny Prigojine and Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Wagner, because he is struggling to get his place in the Kremlin one way or another, paying a huge price, asks us questions and tells us that he is a formidable opponent.“, he insisted.
The Wagner group has also established itself in recent years in the Central African Republic and in Mali, although Bamako denies this, each time accompanied by the withdrawal of the French forces deployed there, testifying to a form of strategic downgrading and the collapse of French influence in Africa. The group is suspected of also trying to establish itself in Burkina, where Paris must withdraw in the coming weeks, at the request of the ruling junta, its special forces installed there since 2008.
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“Change of Era”
On a planetary scale, according to General Schill, the Russian invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago has not finished delivering its geostrategic consequences. “We are probably at a change of era of the same magnitude as that of the fall of the Berlin wall“, he affirmed, referring to changes “which took several years to materialize and marked three decades“.
“We have seen an increase in the use of force by a number of Stateshe noted, referring to China and Iran. “There is a questioning of international law as it has been crystallized since the Second World War. A number of countries tell us: your right is contingent, western, we contest it“.
With regard to France’s strategy, which discusses the next Military Programming Law (LPM, 2024-2030), the war in Ukraine leads to adjustments in needs but not to a questioning of the choices made by the Army, according to General Schill. It is about notnot build for 2030 an Army necessary for 2022“, he said, but more means are needed to “command, support and support“.
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The objective of having 1,872 Griffon armored vehicles, 978 Serval light armored vehicles, 300 Jaguars and 200 Leclerc tanks renovated as part of the Scorpion program by 2030 therefore remains. But “a certain number of Serval or Griffon, instead of being infantry vehicles, will be support and support vehicles“, in particular equipped with ground-to-air defense systems, he explained.
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