In Russia, especially in the military, the mention of "orchestra" and "musician" may have other meanings, most likely referring to the Russian private armed group Wagner.
The reason for this name is that Wagner produced many beautiful promotional photos to promote his musical hobby, dressing himself up as a peace-loving angel.
Although Wagner advertised himself for peace, Wagner's performance on the battlefield was more like a ruthless human machine.
Under Russian law, training, recruitment, financing of mercenaries, as well as their use in war, are crimes. This law is more like to avoid other people recruiting mercenaries. Strictly speaking, Wagner is an illegal organization in Russia.
However, in practice, Russia is using Wagner.
Putin in 2018 described Wagner as "a legitimate private security organization that abides by Russian law and defends [Russian] interests abroad." ”
Now about Wagner, everyone must obey the law. If anything... We could ban private security companies altogether, but once we do, I think they'll come to you with a lot of petitions asking for protection of this labor market. We have almost a million people working there. If this Wagner organization violates certain regulations, then the Attorney General's Office should give a legal assessment.
Now about their activities somewhere abroad. I repeat, if they do not violate Russian law, they have the right to work anywhere in the world and defend their business interests.
For Putin, private forces must not be allowed to meddle in domestic affairs. Wagner's purpose is to defend (Russian) interests abroad.
As a private armed force and mercenary, Wagner bluntly said that he fought for money.
"We don't need anything but money. What Ukraine? What North Kazakhstan? I just know that my Audi A4 and a new villa are in jeopardy, give me money! These guys will even conquer Australia. Where do we get our money? Oil, gas, trophies. We don't even need patriotic propaganda. ”
"Why did you take Constantinople? You can't answer: 'I want to eat black caviar and shake with top models in the Cadilla Cree.'" 'So we will talk about the cross of Hagia Sophia and the Orthodox Church. That's enough. Any reason is enough, even the revival of the Fifth International, planting the red flag all over the world. ”
There is no honor for a mercenary organization like Wagner, which simply means four words: take money to do things, kill and set fire.
Of course, soldiers, the great affairs of the country, the place of death and life. It is absolutely impossible to completely allow private control, which will lead to domestic political chaos.
There are reports that Wagner's leader, Dmitry Utkin, and Yevgeny Prigozhin, the gold owner behind it, are only puppets, and their actual controllers are the Russian General Staff.
That is, the Russian General Staff, outside the existing system, designed a mercenary organization for overseas missions, an approach that was mainly aimed at circumventing disputes under international law.
In the previous Syrian battlefield and the current Russian-Ukrainian war, Wagner played a big role.
Wagner is not even inferior to the guns, artillery, drones, and even fighters of the Russian Army. As a mercenary outside the Russian corps system, Wagner can carry out some of the more dangerous and even illegal tasks.
Mercenaries are not recognized on the battlefield, so in general the punishment of mercenaries is more severe by opponents of war. For example, do not take prisoners, directly extinguish the mouth. Correspondingly, Wagner is also used to perform some of the dirtiest tasks. Wagner was also often more ruthless and brutal on the battlefield.
The regular army of the United States, because they suspect that there are terrorists in a building, will directly carry out explosive bombing of the building, but it is likely that there are a large number of civilians inside. For the United States, because it has the right to speak in the media, it can control public opinion. For Russia, because it has no right to speak, this dirty work is carried out by Wagner, a cold-blooded war machine, so as to avoid responsibility.
Wagner carried out his mission on the battlefield with economic input and output considerations in mind.
For example, the Russian army needs to storm a tactical point defense building. Wagner would be offered $500,000. Wagner's tactical evaluation department will conduct a tactical evaluation, and after analysis, send an 18-person combat unit, if you successfully take the building, you can get 200,000 dollars, and after success, there will be a reward of 40,000 US dollars, but one person killed is less than $10,000, out of 18 people, there are 10 snipers, 4 demomans, 2 scouts (drone operation and electronic countermeasures), and 2 cover soldiers (incendiary bombs and fire cover).
In the end, the building is taken down, and the 18 people who survive can divide the bounty. This kind of high-risk person earns about $10,000 at a time. If you fail, you lose your life.
The Russian army on the front line basically used Wagner in the form of quantifiable and divisible tactical units.
If it is a particularly dangerous charging mission, Wagner basically cannot count on it, because Wagner cannot quantify the input and output of the charge. At this time, it is often necessary for the regular Russian army (mobilized and contracted) to test until it finds a concentration point of Ukrainian firepower and troops. Then the Russian command will release bonuses for fire points for tenders.
Because Wagner is not a system with the regular Russian army, front-line soldiers often do not have good praise for Wagner, and in their view, ordinary soldiers have become a human flesh testing period and cannot be trusted, because Wagner has no cover, the obligation and responsibility to rescue them, and does not need to obey the command of their leaders.
However, for the top brass of the Russian army, Wagner is like a scalpel that can accomplish some tactical goals with money.
Despite Wagner's careful calculations, because the Ukrainian battlefield is facing Ukrainian troops trained by NATO and using NATO equipment, and there are many mercenaries in Ukraine. Wagner's soldiers are still severely attritioned, and many have earned dollars, but have also died on the battlefield in Ukraine.
To compensate for the attrition of the war, the Wagner Group has recently begun to recruit criminals from prisons to form "correctional camps", mercenaries composed of criminals, although trained, often more unreliable on the front lines.
If the previous Wagner members were well-paid and well-equipped elites, then the mercenaries of these criminals were well-equipped criminals. On the battlefield, the "punishment battalion" often does not match well with the front-line troops, and as a result, it becomes cannon fodder itself.
A captain of the motorized infantry battalion of the Russian army said: [They say different things, some people praise them, some scold them. I worked with them three times near Artemovsk (as the Russian army called Bakhmut). At one time it went well: my company was supposed to attack from the flank, and Wagnerian units, under our cover, stormed the center of Ukrainian positions. Their officers explained everything to me and maintained good tactical communication with me, the positions were broken through and we had practically no losses.
The last time I faced Wagner, it was no longer mercenaries who went to the front, but a large group of prisoners. They don't know how to fight, and most of them have frostbite. Their supplies are not as good as mercenaries, but they are also stronger than the army. On the day they advanced, two Ukrainians were captured, and then they brutally killed these two prisoners. I don't quite understand why humans do this.
But that night, the Ukrainians touched their positions and took everyone out, maybe they did it in revenge, but thankfully they did. The next day the remaining prisoners were reluctant to advance, and then we were told that those who did not want to advance were summarily executed, and the others were willing to go to the front. By the time our men came to the front, there were only countless corpses left there, their corpses.
I will not say what kind of professionals they are, especially those prisoners. Their losses were high, and there were no victories to speak of.
A country must be very cautious in its use of troops abroad. The war is easy to start with, difficult to end, and it is likely to drag the country into the mud.
Russia's use of Wagner on the Ukrainian battlefield will become dependent on such mercenaries. In theory, Wagner was also subject to the control of the Russian staff, but in practice, Wagner's top brass had direct command of this mercenary army.
If Wagner is allowed to grow bigger and have enough interests, the war will be more difficult to stop, and one day we may even see Wagner become a destabilizing factor in Russia. Such cases have appeared many times in Chinese history.