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Wagner group: alcoholics and knackis - these people fight for "Putin's cook"

2023-01-27T12:03:56.817Z


The influence of the Wagner group in the Ukraine war grows. Little is known about the mercenaries - some have been identified after their deaths.


The influence of the Wagner group in the Ukraine war grows.

Little is known about the mercenaries - some have been identified after their deaths.

Moscow – In the Ukraine war, the influence of the Wagner mercenaries led by “Putin's cook” Yevgeny Prigozhin grows.

The Wagner boss repeatedly emphasized the military successes of the group.

However, the paramilitary organization is not only spreading fear in Russia.

What is known about the mercenaries who fight for the infamous Wagner troupe?

Mercenaries fighting for the Wagner group, apparently prisoners convicted of murder and manslaughter

Reuters

news agency

has been able to identify 39 of 200 fallen Russian soldiers buried in Russia's Bakinskaya region.

Many of those buried would be Wagner mercenaries, which was also confirmed in conversations with relatives.

10 of the fallen were imprisoned for murder or manslaughter, 24 people for serious bodily harm and robbery.

Among them were alcoholics and long-term inmates,

according to

Reuters .

Reuters

, citing court documents, identified Anatoly Bodenkov, convicted as a hitman, and Viktor Deshko, imprisoned for murder, among the fallen mercenaries.

According to the US secret service, 50,000 mercenaries have been deployed in the Ukraine war so far.

Of these, 40,000 were recruited from prisons who were promised freedom after six months' service.

Currently, only 10,000 of the 50,000 mercenaries are left fighting at the front, as Russian activist Olga Romanova recently

told

My Russian Rights in an interview.

This information has not yet been confirmed.

Wagner Group mercenaries sent to the war front as “cannon fodder”.

There is just as little information about the backgrounds of Wagner soldiers as there is about the conditions of the mercenaries in the troops.

For some time, however, reports have been accumulating of how mercenaries and Russian soldiers are being sent to the war front as “cannon fodder”.

This was also confirmed by a former Wagner mercenary in an interview with the British

Guardian

.

"The prisoners are used as cannon fodder, as meat," apparently said Andrei Medvedev, a former commander of the Wagner mercenaries.

After heavy fighting, only a few mercenaries remained alive.

In order to fill the personnel gaps in the course of these losses, the Wagner Group is probably also recruiting in Serbia or prisons in the Central African Republic.

The Wagner group also lures Ukrainian prisoners, and Germans are also fighting for Putin's Wagner group and are receiving $70,000 a month in return.

Wagner Group is becoming more and more important in the Ukraine war – is Prigozhin becoming a problem for Putin?

With increasing importance of the mercenary troupe for the Kremlin, the competition between government agencies and the head of the Wagner Group also grew.

Prioshin is continuing to expand his power in Russia and is apparently increasingly using a PR campaign on his own behalf.

Once known as Putin's "shadow army," the group is increasingly emerging from the shadows -- public campaigns attest to that.

The confidante of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin could become a problem for the President.

"We see growing tensions between Wagner and the Russian Defense Ministry," said John Kirby, White House national security spokesman.

In fact, Prigozhin has recently repeatedly and clearly criticized the Russian administration.

Among other things, the mercenary boss had accused Kremlin employees of treason and, together with Chechnya's President Ramzan Kadyrov, had criticized the beard ban.

He also sharply criticized the military leadership.

The fact that Putin recently distanced himself from Prigozhin could be another sign of tension between the two rulers.

(bohy)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2023-01-27

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