#Sean Mcfate

[antonio-velardo]

Antonio Velardo shares: Prigozhin’s Real Legacy: The Mercenary Blueprint by Sean McFate

By Sean McFate The Wagner group will serve as a model for other mercenaries ready to muscle in to resource-rich territories. Published: September 3, 2023 at 06:00AM from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/Pj8A0o6 via IFTTT

[afranciscomiradiezblr-blog]

¿Contratistas o Mercenarios?

Yo era un mercenario. Confía en mí: el plan de Erik Prince es basura.

¿Unos pocos miles de contratistas militares pueden salvar Afganistán? Dáme un respiro.-Por SEAN MCFATE-31 de agosto de 2017

El articulo aquí: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/31/i-was-a-mercenary-trust-me-erik-princes-plan-is-garbage-215563/

[ultrajaphunter]

3,000 of Russia’s feared Wagner mercenaries have already been killed in Ukraine after 8,000 were sent in to boost Putin’s flagging invasion, British MPs are told

· The shadowy Private Military Company has been linked to a string of war crimes

· Wagner are used by the Kremlin to carry out dirty work at arms length from Putin

· It has been widely reported that they have been deployed by Putin in Ukraine

· Christo Grozev, executive director of the Bellingcat investigative website, said 3,000 of its members are thoughts to have been killed on the battlefield so far

· He said his sources inside the group told him their numbers were 'much higher' than had first been expected by Western officials

· They included 200 personnel sent to Kyiv before the conflict in a failed mission to 'scout out and assassinate' political figures, while a 'large number' were deployed with convoys which advanced on the capital from Belarus.’

· He said they had also been present in Bucha, where some of the worst evidence of alleged war crimes had been discovered.

· Mr Grozev said they had been told by one former group member that some chose to fight because they enjoyed killing.'’

· He said that about 10 percent to 15 percent are sociopaths, people who go there just because they want to kill. 

· They are bloodthirsty, they are not just adrenalin junkies,' he told the committee.

· Dr Sean McFate, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank and professor at the US National Defence University, said the group's brutality in the conflicts such as the Syrian civil war was 'part of their selling point' as far as Russian president Vladimir Putin was concerned.

· If you look at Bucha and others, there is the same pattern you saw in Syria, where they would interrogate, torture and behead people,' he said. 'One reason I think it has become one of Putin's weapons of choice is it allows some plausible deniability between excesses on the ground, failures on the ground, and policy.

· 'However Dr McFate said that to date, western countries had not taken the threat of the group very seriously, and had not tracked the movements of its members.

· 'This has emboldened them (Russia) to use this as a stratagem for national expansion, national interests,' he said.

· 'We have not done a good enough job in tracking them. 

· We see them as cheap Hollywood villains, but in fact they are not.'Mr Grozev said that while imposing more sanctions on the group's head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as 'Putin's chef', would have little impact, it may be more effective targeting individual group members who like to holiday abroad with their families.'

· The knowledge that they do is a cause of ridicule about western sanctions because this spreads through the rumour mill,' he said.

· 'So stopping all of these people being able to travel internationally, at least to the western world, might be much, much bigger than slapping one more sanction on Prigozhin.'

· In light of Russia's startling losses and their new assault on the Donbas, the head of the Wagner Group is believed to have made the trip to Ukraine to oversee his men's deployment in the east. Yevgeny Prigozhin - a man known as 'Putin's Chef' - is now believed to be on the ground in the Donbas to oversee operations, though the wealthy friend of Putin is not a military veteran.'Prigozhin, who has no military experience and is the financier and organiser of Wagner Group rather than its military commander, is likely in Donbas to co-ordinate recruitment and financing of Wagner Group operations rather than to command combat operations,' said the Institute for War Studies, an American think tank.

· Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, has said that even more than the 8,000 Wagner mercenaries detailed by Mr Grozev are in Ukraine.Abdurrahman has said that 18,000 Wagner fighters are taking part in the conflict, in addition to 700 fighters from Syrian Brig. Gen. Suheil al-Hassan's 25th Special Missions Forces Division, known in Syria as the 'Tiger Force.'

· The 700 men left Syria over the past weeks to fight along Russian forces, Abdurrahman said. 

