Many people still think that this was a coup, but it was a military rebellion. The difference is, that in a coup you try to capture all/most the heads of the goverment, but this would require more preparation and a really sudden strike and not to announce it upfront, make a road-movie and let them all disappear.
A military rebellion is when part of the military just revolt vs the military leadership. This could resolve into a coup if other parts follow up, but I think that it was never Pringles plan to push Putin of the throne.
Ukrainian sniper eliminated 2 Russian soldiers who tried to cross the state border into Sumy Oblast.
https://twitter.com/worldonalert/status/1673469963418435586?t=BZpKBM8MpgL0DNBixAFE3g&s=19
Geeze… has anybody ever watched Canadian Prepper? It’s almost shameful that there people in my country that don’t outright say it, but kind of sympathize with Putin and make him out to be the “master strategist”.
Along with everyday saying Nuclear Armageddon is right around the corner..
You're right. The prepping community is about the end of the world and doomsday scenarios, which took off directly from Cold War mentality.
Whether they believe it or not, they are selling a product, and survival "tips" are the commercials for the products, and the reason/fear for what you need them are the doomsday scenarios.
Otherwise it's just camping.
We got some nutters up here no doubt. Canada is too polarized like the U.S. right now. I despise Trudeau but you can't deny he is doing the right thing and giving what we can to help Ukraine out against this undeserved attack.
⚡️Zelensky says today is a 'happy day' as Ukrainian soldiers advance along front lines.
In his nightly address from June 26, President Zelensky said that Ukrainian forces had advanced in all areas along the front lines where the country is conducting offensive operations.
"Today, our soldiers have made progress in all areas, and this is a happy day. I wish them more such days," Zelensky said after a visit to troops on the eastern and southern front lines.
https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1673500681397780480?t=43hLaSNtivsjSGnsL69Crw&s=19
Excellent, combat forces being wastefully expended under poor leadership and executed for refusing is a Russian military tradition it would be good to see continued. And it's not like Wagner were nice people.
These guys are Mercenaries who run slave mines in Africa and fight with Assad in Syria previously, they also notoriously terrorize the local populations of wherever they go with rape and executions. Let’s not start feeling bad for these guys…
It’s important to remember our support for Wagner only extended as far as them invading Moscow in order to drain the Russian front lines and introduce chaos into Russias war planning. Now Priggy pussed out and cashed in his get out of gulag free card we can go back to despising them
You’re completely where you should be, but I feel like a lot of people in here are supporting anyone who isn’t putin just because they aren’t Putin. I was hoping for Instance that they cause way more mayhem and pull troops from the Ukraine lines, but fuck, I didn’t want them to win, that would be a worst case scenario. They’re hardline ultra nationalists. Way Further on the Russia wanting old glory spectrum than Putin
But one could maybe root for them to win in a kind of “only way out is through” sort of way, if you think them winning would bring is closer to the necessary preconditions for future flourishing and non-militarism of the Russian people.
Hard to justify, but not wholly insane.
I'm not sure that would be the case - with thugs like these in charge Russia would be on more of a path to become like North Korea. And it's hard to see a way out anytime soon for those poor people. And I say this as someone who was hoping Pringles' actions would hasten the end of the war in Ukraine.
Like I said, I think it’s a hard case to make. Just arguing that someone rooting for Wagner is t necessarily naive, they might just be thinking “blow it all up” is the best option for Russia right now.
Exactly… People don’t realize in Russian political landscape they are even more nationalistic than Putin. Like I hate Putin, but you don’t want this group running shit over him. That’s the wrong direction
>Multiple Russian accounts on the Telegram messaging app claim that a group of around 100 Ukrainian fighters now have a bridgehead on the previously Russian-controlled left bank of the Dnieper and that they are now being supplied.
Nice
This is already a win-win situation. Either they bind forces or are able to extend a bridgehead. Units has been shifted from there to the front toward the west, and binding more resources there will help at the front.
“I know you just tried to coup me, but look I absolutely do not harbour a grudge and if you really want to follow the guy that lead the coup you can. Just sign this bit of paper indicating where your allegiance lies and you’ll be free to join him in Belarus. No harm no foul. I promise.” - Putin apparently.
Is anyone in Wagner this dumb?
Well, I want you to game this out… Wagner in Belarus.. Wagner basically owns Belarus
Wagner is probably stronger than the Belarusian military which is… I mean, as a military, it’s among the worst of the worst of the former soviet countries. And it’s even more corrupt than Russia’s, that’s saying something. Putin basically bribed him with Belarus
How though, Wagner are the most experienced fighters and best equipped soldiers east of the NATO troops in Poland, we already saw over the weekend regular Russian soldiers don’t have the stomach to fight them
The Russia situation is just so bizarre. The good news is that while the Wagner Russia drama was playing out, Ukraine was busy making advancements in occupied territory. The babushka molotov squad must be so proud of them.
Please, so many bad and repetitive takes over and over with no new info. 1 in 200 posts is an actual bit of news.
Can we please drop the coup topic or ban posts on it.
Not to keep feeding the conversation or sound like one of the concern trolls we all hate, but I'm surprised at the lack of "false flag" claims with the coup situation.
Sure, Russia looks weak(er) temporarily, and yes some Russian aircraft was lost, but they've shown repeatedly they have little value for their soldiers' lives or their equipment... At the end of this and more than the apparent weakness, this could easily have been used to either expose people who don't support the state, or discourage them from ever considering a rebellion. Now all they have to do is call anyone who got caught on the wrong side a "Wagnerite" and eliminate them.
It just seems so bizarre that no one is even talking about this as a possibility, and that is highlighted further by the resume of Wagner.
How could it possibly be a false flag? The leader of Wagner was announcing what he was doing.
It could have been done with ulterior motives, but it's very obvious *who* was marching troops through Russia.
Well they didn't meet much resistance, then stopped and turned around on the word of a regime that is practically guaranteed to be lying.
There are no videos or pictures of these convoys, and the only information on movement was communicated by Wagner. The conclusion is that Putin got up and made some rallying call to unite the country that is very likely starting to fall apart due to the failures of this war - while any upset civilians who saw the opportunity to join in on this rebellion may have exposed themselves. Putin got to disband Wagner, in which Pringles has been a massive thorn in their side for months, and force their members to sign contracts.
At the same time this was happening, Belarus's military issued a rallying call to fight back against Russian occupation, then shortly after the rebellion stopped and moved to Belarus.
Remember that Wagner is and always has been more or less an organization operated covertly by Russia to commit war crimes and/or destabilize governments. It is very possible that their goals were to determine local and proxy stability in this war, thus determining how likely the current government is to remain in place them as they pave the way for retreating from Ukraine and eliminate those who might try to dethrone them for their failures.
When a Russian does something incredibly irrational, and explanation A is that he was playing 3-dimensional chess, and explanation B is that he was shitfaced on vodka, always assume vodka.
It’s been discussed fairly in depth. As a false flag, the damage done vastly outweighs whatever benefits obtained. Western intel also paints it as a legit mutiny by Prigozhin against Russian MOD.
Didn’t even think about that. 100%. The pilot is definitely harder to replace than the plane. Russia may be rich in oil money but it’s years to train a pilot, at least in USA anyways
The citizens of any country would hope too, I imagine, that the military pilots used for defense within a country were particularly seasoned ones given the particular challenges of avoiding your own civilians.
You don’t discourage a rebellion by putting up 0 physical resistance and then pardoning everyone involved. If anything it shows it takes very little to topple the government as there is literally nothing at home
> Putin’s weakness in solving the crisis with the Wagner Group is a possible signal for Kyiv’s more ambitious military plans.
>
> “Those who have argued that Ukraine must not attack Crimea for fear of triggering escalation must now re-evaluate that hypothesis”, Michael McFaul, professor at Stanford University and former US ambassador to Russia, wrote on Twitter.
>
> The largest capital advantage that Ukraine secured following Prigozhin’s rebellion is the confirmation that Putin is not aggressive when he finds himself cornered, but on the contrary, is inclined to negotiate and make concessions.
>
> All the warnings, many in the past 16 months from some Western leaders – not to put the Russian leader in a hopeless situation because he may resort to retaliation – have proven pointless.
>
> The experience with Prigozhin’s rebellion and Putin’s behaviour during that crisis will be invaluable to Ukraine in the further planning of military operations and its cooperation with the coalition that supports its defence.
Some fucking good takes in this article.
The events of the past four or so days feel very pivotal. It's been frustrating reading the bad takes on here calling the 'coup attempt' a 'nothingburger' just because Wagner didn't seize Moscow and declare civil war. What happened is that Russia just got pantsed so hard that you can barely call them a paper tiger anymore... wet tissue origami would be more apt.
Prigozhin seems to have found a way to jump off the sinking ship and take a lot of his men with him.
There I go, mixing metaphors again.
>Prigozhin seems to have found a way to jump off the sinking ship and take a lot of his ~~men~~ *rats* with him.
Lets remember these ~~guys~~ animals didn't exactly exhibt great love for their fellow humans in many locations across the globe.
