Igor Salikov

With the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the Soviet armed forces were largely disbanded and some of their personnel were distributed among the newly independent republics. With few options, the author joined the Redut organisation which consisted of Russian mercenaries operating abroad. In the years that followed, the rise of Valdimir Putin after he became President led to a strong nationalist sentiment developing in the Kremlin. Two former Soviet republics, initially Chechnya and then Georgia, were the first to be subjected to a growing Russian aggression. Special sabotage teams and assault battalions were created, each based on the Redut group, and the author, who had acquired the call sign ‘Viper’, soon found himself once again in Russian pay. This time, though, he was leading a special forces group in operations in Donetsk in the eastern part of Ukraine. In the autumn of 2021, ‘Viper’ was appointed to command the intelligence unit of the Redut group as part of the GRU. He was given three secret agents. These were Ukrainian special forces officers who had defected to Russia. They were handed a secret mission – to attack the headquarters in Kyiv of the Ukrainian Counter-Intelligence and Security Service, the SBU, and destroy all its files ahead of Putin’s full-scale invasion of the country. Putin's ‘Viper’ Detachment is the first full account by ‘Viper’ himself of this secret operation and how his unit had to fight its way out of Ukraine after the attempt on the SBU headquarters failed. A tense, full-throttle, struggle ensued, which ultimately led the battle-hardened author refusing to fight or kill anymore. He pulled his platoon out of the Ukraine and into Belarus, pursued by Putin’s counter-intelligence officers. Eventually, ‘Viper’ managed to escape Russia and went to the International Criminal Court in Hague to testify about war crimes committed by Putin's government. This is the first time the world will read about this secret operation recounted by the man who led it. In this book, ‘Viper’ reveals true nature of the hidden war in Ukraine.

The ‘Wagner’ mercenary group remained comparatively unknown for years, and only after the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, did the general public learn about the existence of this shadowy organization. But for years before that, they roamed free in Africa and the Middle East, fighting Russia’s conflicts, protecting dictators and waging war against anyone who was declared to be the enemy of the Russian government. Many journalists have attempted to uncover Wagner’s secrets but, for the first time, we hear the voice of an actual Wagner commander, who participated in some of the organization’s operations. This is Igor Salikov, former Wagner commander and the most high-ranking Russian service member who testified against the Russian regime and its crimes in Ukraine for the International Criminal Court in Hague. Igor was not just a soldier, but a high ranking commander, which gave him a unique insight into the organization, structure, political goals and operational procedures of Wagner. The author witnessed the birth of the group and their first operations in Syria, which in 2018, saw and the first battle between US forces and Russians since the end of the Cold War. Later, Wagner infiltrated into other countries and was one of main assets of Russian armed forces in the war against Ukraine. In 2022, after the failure of the initial invasion of Ukraine, Wagner’s leader received an order to recruit directly from prisons, and convicted rapists, murderers and cannibals joined what once was a small and elite mercenary unit. In 2023, Wagner mercenaries attempted to organize a coup against Vladimir Putin but turned back at the last moment. Soon after, the leaders of the group were killed in an aircraft crash, and Wagner disappeared from the spotlight. This book allows us to look at this group through the eyes of someone who has been there, done that, and witnessed the entire history of the Wagner organization, from its origins to its ignominious end.