The Smoke Eater for Sept. 19, 2022
Mercenaries, missiles, and corgis.
Good morning, this is The Smoke Eater for Monday, Sept, 19, 2022, and if you pride your life, don't join by Christ.
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ABOVE THE FOLD
Last week a video surfaced of a guy attempting to recruit prisoners for Putin's meat grinder in Ukraine. The guy in the video looks a lot like Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russian's private military force, Wagner. The New York Times' Christiaan Triebert was able to nail down some of the rumors circulating: It's definitely a Russian prison, it's highly likely it’s Prigozhin, it's unclear when the video was recorded. Available evidence points to it being recorded within the last couple of months.
Wagner has a history of recruiting in prisons. Many prisoners leap at the chance to get the hell out of the torturous shitholes and collect a paycheck, writes Olga Romanova, the founder of the NGO, Russia Behind Bars.
The Kremlin seems to love using private military contractors (PMCS) because they're a cheap resource that can be easily replenished while still maintaining plausible deniability when Wagner mercs ransack towns and slaughter civilians in Mali, or make catastrophic fuck ups like the 2018 Battle of of Khasham in Syria.
By the most careful estimates, private military companies (Wagner is only one example) have recruited around 5,000 inmates. Not all of them are fighting; some are still training, while others are waiting for their turn in penal colonies because there are more volunteers than needed. Some are already dead.
All that considering that PMCs have only processed the penitentiary institutions of the European part of Russia. Inmates have shared that Wagner agents or Prigozhin himself mentioned plans of recruiting 20,000 convicts, or even better, 50,000.
Will they succeed? They certainly will, if they venture further east, beyond the Urals and into Siberia.
A man who looks like Evgeny Prigozhin tells inmates: “I've promised the President I will win this war.” Olga Romanova, Russia Behind Bars
After Ukraine steamrolled Russian occupying forces within the last week, ultra-nationalist hardliners in the Kremlin took to the airwaves to call for a greater escalation in the conflict, but it’s unclear if Putin has enough political support in urban areas like St. Petersburg and Moscow.
A Russian outlet quoted Prigozhin rebuking his critics, saying if they didn’t like it, they should send their own kids. Prigozhin added that his PMCs may not be have, “the most outstanding personalities, but [they’re] also not complete motherf***ers”
“Those who do not want PMCs or prisoners to fight, who talk about this topic, who do not want to do anything and who, as matter of principle, do not like this topic, send your children to the front. Either PMCs and prisoners, or your children – decide for yourself." - Yevgeny Prigozhin
These comments come as Ukrainian forces find evidence of hundreds of mass executions in reclaimed territories. The Kremlin is denying its forces have committed war crimes (again).
NOTE: The US Army is unlikely to meet its own recruiting goals (again). Recent data from the Army shows up to 70% of new recruits are being rejected, usually for drug use, low intelligence and obesity. Former military members have been raising alarms about the military's problem with recruits often called "too fat to fight" for a decade, lobbying Congress to increase school nutrition standards, increase public health access for children and lower barriers disqualifying recruits for marijuana use and minor criminal convictions. New data from the US Education Department shows math and reading scores have dropped among young teens, suggesting the problem won’t be solved any time soon.
BELOW THE FOLD
As Russia suffered heavy losses in Ukraine last week, Putin was in Samarkand, Uzbekistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) where things went rather poorly. The gathering in Central Asia is notable considering the authoritarians, dictators and religious nationalists in attendance were chiding Putin (and each other) ahead of the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week.
Putin tried frame a rather obvious and stunning snub by Chinese President Xi Jinping by saying he "understands" China has "questions and concerns" about Ukraine, adding that this was "normal." Talking heads don't think that this is the collapse of the "no-limits" Sino-Russia partnership, but note Beijing’s refusal to do anything more than peddle Putin's propaganda is a sign that Russia needs China more than China needs Russia.
"Our Chinese friends are tough bargainers," Putin said after the meeting.
Things didn't get much better during his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Indian Prime Minister (who claims neutrality on everything but Pakistan, and clashes with China in the Himalayas) bluntly slapped Putin on the international stage, saying, "today's era is not an era of war, and I have spoken to you on the phone about this."
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi didn't publicly criticize Putin, but instead reaffirmed claimed their shunning from the global community was a blessing, not a curse. "The relationship between countries that are sanctioned by the US...can overcome many problems and issues and make them stronger,” Raisi said, adding, “The Americans think whichever country they impose sanctions on, it will be stopped. Their perception is a wrong one.”