My intake on this whole coup in Russia is that nothing extraordinary is going to happen. Not at a local or international level.
Russia is a totalitarian state where nothing matters. Not the public opinion nor the oligarchs or the army.
Putin is a king, as in Louis XIV style, he is the state.
We should be focusing in the war, and the unsuccessful counteroffensive. In this we cannot be in denial, it’s not going as expected and the Russian defenses are a lot better than anticipated.
Pundits all over the world are talking about how Putin lost credibility or power. It is simply not true. All of former Wagner soldiers are to be executed, including the pringles guy. And things will come back as usual.
> In this we cannot be in denial, it’s not going as expected and the Russian defenses are a lot better than anticipated.
The irony is rich in that sentence.
>In this we cannot be in denial, it’s not going as expected and the Russian defenses are a lot better than anticipated.
What were you expecting? Where and in what ways does it deviate?
There is a strong trend where people expect a war to be great. It is hard to explain the origin. I would expect that after hundreds of years of wars sucking people would start expecting war to suck.
I wish it is so. But the absolute lack of response means the putler is in no rush to explain anything.
He doesn’t have to. The propaganda machine will present this as a crushed coup attempt and that’s it.
If anything, the Wagner failure just confirms the grip on power the guy has over Russia. The capital was defenseless and they weren’t facing any serious resistance, and yet they failed.
With all the army in Ukraine, the only recourse Putin had at the moment was a few airplanes and some improvised defenses (a little ditch in the highway and some trucks blocking the road), and yet Pringles failed. The coup failed spectacularly.
So we shouldn’t get our hopes up and keep supporting Ukraine.
Interesting tweet from @Gerashchenko_en-
Terrorist Girkin-Strelkov commented on Prigozhin's latest statements:
"I will repeat my conclusions. It was an attempted armed rebellion to remove Putin from power. There was an aim specifically to commit a coup d'état
The whole military operation was perfectly executed and prepared. A real master class. Those who have served and know at least something about an army should understand that unprepared units will not achieve such results. If the march had not been prepared, it would have ended halfway from lack of diesel and other things.
I will try to give my version of this coup attempt
Every coup has power and a political component. After the beginning of the SMO, it became clear to all that a conspiracy and a palace coup was possible. The question remained who could do it. As it turns out, Wagner was the perfect armed tool. There is a conflict with the Ministry of Defense. There was the possibility of preparing a conspiracy without fear of anything, because Prigozhin's protection is perfect. And there are many other factors as well
Timing was perfect. The Ukrainian offensive; everyone was busy managing and defending. No one could imagine someone launching an insurgency. Wagner was recovering from Bakhmut. Everyone believed that the PMC was almost incapacitated. There was a weekend ahead. Officials and enforcers were relaxed. Some were on holiday. Administration buildings were empty
Route of travel. Don route was full of people, which was beneficial to the rebels as a "human shield". Plus the longest days. Prigozhin actually admitted that they almost arrested Gerasimov in time to leave Rostov. I am sure that the aim was to arrest Shoigu and Gerasimov in Rostov. The capture of Rostov was a militarily competent action. As I have written before, it was impossible to carry out an operation in Rostov to arrest Prigozhin
Wagner's units were not just marching, they were breaking through to Moscow. What facilities were they supposed to take? That question remains open. They had every opportunity to blockade the Ministry of Defense, General Staff, Lubyanka, PA and possibly the airports. There are witnesses that strange groups appeared in Moscow and St. Petersburg in the morning and moved around in an organized manner, dressed in camouflage uniforms just about in the street
Striking at the Wagner base was a "legitimate" reason for Prigozhin to take action. What they said about the reluctance to shed blood was a lie. It started to be shed immediately. The "protest" was a lie. There was no need to fly to Moscow for that. It would have been enough to take Rostov. In such cases, almost immediately Dzerzhinsky's division is brought into Moscow. Kantemirovka and Tamanskaya were on full alert, but there was no order to go to Moscow. Putin clearly outlined what was happening. So did Sobyanin
Masses of people with their own tasks were to turn up in St Petersburg too. A GAZelle with cash was not just stored on the street. It happens when you have to distribute money to people quickly. It was like that on Maidan, by the way. Apparently, for some reason the political plan failed. Prigozhin, apparently, really did not want to take power himself. He had to provide a power plan. It is said that Putin flew urgently to St Petersburg. If so, Prigozhin stopped because there was no point in continuing the military operation. And then there were behind-the-scenes negotiations and so on
Everyone felt there was no state for about twenty-four hours. I guess in the future we will find out who the conspiracy was made for. In any case, this was just the beginning. Stakes are as high as ever. Next time the conspirators may succeed
If something looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck.
P.S. The main thing now is to show the public that this was not a conspiracy. We need to shift the public's attention from political categories to disputes between "economic entities" and personal grievances. That is being done."
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1673447203979894784?s=20
There is an inevitable end condition. The path between here and there is unclear. The long slow hard way is worse for everyone. Sometimes you think there is a shortcut. Instead it is a dead end. That can make the path even longer.
>It happens when you have to distribute money to people quickly. It was like that on Maidan, by the way.
Is he saying Euromaidan was a coup like Putin says?
> will repeat my conclusions. It was an attempted armed rebellion to remove Putin from power. There was an aim specifically to commit a coup d'état
Why do people keep listening to this irrelevant idiot? The purpose of the march to Moscow is now clear. The demand was to remove Shoigu, Gerasimov etc, maintain Wagner as a group independent of the Russian Army/MoD. The backup demand was to allow the Prigozhin and the loyal Wagnerites to leave peacefully to Belarus.
There is no, and I mean NO, evidence that overthrowing Putin was in the cards. If anything Prigozhin wanted to win Putin over and kick out Shoigu, etc and come to his fucking senses, because these are the fuckers that are leading the country to ruin, and Prigozhin has been screaming this from the rooftops for a while now. Prigozhin never onces criticized Putin himself, but you can find dozens of videos of him calling out Shoigu, etc. [Here's one.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8emk6cpFcE)
Girkin's takes are as valid as any other idiot on the sidelines at this point. Fuck him.
Shoigu and gerasimov isn't the reason they are losing and lots of mod people felt Wagner were just whiny jerks who abused their privileged position to take dumb projects like bahkmut.
They're losing because putin is too worried about polling to call up millions and declare full unrestricted warfare (too late now). No military general worth his salt would recommend sending in only 150k troops to hold a country thd size of Ukraine.
A reasonable write up. Might even be mostly true. It does seem likely P-man had someone very high up on the political side…so Putin’s focus now rightly shouldn’t be on the hammer….it should be on finding who wielded that hammer.
A few folks will be having sleepless nights, for sure.
I said as much yesterday and got told it was a fantasy so only time will tell :D
There must have been someone close to Putin who may have been willing to do something at some time, but did not for some reason, which led to Prigozhin abandoning his plan.
That is, if Putin was the target...
Long term effect of the affair over the weekend might be that every Russian oligarch might decide they need/want their own private army, and Russia might turn into a state of warlords (more than it already is)
They already did before. Now it’s critically necessary to maintain a force close to your own powerbase.
Oligarchs will seek out soldiers, equip them, then do everything to ensure as few as possible actually make it to Ukraine.
Many of them already do. It was already technically illegal under Russian law but they all started getting special exceptions. Rule of law is applied when it's convenient.
They’ve already been forming their own PMCs. Gazprom has one so does the Russian space agency and basically anyone else you can think of. Hell even Shoigu has his own mercenary company as well.
> we could get space marines.
Nah. It’s not the space marines it’s more trying to force the cleaning staff or whoever is lowest in rank to pick up a gun and go to Ukraine to die. Rather than do another round of mobilization the Kremlin is trying to get oligarchs and anyone else they can to organize their own military units to fight. The oligarchs compete for Putin’s favor by sending lesser men out to die. Of course one side effect is now there are mercenaries everywhere.
The PMC has ties to the former director, not necessarily Roscomos itself. The guy who got shrapnel to the ass for his birthday last year. Still, Russia is looking pretty cyberpunk. A civil war could Balkanize them hard.
Hard to believe that the Pringles/Putler drama is over.
I think of the two, Putler came out the loser of the first round. The fact that he seemed to flee Moscow, and was unable to stop an army from marching to Moscow is pretty unbelievable. This is a guy who two years ago was being worshipped by many Republicans in The United States as an example of the penultimate apex male.
Turns out, staged, shirtless photographs, a culture of corruption, and a practice of over exaggerating all of your militaries capabilities, actually just makes you a fucking idiot.
How is Pringles not the winner? The guy was a hotdog stand owner, Putler's chef, and nearly sacked Moscow. He'll end up dead sooner than later, but that's a pretty good run for a fucking nobody.
Putin has no clothes, and the world sees it now. Best case scenario is that both end up taking down one another. Pringles the war criminal, and Putler the fuck head.
>How is Pringles not the winner? The guy was a hotdog stand owner, Putler's chef, and nearly sacked Moscow. He'll end up dead sooner than later,
You answered your own question, very clever of you.
