Hybrid CoE Strategic Analysis 17: Private military companies – a growing instrument in Russia’s foreign and security policy toolbox

Although Russian PMCs form a diverse group of actors, they provide the Russian leadership with a useful instrument for acting as a force multiplier for the Russian armed forces, for pursuing hybrid operations under the guise of plausible deniability, and for making inroads into regions from which Russia has been absent for a long time. – writes Margarete Klein, the head of the “Eastern Europe and Eurasia” research division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik) in Berlin, Germany.