BBC: Forgotten Tablet Reveals Secrets Of Russian Mercenaries In Libya

Sergey Kron

Let us make a reservation right away that the British, publishing their investigation, warned that the material evidence that came to them "presumably" belonged to Russian mercenaries.

There was no information on the tablet that could indicate the identity of the owner. Nevertheless, London claims that the electronic device gives an idea of the scale of the Wagner group's operations in Libya and suggests that the PMCs are "supported at the highest level in Moscow", despite the Russian authorities' consistent denial of any ties with Wagner...

The authors of the material rightly noted that the Wagner PMC does not officially exist - mercenary activities are prohibited by Russian and international law. However, according to various estimates, over the past seven years at least one contract with Wagner was signed by up to 10 thousand people.

So, according to the BBC, in early February, the editorial office rang out a call and told reporters: in the war zone in western Libya, soldiers found a Samsung tablet forgotten by someone. It probably belonged to one of the retreating Russian mercenaries who fought on the side of the rebellious General Khalifa Haftar and against the UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) of Libya.

When the tablet was delivered to London, it was placed in a special case that blocks the signal so that it would not be possible to track the location or remotely erase the data in the device.

There were dozens of files in the tablet's memory - from instructions for installing anti-personnel mines and making improvised explosive devices to filming from reconnaissance drones. But the most interesting were the military maps of the combat zones, "marked in Russian".

Most of the marks were concentrated around the southern outskirts of Tripoli, Ain Zara, where Wagner fighters fought government forces in February-May 2020.

However, when you zoom in on the maps, you can see red dots marked with words similar to the call signs of the fighters. Could it be colleagues of the owner of the lost tablet?

"We compared this with the Myrotvorets base compiled by Ukrainian volunteers, where along with the call signs the names of the alleged PMC fighters are indicated, as well as with the UN report published in the media on the presence of the Wagner group in Libya. Thus, one of the callsigns from the tablet - "Broom" may belong to the 36-year-old Russian citizen Fyodor Metelkin, originally from the North Caucasus. His personal number is M-1913. This most likely means that he joined Wagner quite a long time ago - five or six years ago. Then the group participated in the battles on the side of the self-proclaimed republics in eastern Ukraine", - the authors of the investigation said.

The BBC was told about the same by two former Wagnerites, with whom they managed to talk on condition of anonymity.

One of them said that at any time during the period of active hostilities from September 2019 to July 2020, up to 1,000 Wagner fighters were in Libya.

PMCs do not have any official registration, and mercenaries are not employed in it: Instead, as former fighters of the group explain, they enter into short-term contracts with small one-day companies for specific work, for example, protecting oil wells. Then the mercenaries are tested for physical fitness and reliability, after which they are sent to the unofficial training camp "Wagner" near Krasnodar, located next to a military base.

As it became known to the BBC, in the past six months, two new necessary conditions have appeared for employment in PMCs: firstly, all fighters must now undergo compulsory vaccination against COVID-19. The second condition was good teeth, so some boys have to remove 3-4 teeth before going on foreign business trips so that the medical commission does not find fault with them, said one of the fighters.

After passing a medical examination, a polygraph and a brief physical training, the fighters are sent to zones of various conflicts. Payment depends on how dangerous the conditions of the business trip are. The least dangerous type of business trip is the protection of objects or individuals.

And hostilities in which you can die are designated as a "red" zone. The mercenaries themselves understand that in case of death, their bodies may not be returned to their homeland.

One of the former fighters stressed that the main motivation of both the Wagner PMC as a whole and of individual mercenaries is money. Many come from the provinces, where it is difficult to find decent paid work. While the average salary in small towns remains at the level of 20-30 thousand rubles, the salary for work at Wagner may exceed the average in the city by 10 times.

As it turned out, many PMC fighters have criminal records, which is why they cannot enlist in the army or get a job in law enforcement agencies.

According to one of the former mercenaries, the Wagnerites do not have rules governing the relations of fighters with the local population: "Everything is at the mercy of circumstances and everyone's personal understanding of how to act in certain situations".