· The numbers could not be independently confirmed. Pro-government activists posted videos over the past two weeks on social media showing members of the Tiger Force performing military drills including parachuting from helicopters.

· Russian officers appeared in one of the videos advising the paratroopers inside a helicopter as al-Hassan praised the young men by tapping on their heads. 

· It was not immediately clear if the videos were new.Abdurrahman said there are also volunteers from the Russian-trained 5th Division; 

· the Baath brigades, which is the armed wing of Assad's ruling Baath party; and the Palestinian Quds Brigade, made up of Palestinian refugees in Syria.

· All have fought alongside the Russian military in Syria's war.'

· The Russians are looking for experienced fighters. 

· They don't want anyone who was not trained by the Russians,' Abdurrahman said.

· The Tiger Force took credit for some of the biggest government victories in the 11-year conflict.

·  It was involved in a months long Russian-backed campaign into the rebels' last enclave, located in the northwest province of Idlib, which ended in March 2020 with government forces capturing a vital north-south highway - though rebels remain in control of the enclave.

· Meanwhile, a European official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia has a total of 10,000 to 20,000 foreign fighters in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.

· The official said they are a mix of mercenaries from Russia's private Wagner Group and Russian proxy fighters from Syria and Libya.Kremlin officials boasted early in the invasion that thousands of experienced fighters from the Middle East would join Russian forces. 

· However, military analysts say only a small number appears to have arrived in Russia for training before being deployed to the front lines, but they say that could change as Russia prepares for a full-scale offensive on Donbas.

· U.S. officials and activists monitoring Syria say the Russians have been actively recruiting. 

· Rami Abdurrahman leads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. 

· He reported that about 40,000 people have registered so far.

· Rayan Maarouf of Suwayda24, an activist collective that covers IS activities in the Syrian desert, said fighters were promised no less than $600 a month. 

· That's a huge sum of money amid widespread unemployment in Syria.

· Analysts say fighters from Syria are more likely to be deployed in coming weeks, especially after Gen. Alexander Dvornikov was named war commander. 

· Dvornikov is well acquainted with the paramilitary forces Russia trained in Syria.

· Though some question how effective Syrian fighters would be in Ukraine, they could be brought in if more forces are needed to besiege cities or to make up for rising casualties. 

· Syrian and Palestinian officials in Syria have played down reports of fighters heading to Ukraine. 

· The Syrian government is likely wary of having Syrian fighters flock to Ukraine, opening opportunities at the front lines that its opponents could exploit.In a potentially worrying sign for the Syrian government, Russia has significantly scaled down its operations in Syria since the war in Ukraine started, with fewer airstrikes targeting IS or opposition positions in Idlib.'

· Any change in the posture of Russian forces or pro-regime militias creates security gaps that anti-regime actors including Turkey, ISIS, al-Qaida and Syrian opposition groups can exploit,' the ISW report said.Muhannad Haj Ali, a former legislator and a commander with the armed wing of Syria's ruling Baath party said no Syrians have gone to fight in Ukraine and that he didn't expect any to go.

· He said he was certain Russia will win in Ukraine without any need for Syrians' help.'

· The way the operations are going is clear indication that Ukraine will not be another Afghanistan,' he said.

· Bucha atrocities: German intelligence 'intercepts Russian troop messages discussing murders as part of strategy'

· The barbaric atrocities at Bucha were part of a deliberate Kremlin strategy carried out in part by the feared Wagner Group of mercenaries, intercepted Russian radio transmissions have revealed.

· Germany's foreign intelligence service, the BND, has heard messages from Putin's forces discussing the brutal murder of civilians in the city of horrors outside Kyiv, which was recaptured by Ukraine over the weekend.

· The transmissions have been linked to specific corpses seen in Bucha, with one soldier talking about how he and his colleagues shot dead someone on a bicycle, while another said: 'First question soldiers, then shoot them.'

· The audio messages have been relayed to German parliament by the BND to further debunk baseless Kremlin claims that the bodies were staged by Ukraine after Russia withdrew from the city in a 'monstrous forgery', Spiegel reported. 

