# Russia invades Ukraine {2022-02-24} (Part 2)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Tags:** ukraine-invasion, breaking-news
**Created:** [October 29, 2022, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972 "2022-10-29T17:49:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 11
### Author:  [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/201 "2022-11-03T15:12:17Z")
I think the point is that if you have enough billions, you can use that money to hire people to commit certain sorts of acts of violence that might result in political change.
Of course, if you aim for the Tsar you’d best not miss.
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### Author:  [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/202 "2022-11-03T15:18:37Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#):
>
> I think the point is that if you have enough billions, you can use that money to hire people to commit certain sorts of acts of violence that might result in political change.
But in Russia, how do you know the Rough and Tumble guys you’re paying aren’t also on Putin’s payroll? Sure, they’ll kick ass and take names on your orders, right up until Putin tells them not to.
Were I such a oligarch, I would only ever hire foreign mercenaries for such work. Were I Putin, I would ban hiring foreign mercenaries for domestic Russian work, just to avoid this risk.
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### Author:  [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/203 "2022-11-03T15:19:04Z")
Putin has control of the internal spy departments that have been functioning quite effectively since Stalin created them. There is no one in the country that they could hire that Putin doesn’t already track. If they do try to hire hitmen they will be found out and killed (both the hitmen and the oligarch). Even if they renounce their Russian citizenship and leave the country they will be targeted and very likely killed.
Outsiders coming into Russia are automatically tracked and can be checked and put in their place at any time. Just ask Brittney Griner. Hitmen arriving in Russia to visit an oligarch or meeting with them overseas would stick out. The oligarchs are being watched physically, electronically and by satellite. They know where those yachts are at and where they are going.
It seems that many of the younger generation just cannot understand just how evil Putin is, its beyond anything they have ever experienced. Or people choose to look the other way until it involves them.
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### Author:  [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/204 "2022-11-03T15:41:02Z")
I’m not suggesting an oligarch might hire Agent 47 or Carlos the Jackal. I’m suggesting that for enough money, people whose loyalty is assumed to be unimpeachable might actually be purchased.
Anyways, I’m not really expecting this to happen. I just took it to be what’s meant when people talk about the possibility of the oligarchs deciding they’ve had enough.
Realistically I think the greater threat to Putin comes from the pro-war side. Someone like Prigozhin deciding that Putin is playing too nice and using his private army to stage a coup, or the actual army getting fed up with being thrown under the bus every time the Ukrainians make another breakthrough. Also very unlikely, of course.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/205 "2022-11-03T15:49:40Z")
You can’t hire people who will be willing to die for you. Soldiers will die for a country, they’ll die for an ideology, and they’ll die for a leader. They won’t die for a paycheck.
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### Author:  [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/206 "2022-11-03T15:54:19Z")
I would suggest that Prigozhin’s private army demonstrates pretty conclusively that soldiers _will_ die for a paycheque.
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### Author:  [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/207 "2022-11-03T15:56:25Z")
Most coups historically have come from within military or security apparatuses.
Where does popular support factor in to any change of government? Here’s a scenario: Putin’s term of office is up in 2024. The longer the war drags on the less popular it will be with the Russian public. The war drags on throughout 2023 as Russians struggle (after additional loss of territory) to achieve a stalemate, and perhaps Putin chooses this time to retire from public life and not pursue a fifth term.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/208 "2022-11-03T15:57:08Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#):
>
> I would suggest that Prigozhin’s private army demonstrates pretty conclusively that soldiers _will_ die for a paycheque.
The Wagner Group are mercenaries in name only. They’re a Russian military organization operating parallel to the main Russian Army, like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard or the Waffen SS.
Tell me this: have they ever worked for anyone other than Putin? Do they have non-Russian soldiers?
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### Author:  [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/209 "2022-11-03T16:10:47Z")
> [@Cardigan](#):
>
> perhaps Putin chooses this time to retire
How does a guy like Putin retire? Isn’t he automatically on everyone’s hit list as soon as he actually does so? Like even if he went into the hospital for actual cancer there would be people trying to kill him before the cancer did.
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### Author:  [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/210 "2022-11-03T16:21:06Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> Tell me this: have they ever worked for anyone other than Putin? Do they have non-Russian soldiers?
Wagner Group has worked in the Syrian Civil War, in Libya, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, and possibly other African conflicts (although some or all of these are likely at Putin’s direction). They are known to have had a Serb unit and to have recruited Kazakhs, Moldovans, and other ex-Soviet nationals.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/211 "2022-11-03T16:27:50Z")
Fair enough. I still stand by my belief that they’re not actually mercenaries, and could not exist in their current format without state support.
