Supposedly one of the involved units was one that was mauled north of Kiev, retrofitted to be mauled again.
If true, this is more dangerous than the Ukrainian army will ever be. Warlordism. It is pretty stupid for a nation to purposefully pick it. Most nations unintentionally fall into it.
This reminds me more of a dystopian cyberpunk future where corporations have their own armed forces. Not sure if that's better or worse, frankly. Now I'm imagining Elon Musk with his own PMC.
Now I'm starting to wonder which US companies would field the most effective paramilitary forces. I can see Amazon putting machine gun nests on their delivery vans or arming the planned delivery drones, and Tesla can turn their cars into kamikaze terror weapons (I mean, more than "full self driving" already does that).
Amazon, 100%. Modern warfare is mostly logistics. If they can deliver me a printer cartridge in less than two hours, they can put an anti-tank missile through my window no sweat. I mean, they know everything about you already. If Amazon wanted you dead, you'd have no chance.
Seems a load of Leopard 1s are now being delivered. Tanks confirmed for 2023:-178 Leopard 1A5🇩🇰🇩🇪-90-120 T-72🇨🇿(+🇳🇱🇺🇸)-30 PT-91 Twardy🇵🇱-14 Leopard 2A6🇩🇪-14 Leopard 2A4 🇵🇱-30 T-72 🇵🇱-8 Leopard 2A4 🇳🇴-4-6 Leopard 2A4 🇪🇸-4 Leopard 2A6 🇵🇹-4 Leopard 2A4 🇨🇦-31 M1A2 Abrams 🇺🇸-14 ChallengerII 🇬🇧 =431-455Via @Historian_Matt— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) February 7, 2023
It's not from the future. The first capitalist company also was the first to have their own army/navy and forts, the Dutch VOC.
The English East India Company preceded the VOC in founding by 2 years. While both corporations had armed forces, neither nation allowed their armies to operate in their home countries like Russia is doing.
The current understanding is that most Russian oligarchs are making their own private armies, or have done so already.
Note the remark " first capitalist company". In the East India Company wikipages it is mentioned the Dutch VOC is the first public traded company in the world, a fact recognized by everybody with knowledge in these matters.
This is an interesting development. I’m surprised Putin is allowing this…which may be indicative of his power slipping. He had the power of the state over the oligarchs. While they may be able to hire trigger pullers by the thousands…a coup by force against a state that still has the backing of its military is near impossible. But if the oligarchs are able to fund infantry…and pay off the military for heavy weapons…Putin will be hanging from a crane by the end of 2023.
good thing then that Victor Bout is a free man again, he can make sure these these private armies are adequately armed
Hobby Lobby with their Apocalyptic militia, armed with explosive baskets, poisonous artificial flowers and anti-demonic Christmas decorations.
Given that Soviet POWs during WWII often found themselves shipped straight to the Gulag upon liberation, this wouldn't be too surprising. Or this could be the equivalent to fragging. In either case, morale seems to be a problem.
More recent Russian budget problems: https://www.ft.com/content/3def31b3-ca3d-4d6b-8add-3008ac6dfb44 (paywall) Russia is back to selling gold, which isn't a good sign. Now, Russia does have a lot, even though a good chunk is locked up in Western banks. Revenues are down a third, expenditures are up over 50% - and those are Russian government numbers. The deficit is going to continue increasing next year. Oh, and income from VAT fell by 44%. That's a stunning decline in consumer spending.
The thing to remember is a nation like Russia can simply print as much of its own currency as it needs. Also it put interest rates up to 20% in an emergency measure.
It's staggering the losses, but also interesting in terms of any Ukrainian offensive. Basically the heavies find it very difficult to make any progress.