· The wiretap recordings also show that the Wagner Group was present in the city and played 'a key role' in the massacre, and that there are likely similar scenes of slaughter elsewhere in the country.

· The shadowy military company which has been linked to a string of killings, rapes and war crimes around the world is known as Putin's private army which carries out his dirty work at an arm's length from the state. 

·  The BND recordings from Bucha indicate the atrocities were neither accidental nor carried out by individual out-of-control soldiers.

· Messages show the troops regularly discussed the potential war crimes as if they were talking about their everyday lives.

· The BND told German leaders this shows how the killings were normalised and part of a deliberate strategy intended to sow fear and terror among the civilian population.Further recordings are being analysed by intelligence chiefs 'with great concern' which have not yet been pinpointed to a specific place in Ukraine.

· But they indicate crime scenes similar to Bucha in other cities across the country, particularly around Mariupol which remains under heavy bombardment.

· The new evidence prompted two former German government ministers to submit a criminal complaint with federal prosecutors seeking the opening of a war crimes probe against Russian officials including Putin.

· Former Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and former Interior Minister Gerhart Baum said they want to use German laws allowing prosecution of serious crimes committed abroad to bring to justice those they consider responsible for atrocities in Ukraine.

· Germany's application of the rule of 'universal jurisdiction' led to the first conviction of a senior Syrian official for crimes against humanity earlier this year.  

[rte-66]

Billionaire warlords: Why the future is medieval | Sean McFate | Big Think

[with-a-martyr-complex]

With A Martyr Complex: Reading List 2020

Adapted from the annual list from @balioc​, a list of books (primarily audiobooks) consumed this year. This list excludes several podcasts, but includes dramatizations and college lecture series from The Great Courses, which I consume like a disgusting fiend. Rereads of things I haven’t read since my youth are marked with an asterisk (*)

1. Strategy: A History by Lawrence Freedman (begun 2019)

2. The Golem and The Jinni by Helene Wecker

3. A World in Disarray by Richard Hass

4. Making the Unipolar Moment: US Foreign Policy and The Rise of the Post-Cold War Order by Hal Brands

5. The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis

6. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

7. The Wise Men: Six Friends and The World They Made by Evan Thomas and  Walter Isaacson

8. Red Dragon by Thomas Harris 

9. The Silence of The Lambs by Thomas Harris

10. So You’ve Been Publically Shamed by Jon Ronson

11. Turning Points in Middle Eastern History by Eamonn Gearon (from The Great Courses)

12. The Soldier and The State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations by Samuel P. Huntington

13. A History of Eastern Europe by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicus

14. Whore Carn(iv)al by Shannon Bell

15. Redeployment by Phil Clay

16. The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265-146 BC by Adrian Goldsworthy

17. Great World Religions: Judaism by Isaiah M. Gafni  (from The Great Courses)

18. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (Translated by Christine Donougher)

19. Why Honor Matters by Tamler Sommers

20. The Surveillance State: Big Data, Freedom, and You by Paul Rosenzweig (from The Great Courses)

21. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien* (read first 2 stories in High School)

22. Too Like The Lightning by Ada Palmer

23. The Making of The Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes

24. Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer

25. The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order by Sean McFate

26. The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis

27. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

28. The Will To Battle by Ada Palmer

29. Genghis Khan and The Making of The Modern World by Jack Weatherford

30. Nixonland: The Rise of a President and The Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein

31. Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980 by Rick Perlstein

32. Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut

33. The Renaissance, The Reformation, and The Rise of Nations by Andrew C. Fix  (from The Great Courses)

34. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

35. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

36. What It Is Like To Go To War by Karl Marlantes

37. The Rescuer by Dara Horn

38. Faust: Parts I and II by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Part I translated by Charles T. Brooks, Part II translated by Albert G. Latham)

39. The Machiavellians, defenders of freedom: A doctrine of political truth against wishful thinking by James Burnham

40. Animal Farm by George Orwell

41. The Storm Before The Storm: The Beginning of The End of The Roman Republic by Mike Duncan

42. The Complete Book of Five Rings by Miyomoto Musashi (edited and translated by Kenji Tokitsu) 

43. A History of Russia: From Peter The Great to Gorbachev by Mark Steinberg  (from The Great Courses)

44. Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism by Anne Applebaum

45. If This Isn’t Nice, What is? Advice for The Young by Kurt Vonnegut (assembled by Dan Wakefield)

46. [Redacted]

47. The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

48. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky 

49. The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis

Incomplete (not counting those from the 2019 list):

International Relations: Brief Sixth Edition by Joshua S. Goldstein and Jon C. Pevehouse

Several study guides for various government exams.

