On May 20, 2023, Russia announced the completion of the occupation of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut (formerly known as Artemsk in the Soviet Union, hereinafter collectively referred to as Bakhmut for readability).
The Battle of Bakhmut is the only place where there has been a big movement on the Russian-Ukrainian front in half a year, and it is also the longest battle fought in the Russian-Ukrainian war so far.
The Russian army began its official attack on the city in early August last year, and the two sides invested more than 200,000 people in this small city of only 70,000 people before the war, fighting for nearly 10 months, and finally paid the price of more than 100,000 casualties to divide the victory and defeat.
In every respect, this battle is the largest of the Russian-Ukrainian war, and even the largest in the world this century. Its high cost and arduous process are worthy of the title of a "meat grinder".
In addition, in addition to the huge consumption, this battle also has a very "non-mainstream" side:
The troops of the Russian army in charge of the main attack were not even regular troops, but a mercenary army called Wagner.
Sending mercenaries to face the enemy's main forces in key battles is a very bizarre operation. But what is even more strange is that this group of mercenaries actually fought well, and their battlefield performance was even better than that of the regular armies on both sides.
In the past few months when the Wagner Group has ceased to be in other Russian military units, nearly 40 brigades invested by the Ukrainian army in turn have reimbursed a large number of elite Ukrainian troops equipped with NATO weapons, and the G7 group has sent warmth to Zelensky, not only the promised tanks will be delivered immediately, but even the F-16 is put on the shelves.
So this mysterious force became the focus of people's attention, and everyone was curious about what kind of people they were.
Today we will explore the secrets of this unit, but first we need to briefly review the battle of Bakhmut.
Don't look at Bakhmut playing so lively, in fact, there has always been controversy on the issue of "is there a need to die for this city".
Some people believe that Bakhmut is a battleground for soldiers, and its gains and losses will determine the situation of the entire war.
Some people also think that as a small city of only 70,000 people before the war, Bakhmut has nothing special, and there is no need to invest too many resources in it.
So does it matter how important is the city?
Let's first take a look at the approximate location of Bakhmut, and the place circled in red in the picture is Bakhmut.
As we can see from the picture above, Bakhmut is located in the north of Donetsk Oblast, which is the most critical theater in the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Why is the Donetsk region critical? Because the Russian-Ukrainian war is, in essence, a continuation of the Ukrainian civil war.
In late 2013, pro-European forces in Ukraine launched a color revolution and overthrew then-President Viking Yanukovych in February of the following year.
This caused great irritation in the pro-Russian region of eastern Ukraine, where large-scale protests broke out, including in the Donbas region, which consists of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
In April 2014, the Ukrainian government began suppressing rebellion in the Donbas region; In May, the Donbas region declared independence; In June, the Ukrainian army launched a large-scale attack on the Donbas region, and Ukraine entered a state of civil war.
Crimea also declared independence during that time, but the region was a peninsula and easier to defend. The Donbas region is flat and unsafe, so the fighting here is particularly fierce.
(Original picture from Weibo @ Map to see the world)
Of course, behind such sensitive areas is naturally the shadow of a big country.
Behind Western Ukraine stands the entire Western world, which is not bad for money, and behind Eastern Ukraine stands Russia, which dares to play with its lives.
From this process, we can see that the key to the civil war in Ukraine is the struggle for the Donbas region.
Therefore, for the Russian army, which later personally ended the battle, whether it can take the Donbass region is the first KPI to measure the outcome of the war.
Now that it has been fought for more than a year, although the Russian army has basically taken the Luhansk region, its control over the Donetsk region is still much worse.
Coupled with the fact that the prefecture is the most populous and industrially developed area in Wudong, it is not surprising that the two sides engaged in fierce firefights here.
Bakhmut, although a small city, has a special geographical location, it is a transport hub in the north of the Donetsk region.
The area is centred on Bakhmut and has seven large roads stretching out in all directions.
It is with this pivotal status that the city was turned into a logistics transit station in the rear by the Ukrainian army during the Ukrainian civil war, which was used to support the front-line Ukrainian army's attack on the Donbas region.