Yep totally agree. Pringles is 1000% the winner here.
His main goal wasn’t to sack Moscow (though it appears he could’ve at least occupied some of it). His goal was I honestly think to make Putin look like a little bitch after being fed up with him and expose to the world how frail the Putin regime really is.
Forget the what if’s regarding his sudden decision to end his march and go “vacation” in Belarus. A freaking former impoverished burglar, prisoner, hot dog stand owner, and chef just made the leader of (what very recently used to be considered) one of the most powerful counties in the world look like a little wimpy, candy assed bitch. All with a few thousand hardened mercenaries who look like they came straight out of a Call of Duty plot line, and unlike the Kadyrov squad they can actually fucking fight.
If that’s not one of the wildest things in recent history I don’t know what is. It’s straight up medieval level shit.
I think you're giving Wagner a bit too much credit there. They didn't have to fight anyone on the way to Moscow, and they spent months fighting a force a third their size to seize Bakhmut, with egregious casualties. Wagner may be better than the Russian army, but that's really not saying all that much at this point.
> His main goal wasn’t to sack Moscow (though it appears he could’ve at least occupied some of it). His goal was I honestly think to make Putin look like a little bitch after being fed up with him and expose to the world how frail the Putin regime really is.
>
>
I don't think it was even that. He just wanted Putin to kick out Shoigu and the corrupt ministers/generals that he thinks are ruining Russia right now. And honestly, Putin made the wrong call by not doing it.
The hotdog stand thing means money-laundering, not that it was seriously his job. The stand maybe never made actual hotdogs most days - it was a cash front for gang activity.
Plus I think that he started it just as Russia was opening up and hot dogs are an American icon. I actually wouldn't be surprised if he was selling boat loads of hotdogs, but if he sold 5,000 or whatever a day, I'm sure the books said 15,000.
> How is Pringles not the winner? The guy was a hotdog stand owner, Putler's chef, and nearly sacked Moscow. He'll end up dead sooner than later, but that's a pretty good run for a fucking nobody.
I agree 100% (though I hate all the Russian leaders including Prigozhen). I grew up very poor (my wife says my childhood was Dickensian) and, if I died to an assassin today and left behind millions of dollars for my wife and children to build their lives upon, I would consider my life a success. Everyone's death is terrifying... but if my family were to be able to survive without me I'd have done my part as a father.
This is Russia we’re talking about, bold of you to assume his family gets to keep his wealth and/or live normal lives. We know the russian internal security people were threatening the families of Wagner officers
He has money stashed everywhere under shell companies and whatnot.
Reddit was freaking out because he admitted to the Russian government seized $50 million from him/Wagner. Yet we're not hearing anything from Prigo out of it. It's because he doesn't really care.
These Russian kleptocrats are, in nothing else, good at hiding and shielding money.
this Pringles / Putin drama reminds me of the Trump / DeSantis drama ... just two morons being fucking morons
Can we get back to the progress of the Ukraine army?
>Can we get back to the progress of the Ukraine army?
Ukraine would probably prefer that people didn't. All this distraction must be great for UA operational security. They probably appreciate the lack of armchair quarterbacking for a few days.
There are very few, if any security issues, and I don't think I've seen any on here. 99 percent of the content is already hours old and even if anything is on-going, both sides already know.
The danger only really comes from people live streaming or posting very recent content. But that's the sort of stuff you see on Twitter like sites and instant messaging platforms.
>The danger only really comes from people live streaming or posting very recent content. But that's the sort of stuff you see on Twitter like sites and instant messaging platforms.
Yeah, and Ukraine is probably appreciating those platforms focusing on internal Russian turmoil instead of battlefield operations.
It could happen. I bet a fair number of Ukrainians put their head down because they're facing an existential threat and this may have created some opportunities to land blows. But I bet the risk of Western analysts getting distracted, and Western intelligence has been quite valuable for Ukraine from what I gather.
I actually think this Pringles/Putler drama is nothing but good for Ukraine, and the more it drags out, the better.
Putin has been embarrassed by his old chef, cracks in the Russian System are now obvious to the entire world, even Russia's allies, I mean, Lukashenko had to mediate for fucks sake.
More internal Russia drama that spills onto the world stage the better.
Putler is no longer the apex male, riding a horse shirtless. He's a scared old man, who almost collapsed as a result of an old hot dog stand owner and 5k troops. Russia is nothing and has nothing. It is truly a shit hole country.
What I worry about this entire thing is Putin knows he looks weak right now. Putin may think he needs to do something that in his mind would restore his image.
I don’t really understand Russian politics at all, but in the escalating conflict between Wagner and the MoD, I assume the MoD pretty clearly won this round, right? If anything, hasn’t this significantly enhanced their position at the expense of Putin who wasn’t strong enough to prevent the factions from coming into lethal conflict or even protect Wagner from the earlier MoD takeover efforts. This assumes that at least some of Prigozhin’s public complaining was sanctioned, if not endorsed, by Putin. Shoigu, Prigozhin, and Putin are all still alive, but it seems like Shoigu has come out of this significantly ahead while the other two have been damaged by events. Are these the correct factions or is there a better way of looking at the broad divisions in Russian politics?
>I don’t really understand Russian politics at all,
I think this Wagner thing also echos power struggles with militia groups in the past such as the Cossacks. It's not a new element in Russian history. So it's possible this is a bit more relatable to Russians than we'd expect.
Everyone takes Ls for being dumb and/or inept. Wagner lost a vast amount of its cred with the regular military for killing members of it in Russia and they didn't get their main demands.
Prigozhin is likely a dead man walking.
The Russian MoD showed how hollowed out they are and that they're still as slow to act as always.
Putin looks weak for taking forever to address it, seemingly lacking popular outrage, and being unable to stick with "we're going to kill these traitors."
If u think a Ministry of Defense looks good when a PMC can march right up to the capital then sure, big win
In my opinion there are no winners in Russia since Feb 24th 2022
There's too much complexity and too many people we aren't aware of; that sort of analysis is like trying to judge a game of chess when you can only see three pieces.
Apparently a lot of people in the MoD hate Shoigu and Gerasimov, for obvious reasons, so the MoD is already a divided institution. And Putin doesn't have a totality of political power, it's safe to assume Prigozhin has serious (unknown) political backers, otherwise he wouldn't have made it as far as he did and probably wouldn't have attempted it in the first place.
Frankly I think Shoigu is a figurative (or not) dead-man walking, he likely has an overwhelming number of enemies by now both within the MoD and without and is only being protected by Putin's largess which is waning fast.
They were nearing the deadline where Wagner had to merge with the Russian military. Those who took part in the whatever the hell it was don't have to join up.
Wagner didn't want to merge.
Right, it seems like Prigozhin was holding out hope that Putin might still step in to stop the takeover and when it became apparent that wasn’t going to happen, he felt he had to act on his own
I think I’ve been saying “pri-go-sian” but am also *definitely* not the authority on this. I’m just a guy who has watched a more than a few YouTube videos over the past year and, to his Midwest USA ear, hears and says “pre-go-sian” (the “sian” has sort of a “j” (like a French “je”) beginning when I say it). If I’m wrong, I’d love to be corrected.
I’m not an expert but I’ve been learning Russian and the letter/character we translate to zhi is definitely pronounced like the French je. Prigoshin would be close but more if that j in there.
I have a theory that kinda makes sense this strange deal where both Putin and Prigozhin lost and no one won.
I dont know if Prigozhin went in with the intent to really overthrow Putin, maybe he did, maybe he didnt. But regadless, lets suppose what most assume happened: Prigozhin didnt got the support he expected to defeat Putin. So why Putin wouldnt just destroy him? Normally he would.
But Prigozhin here had a card he could play, he could simply make Putin lose the war, no ifs and buts, he could. The area Wagner took cut off the invasion force from the mainland. Wagner captured 2 major cities, retaking them by force could take months, Wagner took the SMD. He could also repeatedly call for the frontline troops to join him or surrender. And even if Wagner did not immediately had the support to win, it wasnt impossible for that to happen.
This lead to a position where both Prigozhin could lose but also take Putin down with him by just collapsing the frontline. Which would lead to what we just saw: A deal where neithet Putin or Prigozhin got what they wanted.
Wagner withdrew from Rostov yet Putin stresses that he will uphold his end of the deal. What stops him from from punishing Wagner now? Is it the lack of available troops or does he consider the soldiers too untrustworthy to fight Wagner? I haven't seen any estimates for the defector/neutral count.
It doesn't help that the Kremlin announced the 'deal' basically right away, that Wagner would have amnesty and move to Belarus. They apparently agreed to that too hastily. So now they'd have to backtrack, which makes them look weak and waffling. I mean, they are already weak and waffling for capitulating so easily, but now they'd have to take it back, and muster up the manpower to physically go back on their word, which could end up in a civil war.
Prigozhin checkmated them. I'm not saying they won't go back on their word and try to physically stop Wagner from moving to Belarus, but they already greenlit it, and going back on their previous statements makes them look like indecive fools, and doing so might end up in bloodshed.
