What is Known About US Private Military Companies?
© AP Photo / Laura Rauch
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Members of American private military company (PMC) the Forward Observations Group (FOG), took part in the Ukrainian military incursion into Russia's Kursk region, according to evidence that recently surfaced.
The FOG PMC has also delivered weapons to Ukraine and allegedly assisted the country’s forces in coordinating the delivery of toxic chemicals to the Donetsk People’s Republic for potential sabotage.
Sputnik has looked into how US PMCs are operating.
PMCs are often led by high-ranking Pentagon, CIA, and State Department retirees.
Units are comprised of ex-servicemen, former special forces officers, graduates of military academies, and foreign mercenaries.
The Pentagon’s facilities in San Diego (California), Mount Carroll (Illinois), and Moyock (North Carolina) are used for training.
Salaries reportedly range from $400 to $600 a day (some operatives get $1,000 daily).
The Defense Department, State Department, and intelligence agencies are the main customers of PMCs, with contracts worth over $50 million requiring approval from Congress.
The US is not a signatory to the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing, and Training of Mercenaries, and uses PMCs in circumvention of national legislative restrictions.
The State Department uses the Arms Export Control Act to indirectly regulate American PMCs’ services, including:
Advising and assisting foreign defense departments in reforming their armed forces;
Creating paramilitary formations, as well as saboteur and militant detachments; coordinating their actions;
Providing training missions, reconnaissance, logistics, transport, and technical support;
Security for diplomatic staff, commercial organizations, strategic US facilities abroad, including oil fields and pipelines (such as those plundered in Syria and Iraq, where the US maintains troops), and oversight for prisons;
The PMCs active in Ukraine, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry:
Academi (formerly Blackwater), part of Constellis Group, which had around 400 personnel in Ukraine until 2022, according to German media.
DynCorp International, which offers sabotage and sniper training.
Cubic Corporation, providing reconnaissance assistance using satellites and drones, opened an office in Ukraine in 2015.
According to existing data, some 3,000 mercenaries are fighting on the side of the Kiev regime, with at least 300 of them employees of US PMCs.
Russian authorities have emphasized that all foreign “specialists” or mercenaries who illegally cross Russia’s border will automatically be considered legitimate military targets for the Russian Armed Forces.