Of course, Raisi sure seems like he made Putin wait around before their meeting.
Additionally, Turkish president Recep Tayip Erdogan continued his habit of playing as many sides as possible, telling reporters he hoped Turkey would be granted membership in the SCO. Belarus and Iran are similarly hoping to (finally) get membership, but SCO members have objected to admitting sanctioned nations.
BONUS: Any weapons Russia gets from North Korea, one of the poorest countries on the planet, are likely to be old and dumb relics from the Soviet Union. Though the DPRK spends an insane amount of cash bolstering its military, most of that is blown on a rickety nuclear weapons "program so its doughy Dear Leader can do his best Alex Forrest impression at the United Nations. Kim Jong-Un's mafia economy of crypto heists, counterfeit cash and drug smuggling would likely welcome the opportunity to sell off stockpiles of AK-47s that may have been sitting around since Stalin first began propping up the DPRK 70 years ago. [VIDEO]
The Biden administration announced another $600 million in military aide to Ukraine, but additional funding for Ukraine isn't a certainty. The arch-conservative crackpot caucus is lusting for power after the US midterm elections in November, and some politicians are already dragging their feet on government funding measures because previously announced aid packages for Ukraine are likely to be included.
Their arguments range from delusions on appeasement, an apparent desire to goad the Chinese into a disastrous naval war and suggesting artillery sent to Ukraine would be better placed at US border with Mexico.
One of the reasons the US is sending so much is because Germany isn't. German Chancelor Orlaf Scholz has made full-throated statements in support of Ukraine, but Germany has yet to send much in the way of heavy weapons and helmets.
Ukraine has been asking for Leopard 2 tanks, but the German government has been reluctant to send anything beyond statements that Scholz or his defense minister, Christine Lambrecht, later walk back with armfuls of excuses.
Germany's mixed signals have led Ukraine's foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, to publicly criticize the German government for sending blue balls, not bombs.
MORE: The German government published a list of weapons and logistics that it's sent. The list includes drones, vehicles, weapons, ammo, field hospitals, and binoculars totaling more than €733 million. Similarly, Oryx, a pro-Turkish outfit that tracks military shenanigans, has compiled a similar list and notes that Germany might be criticized for taking their sweet time, but, "Germany's deliveries of medical supplies and support that although not liable to attract much attention are crucial at keeping Ukraine and its soldiers in the fight."
Last week European President von der Leyen gave the State of the EU speech where she criticized Russia for starting war in Europe, reaffirming the EU's commitment to Ukraine and alternative energy initiatives (AKA: the Green Deal) to counter Russia. She also announced efforts to help protect press freedom as some EU members, (Poland and Hungary) have chased out or shut down independent media outlets that criticize the respective regimes.
The European parliament has also declared Hungary is not a democracy, and has now become a "hybrid regime of electoral autocracy". The largely symbolic move comes as Hungary demands the European Commission cough up billions of euros -- €4.64 billion in COVID aid, and another €24.3 billion for infrastructure development -- that have been withheld over concerns about corruption and democratic backsliding. Over the weekend, the European Commission moved to formally block Hungary's access to €7.5 billion in funding, but its unclear what happens next.
Skeptics and critics of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán are warning not to fall for his "peacock dance" of lobbying EU officials in Brussels while giving vitriolic anti-immigrant speeches back home. In July, Zsuzsa Hegedus, a close friend and advisor to Orbán on social inclusion and modernization, found a speech to be so racist that Hegedus quit. A Holocaust survivor, Hegedus called Orbán’s speech, "pure Nazi text," and equated it those given by Adolf Hitler.
ONE MORE THING...
US veteran and Armenian Joe Kassabian sat down with Jake Hanrahan’s Popular Front podcast to talk about Azerbaijan's latest invasion into neighboring Armenia.
Over the weekend, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest ranking US official to visit the former Soviet republic since it declared its independence in 1991. Pelosi condemned the invasion, adding that fighting “was initiated by the Azeris and there has to be recognition of that.”
Turkey has flooded Azerbijan with weapons in recent years, and the EU recently called the Azeri’s a “crucial energy partner.” In July, the EU inked a deal to provide billions of cubic meters of natural gas, annually, within the next several years.
Though Armenia is a member of Russia’s Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a bizaro NATO for former Soviet states, photos of Putin laughing alongside Erdogan and Azeri President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the SCO have led some Aremenians to think Moscow abandoned them.
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