• Military
• WMD

• Intelligence Menu               

• Systems
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Imagery
• Links

• Homeland Security
• Space

Ural Battalion

Since the beginning of 2023, the oligarch Igor Altushkin (Russian Copper Company) began to implement a plan to create a PMC. Moreover, the main goal is not participation in the war, but the protection of their own interests and security. Earlier, The Moscow Times reported that Altushkin is now funding the so-called "Ural Battalion". Heavy losses and the need to provision and man long frontlines mean Russia has faced an acute manpower shortage for much of its war in Ukraine, obliging the Kremlin to rely on a mix of contract, mobilized and volunteer soldiers, as well as mercenaries.

Igor Altushkin began processing non-ferrous scrap in the 1990s. In 2003 he founded the Russian Copper Company, headquartered in Yekaterinburg. Today the company is the third largest copper trader in the Russian Federation. Altushkin's fortune is estimated at $3.4 billion. According to journalists, neither Altushkin, nor his business, nor any of his family fell under Western sanctions. Thus, Altushkin's wife and one of his sons have British citizenship. The billionaire himself is the owner of a mansion in London, as well as several apartments in the UK.

Altushkin has been dubbed an “Orthodox billionaire” due to frequent investments in the construction of churches in the Russian Federation. Especially in the Sverdlovsk region of Russia and Chechnya, where the Muslim population predominates. Altushkin appears to have close connections with the Kremlin. He was awarded state awards several times , including the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, the Order of Friendship, and also has the title of Honorary Citizen of the Sverdlovsk Region.

Altushkin tried to recruit people in Russian prisons, but the head of Wagner PMC, Prigozhin, blocked this opportunity for him. "He provides equipment and other things. This is his battalion. I received this information from their commander," an anonymous source in the Russian Defense Ministry told reporters. In addition, the head of the Special Forces Veterans Fund, which also sends Russians to war with Ukraine, Viktor Yarkov, also confirmed that Altushkin is funding a battalion of invaders from the Urals.

The Moscow Times writes that Yarkov refused to name other sponsors, but said that they are. The journalists also contacted a representative of the Russian Copper Company, owned by Altushkin, but he refused to answer questions about the billionaire's involvement in the battalion. It is reported that it is not known how much money Altushkin donated to the Ural battalion, how many soldiers are fighting in the unit and where exactly they are deployed at the front.

In February 2023, the Russian edition of RT said that the battalion fought near Kremennaya. The material also says that Altushkin first tried to recruit soldiers for his battalion in the prisons of the Russian Federation, but the head of Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin blocked this opportunity for him. Now only the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is engaged in this.