In what sense is the leader of Russia’s primary and most experienced military force not a military officer?
Wagner doesn’t have any particular specialty in urban warfare, dumbass. Any ‘skill’ they have gained in that field of operations is the result of them bashing their heads against Bakhmut for the past 10 months, the same as the regular Russian military. Oh yeah and eroding that skill at pretty much the same rate they acquire it because their losses are so heavy. Wagner only has/had two advantages over the regular Russian military. They were a reasonably competent military force at one point, but again that has eroded with all of the heavy losses they’ve sustained. If Prigoszhin is to be believed, in part because they are competitors with the regular Russian military, and contrary to your delusional fantasies they don’t get heavy support from the Russian military, the Russian military has in fact throttled their supplies of artillery ammunition. Odd that they’d do that seeing that in your fantasy world Ukraine has ammunition issues while Russia does not. The Russian military’s explanation is that they have to conserve artillery ammunition for the coming Ukrainian Spring offensive. It’s almost like they have issues with supplies of artillery ammunition of their own.
The other advantage Wagner had over the regular Russian military is that they were using prison convicts as handy bullet sponges and disposable reconnaissance assets by sending them out to draw fire and get killed to force the Ukrainians to reveal their positions so the actual Wagner forces could later attempt to infiltrate into and around them. Sadly for Wagner, they’re not allowed to recruit murderers and rapists from prisons anymore, haven’t been able to for some time, and what few of them remain alive are reaching the end of their contracts if they haven’t already.
ETA: Komrad is trying to play semantic games again regarding Wagner, Prigoszhin and Prigoszhin not technically actually being a military officer. Wagner isn’t technically a PMC either. It in fact had no legal existence at all until this January when it corporately registered itself with it’s core activity being ‘management consultancy’.
It takes a special kind of stupid to take any of this at face value, but that of course is no obstacle for our dear Komrad. Prigoszhin isn’t using ‘constant noise to make it seem he is in total command of Wagner.’ He is, in fact, both the founder and leader of Wagner. I’d take bets on Komrad’s next attempt to obfuscate the issue being that he denied being its founder for years despite everyone knowing better until “After years of denying his links to Wagner, he eventually confirmed that he was its founder on 26 September 2022” but I guess I’ve spoiled that angle for dear Komrad.
You just showed you used an adjective as a verb. Your cite to support your abuse of language is no better than those you use to support your abuse of fact.
In my view this war is indefensible. Ukrainians would seem to have a right to decide the form of government they prefer, and this need not result in displacing millions of people, mass casualties, crimes nor widespread destruction of property. However, it is not always fair to blame the actions of a government on their people, which may be the best defence available.
I wholeheartedly agree, both on moral and practical grounds. There is a lot of internal disagreement about the ‘special military operation’ inside Russia, with support for the war being generally proportional to the age and education of the respondent. The babushkas who grew up in the Soviet Union and get all of their information from official Russian state news outlets and have no idea what a VPN is are far more willing to swallow the propaganda fed to them, and more likely to believe that Russia needs a strongman to run the country. The younger generation is overall much more skeptical of this, and if for no other reason than it is their ass that could get shipped to Bakhmut they make up most of those who have fled Russia first after the invasion and then since limited mobilization began - but notably also includes a lot of young females, who don’t have this worry. A significant part of the better educated and thus more likely to get work abroad have also left Russia, particularly in the IT field.
On a moral level, the population had no say in the invasion or its conduct and continuation. Any direct protest faces draconian authoritarian reaction, with numerous ever more draconian laws having been put into place criminalizing ‘discrediting’ the Russian military, or even ‘discrediting’ convicts recruited by Wagner who are now freely walking the streets. There is a case to be made that by complying with authoritarianism the population is condoning it, but it’s far easier to make that argument while living outside Russia in a functioning democracy where one isn’t personally facing both jail time and having your education, job, and any future prospects imperiled by protesting your government.
On a practical level, blaming the Russian people as a whole just feeds into the Russian state propaganda narrative of the cause of the conflict being Russophobia from the Collective West who ‘started’ the conflict due to their irrational fear and hatred of Russia and their desire to conquer Russia in order to take its vast natural resources. I wish I was making up that last bit, but I’ve seen the West wanting to take Russia’s resources as the stock answer for why the conflict is happening from too many interviews asking that question to too many Z-head Zombies.
How do you explain that I cannot find a single Russian in our social circle (my kid does competition Math, Robotics, Chess and Piano, I’m sure I’ve talked with at least 20 Russian emigres or expats since the war broke out) to unconditionally condemn the “special operation”? The LEAST objectionable position I’ve encountered is that Russian history has shaped the psyche so that they have no choice but to do deplorable things even if the threats they are responding to are imaginary.
