Development of Legal Basis for the Use of Private Military Companies Within the Framework of Foreign Policy Objectives of the Russian Federation: a Correlation Analysis

Abstract

This article presents an analytical examination of the views held by the military and political leadership of the Russian Federation regarding the use of private military companies (PMCs) as instruments for advancing the country’s foreign policy objectives.

The analysis establishes that the majority of Russian national security scholars and experts regard the Federation’s military command-and-control system as insufficiently adapted to the demands of modern network-centric warfare and therefore in need of comprehensive modernization. This modernization, they argue, should extend centralized command and control not only over Russia’s security and defense forces but also over civil society structures and commercial institutions.

The study further demonstrates that a range of strategic planning and legal documents of the Russian state envision the deployment of both regular and irregular armed formations to achieve its external policy goals. A clear correlation is observed between successive legislative initiatives aimed at regulating PMC activities and the key milestones in the evolution of these entities.

It is determined that all legislative efforts to legalize the operations of PMCs in the Russian Federation have been inherently reactive, designed primarily to pre-empt potential public discontent over legally ambiguous issues — including, but not limited to, questions of social entitlements, liability for offenses, and accountability for criminal conduct.

The findings indicate that the formal codification of PMC activities has been deliberately postponed relative to their practical deployment in conflict zones, thereby avoiding the creation of legal precedents that could formally integrate these entities into the state’s military command structure.

In conclusion, the paper argues that since the use of conventional armed forces is strictly regulated at both the national and international levels, the resource potential of PMCs offers a mechanism for circumventing international legal constraints. Russia’s doctrinal approach to the use of force thus conceptually legitimizes the transfer—or deliberate obscuring—of state responsibility for the escalation or initiation of hostilities onto sub-conventional actors.