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fatherboxx)
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They've always been supplied directly by Russian MOD. They're just not trying to hide it now.
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May 5, 2023 06:30
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funk_mata posted:How do mercenary groups typically get their equipment? Do they--or more specifically Wagner--buy them from the defense industry in whose country they operate? Should groups like Wagner even expect "free" ammunition from the MoD if they are a mercenary outfit? I'm hoping someone in this thread can educate me here, because Prizohin's whining seems strange: if you are a mercenary outfit, you get paid for waging war well; and if that's the case then your inability to field weapons is indicative of your inability to wage war well. That is, you're not making enough money by "winning enough" to purchase weapons or ammo. Or is it simply the case that waging war is way more expensive then any mercenary outfit can hope to wage without external support even with capitalist incentives. Well Wagner isn’t technically mercenaries, it is effectively a private wing of the Russian Military. They are no doubt supplied directly from the MOD. A real mercenary outfit generally buys arms directly from manufacturers if legally allowed or through arms brokers if not. Sometimes they are given additional equipment by the client but that is not the norm.
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May 5, 2023 06:35
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Djarum posted:Well Wagner isn’t technically mercenaries, it is effectively a private wing of the Russian Military. They are no doubt supplied directly from the MOD. OK, thanks, that distinction makes sense. Last question: what is the benefit of allowing a private wing of the Russian military to exist (instead of subsuming it into the actual state-owned military)? Is Wagner supposed to be better trained and more capable?
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May 5, 2023 06:45
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funk_mata posted:OK, thanks, that distinction makes sense. Last question: what is the benefit of allowing a private wing of the Russian military to exist (instead of subsuming it into the actual state-owned military)? Is Wagner supposed to be better trained and more capable? Wagner was arguably better trained and more capable, but their principal utility was being nominally deniable when conducting atrocities in places where Russia wanted to claim they weren't involved. Wagner's treatment as a sort of speartip, the politicking that has emerged during the reinvasion, and the way the unit has acted since then has removed all pretense and made it more like the private army of one particularly well-protected member of Putin's circle.
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May 5, 2023 06:49
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GrevMoror posted:I do not ever think I have seen such a video before. How can it be that Prigozhin have not yet lost his head in the political game in Russia? Who is holding their hand over him and keeping him alive? Putin likes him, apparently. In an authoritarian dictatorship that goes a long way. Also the whole Wagner giving plausible deniability to operations in Africa and elsewhere, but primarily he's in the "friends of Putin" club. Ironically, so is Shoigu. Putin also almost certainly enjoys Shoigu and Prigozhin keeping busy conspiring against each other. Still, my take is that video went too far even for Prigozhin and he either rolls it back and apologizes in the next day or two or he just doesn't give a drat any more and figured the starting gun for the post-Putin jockeying is going to go off with the Ukrainian offensive. Lum_ fucked around with this message at 07:01 on May 5, 2023 |
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May 5, 2023 06:59
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Djarum posted:Well Wagner isn’t technically mercenaries, it is effectively a private wing of the Russian Military. They are no doubt supplied directly from the MOD. Right, they are integrated into the command and logistics of Russian forces in Ukraine just like, say, if Russian and Belarusian units or units from different NATO countries were operating in the same theater. Normal PMC ops are low intensity stuff like security for an oil company where you don't need entire truck columns of ammo per day. In a real active war supply needs are so high that you can't just send a jeep to fetch some bullets when you start running out.
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May 5, 2023 07:11
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https://twitter.com/bbcstever/status/1654364944295501824 Steve Rosenberg is a BBC reporter still living in Moscow and he provides interesting insights into daily life in Russia, by highlighting what the newspapers are writing, or in this case the general mood in Moscow in the run up to the May 9 celebrations.
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May 5, 2023 08:04
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https://twitter.com/ABarbashin/status/1654396697462599682?t=IK44lHRQk5dgjbaEAjGl6w&s=19 Regardless of the will to actually to anything described, this is an embarassing clown show for Russia
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May 5, 2023 09:19
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Could it be Wagner was ordered out, and Prigozhin is playing 'You cannot fire me, I quit!' card?
