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Lex Fridman Podcast · 3 min · Nov 10, 2026

The Russian military adopted Wagner's assault tactics

Michael Kofman · Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment

Michael Kofman says Russia spread Wagner's assault-group tactics and convict recruitment through its regular forces.

In this episode

Full analysis
  1. 24:47Offensive success depends on suppressing enemy drone units5 min
  2. 1:03:21Analysts over-rationalized Russia's invasion planPro pick 8 min
  3. 1:25:58Bakhmut's symbolic value outlasted its military value6 min
  4. 1:34:51Russian battlefield reports can distort fire support8 min
  5. 2:39:20A ceasefire could leave Ukraine exposed to renewed attack3 min
  6. 1:47:11Political leaders may ask how to delay defeat, not win8 min
  7. 2:06:24The Russian military adopted Wagner's assault tactics3 min
  8. 2:20:56Russia is spending a large share of its economy on the war6 min
“So I just want to put this postscript that Wagner as an organization may have died, but it in some ways infected the Russian military.”
Michael Kofmanat 2:08:27 · Lex Fridman Podcast
2:08:27

Takeaways

  1. Regular Russian units adopted Wagner-style assault groups.
  2. Convicts were recruited into assault units across the military.
  3. The focus on small-scale assaults weakened complex operations.

About this segment

Michael Kofman says Russia spread Wagner's assault-group tactics and convict recruitment through its regular forces. That specialization later made larger, more complex operations harder.

Michael Kofman

Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment

Led foundational research on Russia’s military and studies Ukrainian forces and Eurasian security at Carnegie.

  • Lex Fridman, Host · Host, Lex Fridman Podcast

    Robotics and AI researcher at MIT; started the show in 2018.

From “Russia-Ukraine War: Putin, Zelenskyy, Trump and the Future of Warfare | Lex Fridman Podcast #504”, Nov 10, 2026. Watch the full episode

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

  1. 2:06:29

    There's an effect that Wagner did have, and I refer to it as the Wagnerization of the Russian military, which is what happens after Wagner is dismantled. The Russian military widely adopts Wagner tactics. It begins to contract convicts in very large numbers. It creates assault companies called Sturm Z and Sturm V. It begins to deploy assault companies of convicts structured as assault groups across the battalions and regular formations.

  2. 2:07:01

    It basically takes much of what made Wagner successful and begins to spread this across the Russian military. And then the Russian military begins to actually fight, having seen how Wagner fought, primarily with assault groups and assault detachments, using them as a constantly replenishable assault force that they throw at the Ukrainian forces. And for a period of time, believe it or not, in 23 and 24, many of these assault units are convict staffed, and many others are not convict staffed, but people take special contracts that pay more, essentially taking on the risk of being an assault group. And so the Russian Ministry of Defense and the military actually begins to copy and imitate a lot of tactics. The Russian Airborne also builds out assault groups and assault detachments.

  3. 2:07:56

    And following this for years, do you see the Russian military actually fighting primarily with these assault formations? And over time now, you have fewer and fewer convicts that groups, but nonetheless, thousands upon thousands of convicts were used by the Russian forces in assault units after Wagner. Prigozhin said that he lost, killed, killed in action, 20,000 people in just the battle of Bakhmut, which lasts somewhere, I think, from August 2022 to May of 23.

  4. 2:08:27

    But the Russian military lost far more over the course of the years in terms of convicts they used. So I just want to put this postscript that Wagner as an organization may have died, but it in some ways infected the Russian military. These tactics spread across the Russian forces, which both led to some success, but also led the Russian military to over-specialize in using assault groups, which eventually led to diminishing returns.

  5. 2:08:51

    They specialized in small-scale combat action and over time struggled to recover the ability to conduct larger-scale, more complex operations by focusing on fighting this way.