Yeah, I think it's potentially a very serious issue.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Belarus has still been using migrants to try and destabilize Poland. This year alone, there have been over 16,000 attempted crossings from Belarus to Poland that have been aided and facilitated by the Belarusian government. Most of them get stopped and returned, but quite a few still make it though. There is a large fence now, but apparently there are ways to get around it. There is a fear that Wagner is disguising militants as migrants and trying to sneak them across into Poland to conduct sabotage and terror attacks.
Nah soon as they get into the EU they are claiming asylum and getting a job on a building site, my guess is they never answer another call from Russia again
Belarus is agitating on Russia's behalf. It's only a matter of time before the Poles will be forced act in some way to enforce their borders against Russian/Belarus/Wagner incursions. Seems like Russia is trying to divert NATO attention, and potentially resources, away from Ukraine. Totally the behaviour of a peace loving, non-aggressor nation. Poland needs to pull a Turkey, just shoot down the next chopper that flies over the border, Russia will do nothing.
Last edited by FlameOn; 08-02-2023 at 05:18 PM.
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Russia has been holding its second Russia-Africa summit in the recent days, and it's safe to say it's been a failure.
Only 17 countries even participated (in contrast to 43 countries the first time).
African nations aren't particularly emotionally invested in the result of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and as a safeish generalization, they are for really good historical reasons generally sympathetic towards anyone opposing the West.
However, the effect the war has had on global prices and especially the abandonment of the Black Sea grain deal has soured pretty much everyone on Putin. There have been several moderately toned but critical speeches, and African nations handed Putin their own plan for a path to peace which basically started with the withdrawal of Russian troops.
Sure, there are some fairly broken down nations firmly under Russian/Wagner control that have declared or will declare their undying love for Russia, and some of that might get some coverage since there's so little news from the war these days, but overall the summit has been another example of how the war is destroying Russia's international influence and relations, even among countries who don't give much of a crap about European lives lost.
Belarus is agitating on Russia's behalf. It's only a matter of time before the Poles will be forced act in some way to enforce their borders against Russian/Belarus/Wagner incursions. Seems like Russia is trying to divert NATO attention, and potentially resources, away from Ukraine. Totally the behaviour of a peace loving, non-aggressor nation. Poland needs to pull a Turkey, just shoot down the next chopper that flies over the border, Russia will do nothing.
Belarus has been doing this for years, so it really isn't anything new. A few years ago they attempted to create a migrant crises by selling fake Schengen visas to Middle East nationals, having them fly into Minsk, then shipping them on a bus to the border crossing with the promise of being able to cross through Poland and into Germany (which was the promised final destination). When the migrants realized it was a shame and tried to return to Minsk, the soldiers held the line and kept them in no-man's-land for weeks in the cold forest, forcing them to cause a ruckus at the border and making Poland look like they were forcing these poor brown migrants out in the cold. Russian trolls absolutely ran with this story, to the point that even Poles were questioning what their armed forces were doing. I was living a few hundred kms away from the border at the time, so I got an almost-first-hand view of it. Eventually the Belarussian soldiers were told to back down, and most were allowed to fly out of Minsk back home. An absolute ####-show, hence why a literal wall got built.
No doubt Belarus does this on russia's behalf. This is a prime example of what russia brings to the world; disinformation, instability and straight up bull#### trolling simply to cause a ruckus. I agree, Poland should just shoot the helicopters or whatever other junk flies over, shoot it down. People will cry about EscALaTiOn, but at this point the choice is either show some balls and defend your border, or keep letting this nonsense happen. The ONLY thing russians understand is force, so smack them in the face each and every time they try this and force them to back down.