Speaking about the treatment of prisoners, the second former Wagnerian openly admitted that a person can be killed if he is of no value as an informant: "No one is going to feed them again".

Another legacy of "Wagner" in Libya, which is indicated by the tablet that got to the British - minefields.

- On one of the maps, we found black dots - mined positions, some of which are marked with the names of the mines themselves - for example, OZM - or words like "mined area". In some cases, the points are labeled with the callsigns of the fighters who may be responsible for these positions. In this context, in particular, the callsign of Fedor Metelkin - "Broom" is encountered.

In total, the BBC counted 35 points on the map that belong to mined positions - most of them are located in residential areas of Ain Zara.

In addition to the tablet, the journalists also received a 10-page document - an application for weapons and equipment, dated January 19, 2020. The list, which probably fell into the hands of the Libyans during the fighting in southern Tripoli, was given to the BBC by a Libyan intelligence source studying Wagner's operations in Libya and, in particular, the role of mercenaries in the offensive against the capital.

In the upper corner of the document under the word "I approve" there is a signature - the initials "DU" and the number 9. The same initials are found on Libyan documents and, presumably, refer to a man named Dmitry Utkin.

Utkin, the former commander of a special forces unit of the GRU of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, is considered the founder and chief leader of PMC Wagner, he is also called the "Ninth". He was previously known as "Wagner", the BBC notes.

On the second page of the "Mozambican" application, the signature "DU" is again found, but this time at the top of the document, the addressee is Euro Policy LLC. It is a Russian company that has been developing oil and gas fields in Syria. Journalists connect "Euro Policy" with the St. Petersburg businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin.

In a BBC commentary, Prigozhin said he had nothing to do with Euro Policy or Wagner. “I have not heard anything about the violation of human rights in Libya by the Russians and I am sure that this is an absolute lie,” the businessman added.

In January 2020, President Vladimir Putin was asked about the presence of Russian mercenaries in Libya, to which he replied: "If there are Russian citizens there, they do not represent the interests of the Russian state and do not receive money from the Russian state".

“The presence in Libya of the Wagner PMC fighters, who, according to numerous media reports, are financed by businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, is a reality”, - Russian political scientist Konstantin Eggert told Novye Izvestia. - Data on this can be found in a report recently presented to the UN by a group of independent observers. According to this document, from 800 to 1200 mercenaries from the Wagner group are fighting on the side of the commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA), Khalifa Haftar. It would seem that not such a large figure. But if we are talking about highly qualified military specialists in the service of a decisive general, under whose command there are enough military personnel plus money, then this is a serious force. By the way, it turns out that the number of Wagnerians in Libya is much less than the number of Soviet military advisers in the Libyan armed forces of the era of Muammar Gaddafi. This is understandable: Khalifa Haftar does not buy Russian military equipment on the scale to which the leader of the Libyan Jamahiriya acquired it. He does not need the masses of "khabirov" to serve it, as well as train the often almost illiterate privates and sergeants, and even officers, how to handle some MIG or air defense complex.

Haftar's fighters are well paid and well motivated. They already have or are rapidly gaining combat experience with different weapons systems. Russian mercenaries probably teach people from the LNA and this. But, most likely, they are needed by the general, who is fighting with the internationally recognized government of Libya, for another. This is probably all that concerns intelligence, as well as assistance to commanders on the ground in operational and tactical planning plus sabotage operations, the expert believes.

A former employee of the Russian special forces, reserve colonel Nikolay Polyansky told Novye Izvestia that the material of the BBC journalists can hardly be called an investigation. It is felt that the text was written by people far from military affairs. And the facts are not enough! The journalists found someone's tablet full of outdated information about the PMC fighters, some secret call signs and the real names of the Wagnerites. In tablets, let it be known, such information is not kept. And why carry your tablet to the battlefield! It seems that they took all the information from open sources and dumped it into one heap. Or they just came up with it! Open the official website of the Wagner group and you will see that it contains photographs and information about the PMC fighters. So, guys, there was no sensation!