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May 5, 2023 09:23
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spankmeister posted:https://twitter.com/bbcstever/status/1654364944295501824 This be a little off topic for the thread but I'm interested in what happens to Russia. Places like St. Petersburg are pretty cosmopolitan with a lot young-ish (25-45 years olds) who are quite educated, spent time overseas including a lot of international business relations. Ever since the war, all of their efforts have been completely destroyed. It's super sad and I don't how on earth they are going to recover. Ian Bremmer did a big discussion on it - https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1653862482283311105?s=20
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May 5, 2023 09:27
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:This be a little off topic for the thread but I'm interested in what happens to Russia. Places like St. Petersburg are pretty cosmopolitan with a lot young-ish (25-45 years olds) who are quite educated, spent time overseas including a lot of international business relations. Ever since the war, all of their efforts have been completely destroyed. It's super sad and I don't how on earth they are going to recover. Ian Bremmer did a big discussion on it - People who had the resources and were engaged in international business relations you described have already left
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May 5, 2023 09:31
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fatherboxx posted:https://twitter.com/ABarbashin/status/1654396697462599682?t=IK44lHRQk5dgjbaEAjGl6w&s=19 There's no way that Prigozhin decided that on his own
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May 5, 2023 09:40
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Charlz Guybon posted:There's no way that Prigozhin decided that on his own he'd been threatening it for at least a couple of weeks now and the reaction had mostly been that it would be an act of mutiny, essentially. idk though, beyond the obvious thing that Prigozhin is taking aim at Gerasimov and Shoigu, who knows what exactly to make of the last 72 hours
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May 5, 2023 10:03
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GrevMoror posted:I do not ever think I have seen such a video before. How can it be that Prigozhin have not yet lost his head in the political game in Russia? Who is holding their hand over him and keeping him alive? In authoritarian regimes, it's incredibly useful to the person at the top when the people under them are fighting with each other rather than uniting and taking a real hard look at your decision making. And who could replace you.
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May 5, 2023 10:13
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Im waiting for Shoigu and Gerasimov to have their own theatrical setpieces in the dance about ammunition. This looked absolutely ridiculous like a cut-scene in a bad videogame between level 5 and 6. I would be really suprised if Wagner does "pull out".
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May 5, 2023 10:19
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Yeah agreed it seems like another internal play to make sure his troops are prioritised over the Russian army proper again.
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May 5, 2023 10:20
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Irony Be My Shield posted:Yeah agreed it seems like another internal play to make sure his troops are prioritised over the Russian army proper again. They've been doing that for half a year and it didn't work, this is desperation
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May 5, 2023 10:22
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https://twitter.com/vofchekpan/status/1654413658296840194?t=Gx9qiNU9qsIc2kExUmjKuw&s=19 Guy on twitter says that his brigade managed to shoot down the fearsome Kinzhal missile from a Patriot. File this under "guy on twitter says" of course, but if true, I expect Ukrainian MOD to make a big deal out of it soon. Here are photos, I'll let experts verify https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1654420929206800384?t=STu2HUDAI5Bxy9QLy9v9cA&s=19 fatherboxx fucked around with this message at 10:54 on May 5, 2023 |
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May 5, 2023 10:51
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Doesn't seem implausible. Shooting down ballistic missiles is a capability Patriot has. As I recall it was used for that purpose as far back as the Iraq war.
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May 5, 2023 11:20
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fatherboxx posted:https://twitter.com/ABarbashin/status/1654396697462599682?t=IK44lHRQk5dgjbaEAjGl6w&s=19 https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1654412610069037057?s=20 lol "not a step back until the public holiday"
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May 5, 2023 11:35
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EmployeeOfTheMonth posted:Im waiting for Shoigu and Gerasimov to have their own theatrical setpieces in the dance about ammunition. This looked absolutely ridiculous like a cut-scene in a bad videogame between level 5 and 6. I think the most straightforward explanation for this is that Prigozhin is now more worried of getting sledgehammered by his own underlings that of getting defenestrated by Putin. Or he may even have cleared it with above, and this is just theater to get ahead of a Wagner mutiny.