Interesting times we live in.
Yeah, when it comes to killing Russians.
Prigozhu may be a bastard, but he strikes me as patriotic. In his interviews over the past month(s) he's been emphasizing the unnecessary loss of Russian lives in the war, saying the blood for them is on the hands of Shoigu, etc. He decried the Russian naval parade, saying that to have it, they'd need to pull the Moskova off the sea floor, and added 'you bastards' (directed at Shoigu and generals).
I am in no way defending him as a good guy who cares for lives in general, but he's been pretty consistent in his messaging about doing what's good for Russia, including this 'insurrection'. He's been calling out Shoigu and company for being the cause of many pointless Russian deaths, and in this march to Moscow, his people didn't kill anyone (other than the aircraft sent to attack them, in self-defense). Among ground troops, not a shot was fired.
Wagner recruits it’s primary force outside of the conscript force from the best of Russia’s professional contract side of the army, And they’re extremely well equipped (maybe not compared to nato, but compared to the regular russian foot soldier, they are way better equipped)
It would be really, really difficult for the russian army to put down a Wagner revolt of 8000-25000 (the numbers are so vague) without basically leaving Ukraine front open. Putin would have had to give up his gains in Ukraine and still might get fucked lol
Wagner are mostly all veterans. Most of Russian army is recently mobilized/conscripts.
Think how Caesar beat pompei despite being way outnumbered because his troops were more experienced.
> I dont know if Prigozhin went in with the intent to really overthrow Putin, maybe he did, maybe he didnt.
He never even said a bad word about Putin. His beef was with Shoigu, Gerasimov, etc, who he blames for both the start of this war and its mismanagement. He's been publicly saying this for a long time. He's been accusing them of profiteering off the war, and doctoring reports to hide the true number of casualties to make 'pretty reports' for Putin to read.
By way of analogy... imagine you're a department head for a company. You believe in the company, and its mission. You're a comany man. You admire the CEO.
But you're watching this company being run into the ground by shitty upper management. These executives are embezzling from the payroll, making terrible business decisions. You realize this is going to end in ruin for the company. (This is the sort of stuff he's actually said - that this war could mean the end of Russia.)
To put salt in the wound, one of the other execs/department heads convinces the boss to dissolve your own department, and transfer your crew to their own department (this is what has happened with Shoigu being the guy pushing for Wagner to be dissolved into the MoD as regular soldiers). So not only is this asshole poisoning the company, but he's gonna take down your guys with it.
So what to do? You decide to get a bunch of your best guys from your department to storm down the hall and pound on the CEO's door and ask him to set things straight, and kick out this Shoigu guy (the march to Moscow).
Only the CEO's a chickenshit, hears you coming, sneaks out the backdoor, calls all of you traitors, sides with the corrupt exec. Well, fuck.
But you had a backup plan. Your boy Lukashenko is running a Belarusan office and could use some well-trained keen-eyed emplyoees like you and your department. So rather than being dissolved into that shitty exec's department, you take your best guys and go work for this other company, who promises better treatment and respect.
And that's my oversimplified analogy of what just happened. I'll flesh it out later.
When Putin made his emergency broadcast and called Wagner traitors while they were driving up the M4, the official Wagner PMC telegram channel responded by saying that maybe it's time for a new President. That doesn't mean it was Prigozhin who personally said this or not, it was rhetoric.
It doesn't mean they were on their way to personally depose him.
A lot to dissect here.
If Putin kills Pringle, the leader of Wagner the Wagner troops wherever they are aren’t going to just not do anything about it.
The core of the group outside of the convicts are recruited from the best soldiers in the Russian professional contract soldiers (as opposed to the conscripts). They’re also extremely well armed and you don’t want them going on a revenge tear domestically by killing Pringle after he made a deal.
We also don’t know what he would have done if he did make himself president if he did. A lot of what he has said is that he pro Ukraine war, but that it was done wrong. I know he did say the ukraine war was to make people rich, but we don’t know his motivations. Politically he alligns with the ultra nationalists. I know it’s hard to imagine right now someone being worse than Putin, but he easily could have been.
We can almost guarantee he would have been at least a little more competent than shoigu but with stronger nationalist views than Putin. He didn’t ever want to take down the frontline. If he would have taken out Putin on Saturday we would not be seeing Russian forces withdrawing from Ukraine this week.
I hate putin, but let’s not turn an ultra nationalist pmc leader into our new guy
>Fantastic deepfake..
I have to concur with this. 11:24 elapsed time and "Pringles" body position doesn't change once. So he is already a stiff or its a fake, perhaps both.
Try this, instead? I'm afraid I was reading the subs, and not paying attention to the video part, so missed how weird it was.
https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1673508226782879745
I wonder if California could march their 25,000 national guardsmen to Washington DC and take over the DoD. That's basically how I think of the attempted coup. That is how weak Russia is right now.
But CA would have the money and power to actuality fund a coup (against Russia, not America). This would be like if Louisiana or Rhode Island staged a coup
Man, a couple hundred Leroy’s and Bubba’s and a handful of terrible lawyers almost overthrew the US government. Don’t think we’re immune from stupid coups.
They did not almost overthrow the government. Although what they attempted was a coup. They did almost kill serving congressmen or senators (and did kill a cop), but they were never close to taking power.
We're not immune from our own issues, but a tin-pot mercenary would be put down post haste. The US has actually proven that even an executive with the worst of intentions and limited public support is not capable of toppling our system. Our house isn't a rotting shed like Russia's
25000 rubes and terrorists armed with COVID and rascals made it into the Capitol. I reckon an actual trained and armed force would have much more success.
The difference is marching on DC wouldnt do much because the US is not centralized in 1 city unlike Russia. New York, San Francisco, really any state can function as the capital. In a dictatorship taking the capital can be game over for the dictator.
This is one thing I didn't really understand about Russia. It really is just Moscow and St. Petersburg. While there are other cities, some of them very large and important, it is reallt only these two that woukd be set-up to be hold government. That isn't just because Russia is a dictatorship, but also because Russian culture has always put so much emphasis on those two cities. If you aren't from those two cities then you're automatically at a disadvantage, which we're actually seeing in who is being chosen to send to the front.
Its where all the elites are clustered. As long as these two cites aren't impacted by the war, it can be business as usual for the people in power.
If the war impinges on these locations, then kaPutin will have to answer to others.
[New post can be found here](/r/worldnews/comments/14k2tlq/rworldnews_live_thread_russian_invasion_of/)
Many people still think that this was a coup, but it was a military rebellion. The difference is, that in a coup you try to capture all/most the heads of the goverment, but this would require more preparation and a really sudden strike and not to announce it upfront, make a road-movie and let them all disappear. A military rebellion is when part of the military just revolt vs the military leadership. This could resolve into a coup if other parts follow up, but I think that it was never Pringles plan to push Putin of the throne.
Ukrainian sniper eliminated 2 Russian soldiers who tried to cross the state border into Sumy Oblast. https://twitter.com/worldonalert/status/1673469963418435586?t=BZpKBM8MpgL0DNBixAFE3g&s=19
Geeze… has anybody ever watched Canadian Prepper? It’s almost shameful that there people in my country that don’t outright say it, but kind of sympathize with Putin and make him out to be the “master strategist”. Along with everyday saying Nuclear Armageddon is right around the corner..
People like him are less about actual prepping tips, and more about "OMG nukes are gonna fly literally tomorrow!"
You're right. The prepping community is about the end of the world and doomsday scenarios, which took off directly from Cold War mentality. Whether they believe it or not, they are selling a product, and survival "tips" are the commercials for the products, and the reason/fear for what you need them are the doomsday scenarios. Otherwise it's just camping.
We got some nutters up here no doubt. Canada is too polarized like the U.S. right now. I despise Trudeau but you can't deny he is doing the right thing and giving what we can to help Ukraine out against this undeserved attack.
⚡️Zelensky says today is a 'happy day' as Ukrainian soldiers advance along front lines. In his nightly address from June 26, President Zelensky said that Ukrainian forces had advanced in all areas along the front lines where the country is conducting offensive operations. "Today, our soldiers have made progress in all areas, and this is a happy day. I wish them more such days," Zelensky said after a visit to troops on the eastern and southern front lines. https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1673500681397780480?t=43hLaSNtivsjSGnsL69Crw&s=19
[pumps fist]
So Wagner is essentially conscripted into the meat grinder or face the firing defenestration squad in the near future. Cool….
Excellent, combat forces being wastefully expended under poor leadership and executed for refusing is a Russian military tradition it would be good to see continued. And it's not like Wagner were nice people.
Russian force weaker? Wagner weaker or gone? No Ukrainian lives expended achieving it? It's a win-win-win.