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### Author:  [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/212 "2022-11-03T17:56:05Z")
Mercenary companies fought and died for money historically, however I think the trick is in the third option @Alessan gave: “a leader”, or as in the Foreign Legion “A sense of esprit de corps”, you create a mistique, imbue it on your soldiers and they’ll die for it.
However mercenary companies are also historically casualty-averse, they may die for their unit, but they’ll try at all cost to avoid it and usually will not fight to the last man.
On the gripping hand not many regular army units would fight to the last man either.
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### Author:  [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/213 "2022-11-03T17:58:53Z")
> [@slash2k](#):
>
> …but it was estimated to have been carrying 400 to 600 pounds of explosive. It blew a 40-foot hole in the side of the larger vessel and killed seventeen sailors.
As a destroyer, _Cole_ had no armor. As a “frigate” _Admiral Makarov_ is even smaller that a destroyer and likely has no armor either, but Russian parlance might or might not match NATO’s.
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### Author:  [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/214 "2022-11-03T18:10:35Z")
USS Cole damage:
[ ](https://media.defense.gov/2000/Oct/12/2001239726/-1/-1/0/684774-T-DIB47-281.jpg)
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### Author:  [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/215 "2022-11-03T18:13:13Z")
Heck, for all we know the recent rain of oligarchs was for exactly this reason: they were plotting.
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### Author:  [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/216 "2022-11-03T18:16:23Z")
Or just publicly complaining.
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/217 "2022-11-03T18:22:51Z")
> [@Horatius](#):
>
> Yep. It’s been clear for months now that Russia simply doesn’t have what it takes to win militarily, but the social engineering side of it is still an open question.
>
> Get out the vote!
Russia will eventually collapse if NATO keeps outspending them. Russia is hemorrhaging money. Their stocks of Soviet weapons depleted. The Iranians are extending the war with drones and supporting attacks on civilians.
The Soviet Union went broke and collapsed. Same thing could happen in Russia.
ISW [Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 2 | Institute for the Study of War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-2)
> [@](#):
>
> **Russian force generation efforts combined with Western sanctions are having long-term damaging effects on the Russian economy, as ISW has previously forecasted.** Financial experts told _Reuters_ that the Kremlin will face a budget deficit that will “drain Moscow’s reserves to their lowest level in years” due to projected decreases in energy revenue, sanctions, and the cost of Russian mobilization.[1] One expert predicted that payouts to mobilized men including social benefits may cost the Kremlin between 900 billion rubles and three trillion rubles (around $14.6-$32.4 billion) in the next six months. The number does not account for payouts to other categories of servicemen within the Russian forces such as BARS (Combat Army Reserve), volunteer battalions, and the long-term commitment to veterans’ payments to contract servicemen, volunteers, non-military specialists who moved to occupied territories, and proxy fighters.[2] ISW previously estimated that one volunteer battalion of 400 servicemen costs Russia at least $1.2 million per month excluding enlistment bonuses and special payments for military achievements.[3]
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### Author:  [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/218 "2022-11-03T19:36:23Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> payouts to mobilized men may cost the Kremlin 900 billion rubles
Who says that Putin will actually pay those men? He can simply announce “sorry, guys, no pay this month–but don’t worry…we’ll give you all your money in form of extra pensions when you retire 30 years from now. I promise.”
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Russia will eventually collapse if NATO keeps outspending them
this seems like wishful thinking.
The Russian economy may shrink by a billion dollars, the Gazprom company may lose a couple hundred million, but there will still be ,tens of millions of dollars available for Putin and his oligarchs to skim for themselves. And that’s all that matters.
If a quarter million soldiers die, and tens of millions of civilians are unemployed, that’s just fine with Putin. Western economists will proudly declare “Russia is collapsing”–but the only Russians who notice will be the unemployed masses, not the one-percenters, (who are the only people who count. )
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### Author:  [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/219 "2022-11-03T20:16:13Z")
> [@chappachula](#):
>
> Who says that Putin will actually pay those men? He can simply announce “sorry, guys, no pay this month–but don’t worry…we’ll give you all your money in form of extra pensions when you retire 30 years from now. I promise.”
Putin is already dealing with protests about the mobilization. He has a firm grip, but trying something like that is IMO very likely to cause a general mutiny among the troops and lots of civil unrest from their friends/family.
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### Author:  [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-2/973972/220 "2022-11-03T20:36:40Z")
fascinating deep dive on the Sevastopol-stunt - and an interesting decoy
> **[Thread by @GeoConfirmed on Thread Reader App](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1586460379697348608.html)**
>
> @GeoConfirmed: GeoConfirmed Investigation. What happened in Sevastopol, Crimea? A @GeoConfirmed thread. We gathered a lot of footage en we will number our tweets xx/ Thx @TilmanPlan4Risk for this picture. 01/ The fi...…
that stuff (+kerch bridge + moscva) will keep military scholars busy for years to come
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