--

Great Courses consumed: 5

Non-Great Courses nonfiction consumed: 26

Fiction: 17

Remainder: Don’t ask me to categorize The Things They Carried

--

Works consumed in 2020 by men: 42

Works consumed in 2020 by women: 7

Works consumed in 2019 by both men and women: 0 (1 work of a woman translating a work by a man)

Works that can plausibly be considered of real relevance to Foreign Policy: 13 (including several histories)

--

With A Martyr Complex’s Choice Award, fiction division:  Too Like The Lightning

>>>> Honorable mention: Redeployment, [Redacted], The Golem and The Jinni

With A Martyr Complex’s Choice Award, nonfiction division: Nixonland: The Rise of a President and The Fracturing of America

>>>> Honorable mention: The Fifth Risk

>>>> Great Courses Division:  A History of Russia: From Peter The Great to Gorbachev

The Annual “An Essential Work of Surpassing Beauty that Isn’t Fair to Compare To Everything Else” Award: Les Miserables (but just the good parts)

>>>> Honorable mention: Mother Night

The “Reading This Book Will Give You Great Insight Into The Way I See The World” Award:  What It Is Like To Go To War

>>>> Honorable mention: The Fifth Risk

The “I’m Sorry That The Acknowledgements Page of Your Book Was Better Than The Book Itself, Because Your Book Was Quite Good” Award: Seven Surrenders

The “Nice Try At Stabbing Me, But I’ve Grown As A Person and You Are Only Dealing Glancing Blows” Award: Notes from Underground

The “Please Stop Talking About Internecine Drama Between Obscure Feminist Organizations of the 1980s and 90s and Go Back To The Really Insightful Stuff” Award: Whore Carn(iv)al

The “I Need To Go Through This In a Different Format and with a Different Translation Because this Did Not Work for Me” award: Faust: Parts I and II (especially part I)

--

I originally thought I’d hit 50, but my math was off by one. I think all of us can agree that this was a disruptive year. A lack of work messed with my reading a good deal. I hit quite a few things that have been on my list for a while, used these books to both get a boyfriend and a fandom, and used a lot of these during many bouts of exercise. 

My foreign policy focus for the year strayed after the first few months, but a focus on history kept being useful and relevant. 

Goals for 2021: Actually hit 52, more books on the nature of war, more philosophy.

[lorducista710155]

history of audiobooks : The New Rules of War by Sean Mcfate | History

Listen to The New Rules of War new releases history of audiobooks on your iPhone, iPad, or Android. Get any BOOKS by Sean Mcfate History FREE during your Free Trial

Written By: Sean Mcfate Narrated By: Joe Knezevich Publisher: HarperAudio Date: January 2019 Duration: 8 hours 2 minutes

[sataniccapitalist]

#thewaronyou

[curtvilescomic]

Billionaire warlords: Why the future is medieval | Sean McFate

well thought out if scary for many.

Those of us who read cyberpunk books in the 1980s and are now reading Lazarus by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark

it is nothing new. World mostly still is medieval and lives according to those rules. It has only added smartphones in to equation

[quakerjoe]

Billionaire warlords: Why the future is medieval | Sean McFate

[sumpix]

Billionaire warlords: Why the future is medieval

The world's next superpower might just resurrect the Middle Ages. 

