२४ जून, २०२३

"However much Prigozhin may have previously declared that this was not a coup but a 'march for justice,' when a commander starts talking about imposing his own will on the government..."

"... and 'taking down everyone you send against us,' then that’s a coup.... It is striking that it is Prigozhin who is raising the banner of rebellion.... Before he was a restaurateur and then a businessman, Prigozhin was a petty gangster and spent nine years in Soviet prisons. He spent his twenties in labour camps, being inculcated with the remorseless macho code of the vorovskoi mir, the 'thieves’ world.' Its basic precepts — that you look after your own, never forget a slight, and never back down — appear still to drive him...."

Writes Mark Galeotti, author of "Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine," in "Is this the end for Putin? When history records the downfall of the Russian president, it will say the endgame started here..." (London Times).
The obstacles to success are formidable. This is a regime designed to be coup-proof, as multiple security agencies monitor and counter each other.... 
Many in the security forces also sympathise with [Prigozhin] and agree with his criticisms of the conduct of the war — indeed, of late he has been one of the more honest and accurate commentators from the front line. The three pillars on which Putin’s regime rest are his personal legitimacy, his control of the security apparatus, and his capacity to throw money at intractable problems. The money is dwindling, his already-decaying legitimacy is going to take a further hit, and the unity and loyalty of the security apparatus is clearly now open to question....

१९ टिप्पण्या:

Michael म्हणाले...

Well at least this isn’t as bad a Jan 6.

Gusty Winds म्हणाले...

I wouldn't want to live under Putin. But at our current point in American history, I can't see much of a difference. Except for the transgender push in America.

What I don't get, I why is an unstable, nuclear armed Russia, good for the world?

Big Mike म्हणाले...

There’s a report that Putin’s personal aircraft has flown away from Moscow and landed in St. Petersburg. Looks like it’s game on.

Tom T. म्हणाले...

Supposedly Kadyrov's army is on his way to Moscow to intervene, I guess on Putin's behalf. Quite an irony if a Chechen were to end up running Russia.

William म्हणाले...

I don't know how it will turn out, but my prediction is that it will turn out bad for Russsia. Putin has established a form of government where only someone worse than he can succeed him.

Narayanan म्हणाले...

that you look after your own, never forget a slight, and never back down
============
what is so thief's code about it?

unless to prove in Russia honorable men are thief?

in USA they were southern gentlemen?! and also yankees?

definitely does not describe GOPe on each of the three.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent म्हणाले...

Russia is at the same awkward historical crossroad that it was at over a hundred years ago. You may not like what you have now but, unless you can improbably finesse a liberal democratic society, you’re really not going to like what comes next.
And no amount of Bidenesque Western “nation-building” grifting is going to prevent that.

J Melcher म्हणाले...

This whole "Wagner" thing is almost as bad for Russia as the Jan 6 insurrection was for America.

wildswan म्हणाले...

It took Prigozin 9 months to get from one side of Bakhmut to the other, a distance of 10 or 20 kilometers; it took him 48 hours to get from Rostov-on-the-Don to Voronezv, a distance of 561 kilometers. He isn't facing the kind of opposition from Russians that he got from Ukrainians. And he's now closer to Moscow than to Kiev: Voronezh to Moscow 521 Kilometers; Moscow to Kiev 755 kilometers.
It's my opinion that everybody in Russia began to understand that Ukraine could not be defeated without a general mobilization. And that narrows down to one simple fact; the privileged must serve in the Ukraine or the war must stop. Now a coup is underway. Will it succeed? If it doesn't, the privileged will have to serve in the Ukraine. I don't think they will.

Demographic facts showing that the Privileged must serve or the war must stop.
Russia had already mobilized in its distant, semi-colonial states and it had enrolled from the prisons. These had all been shot down as the Russians, in their usual way, used soldiers as cannon fodder especially in Bakhmut. But in the old days of the Czars and the Soviets Russia had more and younger manpower. After the fall of the Soviet Union ,the Russian birthrate dropped continuously and very substantially. As a result, Russia, which used to have 1.2 million young men reaching 18 every year, now has 675,000 men reaching 18 per year. The Russian Army should have 1.2 million soldiers. And, like most armies, it is mainly composed of 18- and 19-year-olds. But now just to maintain its strength, it would have to conscript almost all the 18-year-olds and almost all the 19-year-olds. After all, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of young Russian men left the country as soon as The invasion of the Ukraine began and others have been leaving ever since. So Russia would have to conscript even the privileged and to conscript them in the face of the fact that all Russia believes that the generals have no regard for the soldiers' lives and all Russian knows that the general mobilization would be to collect soldiers to be sent to Ukraine. The demographic facts mean that the privileged must serve in the Army on the front lines against the Ukrainians. Not going to happen.

gadfly म्हणाले...

