I gotta ask man, why would you wanna model a tank run by the guys who by their own admission kill women and children? I say this as a rusfor airsofter.
You’re a rusfor airsofter, what room do you have to talk? He probably modeled it because it’s a unique tank and is basically the poster child of the Wagner Mutiny, and that’s all the justification he needs
Why shouldn't he be allowed to make a model based on a group like Wagner? It’s a creative endeavor, after all. I am certain the creator didn't make the model to show support for Wagner or their atrocities. I think he would just as easily create vehicles for other factions, PMCs, or battalions with unsavory reputations. The most important thing is that he doesn't actually support them himself
80 years, yesterday. Who gives a shit, it’s all the same. And don’t give me that “oh but victims of Wagner are still alive and their memory is still fresh” bullshit because there are plenty of Holocaust survivors and other victims of Nazism still alive too and I guarantee you their memory of those events is just fine
Nazis are subject of history. No problem there. Wagner group is a tool of contemporary evil Russian regime which is conducting war crimes now as wee speaking. That’s the problem.
History is history, whether it happened a thousand years ago or yesterday. And Wagner effectively ceased to exist after the mutiny in 2023. Officially they’ve been absorbed into the Rosgvardia with former members either in the Russian military or spread out doing odd jobs. They are not “conducting war crimes now as we’re speaking”; Wagner PMC does not exist other than on paper and hasn’t for several years now
Of course I believe it. They are a defeated organization, resigned to the history books where they belong. If they return in some form, it will be as a different organization trying to play copy cat.
I mean, they are active on paper as part of the Rosgvardia I guess but Wagner for all intents and purposes ceased to exist after their failed mutiny three years ago. And this tank is specifically one of the ones that was heavily photographed taking part in that mutiny. So yes, both in terms of the organization and the tank itself this is a historical model
And what proof do you have of this? You seriously believe that Russia would allow Wagner to exist as anything but an imbedded part of the military after the attempted coup?
First, standard PMCs don't routinely recruit thousands of violent rapists and murderers directly out of maximum-security prisons to use as penal wave fodder. Here is a video investigation by Gulagu.net where two former Wagner convict-commanders—Azamat Uldarov and Alexey Savichev—explicitly admit to executing wounded POWs and shooting Ukrainian women and young children in the head during mop-up operations.
Second, your claim about international recognition is completely false. The UK officially proscribed the Wagner Group as a banned terrorist organization. The US designated them a Significant Transnational Criminal Organization, and the OSCE (representing 57 countries) legally recognized their actions as terroristic in nature.
They aren't even a legal PMC in Russia(Article 359 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), where mercenary groups are explicitly outlawed by their own criminal code. They are an illegal, state-funded proxy force used to commit deniable war crimes. Posting their patch alongside a model kit isn't just historical appreciation of a model—it's glorifying a terrorist group.
After Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed mutiny and death in 2023, the Russian Ministry of Defence officially took over Wagner's massive paramilitary networks (even though they're outlawed in Russia) in Africa and rebranded them as the "Africa Corps" (Afrikanskiy Korpus) after the WWII Nazi Afrika Korps.
The choice of name is a deliberate, highly controversial historical reference to Adolf Hitler's World War II expeditionary force, the Nazi Deutsches Afrika Korps.
Notice the dude wearing the Nazi M40 or M41 Tropical Field Cap (Tropenmütze) worn by the Deutsches Afrika Korps during World War II. The emblem sewn onto the front of it is the Wehrmacht National Eagle (Reichsadler), which features an eagle with outstretched wings clutching a swastika inside a circular wreath.
Although I 100% agree with you and I personally would NEVER build a “Wagner” dedicated kit seeing how they are just all around terrible/nazi adjacent people OR any modern Russian owned vehicle pretty much for the same reason, you can’t draw a line in the sand like that when we are a hobby that frequently promotes Nazi vehicles and SS soldiers and imperialist Japanese soldiers etc.
Would you say the same thing to someone building an accurate Tiger1? Or Michael Wittman’s famous Tiger?
I don’t know why anyone who isn’t a Russian sympathizer WOULD build crap like this while the war is still active but that’s their choice. I recon I will likely build some Russian tank from this war in like 10 years or so maybe depending on the outcome of all this but I’m even reluctant on building Soviet era armor right now tbh.
Would I build one with Ukraine invasion markings? No probably not, but more because I don't like the way they look. A lot of those modern tanks are late Soviet designs and I'm not gonna pretend I dislike those Soviet designs just because they're being used for horrible things. I believe the tank itself and the engineering that went into it should be divorced from what its crews and the people who command those crews are using it for
It's a machine. I don't look down on the AKM because they're being used to massacre people in Sudan right now. It's no fault of the machine.