Russia? China? No. The rising world superpower is the billionaire class. Our problem, says Sean McFate, is that we're still thinking in nation states. Nation states have only existed for the last 300-400 years. Before that, wealthy groups – tribes, empires, aristocracies, etc – employed mercenaries to wage private wars. As wealth inequality reaches combustion point, we could land back in the status quo ante of the Middle Ages. Who will our overlords be? Any or all of the 26 ultra-rich billionaires who own as much as the world's 3.8 billion poorest. What about Fortune 500, which is more powerful than most of the states in the world? Random billionaires, multinational corporations, and the extractive industry may buy armies and wage war on their own terms.

https://bigthink.com/videos/future-world-superpowers

[pxyiyk]

[PDF] Download The New Rules of War: Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder PDF BY Sean McFate

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Description

The author of Shadow War, a veteran with deep experience—as an 82nd Airborne paratrooper, private contractor, and professor of war studies at the National Defense University—delivers a highly provocative, even controversial, exploration of modern warfare and what we must do to win in the futureWar is timeless. Some things change—weapons, tactics, technology, leadership, objectives—but the propensity for humans to do battle does not. Today, more than eighty years after World War II and thirty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, we are again living in dangerous times. It is the age of Durable Disorder—a period of unrest created by numerous factors: China’s rise, Russia’s resurgence, America’s retreat, the Middle East aflame, global terrorism, international criminal empires, climate change, dwindling natural resources, and bloody civil wars. The number of armed conflicts being waged has doubled since World War II, and of the approximately 194 countries of the world, nearly half are

[mentalnahigijena]

