Marat Gabidullin, born in Siberia and raised in Uzbekistan, served in Soviet airborne forces until 1994, then spent three years in prison for shooting a crime boss. After security work in Russia, he joined the Wagner Group in 2015, rose to lead a reconnaissance company, and was badly wounded near Palmyra in 2016. He later advised the ISIS Hunters Battalion and fought at Khasham, but quit Wagner in 2019, briefly ran a Redut detachment in Syria, and left disillusioned. Gabidullin’s 2022 memoir denounced Wagner and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; he now lives in France. Journalist and researcher John Lechner reports from conflict zones and specializes in Russian PMCs. His book Death Is Our Business (Bloomsbury, 2025) charts the rise of Wagner, following earlier work such as Beginner’s Chechen and upcoming Circassian and Sango language texts. A former policy analyst for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and an emerging-markets banker at Deutsche Bank and Lazard, Lechner holds degrees from Harvard (Slavic Languages) and Georgetown (MSFS). Fluent in five languages and conversant in several others, he is a recognized expert on Russian foreign policy and has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Foreign Policy. He lives in Washington, DC. Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkoujZQZatbqy4KGcgjpVxQ/join Shawn Ryan Show Links SUBSCRIBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ShawnRyanShow Sign up: https://shawnryanshow.com/pages/newsletter Support the Show: https://www.patreon.com/VigilanceElite Download Free Content: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lF-8_5jwRc5eAhzDkqqCOp-6yvd05vAw?usp=sharing Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shawn-ryan-show/id1492492083 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5eodRZd3qR9VT1ip1wI7xQ?si=59f9d106e56a4509 Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnryanshow Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shawnryanshow/ Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shawnryanshow/ Follow on X: https://twitter.com/ShawnRyanShow SRS Podcast Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4pqo9Uoh0WuUKxw0BmaK1yrg9Kd7E4lk #vigilanceelite #shawnryanshow Guest Links: Marat Gabidullin FB - ⁠https://www.facebook.com/share/15TBVmf2mt/⁠  Book - Moi, Marat, ex-commandant de l'armée Wagner - Les dessous de l'armée secrète de Poutine enfin révélé ⁠https://a.co/d/csNMjFH⁠  Book - Ma vérité ⁠https://a.co/d/bLZYssf⁠  John Lechner X - ⁠https://x.com/JohnLechner1⁠ IG - ⁠https://www.instagram.com/johnalechner/⁠ FB - ⁠https://www.facebook.com/john.lechner.5⁠ Book - Death Is Our Business: Russian Mercenaries and the New Era of Private Warfare ⁠https://a.co/d/7rKXhnI⁠ Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: ⁠⁠https://www.americanfinancing.net/SRS⁠ NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org ⁠https://www.expressvpn.com/SRS⁠ ⁠https://www.shawnlikesgold.com⁠ ⁠https://www.shopify.com/SRS⁠ ⁠https://trueclassic.com/SRS⁠ ⁠https://www.ziprecruiter.com/SRS