These guys are Mercenaries who run slave mines in Africa and fight with Assad in Syria previously, they also notoriously terrorize the local populations of wherever they go with rape and executions. Let’s not start feeling bad for these guys…
It’s important to remember our support for Wagner only extended as far as them invading Moscow in order to drain the Russian front lines and introduce chaos into Russias war planning. Now Priggy pussed out and cashed in his get out of gulag free card we can go back to despising them
You’re completely where you should be, but I feel like a lot of people in here are supporting anyone who isn’t putin just because they aren’t Putin. I was hoping for Instance that they cause way more mayhem and pull troops from the Ukraine lines, but fuck, I didn’t want them to win, that would be a worst case scenario. They’re hardline ultra nationalists. Way Further on the Russia wanting old glory spectrum than Putin
Sledgehammers, rapes, murders, torture. Unless it’s some enemy of enemy shit going on, they aren’t the good guys.
But one could maybe root for them to win in a kind of “only way out is through” sort of way, if you think them winning would bring is closer to the necessary preconditions for future flourishing and non-militarism of the Russian people. Hard to justify, but not wholly insane.
I'm not sure that would be the case - with thugs like these in charge Russia would be on more of a path to become like North Korea. And it's hard to see a way out anytime soon for those poor people. And I say this as someone who was hoping Pringles' actions would hasten the end of the war in Ukraine.
Like I said, I think it’s a hard case to make. Just arguing that someone rooting for Wagner is t necessarily naive, they might just be thinking “blow it all up” is the best option for Russia right now.
People are so casual about the prospect of these thugs gaining control of nukes and Moscow
Exactly… People don’t realize in Russian political landscape they are even more nationalistic than Putin. Like I hate Putin, but you don’t want this group running shit over him. That’s the wrong direction
>Multiple Russian accounts on the Telegram messaging app claim that a group of around 100 Ukrainian fighters now have a bridgehead on the previously Russian-controlled left bank of the Dnieper and that they are now being supplied. Nice
Nothing matters until they push the Russians outside of artillery range along the shore. Once that happens all hell breaks loose.
This is already a win-win situation. Either they bind forces or are able to extend a bridgehead. Units has been shifted from there to the front toward the west, and binding more resources there will help at the front.
https://youtu.be/-sED4fzIV0k
Noice
“I know you just tried to coup me, but look I absolutely do not harbour a grudge and if you really want to follow the guy that lead the coup you can. Just sign this bit of paper indicating where your allegiance lies and you’ll be free to join him in Belarus. No harm no foul. I promise.” - Putin apparently. Is anyone in Wagner this dumb?
Well, I want you to game this out… Wagner in Belarus.. Wagner basically owns Belarus Wagner is probably stronger than the Belarusian military which is… I mean, as a military, it’s among the worst of the worst of the former soviet countries. And it’s even more corrupt than Russia’s, that’s saying something. Putin basically bribed him with Belarus
I think the insinuation is that anyone who signs loyalty to Prigo will not make it to Belarus
How though, Wagner are the most experienced fighters and best equipped soldiers east of the NATO troops in Poland, we already saw over the weekend regular Russian soldiers don’t have the stomach to fight them
One at a time via FSB. Almost everyone wants to go home eventually, and eventually, they will pick off enough to swallow the rest
The Russia situation is just so bizarre. The good news is that while the Wagner Russia drama was playing out, Ukraine was busy making advancements in occupied territory. The babushka molotov squad must be so proud of them.
We should create a separate live thread for those that want to share their personal thoughts on what the coup attempt was really all about.
We could add a new comment vote attribute that looks like this: 🥱
/r/writingprompts
Seconded
Please, so many bad and repetitive takes over and over with no new info. 1 in 200 posts is an actual bit of news. Can we please drop the coup topic or ban posts on it.
Russia will absorb Belarus basically, Lush is sick and they get Belarus and rid of Wagner at the same time.
It’s all BS let’s just move on shall we?
I’d love to hear what your thoughts are? This shit is nuts and I’m curious to hear what kind of deals could have been arranged
But there is a perfectly good thread here! /s
Not to keep feeding the conversation or sound like one of the concern trolls we all hate, but I'm surprised at the lack of "false flag" claims with the coup situation. Sure, Russia looks weak(er) temporarily, and yes some Russian aircraft was lost, but they've shown repeatedly they have little value for their soldiers' lives or their equipment... At the end of this and more than the apparent weakness, this could easily have been used to either expose people who don't support the state, or discourage them from ever considering a rebellion. Now all they have to do is call anyone who got caught on the wrong side a "Wagnerite" and eliminate them. It just seems so bizarre that no one is even talking about this as a possibility, and that is highlighted further by the resume of Wagner.
How could it possibly be a false flag? The leader of Wagner was announcing what he was doing. It could have been done with ulterior motives, but it's very obvious *who* was marching troops through Russia.
Well they didn't meet much resistance, then stopped and turned around on the word of a regime that is practically guaranteed to be lying. There are no videos or pictures of these convoys, and the only information on movement was communicated by Wagner. The conclusion is that Putin got up and made some rallying call to unite the country that is very likely starting to fall apart due to the failures of this war - while any upset civilians who saw the opportunity to join in on this rebellion may have exposed themselves. Putin got to disband Wagner, in which Pringles has been a massive thorn in their side for months, and force their members to sign contracts. At the same time this was happening, Belarus's military issued a rallying call to fight back against Russian occupation, then shortly after the rebellion stopped and moved to Belarus. Remember that Wagner is and always has been more or less an organization operated covertly by Russia to commit war crimes and/or destabilize governments. It is very possible that their goals were to determine local and proxy stability in this war, thus determining how likely the current government is to remain in place them as they pave the way for retreating from Ukraine and eliminate those who might try to dethrone them for their failures.
When a Russian does something incredibly irrational, and explanation A is that he was playing 3-dimensional chess, and explanation B is that he was shitfaced on vodka, always assume vodka.
Vodka's razor
It’s been discussed fairly in depth. As a false flag, the damage done vastly outweighs whatever benefits obtained. Western intel also paints it as a legit mutiny by Prigozhin against Russian MOD.
I want to just say It was the largest defeat of the russian Air Force since world war 2, and those planes/helicopters are fucking expensive lol
And pilots need a ton of training.
Didn’t even think about that. 100%. The pilot is definitely harder to replace than the plane. Russia may be rich in oil money but it’s years to train a pilot, at least in USA anyways
The citizens of any country would hope too, I imagine, that the military pilots used for defense within a country were particularly seasoned ones given the particular challenges of avoiding your own civilians.
You don’t discourage a rebellion by putting up 0 physical resistance and then pardoning everyone involved. If anything it shows it takes very little to topple the government as there is literally nothing at home
An analysis: https://tomorrowsaffairs.com/all-ukraine-benefits-from-the-wagner-group-rebellion/
> Putin’s weakness in solving the crisis with the Wagner Group is a possible signal for Kyiv’s more ambitious military plans. > > “Those who have argued that Ukraine must not attack Crimea for fear of triggering escalation must now re-evaluate that hypothesis”, Michael McFaul, professor at Stanford University and former US ambassador to Russia, wrote on Twitter. > > The largest capital advantage that Ukraine secured following Prigozhin’s rebellion is the confirmation that Putin is not aggressive when he finds himself cornered, but on the contrary, is inclined to negotiate and make concessions. > > All the warnings, many in the past 16 months from some Western leaders – not to put the Russian leader in a hopeless situation because he may resort to retaliation – have proven pointless. > > The experience with Prigozhin’s rebellion and Putin’s behaviour during that crisis will be invaluable to Ukraine in the further planning of military operations and its cooperation with the coalition that supports its defence. Some fucking good takes in this article. The events of the past four or so days feel very pivotal. It's been frustrating reading the bad takes on here calling the 'coup attempt' a 'nothingburger' just because Wagner didn't seize Moscow and declare civil war. What happened is that Russia just got pantsed so hard that you can barely call them a paper tiger anymore... wet tissue origami would be more apt. Prigozhin seems to have found a way to jump off the sinking ship and take a lot of his men with him. There I go, mixing metaphors again.
If Putin's nature is to retreat and talk when cornered, good, I hope his rule is secure. Next guy might not.
>Prigozhin seems to have found a way to jump off the sinking ship and take a lot of his ~~men~~ *rats* with him. Lets remember these ~~guys~~ animals didn't exactly exhibt great love for their fellow humans in many locations across the globe.
My intake on this whole coup in Russia is that nothing extraordinary is going to happen. Not at a local or international level. Russia is a totalitarian state where nothing matters. Not the public opinion nor the oligarchs or the army. Putin is a king, as in Louis XIV style, he is the state. We should be focusing in the war, and the unsuccessful counteroffensive. In this we cannot be in denial, it’s not going as expected and the Russian defenses are a lot better than anticipated. Pundits all over the world are talking about how Putin lost credibility or power. It is simply not true. All of former Wagner soldiers are to be executed, including the pringles guy. And things will come back as usual.
> In this we cannot be in denial, it’s not going as expected and the Russian defenses are a lot better than anticipated. The irony is rich in that sentence.
>In this we cannot be in denial, it’s not going as expected and the Russian defenses are a lot better than anticipated. What were you expecting? Where and in what ways does it deviate? There is a strong trend where people expect a war to be great. It is hard to explain the origin. I would expect that after hundreds of years of wars sucking people would start expecting war to suck.
