Marat Gabidullin, born in Siberia and raised in Uzbekistan, served in Soviet airborne forces until 1994, then spent three years in prison for shooting a crime boss.
After security work in Russia, he joined the Wagner Group in 2015, rose to lead a reconnaissance company, and was badly wounded near Palmyra in 2016.
He later advised the ISIS Hunters Battalion and fought at Khasham, but quit Wagner in 2019, briefly ran a Redut detachment in Syria, and left disillusioned.
Gabidullin’s 2022 memoir denounced Wagner and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; he now lives in France.