Scale of Russian mercenary mission in Libya exposed

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-58009514

by NotSwift • 5 years ago

162 83 5 years ago

christmm• 5 years ago

strange how the BBC remains completely radio silent regarding the Turkish mercenaries there, and the recent request from the Libyan Foreign Minister, for Turkish mercenaries to withdraw

enkid3• 5 years ago

Why are you distracting from Russian warcrimes? Whether or not the Turkish mercenaries are in Libya doesn't change that Wagner is killing prisoners and civilians. So why wouldn't the BBC report on this?

f6v4• 5 years ago

Why are you distracting from Russian warcrimes?

Alleged warcimes.

guilhas2• 5 years ago

A war crime is what USA UK and EU did to Libya

m00dy2• 5 years ago

Turks are there because they have been invited officially.

hutzlibu• 5 years ago

Well, but the thing in a civil war is, 2 (if not more sides) claim to be the official side.

I honestly do not dare to judge from the outside. I know it is a complicated mess, with lots of hypocrosy and lots of foreign powers playing geopolitics.

baybal24• 5 years ago

Turkish mercenaries

Not mercenaries, but a standing Turkish army unit, which by the way completely stomped them.

cblconfederate6• 5 years ago

No, mercenaries https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-africa-679a6d6fc549bd...

brnt• 5 years ago

But it does?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54547304

f6v4• 5 years ago

There is little doubt that they kill prisoners - something one ex-fighter freely admits. "No-one wants an extra mouth to feed."

That's the quality journalism I expect to see from BBC, right here.

enkid3• 5 years ago

Wow, the comments on this article are strangely dismissive of Russian warcrimes for some reason.

Retric2• 5 years ago

I think it’s a mix of everything from genuine belief to trolls and people paid to post such things.

evgen2• 5 years ago

It is early US time but still mid-afternoon in Moscow. The perfect time to try to bury a story or derail any conversations into dead-ends and flaming tarpits of whataboutism.

chronolitus• 5 years ago

Seems plausible, it fits with the larger theme of mercenary misdoings and their use as an underhanded, unofficial military influence exercised by states. And Russia is particularly notorious for this sort of thing.

I wonder how necessary these things are geopolitically, or how they are justified by either sides. Dealing with mercenary forces and their total lack of accountability or ethics as a local civilian can only leave one disgusted, jaded, and with nothing but hatred for the nations which cause or let these things happen. Does anyone here have experience with this topic, and can say what the advantages are, if the goal is not purely to demoralize?

treme• 5 years ago

plausible deniability is usually the biggest reason.

"The group was first identified in 2014 when it was backing pro-Russian separatists in the conflict in eastern Ukraine."

Same reason Russia didn't send their uniformed troops into Ukraine.

baybal24• 5 years ago

Not so much. It was glaringly obvious who these people were from day 1.

The idea here is not obvious to a person living in the free world: it is to prevent your "scary, and mighty" standing army shown as weak, and losing in case it got stomped.

Seeing the "tzar's army" being weak will inevitably invite a challenge to his power.

raxxorrax• 5 years ago

I think they wanted people to know exactly who they are. Not only for the separatists themselves. But of course, the country gets a free card to deny involvement.

ymolodtsov2• 5 years ago

They were uniformed except for the flags on their arms and armor.

serial_dev• 5 years ago

To be honest, if I was a local civilian, and someone is doing terrible things to me and my people, I don't think I cared too much about whether the people terrorising us is a mercenary or "a regular soldier" deployed by a country. There are examples of both soldiers and mercenaries getting away with horrible stuff. In the end both would leave me disgusted with both the people committing these crimes and their origin country.

weimerica• 5 years ago

Tangential, but this reminds me of the US practice of having military (SOF) personnel temporarily terminate their military term, sign a new contract for the three-letter-agency of choice, execute a clandestine operation, then reverse the prior steps to walk right back into the military as if nothing ever happened.

Statecraft is so strange in this way, that you or I as laymen will ask just what in the fuck is the point - but it's totally legitimate and not casus belli for our solider to magically become a spy for a day to execute an operation on another nation.

