0:00

NPR. A

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little over a year ago, something

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mysterious happened in the skies over

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Russia. Caught on camera, unverified footage

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of the plane tumbling from the

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sky with a missing wing then

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bursting into flames north of Moscow.

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Unbelievably on board that plane, a

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man named Yevgeny Pragozhin, the head

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of a company, a private military

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contractor, hired by Russian President Vladimir

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Putin. Ten bodies have been recovered.

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President Putin didn't confirm Pragozhin's death,

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but spoke of him in the

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past tense. I

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knew Pragozhin for a very long time. He

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was a man with a complicated fate, and

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he made serious mistakes in life. This

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ominous sequence of events may have been

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the end of Pragozhin, but it wasn't

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the end for the private army he

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built, the Wagner Group. This

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is the Indicator for Planet Money. I'm Adrian Ma. Today

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on the show, I talk to Sean McFate,

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who studies mercenary groups. And

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he explains how the Wagner Group was

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rebranded, why he's called it

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the world's most dangerous private army,

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and how Wagner's business model creates

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a blueprint for others to follow.

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Listen to the How to Do Everything podcast

1:50

from NPR. Dan

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and Chad and Regina Faso.

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And they're trying to create

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this swath of

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Russian-influenced territory and

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also that they extract natural resources

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like gold and diamonds, which they

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smuggle into Russia to fund the

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war in Ukraine. And

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so the basic business model of the

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Wagner Group continues in Africa under

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new management. And it's

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going to produce 5,000 more mercenaries that

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are skilled in Africa. Because

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remember, they're in an industry

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vested in conflict and the

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most conflict-prone continent in the

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world. And if that scenario

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were not concerning enough, Sean

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says Wagner's business model has created

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a sort of blueprint for other

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mercenary groups to follow. We're

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going to see probably more of that,

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especially as the world turns to

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rare earth minerals over, say, oil.

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The only places left to tap

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in the world are under conflict

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zones like Afghanistan and Africa. And

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it's going to take pirate oil companies and

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mining companies to go in there protected

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by bands of mercenaries. So

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there's a lot of opportunity for

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this model to develop in the decades to

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come. Kind of a scary

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thing to think about. Well, it

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is because I think what oil was to the

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20th century, rare earths are becoming

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to the 21st. Because everything that

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sounds like electronics in it is

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powered by rare earths. I

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can't help but wonder whether

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what Wagner is doing,

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kind of at the behest of Vladimir Putin,

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is something that the US should worry about.

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The US has missed some

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opportunities. The mercenary army of

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Wagner and the Russian military

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have this ongoing friction between the two

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of them, which is frankly

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pretty typical history between private

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and public warriors. And

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we should have...