Please join the Russia and Eurasia Program and the World Peace Foundation at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University for a conversation about the rise and fall of Russia’s Wagner Group with John Lechner, author of Death is our Business: Russian Mercenaries and the New Era of Private Warfare (2025) and Tufts alumnus Jack Margolin, author of The Wagner Group: Inside Russia’s Mercenary Army (2024). These two authors will assess the history of the Wagner Group and consider its implications for the international security landscape.

Death Is Our Business traces five years of Lechner’s reporting from some of the world’s most dangerous places, including the frontlines in Ukraine, northeast Syria, and Mali, where he was forcibly disappeared for two days. Lechner made his first trip to the Central African Republic in 2019, where he began researching the effect of Russian intervention on the Central African Republic’s armed politics. A speaker of Russian, French, and Sango, he was among the first to reconcile Russian and African perspectives on what we now call the Wagner phenomenon and parse the complex relationship between its private interests and the Kremlin’s, across multiple theaters. His dispatches from Africa—long before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Wagner’s global rise—drew a loyal following among journalists, NGO workers, and government officials. Lechner interviewed countless civilians and politicians—including several inside the Ministry of Defense—to understand the appeal of partnering with Wagner for both local governments and the Kremlin, and the effect these partnerships had on societies at war.  

The Wagner Group exposes the history and the future of the Wagner Group, Russia’s notorious and secretive mercenary army, revealing details of their operations never documented before. Using extensive leaks, first-hand accounts, and the byzantine paper trail left in the group’s wake, Margolin traces the Wagner Group from its roots as a battlefield rumor to a private military enterprise tens of thousands–strong that eventually comes to threaten Putin himself. He follows individual commanders and foot soldiers within the group as they fight in Ukraine, Syria, and Africa, sometimes alongside fellow military contractors from the United Kingdom and the United States. He shows Wagner mercenaries committing atrocities, plundering oil, diamonds, and gold, and changing the course of conflicts from Europe to Africa in the name of the Kremlin’s strategic aims. In documenting the Wagner Group’s story up to the dramatic demise of its chief director, Evgeniy Prigozhin, Margolin demonstrates that Wagner was not an aberration, but a manifestation of the new geopolitical order of global capital, global crime, and of the entrepreneurs that thrive in it.

Arik Burakovsky will moderate the event, and visiting scholar Pavel Luzin will serve as a discussant. Refreshments will be provided. The event is open to the public. Please register via the Microsoft Form here to attend the event in person or virtually. We will provide you with the Zoom details in your confirmation email message. Please contact us with any questions you might have about the event or if you would like to submit discussion questions for the speaker in advance.

Visitors to the Medford/Somerville campus are welcome to park in the Dowling Garage or Cousens Parking Lot. Visitors may pay for their parking sessions via the web portal or payment kiosks. Please contact us with any questions you might have about the event.

John Lechner is a journalist, an independent researcher, and a consultant to NGOs and other institutions working in Africa. He is an expert in Russo-African relations and the author of a book on the history of the Wagner Group, Death is Our Business. John holds a master’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree in Slavic Languages and Literature from Harvard University. He speaks Russian, French, Turkish, Georgian, Chechen, Sango, and more. He is the co-author of Beginner’s Chechen with Online Audio (2024), as well as a forthcoming textbook for Circassian and a Sango dictionary. His reporting has been featured in outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and the BBC and published in Foreign Policy, Lawfare, and War on the Rocks, among others. A native of Boston, Massachusetts, he lives in Washington, D.C. 

Jack Margolin is an independent expert on international crime and conflict. His work focuses on the use of emerging technology and novel methodologies to expose the drivers of political violence. He has studied private military contractors and Russian criminal networks since 2014 and is the author of The Wagner Group. Jack previously led conflict finance investigations at C4ADS, a non-profit investigating crime and conflict. His investigations have been cited by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Financial Times, and Politico. He lives in Washington, DC. Prior to joining C4ADS, Jack was a Fulbright in Ukraine, where he contributed to the Kyiv Post,The Odessa Review, and RuNet Echo. Jack earned a bachelor’s degree in international security and a minor in Russian language from Tufts University.