Turns out that despite all the both sidesing of the Avoz Battalion (et al.) with this allegedly equally fascist "Wagner Group", it was only ever one guy with connections to mercenaries with no common organizational (let alone ideological) structure.
To clarify, "Wagner" is a catch-all term to refer to all of the members of an informal network of Russian mercenary groups, named after the nickname of one neo-Nazi commander who was active in Ukraine in 2014. He hasn't been seen since 2016, there's no evidence that he founded the entire mercenary network, and there's no evidence that the entire network is ideologically fascist. His name was slapped onto the umbrella term as a way of implying that the network is a singular neo-Nazi paramilitary under his leadership, which is deceptive. Contrast with the fascist credentials of Azov (et al.), which are overwhelming. The purpose of making the comparison between them is to minimize the threat, the role in the war, and the crimes of Azov (et al.), as well as the role the US/NATO plays in supporting them and international fascism more generally. And of course this is all in service of fanning the flames of bloodthirsty Amerikkkan imperialism.
Obviously these mercenaries are still bad, etc. etc., but I figured that was obvious.
That's not what the article is saying though. The article is saying that "Wagner group" does not exist as a singular entity as it's simply a catch all term for a bunch of private military contractors (PMC's) that are a proxy for the Russian ministry of defence, as PMCs are illegal under Russian law. So there's going to no actual official PMC groups. Thus allowing for Russia to deploy these people in Africa, Syria and Ukraine without actually depolying the Russian military. Even though the two are closely interlinked.
The name Wagner comes from the callisign the lead colonel of one of these PMC groups operating in Ukraine, Dmitry Utkin, who was heavily involved in Spetznaz before going over to Ukraine. This guy is a neo Nazi, and has been photographed with Putin multiple times. However he has not appeared in public for a while, and there's rumours that there are actually two Dimitry Ukins, mudding the waters further.
The article is saying that it's bad to label all these groups as Wagner, as it makes it hard to track who is doing what. Not that the concept of Wagner (unofficial Russian private military contactors with close co operation with the Russian MOD) doesn't exist.
Yes, so in other words there is no explicitly neo-Nazi mercenary company in Russia a la Azov, just a network of mercenaries, one of whom is a Nazi. There is no evidence of any actual fascist paramilitary organization, i.e., the liberal/radlib both sides narrative about fascist military infestation in Ukraine and Russia is false (or at least unsupported by claims about Wagner).
It depends on what you define as both siding. There is fash infiltration in the Russian army and their proxies, even among high ranking members. However, claiming that the Russian military is led by fascist ideology or ideologically commited to fascism would be false and both siding as you said.
Yeah, that's what I mean. These Russian fascist mercenaries aren't given a platform or PR by the state, and are kept at a distance from the formal military, which also keeps them ideologically at a distance. Unlike Azov, they don't seem to have any political power, don't seem to have a social movement behind them (legitimized by the state, like with labeling Bandera a national hero), and haven't threatened to overthrow their government if they don't get their way. They don't get to make tweets about committing war crimes on behalf of the military. Hence my saying it's a false equivalence to equate them to Azov. It's a deflection.
I agree, but my personal opinion on "Wagner" is clouded by my experience with them being deployed in a neighbouring country. They arrived using what I guess is Russian MOD aircraft (I'm no expert, they could have been using their own planes), went into Mozambique, 25% of them left because of the environmental conditions. They refused to work with the Mozambican government after being ambushed by jihadists dressed in fake Mozambique uniforms. This led to them getting beaten badly by jihadists due to all these factors, and left, while the situation had gotten worse.
It seems they've learnt their lessons from Mozambique given their deployments in CAR and Mali, but I still don't want them to come back. The official AU peacekeeping force consisting of mainly South African and Rwandan forces seems to be doing a much better job in Mozambique. I'm still not happy about that, but it's better than what was before.
I mean, yeah, I'm sure they're assholes. Mercenaries are trash. Hope they all choke, etc.
Russia in general has not been good at soft power in Sub Saharan Africa. Or at least not as good as they could have been. For their nuclear power plant deal in South Africa, they decided to carry it out while Jacob Zuma was president, he's a very controversial figure and the face of corruption to many. This sank the deal. Then there's the Mozambican deployment of Wagner, and many other blunders.
They seem to be doing much better in central and west Africa for sure though.