Resolves yes if Wagner group still maintains some form of operations in the Middle East/Africa/Russia/Eastern Europe etc. resolves no if Wagner group dissolves/is incorporated by the Russian millitary.
@Jack_Rose You referred to Marq...
more than 1,000 Wagner mercenaries and some of the group’s top operatives remain in the country
That says about mercenaries, not about the company. Former wagner mercenaries are still there and I did not see arguements against that. According to russian media they have signed contracts with MoD.
There is no proof of independence of the new structure from Russian MoD and there is not proof about legal status of juridical entity. The question asks about Wagner group, not about mercenaries.
Wagner skull can be a sentiment / habit / ease of recognition by locals. The sign does not show anything about the organisation.
so little has changed
Bad arguement: It could be "the corporation still exists" or "Vacuum of power gets immediately filled". Something that fits in both theories cannot be an argument just for one of the theories.
For some reason I've seen a lot of "They are obviously not dissolved" phrases and little about this part of resolution criteria:
is incorporated by the Russian millitary
https://youtu.be/kFuiyBPHyTE Here Prigozhin said that MoD was interested to incorporate the mercenaries (long before his death). After his and Utkin's deaths do people really think Kremlin would not take the opportunity to devour all actives? Including the once abroad which are now a rare for Russia international active.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/09/18/wagner-central-african-republic-touadera/
This month, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov and Maj. Gen. Andrei Averyanov of the Russian military intelligence agency, the GRU, visited Bangui and informed Touadéra and other top CAR officials that the Russian presence would continue but under the command of the Russian Defense Ministry, according to Central African and Western officials.
"under the command of the Russian Defense Ministry" - is exactly what incorporation is. https://youtu.be/xaMXUUiWgbU
Correct resolution is NO.
@Jack_Rose That does not mean impartiality. For example, you might have resolved towards the "majority vote" (whatever the percent is closer to), thus still you got profit of having less arguments about the topic.
Some people are afraid of any situation of opposition more than of losing mana.
Wagner absolutely is still operational. Practically any reputable source will back this up. Report misresolution all you want, the fact is Wagner is still operating independently of the Russian state in Africa in a pretty large capacity. @Marq Sums this up pretty well in his post
@Jack_Rose 10 years from now there will still be Russian mercenaries with Wagner merch operating in some random corner of Africa
@RemNi I'm new to the platform. Why doesn't it say so? Actually I think it would be better to have just a binary rating of resolutions; wtf is 2-4 stars anyway, am I right? It only encourages biased misrating.
That aside, afaik Pavel Prigozhin (his son) is now part of the Wagner Group leadership and they are still recruiting.
@GazDownright if prigozhon's son recruiting mercenaries in africa ia a sufficient criteria for this question to resolve as yes then this question has a serious lack of credibility
@RemNi Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understood it was in (at least) two Russian oblasts.
Why wouldn't the Wagner Group recruiting new mercenaries mean the group is still active?
Here is a great article about Wagner’s current state in Africa. It’s from New York Times and has now -after a couple of weeks- been set free from pay wall.
https://theafricanvoices.com/battle-for-influence-rages-in-heart-of-wagners-operations-in-africa/
Here’s a quote from the article.
“…more than 1,000 Wagner mercenaries and some of the group’s top operatives remain in the country.
They still control the largest gold mine in the Central African Republic, and Russians still escort Mr. Touadéra [the president] as he moves across the country.
National soldiers trained by Russian instructors and wearing the Wagner skull logo on their uniforms still guard government buildings and patrol the president’s neighborhood.”
The article goes on to explain why so little has changed since Prigozhin’s death.
So -YES- Wagner exists and there isn’t any doubt that it will continue this way as long as there is gold in the ground.
Wagner group still maintains operations in, at least, Africa. It has neither been disolved nor rolled into the Russian military. Renaming isn't either of those things.
Stop trolling on your OOTM bets. This is silly.
@SteelSphinx Well personally I'm a mana subsistence farmer and I need to get back to writing questions about AGI and solar system exploration. But it's been a fun evening watching this market drop like a stone. Have a good night 🫡