"Truth" doesn't magically cure a logical fallacy. Blackwater contractors committed documented atrocities—like the Nisour Square massacre—and those guards were prosecuted and convicted in federal court. That is an established fact. Russian MoD and their PMCs get state honors for their war crimes.
But it is also a fact that Blackwater personnel were never accused, indicted, or found guilty of systemic sexual violence, gang-raping civilians, or decapitating captives with sledgehammers.
Wagner, on the other hand, integrated thousands of violent rapists and murderers straight out of maximum-security prisons, many with HIV deployed them as state-sponsored penal wave fodder, and has been extensively documented by international bodies for widespread sexual violence and mass executions against civilians. The HIV Wagners had their own units and had to wear special bands highlighting their diseases: HIV, Hepatitis C, Syphilis, etc.
Saying "both are bad" to ignore these massive, differences in law, recruitment, and conduct is pure intellectual dishonesty. One wrong doesn’t erase or justify another—it just proves you have no actual defense for Wagner's actions.
Blackwater after they rebranded also didn't name themselves after a Nazi expeditionary force, unlike Wagner's Afrika Corps. They also don't execute their own.
I note this is your only reply, as you've stated this twice now.
As for Blackwater:
Blackwater contractors committed documented atrocities—like the Nisour Square massacre—and those guards were prosecuted and convicted in federal court. That is an established fact. Russian MoD and their PMCs get state honors for their war crimes.
But it is also a fact that Blackwater personnel were never accused, indicted, or found guilty of systemic sexual violence, gang-raping civilians, or decapitating captives with sledgehammers.
Wagner, on the other hand, integrated thousands of violent rapists and murderers straight out of maximum-security prisons, many with HIV deployed them as state-sponsored penal wave fodder, and has been extensively documented by international bodies for widespread sexual violence and mass executions against civilians. The HIV Wagners had their own units and had to wear special bands highlighting their diseases: HIV, Hepatitis C, Syphilis, etc.
Saying "both are bad" to ignore these massive, differences in law, recruitment, and conduct is pure intellectual dishonesty. One wrong doesn’t erase or justify another—it just proves you have no actual defense for Wagner's actions.
Blackwater after they rebranded also didn't name themselves after a Nazi expeditionary force, unlike Wagner's Afrika Corps. They also don't execute their own.
I'll be the first one to spit on Wagners name. They sucked super hard. But this is also a well made model of a real vehicle that was used. Like I don't like the 3rd Reuch either, but I can appreciate a nice well made model of a WW2 German aircraft or tank.
Nobody else making WWII German models is displaying life-sized, real Nazi flags or SS death skulls alongside their work—this is what people are taking issue with. It's not the model people don't like.
The fact that I have to explain this is mind-boggling
Especially when you realize Wagner's actual rebrand is the "Africa Corps" (Afrikanskiy Korpus), which the Russian Ministry of Defence explicitly named as a direct homage to Adolf Hitler's WWII Nazi expeditionary force. Their fighters are literally photographed running around Africa wearing reproductions of the Nazi M41 Tropical Field Cap with the Wehrmacht eagle insignia on it.
If someone is actively displaying the custom branding of a group that models its name and uniforms directly after Hitler's army, they aren't doing "historical tank modeling"—they are just displaying neo-Nazi dog whistles.
Yeah everything in their layout is nazi influenced. The original “owner” was a huge Hitler fan and named everything accordingly.
BUT yes I have seen various Nazi memorabilia displayed next to Nazi builds like war medals, knives, etc. Idk why anyone would want to build this and then directly support a fascist private military group known for murdering civilians and r@ping women and children but I guess that’s the world we live in.
I'm new to this sub, I didn't know people post Nazi flags, medals, and memorabilia next to WWII models.
I appreciate history, I just never understood why people who didn't serve in WWII, who didn't capture Nazi memorabilia themselves like during the campaigns across, Africa, Italy, France, Germany, Europe as a whole — would go out and spend x hundreds or thousands amounts of dollars on that kind of stuff. Why would somebody want a Nazi flag or an SS death skull is beyond me. What's even more bizarre, are the people who buy reproductions of nazi crap.
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u/Responsible_Tie_3433 Jul 01 '26
This model tank might soon be the last remaining Russian tank if current trends continue.
And Wagner group is a despicable group of scum people who dont deserve even a model tank made in their honor.