Russian Wagner mercenaries spotted amid Venezuela election protests

I watched the video and honestly just this one dude standing in this unidentified location for unknown reasons with a patch that maybe looks like a Wagner patch if you zoom in and squint, doesn’t really mean anything.
I had no particular opinion about the Venezuela elections and no idea that anyone in geopolitics cared, until some of the Lemmy propagandists who also don’t like Ukraine started going HARD that Maduro was the best and totally won and González was a tool of US imperialism and Elon Musk.
Fact check bot? Where you at? I sorta want to know what’s up with this site I’ve never heard of

They don't have an MBFC page, which is a bit weird since according to their Wikipedia page they've been around for 26 years. I couldn't find any bias rating info on them anywhere.
The story seems a bit sketchy. IntelliNews attributes the video to Jason Jay Smart -- a political consultant and writer for the Kyiv Post. The video didn't originate with him though. About 6 hours earlier it was posted by 'The Spot News' who are probably a fake news organization*. They don't seem to have a web presence beyond that twitter account. Spot News was used as the source for this article from Defense-Blog that pre-dates the IntelliNews piece.
The earliest post with the video I can find is here from 'Ukraine News 24 Hours', who are also not really a news org and just link to a telegram account. They claim that they posted it but, who knows? Most references to the video describe it as "appearing online" without any attribution, which itself is a bit sketch. No one really reputable is reporting this (yet?).
Edit: by "fake news organization" I mean that they are not a real news organization, not that they are necessarily posting fake news (though they could be!)
- If the video is fake or more verification by other outlets doesn't show up, I'll certainly take the post down.
- Amateur news organization or unaccredited news organization are two better ways of referring to Twitter accounts with two guys and a camera.
I mean its an open secret that the US likes to meddle in Venezuelan politics with varying degrees of military force. So it makes sense to me that Russia would also want to be there just because of that.
- Yeah. Venezuela has a TON of oil which makes it of interest to anyone in the world who likes to go around fuckin with people and taking their stuff.
Hey from a Russian-Ukrainian American guy I want to say thank you for actually caring about the facts and not just eating up the propaganda (because honestly I did)
Yeah for the presence of mercenaries it's best to wait for corroboration. But the election in Venezuela has been heading news since the night Maduro abruptly stopped counting votes, refused to release detailed results, and just declared victory. Then the opposition turned out to literally have the receipts.
Yeah it's been kind of a big deal.
- Oh yeah no doubt. I just meant that I didn’t think anyone from any of the great fuckin-with-people states was trying to involve themselves, UNTIL all the vatniks on Lemmy started going nuts about it.

I think it's obvious that Putin has to be killed in the name of global political stability.

I'd rather have him tried and imprisoned at the Hague. He destroys institutions. Institutions must destroy him in the end, not guns.
PS: and before the tankies rush in with their whataboutisms: Sinwar, Netanyahu and Dubbya should be made an example of too.
- Agreed. Monsters should live out their lives in prison for their crimes.
- Unfortunately, the United States and Israel (ironically) have all but neutered The Hague….
Yeah, you know what's great for global political stability? Assassinating the heads of state of countries with massive nuclear arsenals.
Also put Russian astroturfers on that list that have to be killed in the name of global political stability.
- How about we just kill everyone you, personally, find annoying, would that work?

Skull and crossbones patch?

Are we sure they're not just gravy seals who bought some military surplus and decked them out with pirate patches?

Pirate Bay enthusiasts?
CIA agents cosplaying as gravy seals in an uno reverse?
- I mean if you've met some of the old boy shot callers who work with or for the CIA, yeah no they could totally pull the disguise with a wardrobe change and some fake sunburn makeup.
  Most of the actual work that goes on there is data analysis, and that means tech workers, and that means the saged guru tech workers who live out of a single family home that's less expensive than their home lab, their backup servers, their backup backup servers in a compound in montana, the backup backup backup servers in a bunker in New Zealand, and the thoroughbred they got for their horse girl daughter because these guys are usually also complete suckers for their kids or even younger siblings if there's a wide enough age gap, as I found out that one such guru was technically the half brother of this girl I had AP microeconomics with.

ruzzians are ruining the world

Yeah. /s It’s the Russians…
Wait. Is that current Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Machado meeting with war criminal George Bush in 2005, after the 2002 coup attempt ?
- Ah yes. An image of Russia halfway across the world RIGHT NOW doing stuff in a place they really can't afford to waste resources on since they're currently in a special military operation... Must be Bush's fault from 20 years ago.
  /s
  Wow you must be a very special person if you think a US leader from 20 years ago had anything to do with Putin's choices now.
- Of course it's the russians.
  сколько бы они вам ни платили, этого недостаточно.
- That literally happened before some people here were even born and before plenty were old enough to remember it.
  Maybe try an example that's within their living memory too... if you have one?

The good PMC protecting the good dictator! - lemmygrad and hexbear probably

One of the conspiracies around Prigozhin's death suggested that he was alive in Margarita island in Venezuela... which makes no sense. But finding wagner's mdrcenaries in Venezuela is kind of quaint.

Edit: vzla to venezuela

Is it really so hard to spell out Venezuela?
- i usually write it that way and didnt realize

Is Wagner still a thing after last year's shenanigans?

They are now fully integrated into Putin’s goon squad.
Yes, it’s beneficial to have a PMC
With different (totally not under Russia) leadership they went back to Africa

Looks like Ukraine should give the protestors a pathway to citizenship in response.

We've already seen what Ukraine will do in response to a confirmed sighting in Mali.
Venezuela is about to see a plot straight out of Operation Nemesis play out.

Wagner Group? Weren't they part of the anti-Putin Faction when the war with Ukraine started to go downhill?

I would be surprised to learn they're operating anywhere at all.

They got folded back into the regime
If you're a 40k fan familiar with the theory that the 2nd and 11th legions had their marines glommed into the Fists and Blueberries...
...that.
- Hey, there's literally no evidence they were traitors and, in fact, probably weren't because we know what they do with traitor legions and it's different.
  However, knowing about them is treason and so is talking about them, double traitor.
Putin probably absorbed them silently into his ranks after their boss died
- Ah yes, big tragedy that plane crash. It shot itself 7 times in the back.