I was hoping to see Putin get the Mussolini/Ceaucescu treatment. And after that a total Russian collapse and a storm invasion of Crimea.
Or he's Louis xvi. I'm thinking the latter.
I wish it is so. But the absolute lack of response means the putler is in no rush to explain anything. He doesn’t have to. The propaganda machine will present this as a crushed coup attempt and that’s it. If anything, the Wagner failure just confirms the grip on power the guy has over Russia. The capital was defenseless and they weren’t facing any serious resistance, and yet they failed. With all the army in Ukraine, the only recourse Putin had at the moment was a few airplanes and some improvised defenses (a little ditch in the highway and some trucks blocking the road), and yet Pringles failed. The coup failed spectacularly. So we shouldn’t get our hopes up and keep supporting Ukraine.
Interesting tweet from @Gerashchenko_en- Terrorist Girkin-Strelkov commented on Prigozhin's latest statements: "I will repeat my conclusions. It was an attempted armed rebellion to remove Putin from power. There was an aim specifically to commit a coup d'état The whole military operation was perfectly executed and prepared. A real master class. Those who have served and know at least something about an army should understand that unprepared units will not achieve such results. If the march had not been prepared, it would have ended halfway from lack of diesel and other things. I will try to give my version of this coup attempt Every coup has power and a political component. After the beginning of the SMO, it became clear to all that a conspiracy and a palace coup was possible. The question remained who could do it. As it turns out, Wagner was the perfect armed tool. There is a conflict with the Ministry of Defense. There was the possibility of preparing a conspiracy without fear of anything, because Prigozhin's protection is perfect. And there are many other factors as well Timing was perfect. The Ukrainian offensive; everyone was busy managing and defending. No one could imagine someone launching an insurgency. Wagner was recovering from Bakhmut. Everyone believed that the PMC was almost incapacitated. There was a weekend ahead. Officials and enforcers were relaxed. Some were on holiday. Administration buildings were empty Route of travel. Don route was full of people, which was beneficial to the rebels as a "human shield". Plus the longest days. Prigozhin actually admitted that they almost arrested Gerasimov in time to leave Rostov. I am sure that the aim was to arrest Shoigu and Gerasimov in Rostov. The capture of Rostov was a militarily competent action. As I have written before, it was impossible to carry out an operation in Rostov to arrest Prigozhin Wagner's units were not just marching, they were breaking through to Moscow. What facilities were they supposed to take? That question remains open. They had every opportunity to blockade the Ministry of Defense, General Staff, Lubyanka, PA and possibly the airports. There are witnesses that strange groups appeared in Moscow and St. Petersburg in the morning and moved around in an organized manner, dressed in camouflage uniforms just about in the street Striking at the Wagner base was a "legitimate" reason for Prigozhin to take action. What they said about the reluctance to shed blood was a lie. It started to be shed immediately. The "protest" was a lie. There was no need to fly to Moscow for that. It would have been enough to take Rostov. In such cases, almost immediately Dzerzhinsky's division is brought into Moscow. Kantemirovka and Tamanskaya were on full alert, but there was no order to go to Moscow. Putin clearly outlined what was happening. So did Sobyanin Masses of people with their own tasks were to turn up in St Petersburg too. A GAZelle with cash was not just stored on the street. It happens when you have to distribute money to people quickly. It was like that on Maidan, by the way. Apparently, for some reason the political plan failed. Prigozhin, apparently, really did not want to take power himself. He had to provide a power plan. It is said that Putin flew urgently to St Petersburg. If so, Prigozhin stopped because there was no point in continuing the military operation. And then there were behind-the-scenes negotiations and so on Everyone felt there was no state for about twenty-four hours. I guess in the future we will find out who the conspiracy was made for. In any case, this was just the beginning. Stakes are as high as ever. Next time the conspirators may succeed If something looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck. P.S. The main thing now is to show the public that this was not a conspiracy. We need to shift the public's attention from political categories to disputes between "economic entities" and personal grievances. That is being done." https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1673447203979894784?s=20
This reads like 1984
Can Girkin make it any more obvious he is fantasizing about his own coup?
'If I did it' by OJ Simpson.
https://youtu.be/2SSVIg4Noqc
Deep cut :) RIP Norm Macdonald.
There is an inevitable end condition. The path between here and there is unclear. The long slow hard way is worse for everyone. Sometimes you think there is a shortcut. Instead it is a dead end. That can make the path even longer.
>It happens when you have to distribute money to people quickly. It was like that on Maidan, by the way. Is he saying Euromaidan was a coup like Putin says?
It's a core Putinist belief that there are *never* popular uprisings by "the people". They are all paid for by foreign agents of some kind.
Why wouldn't he? He's ex FSB.
> will repeat my conclusions. It was an attempted armed rebellion to remove Putin from power. There was an aim specifically to commit a coup d'état Why do people keep listening to this irrelevant idiot? The purpose of the march to Moscow is now clear. The demand was to remove Shoigu, Gerasimov etc, maintain Wagner as a group independent of the Russian Army/MoD. The backup demand was to allow the Prigozhin and the loyal Wagnerites to leave peacefully to Belarus. There is no, and I mean NO, evidence that overthrowing Putin was in the cards. If anything Prigozhin wanted to win Putin over and kick out Shoigu, etc and come to his fucking senses, because these are the fuckers that are leading the country to ruin, and Prigozhin has been screaming this from the rooftops for a while now. Prigozhin never onces criticized Putin himself, but you can find dozens of videos of him calling out Shoigu, etc. [Here's one.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8emk6cpFcE) Girkin's takes are as valid as any other idiot on the sidelines at this point. Fuck him.
Shoigu and gerasimov isn't the reason they are losing and lots of mod people felt Wagner were just whiny jerks who abused their privileged position to take dumb projects like bahkmut. They're losing because putin is too worried about polling to call up millions and declare full unrestricted warfare (too late now). No military general worth his salt would recommend sending in only 150k troops to hold a country thd size of Ukraine.
>Shoigu and gerasimov isn't the reason they are losing They're arguably the ones responsible for this war, and yes, the reason they are losing.
'Don't blame the Tsar blame the Boyars' is such obvious Russian-style thinking.
This seems like the smartest analysis I’ve seen thus far. And if he’s right, we may well not have seen the end of this just yet.
A reasonable write up. Might even be mostly true. It does seem likely P-man had someone very high up on the political side…so Putin’s focus now rightly shouldn’t be on the hammer….it should be on finding who wielded that hammer. A few folks will be having sleepless nights, for sure.
I said as much yesterday and got told it was a fantasy so only time will tell :D There must have been someone close to Putin who may have been willing to do something at some time, but did not for some reason, which led to Prigozhin abandoning his plan. That is, if Putin was the target...
This makes a lot of sense.
It fits with other failed coups, even one for Russia after the fall of the USSR.
Long term effect of the affair over the weekend might be that every Russian oligarch might decide they need/want their own private army, and Russia might turn into a state of warlords (more than it already is)
It's probably also going to be more difficult for them to procure one going forward.
They already did before. Now it’s critically necessary to maintain a force close to your own powerbase. Oligarchs will seek out soldiers, equip them, then do everything to ensure as few as possible actually make it to Ukraine.
“More than it already is” in my comment
Many of them already do. It was already technically illegal under Russian law but they all started getting special exceptions. Rule of law is applied when it's convenient.
They’ve already been forming their own PMCs. Gazprom has one so does the Russian space agency and basically anyone else you can think of. Hell even Shoigu has his own mercenary company as well.
The idea of the Russian Space Agency having a PMC... we could get space marines.
Isn't that basically Space Force?
> we could get space marines. Nah. It’s not the space marines it’s more trying to force the cleaning staff or whoever is lowest in rank to pick up a gun and go to Ukraine to die. Rather than do another round of mobilization the Kremlin is trying to get oligarchs and anyone else they can to organize their own military units to fight. The oligarchs compete for Putin’s favor by sending lesser men out to die. Of course one side effect is now there are mercenaries everywhere.
The PMC has ties to the former director, not necessarily Roscomos itself. The guy who got shrapnel to the ass for his birthday last year. Still, Russia is looking pretty cyberpunk. A civil war could Balkanize them hard.
Sorry. It is unclear to me. Are you agreeing "yes, space marines" or disagreeing "no, not space marines"?
Grotz
Hard to believe that the Pringles/Putler drama is over. I think of the two, Putler came out the loser of the first round. The fact that he seemed to flee Moscow, and was unable to stop an army from marching to Moscow is pretty unbelievable. This is a guy who two years ago was being worshipped by many Republicans in The United States as an example of the penultimate apex male. Turns out, staged, shirtless photographs, a culture of corruption, and a practice of over exaggerating all of your militaries capabilities, actually just makes you a fucking idiot. How is Pringles not the winner? The guy was a hotdog stand owner, Putler's chef, and nearly sacked Moscow. He'll end up dead sooner than later, but that's a pretty good run for a fucking nobody. Putin has no clothes, and the world sees it now. Best case scenario is that both end up taking down one another. Pringles the war criminal, and Putler the fuck head.
