First of all, I just want this war to end. I don’t support Russia, or Ukraine. (this should not be that hot of a take but here we are) The whole sUpPoRt rUsSiA stuff is stupid, considering that Russia is yet another capitalist country that, while it is anti-USA, is just trying to be a competing bourgeois imperialist country. Russia is not “anti-imperialist”, Russia is just lesser imperialist. This is not “ultra-left”, this is the correct Marxist path. “Ultra-left” would be saying that China is capitalist. People who say that “Xi Jinping supports Russia because he talked with Putin” are also dumb because Xi Jinping talked with Zelenśkyj too, and he definitely does NOT support Ukraine. Also, there a bunch of Wagner supporters here, and do I even have to go into detail about why supporting LITERAL mercenaries is stupid? The only correct solution is to end the war immediately. Russia is not the 2nd coming of the USSR and is more akin to WW2 Britain than WW2 USSR. Putin is not another Stalin, Putin is Russian Churchill. This right-deviationist line here needs to end and Lemmygrad has to return to a principled Marxist line. Also, Pušilin is transphobic and has also given awards to literal Nazis, so supporting Pušilin over Zelenśkyj is just stupid. They both suck, and peace is the only way out.
I wouldn’t call Wagner group literal mercenaries. Basically Wagner has been recruiting prisoners with the condition that their service will pay for their crimes. A mercenary would fight for the money but I find Wagners method of operation is different. “Fight for your motherland and your name will be cleared.” There is also a strong ‘patriotism’ among the group. Is there a much difference in other ‘patriotic’ Russian soldiers? I’ve been listening Scott Ritter for invormation and if I’m wrong please correct me. In his words “if you would call a Wagner soldier mercenary, they would punch you in the face.”
Wagner is not a mercenary group in the same way as Blackwater. It is illegal for a private company to obtain weapons and accept contracts for hire in Russia, what we traditionally think of as mercenaries. Wagner is supplied weapons by the state and the soldiers are contracted, but are not part of the army itself. The “volunteer battalions” like Azov (pre incorporation) in Ukraine are supplied weapons by NATO and oligarchs directly and are much more similar to what we would traditionally consider mercenaries.
To clarify I don’t support Wagner, I just find ‘mercenaries’ to not quite describe them.
Z-posters when they find out what “PMC” in PMC Wagner means: 🤯