So Bakhmut was not an "ordinary small city" at the beginning, but an important military stronghold. It's just that the war has been fought until now, and this stronghold has changed from the "rear of the Ukrainian army" to the "front line of the war".
For the Russian army, if they want to continue to move westward to fight for the cities of Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Constantinovka, etc., they also need such a logistics center as Bakhmut.
If you can't take Bakhmut, it means that you can't make full use of the road resources in this area. Then the efficiency of troop movements and logistical support will be greatly reduced.
So in a way, Bakhmut is very much like a pass, and if the Russian army wants to continue to advance, it must first take it.
However, for the Ukrainian army, the problem is not so serious, because even if they lose here, they can retreat to several large cities behind.
It's just that if Bakhmut is in their own hands, they only need to hold such a stronghold; And if you lose it, it will be more difficult to score troops to defend the following cities.
It is precisely because of Bakhmut's "important, but not the last line of defense" that there has been a great disagreement within the Ukrainian army on whether it should hold the city.
Some of their professional officers believe that the city should be abandoned to preserve its strength, while the international spectator Zelensky demands to hold on to the end.
Of course, as a city that was positioned as a military stronghold from the beginning, Bakhmut also has the confidence to hold on.
The Ukrainian army built a large number of underground bunkers, permanent fortifications and hidden fire points here very early, turning it into a fortress city.
But on the other hand, it was originally only a logistics stronghold, so its defenses were not the strongest in the fortress city.
Therefore, from the perspective of the Russian army, there is still hope that Nu's efforts can be moved.
Therefore, the two sides of the battle can feel that they can defend, and the other feels that they can attack, which happens to be an important stronghold, and naturally they are on the bar.
We are all familiar with Chairman Mao's words about strategic choices: "If the land is lost, everyone is lost; Man loses land, and everyone survives. ”
In other words, war should not be limited to the gains and losses of one city and one place. As long as the living power is preserved, sooner or later the lost place can be recaptured; On the contrary, if the living force is gone, then no matter how much territory you have in your hands, you will lose it sooner or later.
This logic is very classic, and its correctness has been repeatedly verified in the practice of war.
So why do Russia and Ukraine have to engage in a rigid urban offensive and defensive war?
This is because although Chairman Mao's remarks are very reasonable, the threshold for realizing them is very high.
You want to "save people and lose land, and everyone and land will survive", provided that you have strong field capabilities.
Because as long as your field ability is strong enough, then the supply lines of the opposing city will be cut by you, the reinforcements sent by the other side will be eaten by you, and the defenders in the city will be surrounded as soon as they go out.
In this case, the momentary gains and losses of the city itself are really not so important. However, it is a pity that neither Russia nor Ukraine has the ability to fight a large-scale war of annihilation in the field.
Since it is impossible to take the initiative to find and annihilate the opponent's living forces, it can only slowly advance one stronghold after another, relying on this stupid method of "stubborn and stupid" to break through the opponent's defense line.
Then the Russian army ran into a thorny problem: insufficient troops.
Because the opponent's main force is always there, you need to send heavy troops to defend the stronghold you take. So the more strongholds you take, the greater the need for troops.
The Russian army, which regarded itself very high, initially committed only a hundred thousand people to this war. WHEN THEY ARCH THE FRONT TO MORE THAN A THOUSAND KILOMETERS LONG IN THE SUMMER OF 2022, THE SITUATION WILL BE COMPLETELY UNHOLDABLE.
With a counteroffensive by the Ukrainian army in the fall of 2022, the Russian army successively spit out important places such as Izyum and Honliman in the Severodonetsk region, and then the Russian army on the entire front began to switch from offensive to defensive, and the scene was very embarrassing for a while.
At this time, the only place where the Russian army was still on the offensive was Bakhmut, which they only began their official offensive in August.
However, it is reasonable to assume that since friendly forces elsewhere have stopped attacking, there is no need for you to continue here.
