EUs answer to Wagner groups bloody sledgehammer!!!!!!!

[pbmus]

Link to tweet

[Celerity]

1. Wagner Group

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group

In 2021, the Foreign Policy report noted the origin of the name "Wagner" to be unknown. Others say the group's name comes from Utkin's own call sign "Wagner", reportedly after the German composer Richard Wagner, which he is said to have chosen due to his passion for the Third Reich (Wagner being Adolf Hitler's favorite composer). As such, some believe he is a neo-Nazi, with The Economist reporting that Utkin has several Nazi tattoos. Members of Wagner Group say Utkin is a Rodnover, a believer of Slavic native faith. Radio Liberty cited insiders as saying that the leadership of the Wagner Group are followers of the Slavic Native Faith, a modern Pagan new religious movement. In August 2017, the Turkish newspaper Yeni Şafak speculated that Utkin was possibly a figurehead for the company, while the real head of Wagner was someone else.



Various elements of Wagner have been linked to white supremacist and neo-Nazi far-right extremists, such as Wagner's openly far-right and neo-Nazi Rusich unit, and Wagner members have left neo-Nazi graffiti on the battlefield. However, Erica Gaston, a senior policy adviser at the UN University Centre for Policy Research, noted that the Wagner Group is not ideologically driven, but rather a network of mercenaries "linked to the Russian security state". Russia denies the connection and officially the group does not exist.

[tanyev]

4. Perhaps the Wagner Group would appreciate this message:

[Emrys]

2. Excellent response.

The Wagner Group was set up in 2014 by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin to participate in Russia's occupation of parts of Ukraine that year, a fact he denied until September this year (such private armies are technically illegal in Russia). It staged unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Volodymyr Zelensky in the early days of the war on Ukraine.

An ex-inmate himself for petty crimes, it was Prigozhin who visited various Russian prisons over the summer to recruit inmates to his private army in return for the promise of payment and reduced sentences if they survived six months' service.

The group has a fearsome reputation that's not always borne out by results on the ground. It has been implicated in the massacre and terrorist atrocities in Bucha and elsewhere.

In November, the Wagner Group opened a flashy new corporate HQ in St Petersburg to add to presences it maintains in various African countries, the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere.

Prigozhin has been outspoken in his criticism of the course of the war and the conduct of various Russian military commanders and politicians. The Wagner Group has been described by some as Putin's private army, but there are suspicions Prigozhin could end up posing a threat to Putin's leadership, whether in person or via colluding politicians and military leaders.

[Bucky]

3. Perfectly said

Punishing this level of warcrime will change history

[NBachers]

5. Is there a version with subtitles?

[Maraya1969]

6. +1,00000000000000000000 I can't understand what he is saying.

[Emrys]

9. Transcription below if you haven't seen it. n/t

[soldierant]

7. Me too.

My hearing is pretty good, but I can almost never hear what is being said on Twitter videos. And I ca see there is something in the box, but I cannot see what.

[Emrys]

10. Transcription below if you haven't seen it. n/t

[soldierant]

16. Thank you so much.

[Hekate]

11. Handcuffs to be held at The Hague for Prighorzin. Summary...

He says Russians/terrorists are laughing at the victims. After EU designated Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, Prighorzin (head of the Wagner group of mercenaries? ) sent them a bloody hammer (quite a fancy sledgehammer, btw, apparently the kind Wagner uses to kill people).

Therefore, he continues, “we” (the EU) will be sending these handcuffs to The Hague for Prighorzin’s eventual trial.

[soldierant]

15. Thank you so much.

Handcuffs would have been my guess ... but just a guess.

[Emrys]

8. Here's my transcription. Uncertain words in italics

Terrorists are laughing at victims in Ukraine. This week, Prigozhin sent a butcher's hammer to the European Parliament after Parliament recognized Russia as a terrorist sponsor.

I will send these handcuffs to Hague International Criminal Court Headquarters, where they are going to await Prigozhin and his accomplices for their crimes against Ukrainian people.

[soldierant]

14. Thank you so much.

[BigmanPigman]

12. The bloody sledgehammer...

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2999501

It looks like they saw too many old mafia movies. I think I'd be more afraid of a dead fish arriving in my mail. The sledgehammer is almost laughable as a serious threat. Who do these idiots think they are pulling this shit in 2022?!? Next will they wheel out Dr Strangelove?

[Hekate]

17. I think it harks back to the old Slavic god Czernobog -- death-dealing and misfortune-bringing. ...

That’s the bloody hammer the Warner mercenaries are harking back to. Personal, bloody, bone-crushing killing.

Neil Gaiman picked up the character in his book American Gods, hammer and all.

[LudwigPastorius]

13. Quite civilized, however...

if there were ever a crime that deserved the death penalty, it is kidnapping and executing a soldier with a sledgehammer.

Ukraine, and the ICC, might want to reconsider their abolition of the death penalty for these Russian Nazis.