It keeps surprising me how many troops this mercenary group has. Like 60,000 out of action and they still had enough troops left to be theathening enough to be serious trouble for Moscow and they have troops in Africa.

[–] lasagna@programming.dev 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How much defense does Russia even have at this point? They seem to be banking on their nukes to defend them.

[–] Chariotwheel@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago

Well, that's a question mostly Russia itself and maybe US/UK intelligence can tell you.

Also, there is the question of quality. I am sure Russia has a quantity of troops left, but given that they have to scrape the barrel with prisoners and people forced into service, I am not very sure about the quality. Lack of time for training, lack of experience, lack of proper selection. And that's all before we're at the state of the equipment.

[–] another_lemming@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Not much work around there and the market only decreases + most men came through obligatory service so they believe they know-how + employer DGAF if you are an ex-con or a neo-nazi + you earn in a month what you may not do in a year + shooting hardly armed brown people was pretty safe + and with mobilization there is a promise you'd be better treated, equipped and trained there if you sign contract with them. They previously hired from ex-Yugoslavia countries since there are many sympathizers and not the best economics in EU too; and Ukraine is probably the only post-CIS state they don't have a recruitment campaign in. The only limit I see is funding, and they deal in oil and food catering for government for that. I see their numbers get reported pretty conservatively while they are a big deal to actually be concerned about. Yet it took only 9 years to proclaim it as such.