Seeing mixed reports about the head of wagner rolling into Rostov, Russia. All kinds of other rumors swirling around. Anyone have any good info, or good sources to follow?
This is the inevitible result of nations wholly relying on mercenary groups to fight their wars. As major powers, not just Russia, continue to rely on privatized militaries these militaries are going to become emboldened and realize how much power they have over their capitalist financiers.
The other day I was listening to an old episode of The Deprogram where they talked about this. Surreal to see it actually happening now.
Yes, and furthermore: this just brings up the larger point that you cannot fight imperialism solely on the basis of the national bourgeoisie. They are weak and disunited, and many times will stab you in the back. One hopes the Russian government can learn from this episode, and move (as Chavez did) toward a stronger state with more socialistic policies.
nations should stop tolerating the laundering of responsibility. a country using individuals or private companies to project its power / do its violence etc. must be held culpable, otherwise it is too easy to get away with stuff
we should stop acting like hiring mercs is a loophole
I couldn’t tell you the specific episode, sorry. I’ve been going on a binge lately while commuting to work so I’ve listened to a lot. Likely a 2022 one.
Basically they were remarking on how, even though past wars have been fought with private contractors, the Russia-Ukraine War is the first major war where one party has been so reliant on one mercenary company and that in the future these mercenary groups may end up trying to seize political power for themselves.
Which is exactly what’s happening.
I have no fucking idea and I feel like that might be intentional. We’re told this bizarre narative that Wagner is committing a coup and magically just bulldozed the entire Russian Military to get to Moscow, but the only real source of this info are Pro-Ukraine accounts who lie about everything.
For the record, Russian state media is also calling this a coup attempt.
https://www.rt.com/russia/578601-recap-putin-address-wagner-coup/
From what I know, all the Wagner mercs and other volunteer groups were said to sign a contract with Russian MoD, so there was a plan to nationalize them. Prigozhin, of course, didn’t want to lose his PMC (and sweet sweet money), so he made a strange fake video (and it was so stupid that I and many other people really thought it was some kind of distraction from something) about russian army bombing one of the Wagner camps, and used this as a justification for his coup attempt.
News blackout currently underway as of the night of the 23rd. Don’t trust anything being said at the moment as it’s all speculation and rumor. Even from official sources a lot of the information in a breaking story is going to be wrong, exaggerated, or confusing.
I’m going to check with Russian sources when I wake up, but currently there is no information coming out of the area or about Wagner.
Also the videos showing Wagners “coup” in Rostov are a bit funny. If they are what they claim to be, Wagners force appears to be 2 tanks (one modern and one very obsolete tank by the look of things), 1 IFV, 2 armored Humvee style cars, 1 military transport truck, and then about 5-10 assorted civilian vehicles.
Assuming they’re all full to the brim with troops and supplies, that’s enough men and machines for what? An under-strength Company of troops? The NYPD could handle that force.
NYPD’s budget is larger than the military budget of many small countries (for eg. DPRK) lol
the NYPD pays way way way more for that gear though, there’s no way they have more equipment than the DPRK’s army
[New York] City officials say that the NYPD will acquire two robot dogs for a total of $750,000, according to the NYT, and that they will only be used during life-threatening situations, such as bomb threats.
Yeah checks out
fortunately, the nypd lacks equipment such as tanks, missiles, and artillery. spending isn’t everything; what they spend it on is everything.
Prigozjin is leading his pack of avengers and will go on a heckin epic fighting tour all the way to the Kremlin. I heard Tom Holland, Chris Evans and a Marvel film crew were there as well.
No no no, he is doing a Harry Star Wars Potter! They will use the heckin force to overthrow the evil bad Putler Voldemort emperor, and establish democracy like the good guys did!
Comment I saw on another site: “Prigozhin seems determined to go down as the cheap knock-off version of Stenka Razin”
Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