Most of these folks have PhDs.
The most common position is that Ukraine is Russia, and NATO caused the war. Are they so terrified of reprisals that they have to mouth the party line sitting on a bench outside a recital room or math class talking to a couple of Americans?
Knowing literally nothing about your social circle or the Russians therein any explanation I could try to give is going to be pure supposition and conjecture on my part. Since most of them have PhDs and have children doing competitions, I imagine they don’t fall on the younger range of the age spectrum or are in any particular danger of being mobilized, but again that’s pure conjecture on my part. Nor did I say that the younger generation is universally opposed to the war, or even that a majority is, or that those that are opposed to it are opposed on a philanthropical level.
I don’t doubt you that the Russians in your social circle hold the positions you describe. I can only tell you that they don’t represent all Russians. If you want, I can link you a number of Russian VTubers who hold views against their government, but I don’t claim that they represent the typical Russian by any means either. One particularly useful channel is 1420, which conducts street interviews. The usual caveats apply to street interviews as in the end they are just street interviews, but most of the disagreement with the official party line comes from the younger interviewees. Note that I said most disagreement comes from the younger interviewees, not that most of the younger interviewees disagree with the party line or at least aren’t spouting it out. The majority of the young go along with the party line, and those older and further out in the country - notably the most impoverished parts of the country that generally lack indoor plumbing where Russia concentrated its recruiting efforts to get warm bodies for the war prior to mobilization, some of which now face demographic crisis with the number of dead young men as a result of said recruitment in smaller communities almost universally go along with it.
NFKRZ - Roman - very anti ‘special military operation’ and anti-Putin, left for Georgia early on.
1420 by Daniil Orain - 20-something year old and friends who have been conducting street interviews since long before the war, controversial questions used to be about LGBTQ and Russian anti-‘gay propaganda’ laws, the past 15 months have been questions about the war. Again, I’m not claiming there is a utopian counterculture opposed to Putin and the war; it’s frankly depressing reading the subtitles of most of the responses, but there are those willing to make less than favorable remarks about Putin and the war that could potentially get them into hot water with the authorities. Most of those that do are younger and better educated, but again, I’m not saying most of the younger and better educated are opposed to Putin and the war, only that most of those opposed are younger.
Niki Proshin - has had very liberal views predating the war, is a good source of translations of what Russian state media is telling the average viewer. Thought he was safe from mobilization until he got flooded by comments from his (mostly Western and English speaking) viewers telling him to get out in September, which he did. Currently in Thailand.
Depressed Russian - Female Russian barista, just turned 20, left Russia for Georgia because of the war after the September mobilization. Channel is mostly her personal life, video on why she felt she had to leave rather than stay in the Z-dystopia here.
Natasha’s Adventures - She had a large channel before the war, was never particularly happy with living in Russia and had planned on leaving at some point even before the war (she’s a lesbian, go figure). Left Russia for Georgia (noticing a pattern on where you can actually go with a shitty Russian passport ever since the war started?), she’s extremely opposed to the war, goes to anti-war rallies in Tbilisi and works with fund raising for Ukrainian relief efforts - both of which could potentially get her sent to jail should she ever return to Russia.
Again, I don’t know anything about your social circle or the Russians therein, so this is pure supposition and speculation on my part, but I don’t imagine you live in Tbilisi, some other part of Georgia, another former Soviet republic or Turkey, so I’m guessing the emigres and expats you know didn’t arrive in your social circle after the invasion seeking to flee the Z-dystopia.
He has no military rank. He has not served in any Russian or other military. As far as founding the Wagner group, that is not really correct. Russian security organizations got the ball rolling. Developing an arms length military force that could operate at long arms length from the official military. To circumvent Russian laws.
I suspect he was willing and was rich. So to say he was the guy that made it and runs it could be somewhat believable… if one is gullible.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12344
History
According to media reports, Wagner evolved out of earlier
Russian PMC outfits, including groups operating in Syria in
2013. During this time, Russia was experimenting with
PMCs, including their role and relationship to the state.
Russian military intelligence (GU) reportedly helped
establish and oversee the Wagner group, including creating
training centers near GU Spetsnaz (elite reconnaissance)
bases. Wagner reportedly has had tense relations with the
rest of the Russian Ministry of Defense, however (for
additional background see CRS In Focus IF11650, Russian
Private Military Companies (PMCs), by Andrew S.
Bowen)
I have no idea what point you are trying to make. I’m sure you can find hundreds of thousands of Russians even in Russia willing to speak out against the war.
