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Alia is joined by former Blackwater contractor Morgan Lerette. In a wide-ranging conversation about Morgan's experiences, they look at Blackwater’s lax vetting procedures, the tense relationship on the ground between private contractors and the US military, the absence of long-term benefits or a support system for former Blackwater employees, and the prevalence of substance abuse and suicides. Morgan likens private military contractors to a single-serve coffee cup, to be used and discarded at will so that corporations can profit, and governments can avoid committing boots on the ground.

“I still don’t know what legal rules and regulations govern private military contractors. And I think there’s a reason for that”

The Guns for Hire podcast is written, produced and hosted by Dr Alia Brahimi.

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Alia is joined by the Russian reporter and photojournalist, David Frenkel, to consider the staggering toll of the “Bakhmut meatgrinder”– Russia’s bloodiest battle since the Second World War. They talk through his latest report from independent Russian news platform Mediazona and the BBC Russian Service, “The Price of Bakhmut”, and David’s methodology for determining which prisoners were recruited and from where. David also examines the numbers that were killed, the question marks over whether promised death payments were made, and why the Wagner Group turned to prisons for manpower in the first place.

“This is a long tradition from Soviet times when inmates were used for building factories and deforestation in Siberia and so basically, they came back to that old idea to use inmates as soldiers.”

The Guns for Hire podcast is written, produced and hosted by Dr Alia Brahimi.

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Host Alia Brahimi speaks with Dr Andrés Macías, a Bogota-based expert on Colombian mercenaries. They begin by discussing the explosive case of 26 Colombian nationals arrested for their part in the 2021 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse. Andrés goes on to look at the thousands of Colombians who enlist under the banner of the UAE, what’s driving hundreds of Colombians to sign up to fight Russia in Ukraine, and what makes former Colombian soldiers so interesting to the international private security market.

The Guns for Hire podcast is written, produced and hosted by Dr Alia Brahimi.