Prigozhin is as crazy as Donald Trump when TFG sent his army of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys to conduct the January 6 putsch.

Wagner mercenaries marched from Ukraine to Rostov-on-Roy inside Putinland to assume command of the headquarters of Russia's forces conducting the Ukraine invasion. But without Russian-supplied armor, aircraft, artillery, wages, food, medical care, and firepower, the only outcome can only be ugly death by large explosions. Trench warfare is out of the question.

Why not an immediate surrender of the mercenaries to Ukraine instead?

Jaq म्हणाले...

It looks like it was a fizzled out coup attempt that was supposed to be timed to coincide with "battlefield success" of the Ukrainians, which would possibly have given it more traction, if the Ukrainians had managed any success. Prigo claimed that the Ukrainians were tearing through Russian lines. Instead Kiev is using the weapons we keep sending to send more of their youth to the slaughter to little to no effect.

Judging by the stuff Prigo said, parroting the Kiev party line on the war, he was planning to settle the war with NATO on favorable terms to NATO in one fell swoop, and install himself as dictator, or something. Except he had zero support, nobody joined him. Reports that his meetings with senior Russian military officials proved that he had significant parts of the military on his side turned out to be either wishful thinking, or more plausibly, plain old lies. They were negotiating with him, to avoid a bloodbath, and he folded his hand. One Apache helicopter could have taken out a whole convoy, yet the Russians didn't use their attack helicopters to do this. Why not? Because it wasn't a civil war.

It's amazing to me how people fall for these lies, time and again.

We should have taken the peace deal that Putin and Zelensky signed last March as good enough. People in Crimea don't want to be "Ukrainians" have not resisted the Russians who came in and took over without firing a shot, and the people in Donbas have been fighting against the idea for 9 years. Let's take them at their word already. Settle the dispute, it's not worth WW3 to make sure that Kiev can rule over all of the territories that fell into its lap at the fall of the Soviet Union, territories that were never actually "Ukrainian" and whose people clearly don't want to be ruled over by them, to have their language stamped out and their culture destroyed by the indoctrination of their children.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe म्हणाले...

Oh, it's over.

Put not your trust in criminals.

Lawcruiter म्हणाले...

Amen, Tim.

Mr Wibble म्हणाले...

I don't think that this was some sooper-sekret triple-cross or psyop or anything like that.

Bakhmut chewed up Wagner, and demonstrated to Prig that the MOD was a clown-show. So, he's been trying to extract Wagner from the Ukraine mess so that he can go back to contracts in Africa and the Middle East; less danger, better pay. The MOD doesn't want that, because Wagner is very well equipped and has a lot of combat experience. Someone got the bright idea that the simplest solution would be to arrest Prig and bring Wagner into the Russian military. Prig found out about this, and decided to gamble on fighting. Luckily, he bet correctly, as the Russians weren't prepared to deal with Wagner. Belarus stepped in with an offer that allowed all sides to save some face. Wagner gets a safe job which keeps them in Eastern Europe and a potential threat to Ukraine, MOD gets to recruit some of Wagner's personnel, and Prig gets a shake-up of the MOD. Putin gets to not have TVs around the world showing video of Moscow under occupation by mercenary troops, or his supply lines into southern Ukraine cut off.

Narr म्हणाले...

Over?

It's only now beginning.

Drago म्हणाले...

The Hopeless gadfly: "Why not an immediate surrender of the mercenaries to Ukraine instead?"

Because the world is not completely populated with "adults" who possess the critical reasoning skills of 6 year olds...like gadfly.

But one has to admit, the number of gadfly's are certainly increasing as a percentage of the total population.

Kevin म्हणाले...

Over?

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

Rusty म्हणाले...

gadfly said... @ 1:04
You and Inga should date.

mikee म्हणाले...

" Its basic precepts — that you look after your own, never forget a slight, and never back down" is bullshit on stilts.

Criminal precepts are to trust nobody, victimize the weak, and avoid the strong. If you get that straight, the behavior of this thug turned general makes a lot more sense.