RegnisGnaw• 5 years ago

A more realistic answer is: To be honest, if I was a local civilian, and someone is doing terrible things to me and my people, I don't think I cared too much about whether the people terrorizing us is a mercenary or "a regular soldier" deployed by a country. I want my own "a regular solider" or mercenary to do worse to the other side.

scyzoryk_xyz• 5 years ago

Thing is, the soldier has a doctrine and there are rules governing just about everything. Especially if we’re talking NATO. The mercenary is by far worse because there aren’t any rules or authority to appeal to, it’s just some guy with weapons getting paid under the table and not giving a fuck. The mercenary also definitely feels less safe, less confident, so most likely more jumpy, more trigger-happy. And worst of all probably ex-military so fully skilled.

programmertote• 5 years ago

Myanmar military (which receives/buys arms from Russia mostly) is using the same tactic to squash the civilian uprising lately. They formed an armed "civilian" group called "Pyu-Saw-Htee" (one of the heroes in Myanmar's early history) and have these guys kill and arrest civilians who fight against the military rule. The military seem to think that they can avoid the blame from international observers when time comes, yet kill and jail as many civilians as they want.

1024core• 5 years ago

Pakistan has followed this philosophy in India's Kashmir region for decades. They also used the same tactics against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 80s (with generous US funding, of course). For example, the 2008 attack on Mumbai[1] was planned in Karachi, Pakistan and carried out by Pakistani-trained and controlled operatives. More reading [2].

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2014/12/21/in-2008-mumbai-attacks-piles...

[2] https://abc7chicago.com/rare-extradition-in-works-for-chicag...

egao1980• 5 years ago

Seeing increasing number of non-tech related political posts here. Is it HN or ZH?

88840-8855• 5 years ago

Sorry for the dumb question, what is ZH?

Regarding your observation; I might be wrong, but I think it depends on the time when political topcis are dominant and when hardcore tech stuff is being posted. It seems to me that in the (German) morning hours political stories dominate, in the evening tech stuff is dominant.

kall• 5 years ago

ZeroHedge I would guess. A news site that is nominally about financial markets. It sits in some really weird political spot as a world news site that I don‘t quite understand.

h2odragon• 5 years ago

I assume https://www.zerohedge.com/

thrwway34• 5 years ago

And as expected there is an influx of pro-Russian whataboutists trying to shift the blame.

timwaagh• 5 years ago

The Russians didn't commit such war crimes before. It's very unfortunate because in Europe we would probably like to enjoy a better relationship with them. Is would be a win economically. Unfortunately things like this will only serve to lengthen existing sanctions and perhaps get Russians prosecuted by the ICC.

specialist• 5 years ago

Who's paying these Russian nationals? Russia or Libya?

The USA has done every kind of outrage. But it'd somehow be a bit worse if Libyans were paying the USA for American nationals to come fight.

Splitting hairs, I know. Bush 41 turned a profit on the first invasion of Iraq. And there's plenty of off-the-books operations like the Iran-Contra scandal.

bigodbiel• 5 years ago

I believe “pay” is subjective here. These are paid in geopolitical tokens. Libya is a major “exporter” of refugees to Europe, and control over that “trade route” is itself a major “token” to be traded for.

Lest we forget “we came, we see, he died”

thanatos519• 5 years ago

I wonder how Wagner compares to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_(company)

b3lvedere• 5 years ago

Same thing, different perspective. Though Blackwater doesn't seem to have tanks.

simonh• 5 years ago

Or routinely carry out offensive military operations to bombard, assault or capture targets.

sedan_baklazhan4• 5 years ago

As a Russian I actually don't want to comment on such posts at all. As I see here and in other similar topics, the main result is a "Russian paid bot/troll account" label, and it's widely accepted as a normal response. So much for "freedom of speech". At least the "correct" point of view doesn't get muc arguments against it, right?

koheripbal• 5 years ago

Agreed. The quality of HN has gone down significantly with its greater popularity. A lot of Reddit refugees bringing their baggage.

martythemaniak3• 5 years ago

"Freedom of Speech" doesn't mean people are supposed to automatically respect or agree with whatever random thing you say. The definition is closer to "Don't kill people like Navalny because they filmed your dacha". A foreign concept in contemporary Russia.

spyckie2• 5 years ago

Contextually, the person is arguing that being called a russian troll / bot is reducing the quality of discussion and is also shutting up alternative viewpoints.