Because if you become the "only seedling of attack" on the front, you will inevitably be "shot out of the head" by the other side, and the pressure will definitely be great.
But from the perspective of the macro strategy of the entire battlefield, Bakhmut, the "offensive only seedling", must be preserved.
Why is that?
Because the Russian army at this time very much needs time, they are shaking people.
The Russians, stunned, finally realized that their troops were inadequate, and at the end of September they began a nationwide mobilization with the intention of increasing their troops in Ukraine.
But real war is not a game, it doesn't mean that you press a button and soldiers can immediately make it for you.
From the beginning of recruitment to the preparation of new recruits, there is a process involved. Although Russia mobilizes reservists with service experience, it will take several months to form combat effectiveness.
This kind of operation of digging wells when thirsty really hurt the front-line officers and men.
In these months, the loose defense line of the Russian army will continue to face the counteroffensive that the Ukrainian army may launch at any time, and whether it will collapse again is only God knows.
So how can this pressure be alleviated?
Sun Tzu has a good saying in the art of war: Therefore, those who are good at war cause people and do not cause people.
The best way out of a passive situation is to actively mobilize the opponent.
Therefore, if the Russian army wants to reduce the pressure, the most suitable option is to take the initiative to contain the main forces of the Ukrainian army, so that they do not have the extra resources to continue to launch a large-scale counterattack.
But as mentioned above, the field capabilities of the Russian army are difficult to say, and the result of the active attack is most likely not to contain the other side, but to give itself to the other side.
So now the only way to contain the Ukrainian army is to keep Bakhmut, the "offensive alone".
Because Bakhmut is an important transportation hub, if you attack, he will definitely defend; As long as you increase your strength, he will have to keep sending reinforcements here.
In this way, the Ukrainian army will not have the spare power to launch large-scale attacks in other directions, and the pressure on the Russian army as a whole will be less.
So the Russian top brass decided to make a big bet in Bakhmut, and they even transferred the airborne troops withdrawn from Kherson, hoping that they could reinforce the battlefield.
As a result, the Airborne Forces said that I would not do it.
The unit has always been the elite of the Russian army, and now this group of people is actually passive and sabotage, and the scene was once very embarrassing.
But the Airborne Forces did this for their reasons:
- First, the consumption in the early stage of the war was too large, and they gnawed hard bones, and it was they who held on to the death in the Kherson Plain before, and they have suffered heavy losses until now.
- Second, if you only look at this part of Bakhmut, there is no need to storm at this time, you can wait for the troops to rest and fight again, anyway, this stronghold will not be able to run.
Because of this, the commander of the Russian Airborne Forces and the famous combat hero Tripinsky refused to allow his troops to participate deeply in this high-intensity battlefield, so the chief of the General Staff Gerasimov directly dismissed him (and was reinstated a few months later).
Tplinsky, who was once dismissed:
The result of the combat hero leaving class is that the airborne troops thoroughly fish, and the result of the elite troops taking the lead in fishing is that other units lie more flat.
At this time, the only Russian unit still struggling to work on the Bakhmut battlefield was a mercenary army, which was the Wagner Group, which had come from other battlefields in October.
Wagner is not in the Russian army establishment, and the internal rip-off of the Russian army has nothing to do with them, they only need to take orders and brush performance.
Just looking at the friendly troops around him who chose to watch one by one, Wagner quickly realized that this business was not easy to do.
According to some foreign military experts, the combat style of the Wagner Group is very different from that of the regular Russian army.
For example, their level of coordination of resources and teams is very high, and even if the firepower is dispersed, they can still play a good cooperation.
At the command level, Wagner was also more flexible than the regular army. They often change the direction of their attacks, which makes the Ukrainian army very uncomfortable, in contrast, the regular Russian army tends to advance along the same route for several months.
In addition, Wagner is also very desperate, fond of night sneak attacks when fighting, must make sufficient artillery preparations when attacking, do not feel sorry for ammunition at all, anyway, when it runs out, it will take care of the Ministry of Defense, and if it is not given, it will scold the street.