But there are what, 140 million people in Russia. And tens of millions in the diaspora. I’m telling you that in my personal experience well educated Russians living in the US, either US citizens of permanent residents, who presumably have lots of opportunity to consume “free” media, sound a hell of a lot more like our Comrade Kedikat than we’d like to believe.
And these folks almost all have parents, uncles, cousins, siblings, nieces and nephews in Russia. The people I’m in contact with were all born and grew up in Russia in the 1970s-1990s, and have been in the US for 10-25 years. Working in IT, Pharmaceuticals, Engineering, etc. Between 40 and 55 for the most part.
I don’t know how you can have no idea what point I am trying to make. You asked me to explain the Russians in your social circle, and I don’t know you, your social circle, the Russians contained therein, or even where you live, how old you are, etc. I obviously can’t explain them or the views they hold; as I clearly stated all I can tell you is that they don’t represent all Russians, and that there is a good deal of dissent against the party line and the ‘special military operation’ particularly amongst the younger generation. The fact that more than a million of them fled Russia when limited mobilization was declared in September speaks to this pretty loudly and clearly, as does the fact that Russia wasn’t able to find enough willing volunteers to go fight the war even with offers of what was relatively huge sums of rubles to what was the average wage in the poorest parts of Russia, particularly Central Asia. The fact that Putin waited seven months to declare a limited mobilization also speaks volumes to how precarious support for his war actually is, and the fact that he still hasn’t declared full mobilization even now facing an incoming Ukrainian Spring offensive. From a purely military prospective, this is utterly stupid; he’s given Ukraine a seven-month lead on mobilization, and they went with a full mobilization, not a half-assed and poorly conducted call-up of 300,000. From a political perspective, it shows how weak his position actually is. Russians may parrot the party line, but when it comes to actually putting their ass on the line there weren’t enough volunteers or prison convicts to go around and when faced with actually having to go fight to ‘defend the motherland from the Nazis, NATO, and the Collective West’ a million of them voted with their feet when faced with just the threat of being called up.
This would have been much more helpful for explaining your social circle and the Russians therein had you included this in your original post. The people you are talking about weren’t born and didn’t grow up in Russia. They were born and grew up in the Soviet Union; even a 40-year-old was born in 1983. These are the babushkas who grew up in the Soviet Union I mentioned in the first post you responded to who swallow the party line in its totality without it even occurring to them to think critically about it. There are exceptions, of course, but on the whole that’s what you get when your childhood and education happen in a totalitarian dictatorship which spends all of its time indoctrinating you that NATO and the West are the enemy, constantly planning to destroy your worker’s paradise. They were born and grew up in a totalitarian regime even less democratic than the Kleptocracy that Putin has created.
I’d honestly be curious to know what their children who grew up without all those trappings feel about the situation. Outside of earshot of their parents.
As we continue our guided tour of the Land O’ Facts, it’s nice to see:
- Wagner’s leader offers to sell out Russia’s invading troops,
& - Russia admits two commanders killed in Ukraine.
Go ahead, Kompromat; spin that.
Wagners leader is pretty whacky. He is such a great future patsy. Probably chosen for just that fact.
Only two? In over a year of war? Actually very many Russian commanders have been killed. There are differences in the levels/denomination of ranks among militaries. Also the expectations of how close in the fray they are expected to be. So this challenge to me to retort is a nothing. I think one or two Ukrainian commanders have also lost their lives performing their duty. From grunt on up, soldiers on the line are heroic and terribly put upon.
And how many of those killed were brigade commanders, propagandist? Anyway, so you’re now asserting that very many commanding officers of the Russian Ground Forces have been killed. This is probably more of a mantra than an actual request when it comes to you: What reliable sources do you have for that assertion?
wtf plus some characters…
Prigozhin is the chosen future patsy, brought to you by the brilliant mind that deduced from the Russian (forced) abandonment of Kherson that this was the result of secret negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, not the military realities on the ground that Russian could no longer supply their forces on the far side of the Dnieper.
Putin has been playing the long con on us all, Komrads! That just how brilliant Putin’s mind is! When they first met over 20 years ago, Putin knew he had to transform his ‘caterer’ into an obscenely wealthy oligarch and leader of Russia’s most successful PMC to create a fall guy for 15 months into his 72 hour special military operation. All is going according to plan.
Never mind.
A lot of people wonder why the Wagner leader could say what he did. Just by following the well worn path of blaming the boyars and not the tsar.
He might not trust Moscow’s supply of antidotes, even though Belarus’s dictator seems to be happy with it.
Few of us trust Moscow’s supply of anecdotes.