Posted on 03/12/2022 5:35:39 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Social media channels and private messaging groups are being used in Russia to recruit a new brigade of mercenaries to fight in Ukraine alongside the army, the BBC has learned.
The BBC has spoken to a serving mercenary and a former fighter with close links to one of Russia's leading mercenary organisations, who have shared details of the recruitment campaign.
The serving mercenary said many veterans of the secretive Wagner organisation were contacted on a private Telegram group a few weeks before the start of the war. They were invited to a "picnic in Ukraine", with references to tasting "Salo", a pork fat traditionally eaten in Ukraine.
The message appeals to "those with criminal records, debts, banned from mercenary groups or without an external passport" to apply. The message also included that "those from the Russian-occupied areas of Luhansk and Donetsk republics and Crimea - cordially invited".
The serving mercenary who spoke to the BBC said new recruits are being placed in units under the command of officers from the GRU, the Russian military intelligence unit of the ministry of defence.
He stressed that the recruitment policy had changed, and fewer restrictions were applied. "They are recruiting anyone and everyone," he said, unhappy with what he described as the lower professionalism of the new fighters.
He said the new units being recruited are no longer referred to as Wagner, but new names - such as The Hawks - were being used.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Recruiting mercenaries... I’m starting to think this is Putin’s tsarisr plan for occupying Ukraine and fighting the insurgency that follows. Evil-genius move.
Never seen anything like that. On the contrary, Ukraine is recruiting this way.
https://atalayar.com/en/content/chechen-leader-kadyrov-calls-putin-escalate-war-against-ukraine
I am also interested in mercenaries recruited by the West.
I think they are among those Ukrainian volunteer force.
I am also curious about how they reach their destination inside Ukraine and how they can ship weapons the West promised into Ukraine
You may be interested, but I don’t think that information is being divulged.
Each side will have its mercenaries. Russia’s foreign mercenaries may be more brutal against Ukrainians than Russian troops.
Of course not, but we could have some general idea without specifics. 16,000 people are heading into Ukraine. It cannot be hidden for long.
"I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists."
lol
Well played sir!
But we won’t take the Irish!
Oh, wait, different scene.
The way that westerners get into the country vs the way Russian mercenaries may, will not be same.
I read an article earlier that said U.S. hasn’t seen evidence yet of large numbers of Syrian or African mercenaries and thinks that 16,000 may be Russian propaganda. I thought it was VOA, but I can’t find it.
US Sees No Evidence of Syrian, African Mercenaries in Ukraine
March 11, 2022 3:12 PM
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-sees-no-evidence-of-syrian-african-mercenaries-in-ukraine/6481309.html
Remember when our enlistments dropped in Gulf War II and the services began overlooking felonies to fill quotas? Bad wars just attract some bad people...
Is that chewing gum in your mouth?😁
“They were invited to a “picnic in Ukraine”, with references to tasting “Salo”, a pork fat traditionally eaten in Ukraine.”
Nothing like pork cracklins to get your arse in gear.
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