The "freedom of speech" comment is merely a vent, and such generalizations is rarely fact... just like "A foreign concept in contemporary Russia" is a vent and generalization as well.

sedan_baklazhan4• 5 years ago

You are wrong. I'm not saying everybody should automatically like what I say. The issue here is that virtually nobody (here) cares about what you say as long as you can be "labeled", i.e., labeled as a Russian bot/troll account. That's it.

ldiracdelta2• 5 years ago

Don't be silenced while you still have the freedom in this forum. Even if tar and feathers come out and 70% of HN'ers hate on you, doesn't mean you're not being heard by some.

sedan_baklazhan4• 5 years ago

I PARTICULARLY extremely dislike the mere concept of being humiliated on a basic of association with a particular country or nation (Russia in this case). (Any association with Russia is considered utterly negative on its own). This doesn't smell right.

FpUser• 5 years ago

"Russian paid bot/troll account" label"

I assume people who call you that are real bot/trolls most likely paid in Kraft dinners.

cblconfederate6• 5 years ago

Just wait until the BBC finds out about the Syrian mercenaries that NATO member Turkey brought to Libya

https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-africa-679a6d6fc549bd...

officialchicken2• 5 years ago

FYI, your comment is pure whataboutism?[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

cblconfederate6• 5 years ago

You know, i wasn't really going for whataboutism as much as deconstructing the messenger. You see, turkey has been using these syrian fighters (who, for all we know could be former ISIS members) as literal cannon fodder in the nagorno-karabakh war: they were thrown in the frontlines so that the enemy would shoot them and reveal their positions. In return for its involvement in libya , turkey got a maritime delineation deal that is explicitly contrary to international law. And the BBC is not an unbiased source, it is british, and UK has been steadily supporting Ankara's misdoings in recent years like, obstructing security council resolutions for both the NK war and recent cyprus developments. So yeah, what about all that? I m positive that wagner is commiting war crimes, but i fear we ve slid into an un-polar world where world order is unprincipled, opportunist and immoral.

- https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-55238803

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libya_(GNA)%E2%80%93Turkey_mar...

- https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1165307/anastasiades-point...

ZeroGravitas• 5 years ago

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-55238803

They have covered those mercenaries, the first bit is about a different conflict but it also covers Libya later.

cblconfederate6• 5 years ago

I know they know, i wonder if maybe it was worthy of being mentioned here too

martythemaniak3• 5 years ago

I think it's helpful to keep in mind Russia's grand global strategy, which is simple and informs everything from supporting insurgencies, climate change denialism, election interference, etc.

Putin has been in power for 20+ years and he'll remain in power until he dies (he's only 68). During this time, Russia has not seen great improvements as a society. For a few years in the early-to-mid naughts things were getting better as Russia was riding high on high oil prices and recovery from the dismal 90s. But this didn't last long - it all came crashing down in '08 and things have not recovered. Russian gdp per capita was the same in 2019 as in 2008. Covid killed masses of people which they've "cleverly" hidden with stats (it's not clever at all, you can just see the excess deaths). As the world shifts away from fossil fuels, their heavily oil-dependent budget is only going to get harder to manage. Politics-wise, any opposition figure will be killed if they become high-profile enough

Things are grim and there's no realistic hope of things improving. For all their many, many, many faults, the soviets actually aspired to improve the lives of people. They ultimately proved inept at it, but they did believe they should and could improve people's lives. Putinism has no such aspirations. Instead the idea is to breed cynicism, fatalism and nihilism into people such that no one should ever expect anything better. To have hope, to act morally and ethically, to dream is to be a fucking idiot.

Thus, Putin's MO is demonstrate to his people that the rest of the world is just as shitty as his Russia is. That no one is better than him, because everyone is a hypocrite, everyone is corrupt, everyone is a murderer. This worldview is very useful for many people in the West, hence the charges of "Russian bots" are not quite right. The scores of people defending Russia are not Russia bots, they're regular folk, they just find this worldview useful and want to import it. It's like the IRA and their trolls created a self-sustaining cycle.

coolgeek• 5 years ago

This is a good take.

To put it more succinctly, in most countries (especially in the west) there are clear lines of demarcation between the public, private and criminal sectors. (The lines aren't impermeable. But the lines exist.)

In Russia, those lines have been eliminated. One group controls all three sectors.

datenarsch• 5 years ago

There wouldn't be any Russian mercenaries in Libya in the first place, had it not been for the complete destruction of the country by Western forces a couple of years ago.

guilhas2• 5 years ago

Well... if they can fix the current cluster-crap, created by USA UK and EU quick visit, then they deserve a prize

xyzzy212• 5 years ago

The US does this as well.

I've heard plenty of stories from Special Forces acquaintances...

Scale of Russian mercenary mission in Libya exposed

Related Stories