There is no more fascinating weapon of the Russian Wagner militia than its instruments. Violins, cellos, guitars and accordions: they provide the group feeling, but also for fear of death among the opponents.
Last month, Wagner published perhaps the most imaginative film online. The private militia almost claimed to be in the center of the eastern town of Bachmoet. To support that claim, she showed a video of soldiers making music with instruments on the roof of a half-destroyed building. Two Wagner soldiers strummed a guitar. A third played a trumpet. A fourth waved a flag from left to right. The grittiest possible version of the Eurovision Song Contest.
Wagner orchestra
On Wagner’s official Telegram channel – literally translated: Wagner orchestra and 665,000 members strong – more similar images are circulating. A soldier with a cello at the border of Bachmoet district. A soldier with a guitar in front of a destroyed house. A camouflaged group posing in front of a Wagner flag with saxophone, violin and accordion. Sometimes the photos are given a second life in drawn form. Wagner’s badge on Telegram is also a drawing of a soldier playing a violin with great pathos. “Channel of fans of musical creativity,” it reads.
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Wagner’s love for music comes from spiritual father and founder Dimitri Oetkin. Utkin was a Russian veteran of the two Chechen wars. He was also an officer of the Russian military intelligence service GRU. But above all: he is a fan of everything that even smells of Nazi Germany. So also from Adolf Hitler and his favorite German composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883). Oetkin admired it so much that he was nicknamed Wagner by his comrades-in-arms. When he founded his own private militia in 2014 from the remnants of the Slavonic Corps security service, he thought his own nickname sounded best: the Wagner group, or Gruppa Vagnera in Russian, was a fact.
‘Apocalypse Now’
One of Richard Wagner’s most famous pieces of music is Ritt of the Valkyries, from his opera Die Valkyrie known to the general public by its processing in Apocalypse now , the 1979 Vietnam film by Francis Ford Coppola. In an iconic scene, American helicopters attack a Vietnamese village, while the loudspeakers hanging from the aircraft blare the rousing music. To frighten the villagers, so it goes.
Whether Dimitri Utkin also had that movie scene in mind when he registered the name of his private militia, we don’t know. The fact is that Wagner’s social media channels are proudly boasted of Die Valkyrie . And that the name Wagner should still cause fear on the battlefield.
“Intimidation of the opponent is one of the reasons why Wagner uses musical instruments,” explains military expert Roger Housen. “A musical instrument is a peaceful thing, but using it in a cynical way makes it appear menacing and awe-inspiring. If I were a Ukrainian soldier in a trench somewhere in Bachmoet and I suddenly hear a violin whining in the dead of night, I would be intimidated.”
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Connect members
Showing off musical instruments (like the sledgehammer and the skull) is a symbol of Wagner. Military organizations use such symbols not only to deter, but also to connect their own members. “The violin and the trumpet make Wagner a special brotherhood, which distinguishes itself from, for example, the regular Russian army.”
Recognition is also an important reason to use symbols such as musical instruments. “The Russian people today, thanks to the sledgehammer, the skull and the instruments, know very well what the Wagner militia is,” says Housen. “But the opponent also knows who he is dealing with, often before he has seen the group. Thanks to the use of symbols, your reputation precedes you.”
Housen experienced it himself during the Yugoslav Civil War in 1994. As captain of a regional headquarters of the United Nations in Erdut, a part of Croatia not far from Vukovar that was occupied by Serbia. “In the middle of the night, Arkan, the commander of the Serbian paramilitary group Arkan’s Tigers, was at the door. He wanted to visit our headquarters, especially the Russian platoon that stood guard for us.”
“When I said that he was on UN territory and that such a thing could not be done without official permission, Arkan asked: Do you know who I am? I replied that I had a suspicion. And I suspected that thanks to the reputation of his black SUVs, his men dressed completely in black, including black boots and black hat with tiger logo. Arkan knew very well the value of symbols. He invariably allowed himself to be photographed with a life-sized sword of 18 kilograms belonging to a Montenegrin king. Eventually everyone knew: this group is not a ratatouille of some local Serb soldiers. This is the elite.”
Elite or not. Arkan couldn’t get past Housen. „ You are not going to stop me he said. Try me , I replied . Whereupon he signaled to twelve of his heavily armed tigers who promptly pointed their Kalashnikovs at me. So we stood facing each other for ten minutes. Finally he laughed and ran a finger down his throat. I will find you , he said, and he was gone. Arkan thought intimidation was very important.”
Romans
Not only Arkan knew the importance and power of military symbols. The Roman legions already used emblems, numbers and nicknames more than two thousand years ago. Legion number three called itself ‘The Brave Legion’ and had a bull as its symbol. The sixth legion was nicknamed ‘The Iron-Strong Legion’ and used a wolf as its symbol. The twelfth called itself ‘The Lightning Bolt’ and used a unicorn as a mythological creature.
The Prussian regiments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Potsdammer Giants, called themselves the Long Guys . All soldiers were at least 1 meter 88 tall. To make themselves even bigger in front of the enemy, they wore a cone-shaped mitre on their heads.
Desert Rats
From the twentieth century, the military world has been flooded with insignia, symbolism and nicknames. The 101st Airborne Division, the well-known airborne division of the US Army, still calls itself the Screaming Eagles today. However, the most beautiful names come from Great Britain: the Black Mafia, the Bermuda Exiles, the Desert Rats… Even military vehicles are given powerful nicknames: think of the Leopard tanks that are on their way to Ukraine. To the fast and muscular feline predator.
Symbols are not only reserved for groups. Individuals also sometimes use it in wars. Think of the life-sized Montenegrin sword of Arkan. Or George Smith Patton, the American World War II general who always carried an ivory-handled pistol. The military usefulness is zero, a general is usually far from the front line. But it impressed, even intimidated and created an image of the now iconic Patton.
Roger Housen also knows that such a personal weapon can come across as quite intimidating. “In 2003-2004 I was in Afghanistan and had a few meetings with Fahim Khan, one of the first Afghan defense ministers after the removal of the Taliban. The first thing he invariably did when we sat down at the table was to place his personal Colt Python pistol with an eight-inch barrel between us; you immediately know who you are dealing with.”
Intelligent killers
Today, under Yevgeny Prigozhin’s direction, Wagner is still conducting operations to take Bachmut completely. According to the most recent figures, they would control about 80 percent of the city. It is not inconceivable that ‘the orchestra’, as the group likes to call itself, and the ‘musicians’, as the members call themselves, will soon play the first violin in Bachmoet.
Oleg Golubenko, Ukrainian political analyst and commander of dozens of troops in Bachmut, calls Wagner’s musical instruments mainly propaganda. “By taking photos and videos with instruments, they want to profile themselves as intelligent and highly trained fighters. Compare it to someone who wears glasses: they are often seen as more intelligent by those around them. Wagner’s musical instruments are a way to divert attention from what the group really is: a gang of common killers.”
According to Golubenko, there is (obviously) no fear or a sense of intimidation among Ukrainian soldiers. The Da Vinci Wolves also confirm this, another resounding military nickname, but then from a Ukrainian elite unit that fights exclusively against Wagner in Bachmoet. “Wagner or the Chechens: those are evil fairy tales that only work in Russia, and not in the real world,” they said in a message. “We slaughter them every day. Dozens at a time.”