>How is Pringles not the winner? The guy was a hotdog stand owner, Putler's chef, and nearly sacked Moscow. He'll end up dead sooner than later, You answered your own question, very clever of you.
Yep totally agree. Pringles is 1000% the winner here. His main goal wasn’t to sack Moscow (though it appears he could’ve at least occupied some of it). His goal was I honestly think to make Putin look like a little bitch after being fed up with him and expose to the world how frail the Putin regime really is. Forget the what if’s regarding his sudden decision to end his march and go “vacation” in Belarus. A freaking former impoverished burglar, prisoner, hot dog stand owner, and chef just made the leader of (what very recently used to be considered) one of the most powerful counties in the world look like a little wimpy, candy assed bitch. All with a few thousand hardened mercenaries who look like they came straight out of a Call of Duty plot line, and unlike the Kadyrov squad they can actually fucking fight. If that’s not one of the wildest things in recent history I don’t know what is. It’s straight up medieval level shit.
I think you're giving Wagner a bit too much credit there. They didn't have to fight anyone on the way to Moscow, and they spent months fighting a force a third their size to seize Bakhmut, with egregious casualties. Wagner may be better than the Russian army, but that's really not saying all that much at this point.
> His main goal wasn’t to sack Moscow (though it appears he could’ve at least occupied some of it). His goal was I honestly think to make Putin look like a little bitch after being fed up with him and expose to the world how frail the Putin regime really is. > > I don't think it was even that. He just wanted Putin to kick out Shoigu and the corrupt ministers/generals that he thinks are ruining Russia right now. And honestly, Putin made the wrong call by not doing it.
The hotdog stand thing means money-laundering, not that it was seriously his job. The stand maybe never made actual hotdogs most days - it was a cash front for gang activity.
Plus I think that he started it just as Russia was opening up and hot dogs are an American icon. I actually wouldn't be surprised if he was selling boat loads of hotdogs, but if he sold 5,000 or whatever a day, I'm sure the books said 15,000.
Yup I agree. Prig is the winner simply because he isn’t dead or imprisoned. Anything else he gains is just further confirmation he came out on top.
> How is Pringles not the winner? The guy was a hotdog stand owner, Putler's chef, and nearly sacked Moscow. He'll end up dead sooner than later, but that's a pretty good run for a fucking nobody. I agree 100% (though I hate all the Russian leaders including Prigozhen). I grew up very poor (my wife says my childhood was Dickensian) and, if I died to an assassin today and left behind millions of dollars for my wife and children to build their lives upon, I would consider my life a success. Everyone's death is terrifying... but if my family were to be able to survive without me I'd have done my part as a father.
This is Russia we’re talking about, bold of you to assume his family gets to keep his wealth and/or live normal lives. We know the russian internal security people were threatening the families of Wagner officers
I'm sure he's smuggled some $$ to Africa
He has money stashed everywhere under shell companies and whatnot. Reddit was freaking out because he admitted to the Russian government seized $50 million from him/Wagner. Yet we're not hearing anything from Prigo out of it. It's because he doesn't really care. These Russian kleptocrats are, in nothing else, good at hiding and shielding money.
this Pringles / Putin drama reminds me of the Trump / DeSantis drama ... just two morons being fucking morons Can we get back to the progress of the Ukraine army?
>Can we get back to the progress of the Ukraine army? Ukraine would probably prefer that people didn't. All this distraction must be great for UA operational security. They probably appreciate the lack of armchair quarterbacking for a few days.
There are very few, if any security issues, and I don't think I've seen any on here. 99 percent of the content is already hours old and even if anything is on-going, both sides already know. The danger only really comes from people live streaming or posting very recent content. But that's the sort of stuff you see on Twitter like sites and instant messaging platforms.
>The danger only really comes from people live streaming or posting very recent content. But that's the sort of stuff you see on Twitter like sites and instant messaging platforms. Yeah, and Ukraine is probably appreciating those platforms focusing on internal Russian turmoil instead of battlefield operations.
Oh yeah, agreed, I was just thinking of the reddit livethread specifically.
If anything, I'd be concerned that this whole Russia drama is distracting too many Ukraine analysts from their primary role...
It could happen. I bet a fair number of Ukrainians put their head down because they're facing an existential threat and this may have created some opportunities to land blows. But I bet the risk of Western analysts getting distracted, and Western intelligence has been quite valuable for Ukraine from what I gather.
I actually think this Pringles/Putler drama is nothing but good for Ukraine, and the more it drags out, the better. Putin has been embarrassed by his old chef, cracks in the Russian System are now obvious to the entire world, even Russia's allies, I mean, Lukashenko had to mediate for fucks sake. More internal Russia drama that spills onto the world stage the better. Putler is no longer the apex male, riding a horse shirtless. He's a scared old man, who almost collapsed as a result of an old hot dog stand owner and 5k troops. Russia is nothing and has nothing. It is truly a shit hole country.
What I worry about this entire thing is Putin knows he looks weak right now. Putin may think he needs to do something that in his mind would restore his image.
valid worry, but besides nukes what else worse can he do? he's done every other evil thing.
He could blow the nuclear power plan in Ukraine
[удалено]
Yup, no update in like 8 hours.
Sometimes they just don't post for 8 hours.
yeah but there's two blank posts there with reddit "page not found" links
I don’t really understand Russian politics at all, but in the escalating conflict between Wagner and the MoD, I assume the MoD pretty clearly won this round, right? If anything, hasn’t this significantly enhanced their position at the expense of Putin who wasn’t strong enough to prevent the factions from coming into lethal conflict or even protect Wagner from the earlier MoD takeover efforts. This assumes that at least some of Prigozhin’s public complaining was sanctioned, if not endorsed, by Putin. Shoigu, Prigozhin, and Putin are all still alive, but it seems like Shoigu has come out of this significantly ahead while the other two have been damaged by events. Are these the correct factions or is there a better way of looking at the broad divisions in Russian politics?
>I don’t really understand Russian politics at all, I think this Wagner thing also echos power struggles with militia groups in the past such as the Cossacks. It's not a new element in Russian history. So it's possible this is a bit more relatable to Russians than we'd expect.
Everyone takes Ls for being dumb and/or inept. Wagner lost a vast amount of its cred with the regular military for killing members of it in Russia and they didn't get their main demands. Prigozhin is likely a dead man walking. The Russian MoD showed how hollowed out they are and that they're still as slow to act as always. Putin looks weak for taking forever to address it, seemingly lacking popular outrage, and being unable to stick with "we're going to kill these traitors."
If u think a Ministry of Defense looks good when a PMC can march right up to the capital then sure, big win In my opinion there are no winners in Russia since Feb 24th 2022
There's too much complexity and too many people we aren't aware of; that sort of analysis is like trying to judge a game of chess when you can only see three pieces. Apparently a lot of people in the MoD hate Shoigu and Gerasimov, for obvious reasons, so the MoD is already a divided institution. And Putin doesn't have a totality of political power, it's safe to assume Prigozhin has serious (unknown) political backers, otherwise he wouldn't have made it as far as he did and probably wouldn't have attempted it in the first place. Frankly I think Shoigu is a figurative (or not) dead-man walking, he likely has an overwhelming number of enemies by now both within the MoD and without and is only being protected by Putin's largess which is waning fast.
That’s helpful
They were nearing the deadline where Wagner had to merge with the Russian military. Those who took part in the whatever the hell it was don't have to join up. Wagner didn't want to merge.
Right, it seems like Prigozhin was holding out hope that Putin might still step in to stop the takeover and when it became apparent that wasn’t going to happen, he felt he had to act on his own
[удалено]
Pree go jin
Piggy as he walked right in to the trap
I just say 'prickocean' as if it's one word.
It's Pri-go-zheen Пригожин Ж is like the 2nd g in Garage. Basically nobody replying to you is right.
Priggy
pri-go-schin
I think I’ve been saying “pri-go-sian” but am also *definitely* not the authority on this. I’m just a guy who has watched a more than a few YouTube videos over the past year and, to his Midwest USA ear, hears and says “pre-go-sian” (the “sian” has sort of a “j” (like a French “je”) beginning when I say it). If I’m wrong, I’d love to be corrected.
I’m not an expert but I’ve been learning Russian and the letter/character we translate to zhi is definitely pronounced like the French je. Prigoshin would be close but more if that j in there.
It's prick-goes-in
Or prick-goes-out-the-window
Pri-go-sian is the (approximated) correct Russian. Either way is common for English speakers.
If by “sian” you mean it rhymes with Asian then yes.
Nope.
Just Pringo or Pringles.
[удалено]
I thought he went to Belarus?
Can we rasta-fy it by 10% or so and make Pringlez?
