Research published by Logically found Wagner recruitment information posted in 16 languages including Vietnamese and Polish.

Moscow

The Russian economy has been impacted by a raft of global sanctions as world leaders try to pressure Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine.

Russian Sanctions

How Wagner Group recruits new members

A Russian mercenary organization is using social media platforms to recruit new members from all around the world. A study published by logically, a London based research group, identified more than 50 examples of Wagner recruitment information being shared in 16 languages across Twitter and Facebook. Here is example number one, but in English. The user boasts fighters can make up to 240,000 rubles per month, the equivalent of 2,700 euros per month without bonuses, a well known propaganda technique used by the mercenary group to recruit fighters. The group is apparently looking to fill many positions from IT to medical roles as well as actual foot soldiers. Here is example number two, but this time in Spanish, also trying to recruit fighters and promoting benefits such as for example life insurance. The cube also saw similar posts in French, Vietnamese and Indonesian. These job adverts garnered nearly 120,000 views across Twitter, Facebook as well as other platforms. And there are other startling elements to this online recruitment campaign, according to Kyle Walter, the head of research at logically. I think the level of engagement was probably the most shocking thing. Some of these posts had 20, 30,000 views. A lot of them were being shared in languages that you wouldn't necessarily expect, right? Vietnamese, even some things in Polish. So there's a lot of variety to the different languages and different target audiences, but they were mostly using the same kind of structure. While the researchers couldn't directly attribute the messages to Wagner 100%, while the style and the arguments presented are very similar to the group's recruitment process back in Russia. And what's particularly concerning here is that the Wagner group is accused of widespread human rights abuses and atrocities committed in Ukraine. But because they're not considered an international terrorist organization, while the sort of content remains in the gray zone, according to logically, this is a type of content that we really don't have rules for at the moment because Wagner is not designated internationally as a terrorist group. Right. So it allows it to be able to flourish online, which can be very concerning, right? Because regular everyday people can directly reach out via telegram or via WhatsApp to representatives of the Wagner group and find themselves in very dangerous positions. So I think it's something that we need to consider more going forward. Even before Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine, the Wagner group was involved in fighting throughout Central Africa. But the organization rose to mainstream prominence in recent months after offering convicted Russian prisoners a chance at freedom in exchange for their fighting in Ukraine. Wagner boss, Evgeny Prokhozhin, claimed the group has since then suffered losses of up to 20,000 mercenaries.

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London

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New York

U.S. Presidential Election

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Council of the City of Sydney

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Marsden Park

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Washington

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Jerusalem

Israel-Gaza War

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Beirut

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Doha

Ukraine Invasion

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Russian Sanctions