Russian Mercenaries: Vagner Commanders Describe Life Inside The 'Meat Grinder'

[TomSea]

Excerpt:

Russian Mercenaries: Vagner Commanders Describe Life Inside The 'Meat Grinder'

...


Russian mercenary Dmitry Utkin (aka Vagner)
"Vagner is a cruel fellow," one of the Vagner commanders told RFE/RL. "He's no fool." The man added that Vagner has a swastika tattooed on his shoulder, wears a helmet with horns, and practices a form of paganism, a description that RFE/RL could not confirm.

The Syrian story of the Vagner force began in 2015. Now there are several Russian private military contracting companies working in the country, but only the Vagner troops are said to engage in combat operations.

RFE/RL's sources estimated that there are about 2,000 Vagner fighters in Syria, although other media reports put the figure at 4,000. In addition, the Vagner troops fight together with a unit called Karpaty, which is made up primarily of about 300 Cossacks with Ukrainian citizenship.

Read more at: https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-mercenaries-vagner-commanders-syria/29100402.html

Good read in full.

[Sanguine]

That's a very interesting article.

"[Syrians] can't stand Assad," one Russian mercenary commander told RFE/RL. "Really. Only a tiny percentage of the population there supports him and the rest oppose him. Only [Russian President Vladimir] Putin supports him. Russia supports him -- no one else."
...

"There is no Syrian war," he added. "There is no Ukrainian war. There is only a war between the Russian Federation and the United States."

"If we have to fight with America, we will win," he said. "They don't know how to fight. As Putin said, you can invent all sorts of missiles, but you can't invent people like we have. Our people -- they know how to sacrifice themselves."