Since the invasion of Ukraine began almost a year ago, the Russian military has been pushed to its limits and is on the verge of collapsing. The United States government estimates that eighty-thousand Russian soldiers have been killed since the conflict began in February 2022.
Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, has issued an order to mobilize hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens to continue fighting in the war with Ukraine to compensate for the extensive losses in their military.
Other and lesser known examples include Russian President Vladamir Putin’s private military “Wagner Group” facing such staggering losses they began recruiting prisoners in exchange for pardons. Wagner is a secret military group with direct links to the Kremlin and is led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s chef.”
A recent video was released on Twitter which shows Prigozhin addressing recently freed convicts and new Russian veterans after they completed their required six-month deployment in Ukraine. He states that the men have served their country “honorably” and should be treated with “the greatest respect” by Russian police. However, he also instructs the men not to break the law again now that they have survived. Specifically, he told them not to drink too much, take drugs, or “rape any broads.”
Wagner has been an organization that primarily operated in the shadows in the past, but since the war in Ukraine it has become much more public. Despite the group's efforts to work in secret in the past, the international community was well aware of their activities. Mainly due to Wagner’s tendency to commit horrific human rights abuses whether they are sent.
One of the most infamous was a massacre that took place at a Gold mine in the town of Buja, Nigeria, on January 30, 2022. Witnesses and survivors detail how the Russian mercenaries systematically massacred up to seventy civilians in the village of Buja along with CAR (Central African Republic) government forces. The victims included men, women and children.
Locals suspect that the mercenaries are on their way to loot the town’s gold mine and simply consider civilian casualties as “collateral damage.” This isn’t the only instance of human rights abuses being committed by Wagner. Putin’s mercenaries have been deployed to Mali, Central African Republic, Libya, Syria and Ukraine.
In each country where Russian mercenaries have been deployed, charges of mass murder of civilians, rape and war crimes have followed. Especially in the country of Ukraine throughout the war.
With the conflict nearly reaching a year in its existence and the Russian military and Wagner having suffered extensive losses, it is clear why Prigozhin recently confronted Putin about the war.
President Putin and President Zelensky have both stated to be open to having peace negotiations but nothing has come of it yet.
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1 comment
2 weeks, 2 days ago by
ZacharyTPhinney
Wow ,this group sounds so awful. I cited in my article. I pray for Ukraine and the world
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