“Russia’s most deranged gambit in its war against Ukraine is rapidly turning into a crisis as military leaders lose control over the prison inmates freed in exchange for a stint on the battlefield.
About 20 armed inmates fled from the frontline in occupied Donetsk in recent days and the Russian military was forced to launch a manhunt for members of its own team, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Thursday. Three of the “fugitives” were killed in the ensuing search, Ukrainian authorities said, wryly noting: “Beat your own, so that others are afraid, as they say.”
The hunt was reportedly still on for the other fleeing inmates. The news comes just two days after a suspected Russian deserter fleeing the battlefield in Ukraine’s occupied Donbas crossed the border into Russia before opening fire and injuring two police officers. Independent media outlets identified the gunman as a prison inmate recruited to fight in the war.
While many experts saw the prison-recruitment scheme for what it was from the get-go—a convenient way to bolster Russia’s fledgling troops using men deemed easily disposable—it seems many of the inmates are themselves finally coming around to that realization.
The public sledgehammer-execution of Wagner defector Yevgeny Nuzhin last month certainly didn’t help matters, no matter how much Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mastermind behind the prison recruitment scheme, told inmates they’d go down in history as “heroes.”
Putin’s Private Army Goes Full ISIS With Sledgehammer Execution Video
Now, Russian inmates say there have been other executions carried out against those perceived to have “betrayed” the mercenary group—and wannabe recruits are shown videos of it.
One inmate at a penal colony in the Far East told the BBC’s Russian service that Wagner recruiters showed execution videos to inmates in the facility’s recreation room.”
Comment: Well, what did they think was going to happen? These are either political prisoners or common criminals. Any officer who has led men in in combat, will tell you that such creatures are not suitable material from which to make soldiers. The Chop Suey Clausewitz opined otherwise but he was wrong. pl
Backfired: Putin’s Prison Recruits Spiral Out of Russia’s Control (yahoo.com)
Indeed, what did they expect? But it is an indication in general that totalitarian regimes have trouble employing the “best and brightest”, who largely have either left the country or are in hiding. There are now some speculations about what will happen to Russia as the realization sets in that the feared military is an empty shell. As I have predicted for some time, the outlaying areas of the Russian Federation will increasingly become restless.
I am sure there are those at the top of the Chinese government who are watching wearily as they are starting to have increasing challenges, all from internally to Lithuania giving them a hard time and others starting to pay attention and acting likewise.
I guess we are in some kind of cycle, since today is starting to look like a century ago and it did not end well for the totalitarians, even if it took longer for the Soviet Union to be dissembled. They all create a rot that never goes away and can eventually consume them.
Lars, I too thought the outlying areas of the Russian Fed. will b/c restless. So I did a quick look up of them all. None, not even Kazakstan, have either the will nor the way. The Russian south can and is being penetrated by Islam who are intent on bringing peace and love to the region. Nothing new there.
Russia is largely held together with myths and now reality is sinking in, due to mistakes in Ukraine. The outlaying areas can stop funding the center and stop providing the cannon fodder. It is questionable whether Russia can keep the federation together by military means and when that becomes evident, it will not take much for separation. I think the key is Siberia with their vast natural resources. If they decide that they want to keep them, Moscow is in a world of hurt.
All countries, all, are built on myth and ours has now been largely destroyed by the Marxist left. What do you think is going to happen?
Lars & Bill,
We should not gloat too much. As the Twitter files confirm what we all already knew and saw so clearly during the covidian hysteria and in the many other cases including mass surveillance, the Patriot Act, AUMF, Church Committee, etc. we have an authoritarian national security state with the national security apparatus now acting with even more impunity while the establishment provides an illusion of a constitutional republic.
For all intents and purposes we too are living in an authoritarian state with the full support of the majority. Covidianism demonstrated without a shadow of doubt that we’re not the same as our Lockean forefathers. In fact it is clear that the majority of Americans want an authoritarian state that controls all aspects of our lives. Liberty and constitutionally protected rights of each American is just for the textbooks and not at all in any form of practice.
There’s no return to the Federalist Papers! That ship sailed decades ago.
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1601697175486230528?s=21
Our national security apparatus in collusion with Big Tech media to suppress dissenting voices.
https://twitter.com/bariweiss/status/1601011428579717121?s=21
Totolitarians Have Evil Thinking Mein Kampf…And Lust for Control…The Chinese ..And Russians Have Fish Hooks in Thier Lips…They are Being Drawn to Thier Destruction..As It Is Written..It Has Now Become So..
Every Eye Will See..That Is Gods Will..As It Is Written..
JT
I somewhat ‘shudder and dread’ post war/invasion/military action inquiry court on this Ukraine/Russia – it is going to be both necessary and ugly.
kj
We provide, at no meager expense, an illuminating portion of an internet manuscript concerning a curious and unfortunate heresy which was so predominant that our archived chronicles overflow the storage capacities of even the most generously funded monasteries of our epoch.
Totalitarianism? You may suspect so. But no.
Total It: Arianism.
———-
Heresy and the barbarians: 4th – 6th century AD
Unfortunately for the cause of orthodoxy, the ministry of Ulfilas falls in the period when Arianism has its strongest following. Ulfilas himself subscribes to one of the milder versions, that which says Jesus is ‘like’ his Father. In this account the Trinity contains an element of hierarchy, with Jesus slightly below God and the Holy Spirit trailing both. It makes sense to the Goths, though most remain pagan till long after Ulfilas’ death.
The Arian faith eventually becomes something of a national creed for the Germanic tribes. It is adopted, from the Goths, by the Vandals and by many other groups. And with the Germanic tribes on the move, in the upheavals of the 5th century, so Arianism spreads.
