According to researcher Mikko Räkköläinen, many organizations, from large companies to the Orthodox Church, have their own paid armies in Russia. They are subordinated to the command of the armed forces.
Ukrainian military intelligence claims that the Russian president Vladimir Putin the ruling party United Russia has acquired its own paid army. According to military intelligence the mercenary army in question, Espanola, has begun an even stronger recruitment campaign funded by United Russia.
Espanola is a mercenary army originally made up of Russian football hooligans and neo-Nazis who have fought as part of the Russian invasion forces in Ukraine.
Investigator Mikko Räkköläinen The University of Tampere considers it entirely possible that United Russia would have acquired its own paid army.
In Russia, many organizations, from large companies to the space administration, have so-called volunteer forces, or mercenary armies, on the Ukrainian front. In this way, the organizations can show their loyalty to the administration, and on the other hand, the administration gets more fighters into the war without starting a new unpopular campaign.
– If the Russian Orthodox Church has its own volunteer corps, then why wouldn’t United Russia have one as well, Räkköläinen, a researcher familiar with mercenary armies, says.
However, Räkköläinen emphasizes that he has not seen any external confirmation of the Ukrainian military intelligence’s claim so far. It is to Ukraine’s advantage to spread claims that tie the Russian ruling party to the neo-Nazis.
Mercenary armies are under strict control
According to Räkköläinen, it is not of great practical importance that the ruling party would have acquired its own paid army.
It would mainly be about the party funding the troops. It would have no control whatsoever.
Mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin since August’s death and the disbanding of his Wagner forces, Russia has been amassing mercenary armies under a network called Redut.
Redut, on the other hand, is most obviously a cover organization of the Russian military intelligence GRU.
– Redut aims for the same goals as Wagner before. After the Midsummer Uprising, we no longer want an independent political actor like Prigožin to run the troops, says Räkköläinen.
Football hooligans have faded into Espanola
Espanola, allegedly financed by the ruling party, is also known to be part of the Redut network. According to Räkköläinen, it has previously functioned mostly as Redut’s recruitment channel in football hooligan and far-right circles.
Independent According to the Cherta news site Espanola was founded after the Russian invasion in the spring of 2022. Its roots are in the Vostok battalion that has been fighting on the Russian side in Eastern Ukraine since 2014.
The group is apparently named after its commander Stanislav Orlov according to the military name Ispanets, meaning Spanish.
Espanola has featured somewhat in Russian war propaganda. For example state news agency Ria said in August that the former national football team player Andrei Solomatin had joined the ranks of Espanola.
Mercenary armies enable covert recruitment
According to Räkköläinen, the purpose of mercenary armies financed by private entities is to commit the entire Russian society to the war.
They also enable covert recruitment. Russia does not need to start a new and probably very unpopular campaign when it gets soldiers to the front through mercenary armies.
Recruits are attracted to the mercenary army by the higher salary than the regular army staff and the fact that the duration of the contract is only half a year. The contract soldiers are in the ranks until the end of the “special operation”, i.e. the offensive war. By joining the mercenary army, you can also choose whose troops you fight in.
According to Räkköläinen’s estimate, tens of thousands of fighters are fighting in the ranks of mercenary armies in Ukraine. Espanola could be in the hundreds to some thousands in strength.