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May 5, 2023 11:37
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I hate to speculate on what part of Prigozhin's social media game is real because it's all Medvedev level drunk fascist boasting, but it's worth bearing in mind that he can't just tell his guys to desert assigned positions or there is court martial. But it's possible that the higher command has gotten tired of him and his penal legions and will replace them with regular mobiks, possibly disband the whole Wagner and integrate everyone within Russian army.
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May 5, 2023 11:42
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Feels like appaling leadership to base your military withdrawal timetable on public holidays.
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May 5, 2023 12:09
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Drakhoran posted:Doesn't seem implausible. Shooting down ballistic missiles is a capability Patriot has. As I recall it was used for that purpose as far back as the Iraq war. Like the British deliberately misreporting what strikes worked, where they actually landed and what didn't during WWII, I would be very surprised that an army that has been relatively disciplined as UKR has been to just casually broadcast that they knocked down a deep strike with a particular weapon at a particular time.
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May 5, 2023 12:19
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Nenonen posted:I hate to speculate on what part of Prigozhin's social media game is real because it's all Medvedev level drunk fascist boasting, but it's worth bearing in mind that he can't just tell his guys to desert assigned positions or there is court martial. But it's possible that the higher command has gotten tired of him and his penal legions and will replace them with regular mobiks, possibly disband the whole Wagner and integrate everyone within Russian army. If they are going to be punished for that, it's not going to be due process. The existence of Wagner is illegal and they are not directly subordinate to the official military command. There won't be any military courts for them if they start a mutiny, someone will just remember that they are a bunch of dangerous criminals with guns.
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May 5, 2023 12:59
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He wants to get out before the Ukrainian Counter Offensive starts rolling. I hope he gets caught in it.
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May 5, 2023 13:32
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Paladinus posted:If they are going to be punished for that, it's not going to be due process. The existence of Wagner is illegal and they are not directly subordinate to the official military command. There won't be any military courts for them if they start a mutiny, someone will just remember that they are a bunch of dangerous criminals with guns. I am going to take a guess and say that the Russian high command will try and avoid a mutiny by tens of thousands of armed men in the middle of their front line.
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May 5, 2023 13:57
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Dick Ripple posted:I am going to take a guess and say that the Russian high command will try and avoid a mutiny by tens of thousands of armed men in the middle of their front line. That would be the smart move but this may be the culmination of a very dangerous political game on both sides. These things are by definition unpredictable and based on the whims of a select few individuals.
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May 5, 2023 13:59
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There are some satellite images of the gigantic explosion a few days back: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/incredible-destruction-at-ukrainian-rocket-storage-site-that-detonated-from-russian-strike It seems they were storing giant piles of explodium there, though obviously nobody is going to say how much of that was materiel used in the current war… But still, yikes.
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May 5, 2023 14:00
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Staluigi posted:Speaking of flags, still loving that russian representative in Ankara who tried to win by capturing the Ukranian flag, and got punched in the loving face by a Ukranian MP for his trouble Russian speakers: what does the Ukranian MP say to the Russian after he kicks his rear end?
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May 5, 2023 15:43
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Nelson Mandingo posted:In authoritarian regimes, it's incredibly useful to the person at the top when the people under them are fighting with each other rather than uniting and taking a real hard look at your decision making. And who could replace you. Ok so if this kind of whiny infighting is supposed to be good for putin somehow I would need some kind of a ten step explainer on it. Desperation to give Big Leader something other than a giant L has historically been a great way to get stuck in a pyrrhic meatgrinder, and that's what let Ukraine use Bakhmut as a sacrificial attrition pit for their enemy But you still need to get the thing. And now there's a giant hissyfit and Evil Mercenary League says they're over it and leaving the thing. Which means dictator doesn't have the thing they meatground all their poo poo into. If there's a "this is good for
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May 5, 2023 16:02
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That's how this kind of regime is frequently set up, though. It's not about being efficient, good at achieving goals, or anything but keeping the guy at the top in power. Having multiple infighting (para)military organisations keeping each other in check is a classic dictator move.