At that time, it seemed that the Russians let the regular army watch the play, and the operation of letting the mercenaries go to the front was quite a bit of a "broken can" atmosphere.
However, it was this group of "non-staff personnel" who began the Ukrainian army's "bloodletting journey" for most of the year.
Throughout the campaign, the Ukrainian reinforcement channel to Bakhmut remained open, but the combat areas were within the coverage of Russian artillery. This leads to the fact that every time the Ukrainian army sends reinforcements, they will be greeted by the artillery of the Russian army.
Theaters of operations covered by artillery:
We don't know if this situation of "encircling three and one" is intentional by Wagner, anyway, objectively Bakhmut is like a pocket, tirelessly devouring the continuous reinforcements of the Ukrainian army, causing major damage to the living forces of the Ukrainian army.
The Wagner Group has continuously disabled nearly 40 brigades (about 200,000 troops) invested by the Ukrainian army in turn, so that the "spring offensive" that the other side has been promoting since last year has been delayed until the summer, which has won valuable time for the rest of the Russian army.
Compared with the previous performance of the Russian regular army of "running away with a bucket", this mercenary army is simply a "divine soldier descending from the sky".
So who are these people?
In fact, they started out as a group of victims of "telecom fraud".
Wagner's origins have to start ten years ago.
In 2013, a security company called the Slavic Legion was established in Hong Kong. The company's main business is to protect merchant ships from pirates, and its executives are from Russia's Moran Security Group.
The "Slavic Legion" initially recruited more than 200 people, all veterans from various units of the Russian army, including even retired personnel of the GRU (Russian Main Directorate of Military Intelligence).
They were supposed to protect merchant ships from Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, but they were given a new task to protect oil fields in neighboring Syria.
At that time, Syria was in a civil war, and the brothers came out just to earn some hard-earned money, of course, they did not want to wade through this muddy water. But the company said, if you don't go, even if you default, you won't give a dime.
In this kind of place, there is no labor bureau to protect your rights and interests, and when you encounter a company trick, you either carry a gun to ask for wages, or honestly put up with things.
In the end, the old brothers who begged for a life decided to endure the sea and sky for a while, listened to the company's words and went to Syria, but what awaited them was a large-scale "telecom fraud" scene.
The original "guarding the oil fields" became "attacking the oil fields", and the promised reinforcements and cover were not available.
After a fierce battle, many people's lives were accounted for, the goal was not achieved, and the surviving veterans returned home.
But what awaits them are the handcuffs of the prison. Because it is illegal in Russia to participate in foreign wars without permission.
Obviously, these veterans are victims from beginning to end, but in a chaotic environment, no one will come out to do you justice.
But just when the gang was helplessly crouching on the trumpet, the course of history opened another door for them.
In February 2014, when Ukraine fell into turmoil, Russia decided to intervene in the situation, but because the two countries were not at war at this time, Russia could not send troops directly.
At this time, the power "outside the system" shows great value, including those veterans who have just been imprisoned.
Russia gave them the opportunity to make meritorious contributions, and they gladly went there.
Under the leadership of the leader Utkin, these people completed their tasks beautifully in the Donbass region and were deeply appreciated by the top. So when they returned home to rest, a big man extended an olive branch to them.
This person is Prigozhin, a restaurant magnate in St. Petersburg, who has another identity: Putin's friend.
In May 2014, with the financial contribution of Prigozhin, a mercenary organization "Wagner Group" was established on the basis of comrades of the "Slavic Group".
Since then, they have continued to participate in the conflict in the Donbas region, initially sending about one battalion.
It is worth mentioning that the name "Wagner" comes from the great German composer Richard Wagner. It is said that because the mercenary leader Utkin was particularly fond of this musician, he named the newly established mercenary group after him.
Romance is quite romantic, but because the mercenary business is not legal in Russia, the company was not officially registered until the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
But this is not important, no one dares to check anyway, because they are receiving orders from the Russian government.
With the increase in business volume, Wagner naturally also has to carry out large-scale social recruitment.
