Get ready for the flood of kompromat

As Vladimir Putin sits thinking in his bomb-proof office, he may come to regret the fact that the entire world is sure that he ordered the death of the mutinous mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. The Kremlin is a Camorra, a mafia style parliament, running a gangster operation to fill Putin’s pockets and those of his oligarchs and elites. But as the Japanese found in Burma in 1944, if you prosecute a war with terror you will likely come unstuck against a well led, motivated and moral organisation like General ‘Bill’ Slim’s ‘Forgotten Army’.

Putin may in fact have signed his own death warrant. His fingerprints may not have been on the firing button when Prigozhin’s jet was brought down, and may not have been on the Polonium or Novichok which killed some of his other opponents, but his DNA is all over the orders. He now has two very powerful groups to worry about – quite apart from the International Criminal Court, which no doubt has so much evidence that if he ever gets to the Hague he will never leave.

Firstly, Putin must worry about his oligarchs who have now been holed up in their dachas in Moscow for over 18 months, unable to use their superyachts or villas in the Mediterranean. As their leader is further vilified around the globe over this latest murder, the oligarchs may come to see that their only chance to break out of Russia, now so diminished economically and socially, is to dispose of Putin.

Secondly, the Wagner Group might have lost their ‘cowboy’ leader and his deputy, but they remain a large force of thugs and murderers. Prigozhin was no military commander, but the Wagner Group is the most successful military outfit that Russia has managed to put into the field, no matter that they are paid mercenaries, many of them recruited out of Russian jails. To control such a rabble, you need some very hard ‘lieutenants’ running the show and these men will now be considering the future in Belarus and Africa. How ironic it would be if somebody showered them with riches to go and create mayhem within Russia. My experience of mercenaries is that they are not too picky about whose money they take.

archive link: https://archive.is/mMry3

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I mean I read it. It seems like his highest ranking role was in chemical and biological hazard containment and management. He did see some action in the first gulf war, but it’s not clear to me his experiences with mercenaries then.

        He alluding to and projecting the knowledge of what a group of mercenaries will do in this situation. I think it’s highly speculative.

        • scarabic@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It’s enough for me to know that he has a long and distinguished career in the military, combat zones, and weapons design to allow him to make a casual comment like “in my experience, mercenaries will take anyone’s money.”

          This is not some bold claim that requires extraordinary evidence.

          • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I think you are mistaking fictionalized narratives around mercenary armies for how real mercenary armies act and behave.

              • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                That I should not speculate on the motives or incentives of groups that I don’t have direct experience with. It causes me to make assumptions that aren’t validated by reality.

                Edit: To be clear, I didn’t write the article. My bona fides don’t have any bearing on this because I’m not the one writing articles for the Telegraph suggesting I can predict the actions of mercenary groups. My read is that the author shouldn’t be speculating either (without providing additional information).

                • QHC@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  You’re just doing the same thing in the opposite direction. Calling his take “fictional” is making a claim, not ‘just asking questions’.

                  • FabioTheNewOrder@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    Dude has a problem with his question being answered.

                    The guy who wrote the article has experience in a combat zone and has seen more military action than he will ever have.

                    By any standard these are speculations but they are presented by someone who has direct knowledge about these kind of groups, therefore they might be slightly more reliable than the average person’s point of view.

                    If you are not happy with this explanation I’m afraid I cannot provide you with anything else

        • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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          1 year ago

          You should probably pay a bit closer attention to his title and responsibilities during the invasion and occupation of Iraq, a war that used quite a lot of Wagner-style mercenaries

          So many, in fact, we don’t actually know how many died, because using disposable and desperate troops makes for cleaner official casualty reports.

          It’s okay to admit you made a bad assumption, fam, it’s definitely an understandable one.

          • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            In 1991, he saw active service in Iraq with the 14th/20th King’s Hussars as part of the First Gulf War.[11]

            He was a captain in a British regiment during the first Gulf war. As far as I know no mercenary on either side of that conflict. I think he’s being highly speculative.

            • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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              1 year ago

              K.

              Let me put it like this.

              The coalition invaded Iraq in 2003. “Looking for chemical weapons and nukes.”

              British troops would leave the occupation force in 2011.

              During that timeframe, what does his public page acknowledge him as doing, and what was he maybe doing before then, as a chemical warfare expert?

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        If you make a claim like that you need to back it up with evidence. If it was that simple, the west could simply have covered Wagner’s costs and removed them from the engagement. That’s not how the real world works, at all.

        His Wikipedia shows no evidence of extraordinary experiences with mercenaries. It’s some basic on the ground service during the Gulf war as a captain and later being an officer in charge of hazmat management. In metaphor, working in a hospital doesn’t mean you are qualified to comment on aspects of open heart surgery, even if your job is also important.