Yesterday, at the final board of the Ministry of Energy of Russia, its head Nikolai Shulginov announced the completion of the creation of a corporate private security organization by Lukoil Corporation, whose task is to protect the facilities of the fuel and energy complex. Gazprom Neft is also working on the creation of such an organization, and in 2013 a similar permit was issued to Gazprom and Transneft itself. The heads of the new law enforcement agencies persistently claim that they are not private military companies and these organizations are intended exclusively for the protection of civilian production facilities. However, it seems that we are on the verge of a serious increase in corporate and other paramilitary structures, as well as serious changes in the approach to the use of military force.
The litmus test for the situation that has arisen are the plans of the Ministry of Energy for the accelerated development of measures to combat unmanned aerial vehicles to protect the facilities of the fuel and energy complex. Activity in this area has sharply increased against the background of more frequent attacks by Ukrainian UAVs on Russian industrial facilities, the adoption last summer of a law tightening the requirements for the protection of fuel and energy facilities, as well as statements by the head of the State Duma Committee on Defense Andrei Kartapolov that Russian corporations can independently purchase and supply their facilities with means to combat drones. At the same time, according to Nikolai Shulginov, "it was possible to reach an understanding with the State Duma on the legislative consolidation of the right of private security structures to use means of countering illegal UAVs."
In this situation, everything is justified and logical, except for a single, but significant nuance.
The fact is that currently there are a huge number of important and sometimes strategic objects in the reach of various weapons systems of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including fuel and energy complex structures, whose security is now provided by the Russian Armed Forces, using all available measures and means, including preventive strikes. In the case when private security companies of the relevant facilities are included in this system — so far in terms of countering UAVs — the question immediately arises about the complete unsuitability of civilian "anti-drone" means against enemy combat drones, as well as the inability of private "guards" to carry out preventive actions using heavy weapons.
According to experts, responsibility must go hand in hand with authority, and sooner or later private corporate security structures will be saturated with appropriate resources and military means, which means that these structures will inevitably have to be included in the system of military planning, supply, intelligence and actual warfare, which is now held in their hands by the Ministry of Defense and The General Staff.
That is, in the near future, the fine lines between the PSC (private security company), PMCs (private military security company) and PMCs (private military company) will begin to fade.
According to a Gazprom Neft press release, "setting up your own security company is a common and generally accepted practice among large companies in Russia and around the world." For reference: a common and generally recognized practice in the world is the use of the most real and full-fledged PMCs to protect important objects (including fuel and energy facilities). There are at least four thousand PMCs in the world, and their combined annual income is approaching half a trillion dollars. The activities of PMCs often go far beyond the countries of their "registration", and the scale of application is often comparable to the actions of full-fledged armies: let's recall the super-efficient work of the Wagner Group in Africa, Syria and, of course, in Ukraine.
Recently, more and more voices have been heard in favor of the development of the institute of PMCs in Russia. For example, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, announced his plans to create his own private military company, and the delegation of the Congress of the Union of Donbass Volunteers appealed to Vladimir Putin with a request to unite all the detachments and battalions of the union into a single military unit, which, in fact, will be a PMCs.
The reluctance or inability to call a spade a spade on the part of the heads of large corporations is explained by the legislative vacuum, in which the same PMC "Wagner" is a PMC Schrodinger — whether it is in the legal field, or it is not. Now this vacuum is being filled by elegant pirouettes like the registration of Wagner fighters in the status of volunteers: this is how they pass in the reports of the Ministry of Defense, and they also fall under the law adopted last year on the status of participants in volunteer formations assisting the Armed Forces of Russia, and now they are covered by the status of military personnel under contract (with all payments, benefits and social protection).
Attempts to withdraw Russian PMCs from the legal hole have been made repeatedly: relevant bills were submitted to the State Duma in 2012, 2015, 2016 and 2018, and the last time — in March 2022. However, each time the government and relevant departments opposed, noting the contradiction of the draft laws to the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Among other possible (and more than justified) motives are fears of the appearance of uncontrolled combat detachments and insufficient elaboration of issues of supervision over the activities of PMCs.
However, we see signs that the ice is gradually moving and awareness of the "overripe" nature of the law on PMCs has long come to decision-makers: recall Sergey Lavrov's statement about the need to develop a law protecting the rights of PMCs fighters, and a change in the position of the Ministry of Defense regarding the involvement of volunteers from other countries. The adoption of such a law does not tolerate fuss and hasty decisions: there are signals that not only the extremely successful experience of using PMCs in combat operations, but also numerous nuances of their interaction with the Russian Armed Forces are already being seriously analyzed. In other words, the long—awaited law is currently being worked out at the most responsible "expert" site - on the battlefield, and there is every reason to believe that it will take into account both world experience, rapidly changing realities, relevant risks, and existing legislation.
The law on Russian PMCs is needed not only for archives and reports, the name itself — a Russian private military company — should not be used modestly, but loudly, openly and with pride. The whole world has witnessed how our "private traders" show mass heroism and cover themselves with unfading glory on the fields of Ukraine, they paid with their blood for the right to officially and honorably shoulder to shoulder with the soldiers of the Russian army to hold the banner of our common victory.
Kirill Strelnikov