U Ukrajini je već ubijeno 3.000 Wagnerovih plaćenika za koje se strahuje da je 8.000 poslano da pojačaju Putinovu invaziju, rečeno je britanskim poslanicima Tajna privatna vojna kompanija povezana je s nizom ratnih zločina, silovanja, klanja i sakačenje civila Kremlj koristi Wagnera za obavljanje prljavih poslova na udaljenosti od Putina Naširoko je objavljeno da ih je Putin rasporedio u Ukrajini Christo Grozev, izvršni direktor istražne web stranice Bellingcat, rekao je da se misli da je 3.000 njenih članova do sada ubijeno na bojnom polju Rekao je da su mu njegovi izvori unutar grupe rekli da je njihov broj "mnogo veći" nego što su zapadni zvaničnici očekivali Skoro 8.000 plaćenika iz zloglasne Wagner grupe Rusija je rasporedila u Ukrajinu kako bi pojačala invaziju Vladimira Putina, ali su pretrpjeli velike žrtve, rečeno je britanskim poslanicima. Dajući iskaz Komitetu za vanjske poslove, Christo Grozev, izvršni direktor istražne web stranice Bellingcat, rekao je da se smatra da je 3.000 pripadnika privatne vojne kompanije (PMC) ubijeno na bojnom polju. Tajna grupa - koja se dovodi u vezu s nizom ubistava, silovanja i ratnih zločina širom svijeta - poznata je kao Putinova privatna vojska koja obavlja svoj prljavi posao na dohvat ruke od države, dajući mu uvjerljivo poricanje. Prije Ukrajine, bili su aktivni u Siriji i stekli su reputaciju po brutalnosti, ali u nekim slučajevima i po bezobzirnosti - kao što je bitka kod Khashama 2018., gdje je, prema nekim procjenama, ubijeno čak 200 ruskih privatnih vojnih lidera. Grozev je rekao da su im izvori unutar grupe - najveće od tri plaćeničke grupe uključene u sukob - rekli da je broj koji se bore uz ruske snage "mnogo veći" nego što se očekivalo. Oni su uključivali 200 pripadnika osoblja poslatog u Kijev prije sukoba u neuspješnoj misiji 'izviđanja i ubijanja' političkih ličnosti, dok je 'veliki broj' bio raspoređen u konvojima koji su napredovali ka glavnom gradu iz Bjelorusije. On je rekao da su bili prisutni i u Buči, gdje su otkriveni neki od najgorih dokaza o navodnim ratnim zločinima. G. Grozev je rekao da im je jedan bivši član grupe rekao da su se neki odlučili boriti jer su uživali u sadističkom ubijanju. 'Rekao je da je oko 10 do 15 posto sociopata, ljudi koji tamo idu samo zato što žele ubiti. Oni su krvoločni, nisu samo zavisnici od adrenalina', rekao je odboru. Dr Sean McFate, viši saradnik istraživačkog centra Atlantic Councila i profesor na Univerzitetu nacionalne odbrane SAD-a, rekao je da je brutalnost grupe u sukobima kao što je građanski rat u Siriji bila "dio njihove prodajne tačke" što se tiče ruskog predsjednika Vladimira Putina bio zabrinut. 'Ako pogledate Buču i druge, postoji isti obrazac koji ste vidjeli u Siriji, gdje bi ispitivali, mučili i obezglavljivali ljude', rekao je. 'Jedan od razloga zašto mislim da je to postalo jedno od Putinovih oružja izbora je to što dozvoljava uvjerljivo poricanje između ekscesa na terenu, neuspjeha na terenu i politike.' Međutim, dr Mekfejt je rekao da do danas zapadne zemlje nisu ozbiljno shvatile pretnju grupe i da nisu pratile kretanje njenih članova. 'Ovo ih je ohrabrilo (Rusiju) da to iskoriste kao strategiju za nacionalnu ekspanziju, nacionalne interese', rekao je. 'Nismo obavili dovoljno dobar posao u njihovom praćenju. Vidimo ih kao jeftine holivudske zlikovce, ali u stvari nisu.' G. Grozev je rekao da bi uvođenje dodatnih sankcija šefu grupe, Jevgeniju Prigožinu, poznatom kao 'Putinov kuvar', imalo mali uticaj, ali da bi moglo biti efikasnije ciljanje na pojedinačne članove grupe koji vole da odmaraju u inostranstvu sa svojim porodicama. "Saznanje koje oni rade je razlog za podsmijeh o zapadnim sankcijama jer se to širi kroz mlin glasina", rekao je. 'Dakle, spriječiti sve ove ljude da putuju međunarodno, barem u zapadni svijet, moglo bi biti mnogo, mnogo veće od uvođenja još jedne sankcije Prigožinu.' U svjetlu zapanjujućih gubitaka Rusije i njihovog novog napada na Donbas, vjeruje se da je šef Wagner grupe otputovao u Ukrajinu kako bi nadgledao raspoređivanje svojih ljudi na istoku. Vejeruje se da je Jevgenij Prigožin - čovjek poznat kao "Putinov kuvar" - sada na terenu u Donbasu da nadgleda operacije, iako bogati Putinov prijatelj nije vojni veteran. 