The company has been recruiting combatants from all over the world (except citizens of hostile countries), but because the salaries are not high (compared to the mercenary industry), most of the people who end up are veterans of Russia and some Eastern European countries.
The poor huddle belongs to yes.
Next, in addition to participating in the conflict in the Donbas region, Wagner also carried out business to the Middle East, Africa, and even South America, helping Russia do a lot of work that the government is not suitable for, making money while expanding Russia's international influence.
After several years of unremitting efforts, they finally entered the US sanctions list in 2017.
In fact, it is not uncommon for traditional powers to use mercenary organizations to do some "dirty work" for themselves.
Blackwater in the United States is a typical example, their business skyrocketed after 9/11, and since then they have long assisted and protected the security of American troops abroad, while also doing many bastards such as abusing prisoners and killing civilians.
However, Wagner's development process is still very unique: the boss is a cook, and the backbone members are a group of down-and-out veterans who have been fished out of prison, and this combination can be said to be a very mixed match.
Behind this dramatic combination is Russia's decline in national strength and social chaos, as well as the ruthlessness that remains in the hearts of Russians.
The organization had grown to 6,000 people by 2017, and then quickly expanded to about 50,000 people in order to participate in the Russian-Ukrainian war, and the company was officially registered in 2022.
50,000 is not a small number, and in Russia it is equivalent to the level of a full army group. Where did so many people come from?
Wagner once recruited soldiers from prisons with great fanfare, which led many people to believe that Wagner's main source of soldiers was these prison bosses.
However, given Wagner's outstanding performance on the battlefield, these temporary prisoners will certainly not be the main force.
Because fighting a war is also a technical job, whether it is psychological endurance or combat technology level, it is not something that can be done by just finding someone to take a few injections of chicken blood.
So these fierce men of Wagner must have other sources, so what is this source?
This has to start with the changes in the Russian army over the years.
Russia's current military power consists mainly of 3 parts:
- The regular army of Russia is under the control of the Ministry of Defense.
- The internal guard military system, including the security forces and border guards under the responsibility of the Security Service, and the National Guard under the responsibility of the President.
- Finally, there are forces such as the Wagner Group and the Chechen Armed Forces that "jump out of the three boundaries and are not in the five elements", which are not bound by the Constitution of the Russian Federation and only listen to Putin.
No matter how we view the future of the Russian-Ukrainian war, it is impossible to deny that the performance of the Russian army in the early stage was lower than expected. Not only lower than the expectations of the melon-eating masses, but also lower than their own.
The reason why the Wagner Group can play the performance of "divine soldiers from the sky" on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, in addition to its own strong combat strength, the counterpoint of the Russian regular army is also "indispensable".
It is clear that the initial plan of the Russian army was to rely on a small number of troops to quickly solve the problem, and as a result, the troops rushed and retreated quickly, and finally turned this "special military operation" into a long-term national war of national mobilization.
But to be fair, the initial idea of the Russian army to solve the problem with a small number of troops is not exactly a pat on the head.
Because in the previous Ukrainian civil war, those small groups of "Russian volunteer units" did perform well, and they played a small amount and high quality in front of the Ukrainian army in a battalion battle group (about 400 people in an ordinary battalion).
Taking the battalion-level battle group as the basic unit of war was originally the reform direction of the world's first-class army, so the Russian military top management was overjoyed and immediately decided on a new road of military reform.
In 2016, the Russian army officially began to fully promote the construction of the BTG Battalion Tactical Group, and the number of such composite battalions soared from 400 to about 900.
So what is the difference between this new mode of operation and the previous one?
In the traditional army establishment, a battalion often only needs to undertake a professional task, such as anti-tank battalion, reconnaissance battalion, communications battalion, material support battalion, and so on.
Therefore, troops at this level cannot fight alone, and can only uniformly obey the command of their superiors (regiments or brigades) on the battlefield and cooperate with other units to jointly complete a combat objective.
In other words, in the traditional mode, the smallest unit that can fight alone is a regiment or brigade.
