Two Books on Russian Military Forces

These meticulously researched books illuminate the history of two storied Russian military outfits. Bukkvoll, a Norwegian defense analyst, uses a vast range of sources to put together a comprehensive history of Soviet and Russian special forces, known as spetsnaz. He charts their trajectory from their formation early in the Cold War, when they were tasked with going behind enemy lines to neutralize short-range nuclear systems, on through to their development as elite units capable of operating with flexibility and initiative in a variety of settings. They supported the growing Soviet interest in the developing world through both training missions and active combat in Africa. They came into their own with the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan during the 1980s, which gave them the scope to demonstrate their effectiveness, albeit as part of a failing campaign. They have served since in various theaters in post-Soviet Russia, notably in Chechnya. And they have been deployed in Ukraine since 2014, although Bukkvoll suggests that here they have fared poorly along with the rest of the Russian army.

Margolin takes on the more recent rise and fall of Wagner, the private Russian military force. Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former petty crook and caterer in St. Petersburg, used his association with President Vladimir Putin to create a web of companies dabbling in all sorts of dubious activities, including information warfare. Wagner, the military arm of Prigozhin’s group, emerged in 2014 as the Kremlin searched for a way to support militias inside Ukraine without directly involving Russian troops. Subsequent Wagner operations in Syria and Africa built up the group’s capacity and fostered a self-serving mythology. Wagner gained prominence after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Prigozhin no longer eschewed publicity but instead highlighted his unorthodox methods, which included recruiting from prisons. He insisted that his hardened soldiers were more accomplished than the Russian regulars and lamented the dim bureaucracy of the Ministry of Defense. Margolin’s gripping narrative describes how this power struggle led to Wagner’s aborted mutiny in June 2023, after which Prigozhin acted as if he could avoid the normal fate of traitors. In August 2023, his aircraft exploded in the sky.