'Prigožin, koji nema vojnog iskustva i koji je finansijer i organizator Wagner grupe, a ne njen vojni komandant, vjerovatno će u Donbasu koordinirati regrutaciju i finansiranje operacija Wagner grupe, a ne da komanduje borbenim operacijama', kaže Institut za War Studies, američki think tank. Rami Abdurrahman, koji vodi Sirijsku opservatoriju za ljudska prava sa sjedištem u Britaniji, opozicioni ratni posmatrač, rekao je da se čak više od 8.000 Wagnerovih plaćenika koje je naveo Grozev nalazi u Ukrajini. Abdurrahman je rekao da u sukobu učestvuje 18.000 Wagnerovih boraca, pored 700 boraca iz sirijskog Brigada, 25. divizija specijalnih snaga generala Suheila al-Hassana, poznata u Siriji kao 'Tigrove snage'. 700 ljudi napustilo je Siriju proteklih sedmica kako bi se borilo uz ruske snage, rekao je Abdurrahman. Brojevi se ne mogu nezavisno potvrditi. Provladini aktivisti objavili su video snimke u protekle dvije sedmice na društvenim mrežama na kojima se vide pripadnici Tigrovih snaga kako izvode vojne vježbe, uključujući padobranstvo iz helikoptera. Ruski oficiri pojavili su se na jednom od video snimaka koji savjetuju padobrance u helikopteru dok je al-Hassan hvalio mladiće udarajući ih po glavama. Nije odmah bilo jasno jesu li video snimci novi. Abdurrahman je rekao da ima i dobrovoljaca iz 5. divizije obučene u Rusiji; brigade Baath, koje je naoružano krilo Assadove vladajuće stranke Baath; i palestinska brigada Kuds, koju čine palestinske izbjeglice u Siriji. Svi su se borili uz rusku vojsku u ratu u Siriji. 'Rusi traže iskusne borce. Oni ne žele nikoga koga nisu obučili Rusi', rekao je Abdurrahman. Tigrove snage preuzele su zasluge za neke od najvećih vladinih pobeda u 11-godišnjem sukobu. Bio je uključen u višemjesečnu kampanju koju je podržavala Rusija u posljednjoj enklavi pobunjenika, smještenoj u sjeverozapadnoj provinciji Idlib, koja je završena u martu 2020. godine tako što su vladine snage zauzele vitalni autoput sjever-jug - iako pobunjenici i dalje kontrolišu enklavu. 'Ako pogledate Buču i druge, postoji isti obrazac koji ste vidjeli u Siriji, gdje bi ispitivali, mučili i obezglavljivali ljude', rekao je. 'Jedan od razloga zašto mislim da je to postalo jedno od Putinovih oružja izbora je to što dozvoljava uvjerljivo poricanje između ekscesa na terenu, neuspjeha na terenu i politike.' Međutim, dr Mekfejt je rekao da do danas zapadne zemlje nisu ozbiljno shvatile pretnju grupe i da nisu pratile kretanje njenih članova. 'Ovo ih je ohrabrilo (Rusiju) da to iskoriste kao strategiju za nacionalnu ekspanziju, nacionalne interese', rekao je. 'Nismo obavili dovoljno dobar posao u njihovom praćenju. Vidimo ih kao jeftine holivudske zlikovce, ali u stvari nisu.' G. Grozev je rekao da bi uvođenje dodatnih sankcija šefu grupe, Jevgeniju Prigožinu, poznatom kao 'Putinov kuvar', imalo mali uticaj, ali da bi moglo biti efikasnije ciljanje na pojedinačne članove grupe koji vole da odmaraju u inostranstvu sa svojim porodicama. "Saznanje koje oni rade je razlog za podsmijeh o zapadnim sankcijama jer se to širi kroz mlin glasina", rekao je. 'Dakle, spriječiti sve ove ljude da putuju međunarodno, barem u zapadni svijet, moglo bi biti mnogo, mnogo veće od uvođenja još jedne sankcije Prigožinu.' U svjetlu zapanjujućih gubitaka Rusije i njihovog novog napada na Donbas, vjeruje se da je šef Wagner grupe otputovao u Ukrajinu kako bi nadgledao raspoređivanje svojih ljudi na istoku. Vejeruje se da je Jevgenij Prigožin - čovjek poznat kao "Putinov kuvar" - sada na terenu u Donbasu da nadgleda operacije, iako bogati Putinov prijatelj nije vojni veteran. 'Prigožin, koji nema vojnog iskustva i koji je finansijer i organizator Wagner grupe, a ne njen vojni komandant, vjerovatno će u Donbasu koordinirati regrutaciju i finansiranje operacija Wagner grupe, a ne da komanduje borbenim operacijama', kaže Institut za War Studies, američki think tank. Rami Abdurrahman, koji vodi Sirijsku opservatoriju za ljudska prava sa sjedištem u Britaniji, opozicioni ratni posmatrač, rekao je da se čak više od 8.000 Wagnerovih plaćenika koje je naveo Grozev nalazi u Ukrajini. Abdurrahman je rekao da u sukobu učestvuje 18.000 Wagnerovih boraca, pored 700 boraca iz sirijskog Brigada, 25. divizija specijalnih snaga generala Suheila al-Hassana, poznata u Siriji kao 'Tigrove snage'. 