These units are huge in size and have thousands of people at every turn, so the top management can only give a general direction when commanding, and too detailed things cannot be managed, and the micro-manipulation skills of the top cannot be shown.
But BTG battalion battle groups are different.
In this system, a battalion is an independent combat unit. Among the hundreds of people, there are both combatants and auxiliary personnel such as reconnaissance, support, and support, which can be described as a sparrow with all the organs.
Therefore, the top management can show their micro-maneuvers at any time, command battalion units to complete various small goals, and the flexibility of the battlefield is greatly improved.
By 2021, the number of BTG battalion battle groups in the Russian army has increased from 66 in 2016 to 168.
As a result, the east wind blows in 2022 and directly appears.
What's going on here?
BTG battalion battle groups are really good, but they are also expensive.
- Because each battalion is a combat unit, the requirements for the quantity and quality of equipment are high;
- Because the number of battalion battle groups is large and the combat coordination is complex, the development of information systems is required.
- Because a team of several hundred people cannot have its own warehouse, it also needs advanced logistics support technology to support it.
And none of these Russian troops have it.
They couldn't even get together the personnel of each battalion, saying that there was a BTG battalion of 900 people, and when the fighting started, they found that the average battalion was less than 500 people.
That is to say, the military reform of the Russian army in recent years is mainly to change the establishment, and the most obvious role is actually to reduce the army.
These "reduced and reduced" battalion-level battle groups can still be "subtly manipulated" in the event of a small conflict, and will be chaotic in the event of a large-scale war.
Therefore, the coordination of the various units of the Russian army on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield is very chaotic, the flanks often lack protection, they are often attacked on the march, and the logistics line is even more accurate by the opponent.
For example, this military reform has indeed trained several "martial arts masters", and the strength of a few units has been enhanced, but it is completely insufficient to see when it encounters a large-scale group fight.
However, this kind of "self-mutilation reform" is actually a routine operation of the Russian army, they have been in military reform since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the tossing in 2016 has been small, and the impact of military reform in 2008 is more far-reaching.
That time, the Russian army "successfully" dismantled more than 200,000 officers. At the same time, a total of 140,000 warrant officers were eliminated, all of whom are experienced veterans and technical backbones.
Mao Zi's ruthlessness on himself is breathtaking.
With the military reform of the Russian army again and again, more and more veterans with great ambitions have appeared in society. They hold their stomachs and do not agree with the direction of the development of the Russian army.
These people have been looking around the Russian land at a loss, and in recent years they have looked up and looked, oh, Wagner welcome to join.
Therefore, the main body of Wagner is actually these business backbones who are unwilling in the reform of the Russian army, similar to the old workers who were laid off from state-owned enterprises and got together again to open a company.
Therefore, although Wagner and the regular Russian army, although they are not happy with each other on the surface, they actually belong to the same camp and are old acquaintances with each other.
This explains why the Wagner soldiers' level of business is very online, and they are able to play beautiful tactical moves as soon as they enter the battlefield.
But there is another very irrational thing about Wagner: there is a serious mismatch between the intensity of work and the level of pay.
As mentioned above, the group's salary is not high in the mercenary industry, about 250,000 rubles, which is equivalent to about 3,000 dollars a month after the ruble appreciates (there are additional rewards for completing certain tasks).
If this price is just to perform some ordinary security tasks, it is now directly thrown to the front line of a national war to fight hard, fighting the most tragic and largest battle in the entire war, and there is no long-term pension for the country after death (only a one-time pension of about $80,000).
To put it mildly, this is cannon fodder.
According to the logic of mercenaries, cannon fodder is not impossible, but it has to be under heavy money to have a brave man, and $3,000 a month is far from being a "heavy money".
Therefore, in the face of a "meat grinder" type battlefield like Bakhmut, the most reasonable choice for mercenaries is either not to come at all, or to come and avoid the war.
However, Wagner not only came with 50,000 people, but also fought very bravely. According to boss Prigozhin, they lost 20,000 people in the battles in these months, a terrifying 40% death rate.