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May 5, 2023 16:12
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Staluigi posted:Ok so if this kind of whiny infighting is supposed to be good for putin somehow I would need some kind of a ten step explainer on it. Desperation to give Big Leader something other than a giant L has historically been a great way to get stuck in a pyrrhic meatgrinder, and that's what let Ukraine use Bakhmut as a sacrificial attrition pit for their enemy Thats the thing about these types of one man governments. To stay in power they need to pit underlings against each other so none of them can consolidate enough power to challenge the supreme leader. This is fine when there is a country to loot and no real external pressure. But when the rubber meets the road, this severely hampers actually getting anything external done. Everyone can see the infighting and inefficiencies but you cant just pick a side and say "you now control everything". 1. It gives that person the ability to topple you 2. It pisses everyone else off who then my try to topple you 3. The various faction underlings likely wont follow the new appointed commander This is not a structure that can stop midstream and change to be more efficient. This is already throughout the structure from top to bottom. Thats why when Wagner was making some progress in Bakhmut, the regular military had their disaster at the city that starts with a V, because all they can do is try and pray they get lucky and look slightly more successful than the next guy.
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May 5, 2023 16:15
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Djarum posted:Well Wagner isn’t technically mercenaries, it is effectively a private wing of the Russian Military. They are no doubt supplied directly from the MOD. Would it be fair to call them paramilitary?
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May 5, 2023 17:39
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Staluigi posted:Ok so if this kind of whiny infighting is supposed to be good for putin somehow I would need some kind of a ten step explainer on it. Desperation to give Big Leader something other than a giant L has historically been a great way to get stuck in a pyrrhic meatgrinder, and that's what let Ukraine use Bakhmut as a sacrificial attrition pit for their enemy It's good for Putin because he needs all of his minions too weak to make a play for the top job, and stabbing each other in the back is a time-honored way of accomplishing this. It's bad for Russia because in the process tens of thousands of Russians are being killed over political games, but Putin has demonstrated repeatedly that he does not give a single flying gently caress about the average Russian. As for Bakhmut, Russia does not "need to get the thing" at all. Bakhmut is militarily insignificant and the amount of blood Russia has thrown at it is literally insane. It's a now completely destroyed town of what used to be 70,000 people, and isn't really a road or rail hub. It's just a point on the map Putin pointed at and said "I want this."
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May 5, 2023 17:42
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Blue Footed Booby posted:Would it be fair to call them paramilitary? Before this year, they were more of a classic PMC with forces overall far better trained and equipped than the average Russian brigade. They've spent the past year bloating up with convicts and volunteers from various sources and their on-the-job training program has been "charge the front, and if you don't die, do it again tomorrow", so they are much closer to what you'd consider a paramilitary militia now, albeit still with a core of warcrimey merc goons. It's worth remembering that well before the Ukraine war, Wagner actually got froggy and decided to attack an American base in Syria. The results were anywhere from 15 to hundreds (much more likely) of Wagner dead with 0 US casualties. The US graciously agreed to pretend it never happened to avoid WW3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khasham Lum_ fucked around with this message at 17:49 on May 5, 2023 |
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May 5, 2023 17:44
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That's the one with the intercepted radio chatter where the Wagner guys are going "holy poo poo they kicked our asses!"
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May 5, 2023 17:51
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https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1654500316883058689 Is this a sign that Russia is going to be retreating, or is it too early to tell?
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May 5, 2023 17:52
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Willo567 posted:https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1654500316883058689 It's a sign that Russia intends to level every building they can find so advancing Ukrainians have no cover.
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May 5, 2023 17:53
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Alternatively destroyed buildings are really good cover that are awful to dislodge people from if it isn't completely collapsed and means the attackers have to set up their own facilities for sleeping/storing poo poo in.
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May 5, 2023 18:07
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