700 ljudi napustilo je Siriju proteklih sedmica kako bi se borilo uz ruske snage, rekao je Abdurrahman. Brojevi se ne mogu nezavisno potvrditi. Provladini aktivisti objavili su video snimke u protekle dvije sedmice na društvenim mrežama na kojima se vide pripadnici Tigrovih snaga kako izvode vojne vježbe, uključujući padobranstvo iz helikoptera. Ruski oficiri pojavili su se na jednom od video snimaka koji savjetuju padobrance u helikopteru dok je al-Hassan hvalio mladiće udarajući ih po glavama. Nije odmah bilo jasno jesu li video snimci novi. Abdurrahman je rekao da ima i dobrovoljaca iz 5. divizije obučene u Rusiji; brigade Baath, koje je naoružano krilo Assadove vladajuće stranke Baath; i palestinska brigada Kuds, koju čine palestinske izbjeglice u Siriji. Svi su se borili uz rusku vojsku u ratu u Siriji. 'Rusi traže iskusne borce. Oni ne žele nikoga koga nisu obučili Rusi', rekao je Abdurrahman. Tigrove snage preuzele su zasluge za neke od najvećih vladinih pobeda u 11-godišnjem sukobu. Bio je uključen u višemjesečnu kampanju koju je podržavala Rusija u posljednjoj enklavi pobunjenika, smještenoj u sjeverozapadnoj provinciji Idlib, koja je završena u martu 2020. godine tako što su vladine snage zauzele vitalni autoput sjever-jug - iako pobunjenici i dalje kontrolišu enklavu. U međuvremenu, evropski zvaničnik, koji je želeo da ostane anoniman, rekao je da Rusija ima ukupno 10.000 do 20.000 stranih boraca u istočnom ukrajinskom regionu Donbasa. Zvaničnik je rekao da su oni mješavina plaćenika iz ruske privatne grupe Wagner i ruskih proxy boraca iz Sirije i Libije. Zvaničnici Kremlja hvalili su se početkom invazije da će se hiljade iskusnih boraca sa Bliskog istoka pridružiti ruskim snagama. Međutim, vojni analitičari kažu da je izgleda da je samo mali broj stigao u Rusiju na obuku prije nego što je raspoređen na prve linije fronta, ali kažu da bi se to moglo promijeniti kako se Rusija priprema za ofanzivu punog razmjera na Donbas. Američki zvaničnici i aktivisti koji prate Siriju kažu da su Rusi aktivno regrutirali. Rami Abdurrahman vodi Sirijsku opservatoriju za ljudska prava sa sjedištem u Britaniji. Izvijestio je da se do sada prijavilo oko 40.000 ljudi. Rayan Maarouf iz Suwayda24, aktivističkog kolektiva koji pokriva aktivnosti IS-a u sirijskoj pustinji, rekao je da je borcima obećano ne manje od 600 dolara mjesečno. To je ogromna suma novca usred široko rasprostranjene nezaposlenosti u Siriji. Analitičari kažu da je veća vjerovatnoća da će borci iz Sirije biti raspoređeni u narednim sedmicama, posebno nakon što je general Aleksandar Dvornikov imenovan za ratnog komandanta. Dvornikov je dobro upoznat sa paravojnim snagama koje je Rusija obučavala u Siriji. Iako neki postavljaju pitanje koliko bi sirijski borci bili efikasni u Ukrajini, mogli bi biti dovedeni ako je potrebno više snaga za opsadu gradova ili za nadoknađivanje rastućih žrtava. Sirijski i palestinski zvaničnici u Siriji umanjili su izvještaje o borcima koji idu u Ukrajinu. Sirijska vlada je vjerovatno oprezna da sirijski borci pohrle u Ukrajinu, otvarajući prilike na linijama fronta koje bi njeni protivnici mogli iskoristiti. Kao potencijalno zabrinjavajući znak za sirijsku vladu, Rusija je značajno smanjila svoje operacije u Siriji otkako je počeo rat u Ukrajini, s manje zračnih napada na IS ili opozicione položaje u Idlibu. 'Svaka promjena u držanju ruskih snaga ili prorežimskih milicija stvara sigurnosne praznine koje antirežimski akteri, uključujući Tursku, ISIS, al-Qaidu i sirijske opozicione grupe, mogu iskoristiti', navodi se u izvještaju ISW-a. Muhannad Haj Ali, bivši poslanik i komandant oružanog krila sirijske vladajuće stranke Baath rekao je da nijedan Sirijac nije otišao da se bori u Ukrajini i da ne očekuje da će itko otići. Rekao je da je siguran da će Rusija pobijediti u Ukrajini bez potrebe za pomoći Sirijaca. 'Način na koji se odvijaju operacije jasan je pokazatelj da Ukrajina neće biti još jedan Afganistan', rekao je. *Mural hvali rusku Wagner grupu i njene plaćenike koji se bore u Ukrajini 30. marta 2022. u Beogradu, Srbija