A large force of Russia’s Wagner Group is heading to Ukraine, leaving the Russians vulnerable in other parts of the world as negotiations over the entire conflict continue. Before we go any further, you should understand that the Wagner Group purports to be a “private security organization”–what you and I might otherwise call mercenaries. Plenty of groups like this exist around the world, but with an emphasis on private.

The Wagner Group has many ties to Russian military intelligence (still known by its former acronym GRU) and tends to pop up in places where Russian interests are best served by individuals with some degree of plausible deniability of links to Russian national leadership. We’ve seen them most notably in Ukraine’s Donbas region, Syria, and Libya, but they’ve been active everywhere from Venezuela to the Central African Republic to Mozambique. And now they’re operating in Ukraine.

It looks like they’re gonna be concentrated in moving forward in places like Mariupol specifically so that the Russians can kill as many people as possible, especially civilians, while also saying that these folks are not part of the Russian government. 

The Wagner Group affords Vladimir Putin the flexibility to pursue Russian interests without attracting too much pushback, both from the international community and from within the Russian state. As a result, Russia’s been able to play in a wide range of theaters far from the immediate realm of Russia’s borders.

At least, they used to be able to do so. With the recalling and redeployment of Wagner Group forces back to the Ukrainian theater, we’re seeing a reduction of resources the Russian state has to pursue multiple national policy objectives.

So as the war continues to grind on, and as Russia’s expeditionary capabilities focus more and more and more on Ukraine, Russia’s ability to intervene decisively or even marginally in large parts of the world is going to zero.

It’s also another sign that Russia massively miscalculated how quickly it could engineer a total capitulation of the Ukrainian state and its people.