# Guns for Gold: The Wagner Network Exposed

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House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee
Guns for gold: the Wagner Network exposed
Seventh Report of Session 2022–23
Report, together with formal minutes relating to the report
Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 18 July 2023
HC 167 incorporating HC 1248
Published on 26 July 2023
by authority of the House of Commons
​Foreign Affairs Committee
The Foreign Affairs Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and its associated public bodies.
Current membership
Alicia Kearns MP (Chair) Conservative, Rutland and Melton) Saqib Bhatti MP (Conservative, Meriden) Sir Chris Bryant MP (Labour, Rhondda) Liam Byrne MP (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill) Neil Coyle MP (Labour, Bermondsey and Old Southwark) Drew Hendry MP (Scottish National Party, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) Andrew Rosindell MP (Conservative, Romford) Bob Seely MP (Conservative, Isle of Wight) Henry Smith MP (Conservative, Crawley) Royston Smith MP (Conservative, Southampton, Itchen) Graham Stringer MP (Labour, Blackley and Broughton)
The following were also members of the Committee during the 2022–23 session:
Tom Tugendhat MP (Conservative, Tonbridge and Malling), Stewart Malcolm McDonald MP (Scottish National Party, Glasgow South)
Powers
The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the internet via www.parliament.uk.
Publication
© Parliamentary Copyright House of Commons 2023. This publication may be reproduced under the terms of the Open Parliament Licence, which is published at www.parliament.uk/site-information/copyright-parliament/.
Committee reports are published on the Committee’s website at www.parliament.uk/facom and in print by Order of the House.
Contacts
All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Foreign Affairs Committee, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 4050; the Committee’s email address is facparliament.uk.
You can follow the Committee on Twitter using @CommonsForeign.
* Summary3
* 1A decade of entrenching Russian interests abroad5
* Growth of the network7
* The perceived benefits of Wagner18
* A direct and indirect tool of the Russian state18
* Incentives for buyers19
* The price of Wagner military deployments21
* Operating with impunity21
* Delivering unreliable results24
* Thriving in instability24
* Coming out of the shadows: Renewed Illegal Invasion of Ukraine27
* National security implications28
* 2Responses to the Wagner Network31
* The UK's general response31
* A focus on Ukraine, not Africa32
* Cross-departmental working33
* Specific actions taken by the UK Government34
* Tracking and sanctioning34
* Carrot and stick diplomacy40
* 3What next?45
* What next for Wagner?45
* What next for 'PMCs'?46
* Conclusions and recommendations52
* Appendix 159
* Appendix 273
* Formal minutes76
* Witnesses77
* Published written evidence78
* List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament79
Layout 2
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