#wagner group

[alexa-mwll]

The real life Commander Graves (Erik Prince)

Erik Prince was a former U.S. Navy SEAL officer that created the private military company Blackwater. When asked why he created the company he credited the Rwandan genocide "It really bothered me. It made me realize you can't sit back and pontificate" - Erik Prince.

It is not a myth that they wanted to put the Blackwater company as the Shadow Company and the Wagner group, as the Konni group.

For some years now, these two mercenary companies have been rivals.

[destiel-news-channel]

Where there is a major Destiel event the major international news are not far...

[deaddee-anime-brownfanlady]

[verityblack]

*slowly inches onto tumblr after a bunch of historical things went down*

They’re back…

[odinsblog]

Not that I give a single solitary shit about Prigozhin—remember, he was a murderous mercenary who committed numerous war crimes in Ukraine—but it’s worth noting that Putin murked an entire aircraft of people to assassinate yet another political enemy in an airplane “accident”

[generallemarc]

Hey, Russia stans, explain this one

Explain why one of Russia's state-backed mercenary companies has the same exact name as Hitler's expeditionary force in Africa, which itself was designed to prop up a friendly regime that was incapable of doing so for itself.

[blueiscoool]

Wagner Mercenary Group Boss Yevgeny Prigozhin Dead

A Private jet carrying Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has crashed with 10 people on board.

In addition to Prigozhin, neo-Nazi Wagner leader Dmitry Utkin was allegedly aboard on the plane and is now dead.

“Wagner-linked Telegram channel Grey Zone reported the Embraer aircraft was shot down by air defense in the Tver region, north of Moscow,” BBC reported.

[lookninjas]

You know, it's interesting to me that I saw an article as I was scrolling through my dash this morning that (supposedly) blames the U.S. for being deeply involved in a genocide in Sudan. You might think from such a description that we'd be talking about U.S. military aid or boots on the ground or the CIA or something like that, and not just the Trump administration tanking our diplomatic efforts and Biden's administration not making the best decisions to right the ship. You might also think that such an article would not include a section like this:

David Satterfield, who replaced Feltman as US special envoy to the Horn of Africa and who has since resigned, said that Washington did not have anything but bad choices in Sudan, and therefore had to strike deals with the Sudanese military. According to Satterfield, “If there is ever an opportunity to return to a path towards restoration of a civilian-led government, you’re going to have to talk to the military then as well.

You also might not think that such an article would outright reference Russian involvement in Sudan, which it does.

Russia believes that its strong presence in Sudan will augment its status in Africa and the Middle East, which is considered an American redoubt. Since 2014, and with Moscow’s aspirations to exploit African mineral riches, the Kremlin has strengthened its ties to Sudan in order to ameliorate western sanctions following its invasion of Crimea, sanctions that became even harsher after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.16 In 2017, former Sudanese President al-Bashir visited Russia and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two countries agreed to establish a holding company run by the paramilitary Wagner Group to mine gold ore. Russia also signed a 25-year lease in December 2020 to build a military base at Port Sudan on the Red Sea that can receive nuclear-powered ships. It was also interesting that Hemedti headed an official delegation to Moscow on the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

And while we're talking about Russian involvement in Sudan, which is why I'm here in the first place, it's really really really interesting to me that this article was phrased as proof that the U.S. was heavily involved in genocide in Sudan, despite the fact that the Russian Wagner group (accused of war crimes in Ukraine) has been providing missiles and military training to the Sudanese paramilitary group RSF while smuggling gold out of Sudan to fund their own activities in Ukraine. Fun fact about the Wagner group: They're also heavily involved in social media misinformation campaigns.

Wasn't there a Russian misinformation campaign on tumblr leading up to the Presidential elections in 2016?

And despite the "mysterious" death of Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash (a short time after his aborted march on Moscow), Russia is still working on bringing the Wagner organization back under their control. Because, you know, they still have that whole invasion of Ukraine they're working on. An invasion of Ukraine that would sure be a whole lot easier for them if they could convince Americans to stop providing military support to Ukraine. They're already doing pretty nicely with the Republican party, but the Democrats (and the American left in general) have been harder to get on-side.