However, morale did not collapse, and he persisted until he occupied the city.
This inevitably raises a big question: what are you mercenaries trying to do?
At the end of 2019, some media disclosed a "code of honor" within Wagner, which included such a "commandment":
Protect the interests of Russia anytime and anywhere, cherish the honor of Russian soldiers and do not fight for money.
A group of mercenaries, who talk about "honor" and "not fighting for money" all day long, either the boss PUA is too ruthless, or they really have some other ideas.
In fact, the Wagner Group has always claimed to be patriots, and they have even done work in the Donbas region to evacuate and rescue civilians, deliver supplies to civilians, etc., for which they have received many medals of honor.
Local officials in Donbass awarded Wagner soldiers:
All indications are that this unit, which is outside the Russian army, is not just a simple mercenary army.
In fact, there are indeed hidden changes within this organization all the time.
As mentioned above, the Wagner Group has been fighting in the Donbas region since the outbreak of the civil war in Ukraine, so it has absorbed many excellent militias in the Donbas region over the past few years.
The pro-Russian forces in the Donbas region and the Russians are basically one family, and there is no cultural and ethnic gap between them, so the ideas of these Donbas militias can easily affect their Russian comrades.
So what are the thoughts of the Donbass militia? This has to start with the real causes of the civil war in Ukraine.
There were actually two reasons why Donbass wanted to fight for independence back then.
- The first reason is the well-known "line discord", and pro-Russian forces cannot accept the West's manipulation of color revolutions to push a pro-Western president to power.
- The second layer of reason, which is easily overlooked, is the struggle of the people of the Donbas region against the oligarchy.
Ukraine and Russia are actually very similar, whether they are national temperament or social problems, as if carved out of a mold. So Russia has problems in Ukraine, and even more serious.
This includes the problem of economic oligarchy manipulating the lifeblood of the country.
However, Russia has Putin who uses an iron fist to suppress oligarchs, and Ukraine has no such figure. So the Ukrainians can only watch as oligarchs and puppets take turns sitting in the farm, and then external forces come and get a piece of the pie.
As a result, the country has long been at the bottom of the European wealth list, and the social contradictions under the oppression of the oligarchy are very sharp.
And as soon as the social contradictions are sharpened, the left-wing forces in society will rise, after all, where there is oppression, there is resistance.
In the face of the rise of left-wing forces, the oligarchs must find ways to protect themselves. So what about a self-insurance law?
From the perspective of these oligarchs, the best way to do this is to support a force hostile to the left to fight them.
And the force they chose was the Nazis.
For the oligarchs, the Nazis were a tool to suppress their opponents, and no matter what nationality the oligarchs themselves belonged to, it did not affect their use of this tool.
Understanding this logic, it is not difficult to understand why in recent years there have been various strange phenomena in Ukraine such as "the Nazi organization obtained the state establishment" and "the whole country openly commemorates the Nazi leader Bandera".
Ukrainian commemoration of the Nazi leader Bandera:
And the Donbas region, which is an industrial powerhouse, has particularly active left-wing forces. After the outbreak of the civil war, the force formed a "red-brown alliance" with local pro-Russian nationalists.
So the Donbass militia can be understood as a group of "proletarian fighters who love ethnic Russians", and they are natural bitter opponents of the "anti-left and anti-Russian" Ukrainian Nazis.
When these people are absorbed into Wagner, it is not difficult to speculate what kind of ideas they will bring to this group. These ideas accompanied Wagner's growth from a few hundred to thousands, and from a few thousand to tens of thousands.
So does the boss Prigozhin agree with the emergence of mercenary organizations with their own ideology?
On March 10, 2023, Prigozhin publicly expressed an opinion that was unheard of in the mercenary industry, and he said this at the time:
"The Wagner Group must transform itself from a private army capable of defending the country to an army with ideology. At the heart of this ideology is the fight for justice. ”
From here we can see that Prigozhin's attitude towards this ideology is happy to see it, and even deliberately pushes it.
So why did he do it? Want to disrupt the mercenary industry?
