Mob violence

Mercenaries stacked up

IN THE Russian language, “net voine” means “no to war.” If you are caught saying that, or holding up a sign saying that, you can be arrested. The maximum penalty is five years in prison, but that’s just by the books. Surely they can come up with something else once you’re in cuffs.

In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, you can also go to jail for the things you think. Or that they think that you think.

You can be arrested for using three asterisks, then five, to replace the actual words “net voine.”

Yes, you can be arrested for carrying a sign that reads: “*** *****”

This is where we are.

THE WAR in Ukraine—aka Putin’s War—is making the East mean again. Bizarre. Bloody. Two sides in this war, the invaders (Putin & Co.) and the defenders (Ukrainians on their home soil), have picked a city called Bakhmut as the new Stalingrad. It’s more of a town than a city. Pre-war, it had a population of around 70,000, but the relentless artillery over the last few weeks has driven off much of the population—those that could still run. Images coming out of the place show mostly destruction, smoke, and dead soldiers. Similar to Stalingrad circa early 1943.

Speaking of dead soldiers . . . . There is a think tank in Washington called the Institute for the Study of War. You can guess what it does. Over the weekend, it said—or “assessed,” as think tanks do—that the Russians are playing mafia-type games with each other. Deadly games indeed.

The official Ministry of Defense types, the ISW says, are using the assault on Bakhmut “to degrade Wagner forces in order to weaken Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the private military company . . . .” Well then.

The Wagner group has made itself famous, and infamous, in the past months. It has elite units of hardened fighters who rightly strike fear into opponents. It also has units made up of Russian prisoners who are given little more than a few days’ training before being sent into combat as a condition of their, uh, employment and parole.

The ISW says that official Russian brass has “been increasingly restricting Prigozhin’s ability to recruit convicts and secure ammunition, forcing Prigozhin to publicly recognize his dependency on the Russian MoD.”

That’ll teach Comrade Prigozhin to complain about the Russian military. The criticism must have particularly hurt the feelings of Russian brass when the Wagner leader bragged about being on the front lines and not seeing high-ranking Russian officers there.

So now the Russian regular military is working against the Russian irregular militia in order to degrade the only Russian combat units that are advancing with any success.

Bizarre. Bloody.

And not likely to have much success.