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Belarus has been doing this for years, so it really isn't anything new. A few years ago they attempted to create a migrant crises by selling fake Schengen visas to Middle East nationals, having them fly into Minsk, then shipping them on a bus to the border crossing with the promise of being able to cross through Poland and into Germany (which was the promised final destination). When the migrants realized it was a shame and tried to return to Minsk, the soldiers held the line and kept them in no-man's-land for weeks in the cold forest, forcing them to cause a ruckus at the border and making Poland look like they were forcing these poor brown migrants out in the cold. Russian trolls absolutely ran with this story, to the point that even Poles were questioning what their armed forces were doing. I was living a few hundred kms away from the border at the time, so I got an almost-first-hand view of it. Eventually the Belarussian soldiers were told to back down, and most were allowed to fly out of Minsk back home. An absolute ####-show, hence why a literal wall got built.
No doubt Belarus does this on russia's behalf. This is a prime example of what russia brings to the world; disinformation, instability and straight up bull#### trolling simply to cause a ruckus. I agree, Poland should just shoot the helicopters or whatever other junk flies over, shoot it down. People will cry about EscALaTiOn, but at this point the choice is either show some balls and defend your border, or keep letting this nonsense happen. The ONLY thing russians understand is force, so smack them in the face each and every time they try this and force them to back down.
Besides, if a Belorussian helicopter carcass lands on Polish soil, there's not much Belarus can say
A few European countries have legislation on the table right now to officially declare Wagner a terrorist organization. I am not sure what the implications of such rulings would be, if it would just be symbolic, or if it allows for different rules if it ever comes down to fighting against them.
Unfortunately, the legislation was tabled in England but didn't pass.
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A few European countries have legislation on the table right now to officially declare Wagner a terrorist organization. I am not sure what the implications of such rulings would be, if it would just be symbolic, or if it allows for different rules if it ever comes down to fighting against them.
Unfortunately, the legislation was tabled in England but didn't pass.
Wagner has its toes in a lot of conflicts all over the world. Wagner is also receiving funding from various Russian organizations. Defining them as a terrorist organization would certainly up the conflict between the West and Russian also potentially force the West to get involved in various conflicts all over Africa.
Belarus is agitating on Russia's behalf. It's only a matter of time before the Poles will be forced act in some way to enforce their borders against Russian/Belarus/Wagner incursions. Seems like Russia is trying to divert NATO attention, and potentially resources, away from Ukraine. Totally the behaviour of a peace loving, non-aggressor nation. Poland needs to pull a Turkey, just shoot down the next chopper that flies over the border, Russia will do nothing.
#### Belarus and #### Russia
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Wagner has its toes in a lot of conflicts all over the world. Wagner is also receiving funding from various Russian organizations. Defining them as a terrorist organization would certainly up the conflict between the West and Russian also potentially force the West to get involved in various conflicts all over Africa.
It doesn't force the West to do anything. The US was (and probably is) still funding and arming various islamist militants way after they were declared as terrorist, and nobody gives a crap because everyone knows that label is super political and that's just how geopolitics works.
It does however give the West and really anyone a legal and political excuse to go after Wagner, and I think there's a real chance they choose to do this. Wagner might be a big player in the mercenary business, but if some western power seriously makes it their business to mess with them... Well I don't see them countering F-35 attacks any time soon.
It also means governments have legal grounds to force financial institutions to seize funds and hand over information, it's a legal excuse for increased surveillance (not that western governments bother with such trivialities as legality), Wagner recruitment becomes a crime etc.
I think this is a fairly obvious move from the West at this point in time. There's already a proxy war going on between the West and Russia, so going after Wagner (and possibly/probably some other Russian mercenary groups) isn't really an escalation at least in the political sense. Russia is also extremely weak right now politically, financially and militarily, there isn't really a huge risk of them doubling down on supporting some pro-Russian warlord and turning a proxy war into a massive confict. While going after Wagner internationally would obviously be an escalation from the West, I don't really see a realistic risk of Russia escalating back. Especially given that the relationship between Prigozhin and Putin has obviously soured somewhat.
I would also argue that this is a situation where you can see the significance of Russia still having powerful non-hostile countries, but not really allies. India and China might be perfectly willing to do business with Russia, but I doubt they're in any way interested in shielding Wagner with their political clout.
