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Comment by chronolitus | Hacker News Reader

Seems plausible, it fits with the larger theme of mercenary misdoings and their use as an underhanded, unofficial military influence exercised by states. And Russia is particularly notorious for this sort of thing.

I wonder how necessary these things are geopolitically, or how they are justified by either sides. Dealing with mercenary forces and their total lack of accountability or ethics as a local civilian can only leave one disgusted, jaded, and with nothing but hatred for the nations which cause or let these things happen. Does anyone here have experience with this topic, and can say what the advantages are, if the goal is not purely to demoralize?

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To be honest, if I was a local civilian, and someone is doing terrible things to me and my people, I don't think I cared too much about whether the people terrorising us is a mercenary or "a regular soldier" deployed by a country. There are examples of both soldiers and mercenaries getting away with horrible stuff. In the end both would leave me disgusted with both the people committing these crimes and their origin country.

Thing is, the soldier has a doctrine and there are rules governing just about everything. Especially if we’re talking NATO. The mercenary is by far worse because there aren’t any rules or authority to appeal to, it’s just some guy with weapons getting paid under the table and not giving a fuck. The mercenary also definitely feels less safe, less confident, so most likely more jumpy, more trigger-happy. And worst of all probably ex-military so fully skilled.

A more realistic answer is: To be honest, if I was a local civilian, and someone is doing terrible things to me and my people, I don't think I cared too much about whether the people terrorizing us is a mercenary or "a regular soldier" deployed by a country. I want my own "a regular solider" or mercenary to do worse to the other side.

Tangential, but this reminds me of the US practice of having military (SOF) personnel temporarily terminate their military term, sign a new contract for the three-letter-agency of choice, execute a clandestine operation, then reverse the prior steps to walk right back into the military as if nothing ever happened.

Statecraft is so strange in this way, that you or I as laymen will ask just what in the fuck is the point - but it's totally legitimate and not casus belli for our solider to magically become a spy for a day to execute an operation on another nation.

This is indeed a thing.

Myanmar military (which receives/buys arms from Russia mostly) is using the same tactic to squash the civilian uprising lately. They formed an armed "civilian" group called "Pyu-Saw-Htee" (one of the heroes in Myanmar's early history) and have these guys kill and arrest civilians who fight against the military rule. The military seem to think that they can avoid the blame from international observers when time comes, yet kill and jail as many civilians as they want.

Pakistan has followed this philosophy in India's Kashmir region for decades. They also used the same tactics against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 80s (with generous US funding, of course). For example, the 2008 attack on Mumbai[1] was planned in Karachi, Pakistan and carried out by Pakistani-trained and controlled operatives. More reading [2].

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2014/12/21/in-2008-mumbai-attacks-piles...

[2] https://abc7chicago.com/rare-extradition-in-works-for-chicag...

plausible deniability is usually the biggest reason.

"The group was first identified in 2014 when it was backing pro-Russian separatists in the conflict in eastern Ukraine."

Same reason Russia didn't send their uniformed troops into Ukraine.

Not so much. It was glaringly obvious who these people were from day 1.

The idea here is not obvious to a person living in the free world: it is to prevent your "scary, and mighty" standing army shown as weak, and losing in case it got stomped.

Seeing the "tzar's army" being weak will inevitably invite a challenge to his power.

On some level it is also a huge insult from Russia by leaving just enough bread crumbs, intentionally or not, to essentially say "look, we're doing this and getting away with it; else we're not doing it". And it is part of their strategy for both cases to be equally plausible rather than to be overwhelmingly without blame.

It is disinformation-as-policy to bolster their political might without flexing their full military. The finest example of Hypernormalization.

Embarrassed that their government represents people of my heritage. Путин просто хуйло.

I think it's more than that. If the Russian army gets a bunch of casualties, eventually the Russian population gets unhappy and starts questioning the leadership. (This happened in Afghanistan, for instance.) But if Wagner does it, then the Russian government doesn't have to take the heat for the number of Russians dead.

There were plenty of Russian soldier deaths and no one can care about those questions - the best that Russians can do in these situations is standing on their knees when facing their leadership and accept their mistakes as some deeper maneuver that will bring fruits in the future. Also, the answer to those questions of unhappy population has been given already - "It sunk".

The reason why Wagner exists is quite simple - primarily it vents out all the people who has not found their place in Russia(and prevents their use against those who are in power in Russia) and their main and primary reason to serve in Wagner is being killed in the name of Russia. They are not expected to get back - in Ukraine conflict Wagner people were bombed by Russian army, when they decided to go back. They are expendables from the day they signed up.

Exactly, but here it's an even bigger twist about a palace coup would the standing army lose, and produce more disgruntled soldiers, and officers.

> Not so much. It was glaringly obvious who these people were from day 1.

That doesn't really matter, though. The thin veneer lets them use their veto in the Security Council, and probably gets China to do so as well.

Same scenario as OJ Simpson publishing the "(if) I did it" book. Everyone knows what's going on. No one can do anything about it.

They were uniformed except for the flags on their arms and armor.

I think they wanted people to know exactly who they are. Not only for the separatists themselves. But of course, the country gets a free card to deny involvement.

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