Guns for Hire
The Guns for Hire podcast is a production of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Initiative. Taking Libya as its starting point, it explores the causes and implications of the growing use of mercenaries in armed conflict. The podcast features guests from many walks of life, from ethicists and historians to former mercenary fighters. It seeks to understand what the normalisation of private warfare tells us about the world as we currently find it, but also about the future of the international system and about what war could look like in the coming decades. Written and hosted by Dr Alia Brahimi.
Guns for Hire
What Russian mercenaries tell us about Russia
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Atlantic Council
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Season 1
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Episode 2
Host Alia Brahimi talks to the Russian defense analyst Dr Pavel Luzin about what the proliferation of Russian mercenaries abroad tells us about Russia at home. They explore the domestic forces that gave rise to the Kremlin’s co-optation of Russian mercenaries, how they are funded by the Russian federal budget, and the effects mercenaries are already having on Russian society.
“Hundreds of thousands of veterans will come back sooner or later to Russia, and it will be a political economy and social disaster. It will be [a] high level of violence.”
The Guns for Hire podcast is written, produced and hosted by Dr Alia Brahimi.