It does kind of feel like tying American military involvement in other countries to active genocide would be a great way to discourage people on the American left from supporting continued involvement in Ukraine, wouldn't it?

We're slightly less than a year away from the next American presidential election. There is no reason to believe that the Russian propaganda machine, which has already been operating at full blast since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, is going to slow down. This quote from the linked article is particularly chilling:

A particular challenge is that people tend to spread falsehoods “farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth”; this is particularly the case for false political news (Vosoughi, Roy and and Aral, 2018[7]). For example, one study found that tweets containing false information were 70% more likely to be retweeted than accurate tweets (Brown, 2020[8]). Another study found that false information on Facebook attracts six times more engagement than factual posts (Edelson, 2021[9]). In addition, feedback loops between the platforms and traditional media can serve to further amplify disinformation, magnifying the risk that disinformation can be used to deliberately influence public conversations, as well as confuse and discourage the public.

I think it's important to remember, especially now, that we are capable of spreading misinformation. The article about U.S. involvement in Sudan wasn't placed on there by an algorithm. This is fucking tumblr. That was one of my mutuals. Because they're concerned about American military intervention and they're against genocide and it sounded bad and they were upset and they didn't think to read the article. Because they didn't spend the time of Prigozhin's march on Moscow mainlining information on the Wagner group the way that I did, so they didn't go "Hey, Sudan? Wait a minute --" the way I did. Because misinformation that isn't targeted at your group is designed to be easy to spot, so you'll think that the misinformation that is targeted to your group will also be easy to spot, and it fucking isn't.

Because this culture of "If you care, you'll share" has gotten people to click that reblog button without thinking twice about it.

Don't keep falling for it. You don't have to spend an hour digging up sources and pulling out quotes for a ten-note post the way that I did. I'm like this as a human. It's fine if you're not. But if you're not even going to click the link to read the article and actually read it critically (or if there's no sources at all except a twitter screenshot, which I've also seen quite a bit of), then don't reblog it. Save it as a draft for when you have time to do the research, or just don't do anything with it at all. You're not obligated.

And if you have the relevant background to spot the disinfo, I mean -- again, look, you're not obligated to take that hour and search those sources. Even I don't do this all the time. It's hard, it's frustrating, and it will not spread the way the disinfo does. I'm gonna see that genocide post like five times at least on my dash, and I'm probably going to see it at least once from someone who has at least liked this post (if not reblogged it as well). But if you can. If you have the energy and the time. Try to put a little info out there. It might help someone.

That's all. Be good. Be skeptical.

[thingstrumperssay]

Prigozhin- the head of the Wagner group who almost took over Russia- his private jet was shot down in Russia, which possibly means that he's dead. At least ten deaths have been confirmed.

We all knew it was going to happen. (Besides him, apparently.) I just didn't think that it would happen so... Blatantly.

[metalobrukht]

Oh. That's. That's a video of Wagner slowly killing civilians with axes while they scream with some heroic music on top. Made for gore websites for people to jerk off to. Like the russians always do everywhere they go.

I don't think I can post that video, but I can post this one, where the citizens of Rostov (russia) chant "Wagner":

There's so, so much of these gore videos, not all of them become mainstream. All while the West spits Ukraine in the face time after time after time.

People like to act like it's a show or some parallel universe. Like Ukraine is asking for shit just because.

There are dead fucking people. They died a horrible, horrible death, so many are dying now, so many are tortured, so many are in awful conditions while you drink your coffee and debate politics like its finances or fandom.

You don't feel empathy not because you're cool and edgy and stoic but because you're so fucking unbelievably dumb your brain cannot process a two-step emotion.

Where there's burned down forests and leveled cities people lived just like you live now. Nobody asked their opinion about being invaded.

I know I'm shifting focus from Mali, but that's what I know most about. russia terrorises anywhere it goes. Syria, Ukraine, CAR. Stop salivating on them.

[triquizzies]

wagner group (sorry, "africa corps") lost ~50 guys in a single ambush in mali. neo-colonialists get fucked.

[lost-carcosa]

[destielmemenews]

source 1

source 2

source 3

[aunti-christ-ine]

[witchofthegermanforest]

[ivovynckier]

"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well

It were done quickly."

(William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act I, scene 7)