At various times in the 5th and 6th centuries, Italy is largely Arian under the Ostrogoths; Spain is Arian under the Visigoths; and north Africa is Arian under the Vandals.
The heresy is eliminated in most of these areas by the energetic campaigning of an orthodox emperor in Constantinople, Justinian. But another barbarian group, the Lombards, bring it back to north Italy in the late 6th century. In Visigothic Spain an Arian king is converted to orthodoxy in the 6th century and actively persecutes Arians from 589, but traces of the heresy remain until after the Muslims conquer in 711. By then the story has run for four centuries. Constantine, at Nicaea in 325, would not have approved.
———-
The remaining and introductory portions may be accessed:
http://historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistoriesResponsive.asp?historyid=ac61
IMHO, in order for Christianity to make any sense, Arian was right. I started to leave Christianity at fourteen after a study session w/my local Pastor (Miss. Synod Lutheran). Pastor, explaining the trinity to a questioning (and annoying?) student, said to me “William, it is a matter of transubstantiation”. He thought I w/n understand the big word but I did and walking home I said (under my breath of course) baloney! Christianity was much in flux from after Jesus’s death until Nicea. That Arian continues to pop up 1600 years after he was considered a heretic demonstrates his opinion just wont go away. That’s why we are still talking about him. Even the final language accepted at Nicea is mealy mouthed so one may interpret it differently. The trinity requires trading sense for faith. I could not do it then and still can not. Be a good and sensible person. The universe will take care of itself.
Bill Roche,
Due to rebellious atheist parents who each married outside their respective religions (to hurt their backward authoritarian parents Imo), I was denied a religious upbringing of any kind. All the neighbors (early 50s US northeast, all war veteran families) thought it a terrible mistake and tried to counsel against it. To no avail. As a compromise my father allowed a Bible into the house. There was a Holy Koran in translation in a pocket sized edition. The bible was huge and illuminated. I found very small sized copies of the New Testament. There were some good survey books on the religions of the world and we had two encyclopedias.
Sigmund Freud was of course an atheist through and through. And he had a circle of notable followers who knew his Future of an Illusion by heart. One day he asked one of his close followers, a distinguished professor in Vienna or Berlin, if he provided his children with religious instruction in Sunday School or Shul. The man was very surprised and said of course not, Her Doctor Freud, have you forgotten your own illuminating works on the subject? Freud replied that in his opinion the professor was making a serious mistake because he was depriving thereby his children of irreplaceable sources of strength which could not be aquired in any other way. (The tales of the biblical heroes and prophets).
I agree with you for the most part. No one ever would have followed any religion if it was presented as a choice between incomprehensible mumbo jumbos. It became a tool of persecution, dreadful at times. It did protect and nurture a scholarly and priestly class though, without which it’s difficult to see how we would have made much progress. All valuable things are abused.
F&L the atheist, agnostic, and deist are VERY different. The agnostic says “with my simian brain and imperfect data from the universe its impossible for me to know god exists”. The atheist says “I am so smart I know god does not exist”. The deist says “I not only know god exists, I know god’s nature”. Who is most arrogant? Despite my agnosticism I agree w/Freud who thought religion teaches us all about right/wrong/good/bad. This is invaluable in building a civil society. These lessons can be learned in religious teachings b/y Judaism and Christianity. We’ll know about god in the great bye and bye (I think that must be a line from a Carter Sisters/Johnny Cash song).
Bill Roche,
A dear friend, regrettable passed on, used to say:
Do I believe in God? No.
I’d say something boring like: So you don’t think God exists?
He: Did I say that? No. God might very well exist. I said I don’t believe in him. And if I went into that restaurant and he came up to my table, introduced himself and performed a bunch of miracles, guess what? I still wouldn’t believe in him.
He quite possibly continued saying things impolite regarding what God could go and do possibly regarding a section of my friend’s anatomy which, though he was maybe 5 foot 2 (the had been a professional horse racing jockey) was an impressive thing to carry about on one’s person. But I don’t recall. It was an expression that he used on more than one occasion though. His surname was the same as that of the first white person born in the American area which came to be the United States. His official identification papers said otherwise however and he had many aliases. Everything about him was questionable actually including anything I think I know about him. But he sure did not believe in God even a little bit ever. If you knew his life, you’d understand.
Many of the things you mentioned about why it would be preferable if people did – well he was a perfect illustration. But a stand up guy who put away a collection of the most depraved criminals the NY City Police Department ever encountered in their long history. They robbed him at gun point during a huge hold up right after he had won $400 at Off Track Betting, all 5 feet 2 inches of him. It was the worst mistake those depraved murderers, kidnappers and brutal rapists ever made. God bless you, Bobby the weasel, you “little guinea bastard” as the guys in the bar called you, even though you never believed in him, if only they had encountered you a couple of months earlier. The people who would be alive. The children and grandchildren that the earth would have seen. The exploits of that man defy belief.
So many pieces of wartime propaganda are later found to be fables, so very many, from Belgian babies roasted on bayonets over campfires, to Kuwaiti infants dumped like garbage from incubators, and others as well. But reviewing history of conflicts and their supporting narratives, one should question whether a story and its supporting testimony has any truth to it. Every war has its stories and mostly they support the belief that the adversary is a deranged demon.
The stories about Russian forces being composed of society’s dregs, fit’s with standard wartime mythology, as do many of the stories about atrocities committed by Ukrainians egged on by soulless leaders. I’ll shelve this story about an army of convicts right next to all the other such stories.
I do not choose to do so. Post comments ONCE. All are moderated.