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Gabidullin: A True Mercenary Spreading Russia’s Influence in Syria, the World

Wagner PMC's Marat Gabidullin in Syria | Facebook
Wagner PMC's Marat Gabidullin in Syria | Facebook
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Gabidullin: A True Mercenary Spreading Russia’s Influence in Syria, the World

Wagner PMC's Marat Gabidullin in Syria | Facebook
Wagner PMC's Marat Gabidullin in Syria | Facebook

“I am a true mercenary and a patriotic soldier. I believe that great Russia is like an octopus. Its duty is to extend its arms across the world, and Syria is a part of it. We must win the war there. The problem is that fighters at the Wagner private military company (PMC) are not as competent as they should be.”

“I paid the price for my convictions and lost my kidney. It was necessary to send out a cry for reforming this army so that it is able to restore the greatness of Russia everywhere.”

Those are the statements that were reported by people who had met with Marat Gabidullin, a prominent member of Wagner PMC, over the last two days in Moscow.

Gabidullin was recently the victim of extensive harassment over his memoir, “Ded Martin” (Grandpa Martin), which was sent to a publishing house in Siberia. Apart from Russian parties threatening his family, Gabidullin also had his book withdrawn from publishing.

The memoir exposed undisclosed details about the work of Wagner PMC in Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and possibly Sudan.

In “Ded Martin,” Gabidullin talks about the horrors he braved after joining the Syrian war in 2015.

A landmine explosion in March 2016 cost Gabidullin his kidney and damaged his liver.

He also goes over his work as a special advisor to the alleged owner of Wagner PMC and business magnate Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2017.

After being injured, Gabidullin assumed training “ISIS hunters” in Syrian boot camps in 2018. Shortly after, he retired and devoted his time to writing his personal memoir.

It is noteworthy that Gabidullin’s social media accounts are filled with pictures of him posing with fighters, soldiers, and Syrian Army officers.

Comrades who were in Gabidullin’s unit were affected by his statements in both the memoir and an interview he had with “Meduza,” in which he recounted how a Russian airstrike mistakenly struck their positions.

He also recalled details of how some brothers in arms decapitated Syrian Army soldiers and beat them with sledgehammers to set an example for others who were thinking about deserting their positions at ongoing battles in the Homs countryside.

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Climate Change Imperils Drought-Stricken Morocco’s Cereal Farmers and Its Food Supply

A farmer works in a wheat field on the outskirts of Kenitra, Morocco, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP)
A farmer works in a wheat field on the outskirts of Kenitra, Morocco, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP)
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Climate Change Imperils Drought-Stricken Morocco’s Cereal Farmers and Its Food Supply

A farmer works in a wheat field on the outskirts of Kenitra, Morocco, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP)
A farmer works in a wheat field on the outskirts of Kenitra, Morocco, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP)

Golden fields of wheat no longer produce the bounty they once did in Morocco. A six-year drought has imperiled the country's entire agriculture sector, including farmers who grow cereals and grains used to feed humans and livestock.

The North African nation projects this year's harvest will be smaller than last year in both volume and acreage, putting farmers out of work and requiring more imports and government subsidies to prevent the price of staples like flour from rising for everyday consumers.

"In the past, we used to have a bounty — a lot of wheat. But during the last seven or eight years, the harvest has been very low because of the drought," said Al Housni Belhoussni, a small-scale farmer who has long tilled fields outside of the city of Kenitra.

Belhoussni's plight is familiar to grain farmers throughout the world confronting a hotter and drier future. Climate change is imperiling the food supply and shrinking the annual yields of cereals that dominate diets around the world — wheat, rice, maize and barley.

In North Africa, among the regions thought of as most vulnerable to climate change, delays to annual rains and inconsistent weather patterns have pushed the growing season later in the year and made planning difficult for farmers.

In Morocco, where cereals account for most of the farmed land and agriculture employs the majority of workers in rural regions, the drought is wreaking havoc and touching off major changes that will transform the makeup of the economy. It has forced some to leave their fields fallow. It has also made the areas they do elect to cultivate less productive, producing far fewer sacks of wheat to sell than they once did.

In response, the government has announced restrictions on water use in urban areas — including on public baths and car washes — and in rural ones, where water going to farms has been rationed.

"The late rains during the autumn season affected the agriculture campaign. This year, only the spring rains, especially during the month of March, managed to rescue the crops," said Abdelkrim Naaman, the chairman of Nalsya. The organization has advised farmers on seeding, irrigation and drought mitigation as less rain falls and less water flows through Morocco's rivers.

The Agriculture Ministry estimates that this year's wheat harvest will yield roughly 3.4 million tons (3.1 billion kilograms), far less than last year's 6.1 million tons (5.5 billion kilograms) — a yield that was still considered low. The amount of land seeded has dramatically shrunk as well, from 14,170 square miles (36,700 square kilometers) to 9,540 square miles (24,700 square kilometers).

Such a drop constitutes a crisis, said Driss Aissaoui, an analyst and former member of the Moroccan Ministry for Agriculture.

"When we say crisis, this means that you have to import more," he said. "We are in a country where drought has become a structural issue."

Leaning more on imports means the government will have to continue subsidizing prices to ensure households and livestock farmers can afford dietary staples for their families and flocks, said Rachid Benali, the chairman of the farming lobby COMADER.

The country imported nearly 2.5 million tons of common wheat between January and June. However, such a solution may have an expiration date, particularly because Morocco's primary source of wheat, France, is facing shrinking harvests as well.

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization ranked Morocco as the world's sixth-largest wheat importer this year, between Türkiye and Bangladesh, which both have much bigger populations.

"Morocco has known droughts like this and in some cases known droughts that las longer than 10 years. But the problem, this time especially, is climate change," Benali said.