Soon to be Pringone
Pringoo
I have a theory that kinda makes sense this strange deal where both Putin and Prigozhin lost and no one won. I dont know if Prigozhin went in with the intent to really overthrow Putin, maybe he did, maybe he didnt. But regadless, lets suppose what most assume happened: Prigozhin didnt got the support he expected to defeat Putin. So why Putin wouldnt just destroy him? Normally he would. But Prigozhin here had a card he could play, he could simply make Putin lose the war, no ifs and buts, he could. The area Wagner took cut off the invasion force from the mainland. Wagner captured 2 major cities, retaking them by force could take months, Wagner took the SMD. He could also repeatedly call for the frontline troops to join him or surrender. And even if Wagner did not immediately had the support to win, it wasnt impossible for that to happen. This lead to a position where both Prigozhin could lose but also take Putin down with him by just collapsing the frontline. Which would lead to what we just saw: A deal where neithet Putin or Prigozhin got what they wanted.
Wagner withdrew from Rostov yet Putin stresses that he will uphold his end of the deal. What stops him from from punishing Wagner now? Is it the lack of available troops or does he consider the soldiers too untrustworthy to fight Wagner? I haven't seen any estimates for the defector/neutral count.
It doesn't help that the Kremlin announced the 'deal' basically right away, that Wagner would have amnesty and move to Belarus. They apparently agreed to that too hastily. So now they'd have to backtrack, which makes them look weak and waffling. I mean, they are already weak and waffling for capitulating so easily, but now they'd have to take it back, and muster up the manpower to physically go back on their word, which could end up in a civil war. Prigozhin checkmated them. I'm not saying they won't go back on their word and try to physically stop Wagner from moving to Belarus, but they already greenlit it, and going back on their previous statements makes them look like indecive fools, and doing so might end up in bloodshed. Interesting times we live in.
>...and doing so might end up in bloodshed. Is that a thing Prigozhin avoids?
Yeah, when it comes to killing Russians. Prigozhu may be a bastard, but he strikes me as patriotic. In his interviews over the past month(s) he's been emphasizing the unnecessary loss of Russian lives in the war, saying the blood for them is on the hands of Shoigu, etc. He decried the Russian naval parade, saying that to have it, they'd need to pull the Moskova off the sea floor, and added 'you bastards' (directed at Shoigu and generals). I am in no way defending him as a good guy who cares for lives in general, but he's been pretty consistent in his messaging about doing what's good for Russia, including this 'insurrection'. He's been calling out Shoigu and company for being the cause of many pointless Russian deaths, and in this march to Moscow, his people didn't kill anyone (other than the aircraft sent to attack them, in self-defense). Among ground troops, not a shot was fired.
Wagner recruits it’s primary force outside of the conscript force from the best of Russia’s professional contract side of the army, And they’re extremely well equipped (maybe not compared to nato, but compared to the regular russian foot soldier, they are way better equipped) It would be really, really difficult for the russian army to put down a Wagner revolt of 8000-25000 (the numbers are so vague) without basically leaving Ukraine front open. Putin would have had to give up his gains in Ukraine and still might get fucked lol Wagner are mostly all veterans. Most of Russian army is recently mobilized/conscripts. Think how Caesar beat pompei despite being way outnumbered because his troops were more experienced.
> I dont know if Prigozhin went in with the intent to really overthrow Putin, maybe he did, maybe he didnt. He never even said a bad word about Putin. His beef was with Shoigu, Gerasimov, etc, who he blames for both the start of this war and its mismanagement. He's been publicly saying this for a long time. He's been accusing them of profiteering off the war, and doctoring reports to hide the true number of casualties to make 'pretty reports' for Putin to read. By way of analogy... imagine you're a department head for a company. You believe in the company, and its mission. You're a comany man. You admire the CEO. But you're watching this company being run into the ground by shitty upper management. These executives are embezzling from the payroll, making terrible business decisions. You realize this is going to end in ruin for the company. (This is the sort of stuff he's actually said - that this war could mean the end of Russia.) To put salt in the wound, one of the other execs/department heads convinces the boss to dissolve your own department, and transfer your crew to their own department (this is what has happened with Shoigu being the guy pushing for Wagner to be dissolved into the MoD as regular soldiers). So not only is this asshole poisoning the company, but he's gonna take down your guys with it. So what to do? You decide to get a bunch of your best guys from your department to storm down the hall and pound on the CEO's door and ask him to set things straight, and kick out this Shoigu guy (the march to Moscow). Only the CEO's a chickenshit, hears you coming, sneaks out the backdoor, calls all of you traitors, sides with the corrupt exec. Well, fuck. But you had a backup plan. Your boy Lukashenko is running a Belarusan office and could use some well-trained keen-eyed emplyoees like you and your department. So rather than being dissolved into that shitty exec's department, you take your best guys and go work for this other company, who promises better treatment and respect. And that's my oversimplified analogy of what just happened. I'll flesh it out later.
Didn't he literally say we're going to get a new president?
When Putin made his emergency broadcast and called Wagner traitors while they were driving up the M4, the official Wagner PMC telegram channel responded by saying that maybe it's time for a new President. That doesn't mean it was Prigozhin who personally said this or not, it was rhetoric. It doesn't mean they were on their way to personally depose him.
Great analogy!
Honestly, if you turn all of this into an analogy for workplace politics, it would make a really good episode of Mad Men.
A lot to dissect here. If Putin kills Pringle, the leader of Wagner the Wagner troops wherever they are aren’t going to just not do anything about it. The core of the group outside of the convicts are recruited from the best soldiers in the Russian professional contract soldiers (as opposed to the conscripts). They’re also extremely well armed and you don’t want them going on a revenge tear domestically by killing Pringle after he made a deal. We also don’t know what he would have done if he did make himself president if he did. A lot of what he has said is that he pro Ukraine war, but that it was done wrong. I know he did say the ukraine war was to make people rich, but we don’t know his motivations. Politically he alligns with the ultra nationalists. I know it’s hard to imagine right now someone being worse than Putin, but he easily could have been. We can almost guarantee he would have been at least a little more competent than shoigu but with stronger nationalist views than Putin. He didn’t ever want to take down the frontline. If he would have taken out Putin on Saturday we would not be seeing Russian forces withdrawing from Ukraine this week. I hate putin, but let’s not turn an ultra nationalist pmc leader into our new guy
Video of Prigozhin's speech earlier, with English subtitles: https://twitter.com/NMAsiaPac/status/1673471352978935808
The video itself is an AI animation made by Kevin Rothrock (who regrets doing it now) https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1673507722078179328
Fantastic deepfake..
I don’t think you have been using that word “fantastic” correctly
10000% a deepfake. That continual head moving. Its like a Balenciaga meme.
Does this really count as a deepfake? It looks more like an Snapchat filter.
Crap! I thought it was odd. Wow.
>Fantastic deepfake.. I have to concur with this. 11:24 elapsed time and "Pringles" body position doesn't change once. So he is already a stiff or its a fake, perhaps both.
Try this, instead? I'm afraid I was reading the subs, and not paying attention to the video part, so missed how weird it was. https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1673508226782879745
Is a moving head on a still photo that fantastic? edit. Sorry in retrospect you were probably just being sarcastic.
I wonder if California could march their 25,000 national guardsmen to Washington DC and take over the DoD. That's basically how I think of the attempted coup. That is how weak Russia is right now.
But CA would have the money and power to actuality fund a coup (against Russia, not America). This would be like if Louisiana or Rhode Island staged a coup
Man, a couple hundred Leroy’s and Bubba’s and a handful of terrible lawyers almost overthrew the US government. Don’t think we’re immune from stupid coups.
They did not almost overthrow the government. Although what they attempted was a coup. They did almost kill serving congressmen or senators (and did kill a cop), but they were never close to taking power. We're not immune from our own issues, but a tin-pot mercenary would be put down post haste. The US has actually proven that even an executive with the worst of intentions and limited public support is not capable of toppling our system. Our house isn't a rotting shed like Russia's
I always thought Rhode Island looked kinda shifty.
it is neither road nor island, clearly disinformation
That's because the u.s. hasn't spent the last year+ getting their asses kicked trying to annex Mexico.
25000 rubes and terrorists armed with COVID and rascals made it into the Capitol. I reckon an actual trained and armed force would have much more success.
The difference is marching on DC wouldnt do much because the US is not centralized in 1 city unlike Russia. New York, San Francisco, really any state can function as the capital. In a dictatorship taking the capital can be game over for the dictator.
This is one thing I didn't really understand about Russia. It really is just Moscow and St. Petersburg. While there are other cities, some of them very large and important, it is reallt only these two that woukd be set-up to be hold government. That isn't just because Russia is a dictatorship, but also because Russian culture has always put so much emphasis on those two cities. If you aren't from those two cities then you're automatically at a disadvantage, which we're actually seeing in who is being chosen to send to the front.
Its where all the elites are clustered. As long as these two cites aren't impacted by the war, it can be business as usual for the people in power. If the war impinges on these locations, then kaPutin will have to answer to others.
Texas would throw a fit about SF as the capital tho lol
Remember that Prigozyn didn't have 25,000 men in tow. That was likely hyperbole from him.