When Russia invaded Ukraine, there was a brief bit of manufactured outrage over Ukraine releasing some prisoners, giving them weapons and pointing them at the Russians. Granted, people in prison are generally there for a good reason; these are generally the kind of people you not only don’t want out wandering around, you *certainly* don’t want to stick a gun into their hands. But at the time, Ukraine was under threat of being erased from existence. Many talking heads in Russia had made it abundantly clear – as if the invasion hadn’t – that a cultural genocide of Ukraine was in the offing. In such circumstances, you do what ya gotta do. If that means recruiting prisoners… well, that’s not exactly a brand new and unique innovation in the history of warfare.

But the “48 hours, two weeks tops” invasion has turned into a spectacular ᛋᚻᛁᛏshow for the Russians… and now *they* are recruiting prisoners. Not to defend Russia, of course, but to drop them into Ukraine to carry out some war crimes. A video was rather bizarrely released showing a spokesweasel for the Wagner Group private army recruiting criminals at one of Russias many, many prisons. The video didn’t say *which* prison. but this… this is 2022. Took a feller less than a day to figure out just what prison it was. I don’t know if there is really any tactical, strategic, legal or diplomatic value in knowing that… but the ability to figure this sort of thing out this fast is part of the reason why Russia has done so poorly. The Ukrainians – and allied intelligence services – have been merrily intercepting phone calls and tweets and whatnot from Russian saps at the front, and the data has been used to send said sap a care package by way of missile or drone.

Here’s the original recruitment video:

Gotta wonder how this video would play back in the Motherland. Would it help get across the idea that the Special Military Blyatskrieg ain’t doin’ so great?