Tässäkin ketjussa pohdittu PMC-firmojen osuutta Ukrainan sodassa. Näitä firmoja on useita, Wagner on kuuluisin mutta ollut Kremlin epäsuosiossa viime aikoina. Tämän kirjoituksen mukaan Ukrainan sota antoi heille tilaisuuden voittaa "hyväksyntä" takaisin, tosin olisivat osallistuneet taisteluihin vasta maaliskuun loppupuolella. Artikkelista löytyy englanninkielinen versio, mutta suosittelen lukemaan myös alkuperäisen käännöstyökalun läpi (näissä on nimittäin eroja, alkuperäinen on pidempi):
https://meduza.io/feature/2022/07/13/grubo-govorya-my-nachali-voynu
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/07/14/a-mercenaries-war
Lainaan kaksi pätkää alkuperäisestä artikkelista, Google Translate käännös:
Wagner in a different version
Mercenaries from PMC Wagner appeared at the front only at the end of March. These people were found as a result of a “wild, fantastic” recruitment in terms of scale, recalls a source who witnessed it.
However, according to interlocutors close to the Russian Ministry of Defense and the leadership of the PMC, the recruitment was organized not by the company's management, but also by the military, who took control of the entire recruitment infrastructure of the PMC: both some of the recruiters and the "filtration zone" for candidates at the training ground in Molkino, and the "mercenary brand" itself - that is, a constantly updated grid of job advertisements.
Under the control of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the recruiters of PMC Wagner also printed black lists of fighters rejected over the years of work. According to the former commander of the detachment in Wagner, from 2015 on such lists could accumulate from 500 to a thousand names ). These people, as the BBC Russian Service was the first to find out, also began to be called to a new war
.
In the direct management of the PMC, this was perceived as an attempt to "squeeze out the brand," a Meduza interlocutor close to Wagner's management formulates: ', recalls a Meduza source. “But when you take on a franchise, you have to follow the rules of the company. And respect its corporate ethics. And they, excuse me, are already taking drugs even without a drug test. ”
“Wagner arrived [to the front] in a different design,” confirms Meduza’s interlocutor close to the Russian Defense Ministry in the private military contracting market. - We arrived through the Ministry of Defense [under a contract]. Without any of these pads [in the form of PMCs].”
Changes have also become noticeable in Molkino, where candidates come to be interviewed at Wagner. “Recently, not one Wagner office has been working there, but several [mercenary structures]: there are recruiters and they are recruiting,” one of the candidates draws attention. “And there were more people attending the interviews.”
The Russian Defense Ministry and the press service of Prigozhin's companies did not respond to Meduza's questions about the recruitment of Wagner PMCs.
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Sobyaninsky regiment
All Meduza's interlocutors agree that recruitment into PMCs (be it Redoubt, Wagner, or a lesser-known detachment) has become one of the options for "covert mobilization . " And the line between mercenaries, the regular army and "volunteers" during the war in Ukraine was completely erased. “There are no wild [power independent] units,” the experienced mercenary is convinced. “Everyone works with the Ministry of Defense.”
“Volunteer battalions” (actually units of contract soldiers) in the Russian regions began to form in the spring of 2022; since then, their detachments have appeared in Chechnya, Tatarstan, Bashkiria, the Perm Territory, the Kirov and
Nizhny Novgorod regions.
Moscow also has its own battalion, financed from the city budget, Meduza found out. Both recruiters and candidates call this formation the “Sobyanin Regiment” — they join it, however, first of all, not Muscovites, but men from other regions (at the same time, as Meduza
wrote earlier , Mayor Sergei Sobyanin himself publicly tries as hard as possible distance themselves from the war).
One of the army veterans who received an offer to join the Sobyaninsky Regiment handed over the recruiter's phone number to Meduza. According to data from the NumBuster and GetContact applications, the number belongs to Roman Vladimirovich Vysotsky (callsign "Bulgarian"), the full
namesake of the former chief of staff of the 9th separate assault motorized rifle regiment of the people's militia of the DPR (in fact, the army of the self-proclaimed republic).
Now the "Bolgarin" introduces himself as the "battalion commander" in the "Sobyaninsky regiment". Recruitment to it began quite recently, on July 1.
The recruiter told a Meduza journalist who introduced himself as an applicant for the position of an ordinary mercenary:
Let's go to Ukraine. For the first month we will coordinate you at the Mulino training ground, and when we go for the “ribbon”, there, accordingly, an ordinary sergeant [receives] more than 200 [thousand rubles]. This amount includes an additional payment from Mayor Sobyanin - 200 thousand, which is divided into four payments of 50. In the military unit you get a VTB card - payments from Moscow will go there.
Alexander Gerasimov, a spokesman for the Moscow government's press service, told Meduza that he was "not authorized" to answer such questions (that is, about the "Sobyanin regiment"). Gulnara Penkova, head of the mayor's and government's press service, did not respond to Meduza's calls or messages sent on social media.
The Sobyaninsky Regiment accepts men from all over the country - even pre-retirement (up to 60 years old) age, follows from a document obtained by Meduza, which describes the recruitment conditions. Do not plan to stop the recruitment and other Russian structures involved in the war with Ukraine.
At the same time, the Russian Ministry of Defense has not reported on losses for more than three months.
“I already have so many friends there [in Ukraine] maimed and killed…,” an experienced mercenary who is not participating in the invasion tells Meduza. I'm tired of even hearing about this war. I just don't pick up the pipes anymore. You know, one was killed, then another. Soon there won't be any left."
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www.hs.fi