Theodosiya wrote:Why not? Using PMC, one could officially lend help, without formal DOW, because technically, they're PMC, not soldiers.
Formal declarations of war are hardly an obstacle. The United States has not formally declared war since WWII, but that has hardly stopped the US from deploying combat troops across the globe for decades in every capacity from basic garrisons to literal high-intensity conflicts and outright invasions of reasonably large countries like Iraq. Modern "declarations of war" are couched in terms like "Authorization for the Use of Military Force" or UN Security Council resolutions.
People aren't dumb. When you deploy a bunch of soldiers, even if you don't literally write "this means war" on a piece of paper, they know a war when they see one. And they will react in the same way to a hostile armed action regardless of whether there is a "declaration of war" or not.
There's also the whole problem where you cannot have a state-owned private military company. No one cares exactly which organ of the state is lending assistance, they simply care what form that assistance takes. If Vladimir Putin transferred every Russian soldier deployed to Ukraine to a new "local police force" rather than retaining them as part of the military, it would not change a thing. They're still doing the same thing and providing the same assistance. The unit patch they happen to wear on their shoulder is irrelevant in this case.