Ukraine war
Russian mercenary group Wagner looking for drone pilots – gamers too
Drones play a major role in Ukraine’s defense of the country – but also for the Russian war of aggression. Only there is a lack of staff.
© Volodymyr Tarasov / Ukrinform / ABACAPRESS / Imago Images
In the Ukraine war, drones are extremely important for both sides. But the Russian attackers in particular seem to be lacking in expert personnel. There, the mercenary group “Wagner” is now specifically looking for pilots for the multicopter – gamers too.
We are looking for “people with experience in controlling flight simulators with joysticks” and “people who just sit and play for hours”. A “gamer background” isn’t bad either, according to the advertisement. However, the position is not the job of a game tester, but a request from the Russian mercenary group Wagner. Via the Russian social network VKontakte, they are looking for specialists for the control and maintenance of so-called UAVs, i.e. unmanned aerial vehicles, often referred to as drones.
No military experience necessary
How “Newsweek” reported, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s troops have been looking for new recruits since Monday, after they recently suffered severe losses in Bakhmut and Donetsk and are now dependent on new personnel. Lateral entrants between the ages of 21 and 25 are particularly in demand, preferably in good physical condition constitution and with an affinity for technology.
The ad clearly states that candidates with no military experience whatsoever are eligible. The independent news platform “Verstka Media” contacted the number given by Wagner in a self-experiment. There they learned, according to their own statements, that Wagner was looking for personnel for the Ukraine or Africa and had two types of UAVs in the arsenal. It said “We have two types of UAVs: Copter and the more serious devices”. The mercenary recruiter left open exactly what is meant by that. The quadrocopters are mostly products of the Chinese manufacturer DJI.
“Challenge Friends Offline”
According to “Vertska Media”, Wagner is not a pioneer when it comes to recruiting people who enjoy spending their time playing video games. According to this, the Russian Ministry of Defense had already placed an ad on Facebook in 2020 looking for people who “wanted to challenge friends offline” and “wanted to play by the real rules, without cheats and scores”.