How two Australian soldiers became unwitting poster boys for Russian mercenary Wagner Group’s Ukraine recruitment drive – ABC News
On a spring day in 2013, two soldiers from Australia’s elite Special Air Service Regiment had their photograph taken in Uruzgan Province, central Afghanistan.
Nine years later, this photo has resurfaced in a scheme to recruit mercenaries for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — all without the soldiers’ knowledge.
The photo has been used on billboards that belong to the mysterious Wagner Group, an organisation known in the West as “Putin’s private army” and which did not officially exist until this year.
Former US military photographer Gagan Dhiman was embedded with the Australian soldiers at the Tarin Kowt military base when he took the original photo.
He said he was devastated to see his work turn up in a mercenary recruitment ad.
“It really took me by surprise,” the photographer said. “Just the thought of how these images are being used is really frustrating.”
Wagner Group emerges from the shadows
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, numerous billboards featuring Mr Dhiman’s photo…
The post How two Australian soldiers became unwitting poster boys for Russian mercenary Wagner Group’s Ukraine recruitment drive – ABC News first appeared on SEO, Marketing and Social News | OneSEOCompany.com.
source: https://news.oneseocompany.com/2022/11/22/how-two-australian-soldiers-became-unwitting-poster-boys-for-russian-mercenary-wagner-groups-ukraine-recruitment-drive-abc-news_2022112236254.html
Your content is great. However, if any of the content contained herein violates any rights of yours, including those of copyright, please contact us immediately by e-mail at media[@]kissrpr.com.