Overview

Konstantin “Mongoose” Mirzayants, a former military serviceman and paratrooper, initially served in the elite 45th Guards Spetsnaz (Special Purpose) Regiment. The paramilitary organization Redut, also known as SHIELD-STG, was reportedly established based on this regiment, according to numerous media reports and leaked testimonies. Russian media identify Mirzayants as the director of Redut since 2019. A Wagner Group document dated June 2019 refers to Mirzayants as the “executive director of Redut from Stroytransgaz.”

Initially, Redut was tasked with protecting Gennady Timchenko’s Stroytransgaz facilities in Syria. The company is now considered a partial successor to the Wagner Group for projects in Africa and the Ministry of Defense’s primary means of recruiting irregular forces for the war in Ukraine. While the full extent of Mirzayant’s current role in the expanded Redut remains unclear, he accompanied the Ministry of Defense delegation during their visits to several African countries in the autumn of 2023. According to media reports, these discussions focused on transferring contacts from Prigozhin’s Wagner Group network to the Ministry of Defense.

Mirzayants was born on July 10, 1967, in Mary, Turkmenistan, in what was then the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic. No information is available about his childhood and early years. In 1988, he completed his studies at the Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School. Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, a current deputy minister of defense, studied there concurrently, one year behind Mirzayants. Mirzayants held command positions in various units across deployments to Poland, Ussuriysk, Transnistria, and Chechnya. Notably, he served as deputy commander of the 45th Guards Spetsnaz Regiment. In 1995, he was discharged from the army due to a concussion suffered during the First Chechen War. In 1998, Mirzayants was arrested on charges related to one of Russia’s most notorious and audacious contract killings: the murder of Dmitry Kholodov, a war correspondent for Moskovsky Komsomolets. He spent four years in pre-trial detention but was acquitted twice by a Russian military court and received financial compensation for unlawful detention. During the legal proceedings, while denying involvement in the contract killing, Mirzayants extensively described how the 45th Regiment’s officers exploited their positions for personal gain: providing security, creating cover businesses for illicit activities, and engaging in violent confrontations with criminal organizations. After leaving the army, Mirzayants became involved in numerous businesses in rental real estate, hotels, and trade. He also holds leadership positions in various veterans’ associations. Telegram channels mention his connections with Sergei “Luchok” Lalaev, the leader of the Podolsk criminal group. Lalaev, who also served in the airborne troops, is a significant donor to the 45th Regiment. As recently as 2020, Mirzayants was implicated in a money laundering case. Testimonies indicated that he promised to help stop the criminal prosecution and recover the seized money.

Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta first reported Mirzayants’s involvement in creating Redut in 2019. The newspaper’s information is corroborated by internal Wagner documentation, which refers to him as the executive director from Stroytransgaz. In December 2022, the opposition website Gulagu.net published a recording of a conversation between Sergei Salivanov (call sign “Salekh”), the deputy head of Redut, and the company’s employees in Syria. This recording further confirms Mirzayants’s role in managing the company. With the onset of the war in Ukraine, the role of Redut appears to have evolved, based on numerous media reports. In 2019, according to a document from the Wagner Group’s archive, the company essentially functioned as a private security enterprise. By 2023, Redut was being referred to as the main recruitment project of the Ministry of Defense for irregular fighters. It remains unclear whether this refers to the same unit and if Mirzayants still heads it. However, Mirzayants participated in the Ministry of Defense delegations’ visits to Africa alongside Deputy Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, suggesting ongoing, high-level involvement in Russia’s irregular operations. According to media reports, during these visits, officials discussed the transfer of Wagner military contracts to the Russian Ministry of Defense.