Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, Russia's Vladimir Putin and Turkey's Tayyip Erdogan meet in Sochi, Russia November 22, 2017. (photo credit: SPUTNIK/MIKHAIL METZEL/KREMLIN VIA REUTERS)
Posted on 02/14/2018 8:32:56 AM PST by BeadCounter
Yelena Matveyeva was eagerly awaiting what she hoped would be her husband's return to Russia from Syria, where he had been allegedly fighting for months as a mercenary alongside forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Spirits buoyed that he could be home in weeks, she decided to buy a new dress. While in a store in Asbest, their hometown in Russia's Sverdlovsk region, east of Moscow, she got a call from a friend.
Matveyeva said her friend asked her if she had heard anything from her husband or Igor Kosoturov, another military contractor from Asbest. "I said, 'I haven't been able to call him for three days,'" Matveyeva recounts. "Literally, in a minute he calls me back and says, 'Stasa [her husband Stanislav] and Igor are dead.'"
(Excerpt) Read more at rferl.org ...
mercenary - that’s Military-speak for ‘EXPENDABLES’..............
ping
Have to think that becoming a Russian mercenary is not a career with a real hot long-term growth horizon. Don’t expect your pension plan to vest. You are a “red-shirt” on Star Trek basically.
Thanks BeadCounter. What were they doing? They were playing the same role for Putin that the Hezbollah and the Afghan conscripts play/played for Khamenei, taking the brunt to avoid official casualties in an unpopular intervention. Syria is a quagmire, and Pooty-poot doesn't have a way out. Meanwhile I've begun to think that the young hereditary dictator Assad is a political genius. :^)
https://www.rferl.org/a/mattis-russia-mercenaries-syria-killed-us-strikes/29038814.html
“What were these people doing?”
Trying to make money in a country where their options have disappeared.
It’s disgusting. Yelena is now alone and their son has no father.
The middle east is a place that just needs to disappear and stop infecting the rest of humanity with their disease.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, Russia's Vladimir Putin and Turkey's Tayyip Erdogan meet in Sochi, Russia November 22, 2017. (photo credit: SPUTNIK/MIKHAIL METZEL/KREMLIN VIA REUTERS)
The Russian business daily Kommersant reports that 600 Russians had been contracted by the St. Petersburg-based PWC Vagner paramilitary group to fight inside Syria.
Sadly, you are correct. Like most “contractors” these guys get the tasks that the regulars don’t want or tasks that are simply too risky, as in, “There’s a 20% chance this op could succeed so let’s send the contractors to see if we can pick up a win here”. Cannon fodder comes to mind.
How often, historically, have pigs actually been thrown into battle? Is this a common occurrence?
Bay of Pigs is the only one I know about for sure.
They were trying to kill US soldiers. That's generally not a long term assignment.
“Yeah, that’s how they often used troops in WWII.”
Reminds me of the scene at the beginning of “The Enemy at the Gates” where they gave ever other soldier ONE rifle. The idea being after your comrade gets killed by the Germans you pick up his rifle and fight.
“Breaking: Soldiers Die In Battles”
Mercenary... I.E. Getting paid to go to war unlike the traditional soldiers who do it for their country rather than a paycheck.
Sad to see anybody checkout before their time, but it sounds like he knew what he was in for.
The crisis came on June 15, 1859, when Lyman Cutlar, an American, shot and killed a company pig rooting in his garden.
https://www.nps.gov/sajh/learn/historyculture/the-pig-war.htm
And there is such a thing as a “flaming pig”. While it was, no doubt, terrible for the pig, it is somehow awesome. Flaming pigs vs. elephants. Now that is how to conduct a war. Much better than the Olympics, if you ask me.
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