I also don't think it's a coincidence that this is coming out right after the Russia-Africa summit showed that most African nations have soured on Putin. As I mentioned before, there are clear historical reasons why many African nations actively choose to seek for allies outside of the west, hence some of them going for Russia and Wagner. Africa (Mozambique, Libya, Sudan, Mali, Central African Republic...) has been one of the main operating areas for Wagner, so this would be where a lot of the "counter-terrorism" would be likely to take place. You need the support or at least acceptance of local governments to go against Wagner.
It's however worth noting that many of the situations in Africa are complex. Additional stuff in spoilers.
Spoiler!
In Mali for example, Wagner has mostly kind of been on the same side as the West; in support of the government against local branches of Al-Qaida and Isis. For even more context, that government was also trash before, and is since 2021 a brutal authoritarian regime after one of the generals executed a successful coup, and that that general al-Burhan is still a public supporter of Putin, and Wagner is presumed to be a key force holding al-Burhan in power... against Al-Qaida and IS. So, if you go after Wagner in that area, do you end up creating a situation where islamist radicals step into the power vacuum and take over Mali?
In Central African Republic (CAR), the location of those famous diamond mines that are ("allegedly") funding Wagner, situation is somewhat similar in that Wagner is propping up the local president (by some accounts Wagner is increasingly just running the country), who was democratically elected in what was considered a successful and somewhat fair election given the circumstances in the country at the time. On the opposing side of an ongoing civil war is a former president who originally took the power in a coup, and supporting that are for example some local Christian extremist groups like the Lord's Resistance Army, who engage in child sex-slavery among other horrible things and is essentially a cult around it's leader Joseph Kony. (Wanted for crimes against humanity for two decades. You might remember Kony 2012). While LRA is in practice pretty insignificant these days and is probably mostly hiding in Sudan, this stuff is good for context in understanding why the West hasn't done anything about Wagner in CAR before. These aren't obvious situations like Ukraine where Wagner has just clearly been on the side of evil.
Yes, Wagner is a brutal mercenary organization with a history of atrocities, but that goes for a lot of mercenary groups and other forces in conflict zones, and in many of the places where they've been operating they've been far from the worst people around, in some cases clearly supporting the least worst option available.
The downside of using "plausibly deniable" forces to do your dirty work in the world is in any case probably going to start biting back against Russia. The upside of Wagner "not being officially Russian" is that you're not (as) responsible for what they do, but the downside is that you also have no real footing to protest if your guys get blown to hell by F-35:s as a part of a counter-terrorist action.
Last edited by Itse; 08-04-2023 at 02:37 AM.
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Oh boy I shouldn't ever even start on stuff like this because it's always long and complicated... Anyway, addition:
Diamville diamond company is (effectively) owned by Wagner. (Publically it's owned by the driver of Dimitri Sytyi, a Wagner executive on CAR). They do business with international buyers, including Europeans. There are also other companies legally owned by Wagner executives doing legal business. You need a legal reason to go after their legal business, because that's a financial and legal fight where F-35:s don't help you.
If you can declare Wagner a terrorist organization, you can then go to for example Diamvilles European buyers and declare that you've been funding a terrorist organization, would you rather co-operate in driving them out of business or be hassled by international investigations?
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Major explosion near or at the Kerch bridge...again. Very new news and it's late at night, we likely won't know the extend of the damage yet. At least 3 explosions, appears a Russian oil tanker was hit among one of multiple targets. It appears Ukraine unleashed a large number of the sea kamikaze drones.
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Major explosion near or at the Kerch bridge...again. Very new news and it's late at night, we likely won't know the extend of the damage yet. At least 3 explosions, appears a Russian oil tanker was hit among one of multiple targets. It appears Ukraine unleashed a large number of the sea kamikaze drones.
Very early with only Russian sources available, but considering that they denied their lander ship being hit yesterday, them having radio chatter of incidents means this is a big one.
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