Although Prigozhin was a cook, he was well aware of the truth of army building: if a large army wants to have strong combat effectiveness, it must have a military soul.
The soul of the army is the common values of an army.
After all, the Wagner Group is a mercenary army, and its members are inevitably mixed. If unified values are not established, it is easy to gradually degenerate into an unorganized and undisciplined "army of bandits".
And the "bandit army" cannot fight a real tough battle.
In addition, strengthening ideological construction can also prevent certain members from doing immoral things that damage the image of the Russian state to the greatest extent.
Mercenaries are neither bound nor protected by international treaties, so it is easy to do things without a bottom line on the battlefield.
This problem is difficult to solve with top-down discipline alone, because you can't send someone on the battlefield to watch every soldier's every move. The most effective solution is to raise the ideological consciousness of officers and soldiers and let them consciously restrain themselves.
Of course, there is another very important reason why Prigozhin is willing to promote the construction of this ideology:
Although the Russians do not admit it, they must have always missed the once powerful red army in their hearts. They may never be able to go back in time, but the flame in their hearts has never been extinguished.
So the Wagner Group is not so much a mercenary as a backup of the Russian army, they are exploring new ideas for army building, which is essentially "PLAN B" for the construction of the Russian army.
The Russian-Ukrainian war has been fought so far, which can be said to have broken two illusions:
The first is the illusion of a quick military victory for the Russian army, and the second is the fantasy of a quick victory for Western countries in economic sanctions.
For the Russian army, the disillusionment of a quick victory is nothing new, after all, the war that made them fall from fantasy to reality is not the first war.
The sudden failure of the Western economic stick is somewhat surprising.
Western countries, which regard themselves as the dominant global economy, originally wanted to "take advantage of Russia's disease to kill Russia", dry Russia's currency into waste paper through comprehensive sanctions, let its economy collapse, and then enter the market to divide the country's assets and eat.
As a result, it only killed a group of foreign exchange speculators in the end.
Most countries do not want to wade into the troubled waters of the Russian-Western struggle, and they continue normal economic and trade exchanges.
This also shows that neither Russia nor Western countries can change the world on their own.
It's just that now they have all bet too much, and it is difficult to stop in the short term. The Russian army will still advance slowly towards the strategic goal.
In addition, the Russian army began a new military reform this year, mainly because the performance of the previous military reform was too "amazing", so that the heads and brains of the Russian army had to think hard and do it again.
But this time it was no longer disarmament, but military expansion. The Russian army plans to increase its total regular army from the current 1 million to 1.5 million in the coming years.
Another important change is that the Russian army intends to reuse the most traditional divisional units. That is, a large army of about 15,000 people is tied together to operate, operating several thousand people in regiments or brigades, and no longer engaging in long-range micro-manipulation of Nalaushzi.
"Returning to divisional units" is undoubtedly a step backwards from a technical point of view, but the battlefield has always been a success, and finding a way that suits you is the most important. You have to win before you think about outdated issues.
The battalion battle group model is not bad, but too high-end, and only the two top armies can be promoted on a large scale in the world today, and the Russian army does not currently have this capability.
In general, the development and tossing of the Russian army along the way is really embarrassing, and the powerful forces that once affected half the world can now only struggle in a local war on the doorstep.
However, their current pragmatic reforms are still worth looking forward to, but it will be difficult to return to the top, because equipment and quantity may be accumulated, but lost faith is difficult to rebuild.
In fact, the development of the army has always been a worldwide problem, if compared horizontally with other armies around the world, the Russian army is already excellent, and they still retain a sense of self-motivation.
Even mercenaries like Wagner know the importance of military souls, but it is not easy to build a righteous division with souls.
The armies of most countries in this world are either private armies of warlords with no sense of right and wrong, or armies of fish who only know how to eat welfare, or mercenaries who seek only profit.
An army that is strong and does not seek fame and fortune, and at the same time can take the initiative to fight for the people, is very rare in the world.
If a country is fortunate enough to have such an army, it is worth cherishing every citizen.
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