Introduction

Jack Margolin is Director of Special Investigations at the Free Russia Foundation and Senior Correspondent at Yahoo News. He's an independent researcher on Russia with a particular focus on private military companies and the Wagner Group, one of our favorite subjects on this show. Weis: Is Wagner now challenging the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Kremlin for power in any way or is this all kind of Kabuki theater?Margolin: I tend to think that both of those are a bit extreme and stretch what we know but it could be really interesting for how we understand the Russian system over the course of the war.