Said Yevgeny Prigozhin, quoted in "The day that changed Russia: mutiny falters but Wagner boss survives/Mercenaries march on Moscow, then turn back. Rebellion’s leader exiled to Belarus — but avoids charges" (London Times).
"Changed" — but how?
“I think that half the army is ready to join us,” he said in one of numerous videos and other postings on Telegram, a popular messaging site.... In one clip, Wagner fighters can be seen calmly ordering coffees from a café. Then, their faces partially masked, they walk across a road with their drinks in their hands in front of tanks parked up behind them....
Prigozhin has claimed to have 25,000 troops at his disposal, but western military experts said the real number appeared closer to just 2,500 or so.... The Kremlin’s attempts to crush the uprising would nevertheless have been complicated by the need to minimise casualties among the population and the very real chance that rank-and-file soldiers could refuse to follow orders, according to Tatiana Stanovaya, a prominent Russian political analyst....
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41 comments:
Putin has to either double down or negotiate his own exit as we now know how easy it was to mount a serious challenge to his power. I’m not counting on him to retire gracefully to spend more time with his family.
I really don't know what to make of any of this. I suspect the reality of going up against the Russian military made Prigozhin realize the ending was baked in. His only out would be what took place. And honestly, if Putin stays consistent, Prigozhin will sip a cocktail in a bar somewhere in Minsk, and within a day become very ill with a high dose of radiation that cannot be abated. He will be disappeared from this earth within 6 months.
Putin and Russia are a mess. The entire Ukrainian war is a meat-grinder of a mess. And we (the US) seem intent on keeping it going, like paying for another season of a show you like watching. It's all hideous. I see nothing right being done from any country involved in this. Nothing. Everyone is doing the wrong thing, and telling the world it's the right thing.
As the Wagner group was supposedly Russia's best land-based fighting force, it would appear that Russia will now lack the wherewithal to take and hold territory from Ukraine that it doesn't already possess. A good thing?
Probably replace the two defense leaders that the complaints were about, and a new leader in Belarus.
Can’t really believe anything the media (social or otherwise) says, but British newspapers and media have a good way of editorializing news to make it real, as if it’s at your doorstep. That’s the beauty of particularly British propaganda.
UK paper (Telegraph?) speculates that the Wagner Group’s road trip and Prigozhin’s wild talk were all scripted —or at least co-opted— by/with Putin. He needs an exit from his war, and by tacitly accepting Prigozhin’s attack on Shoigu and “the warmongering kleptocrats,” he might preserve some credibility while creating a (precarious) path to armistice if not peace.
But, hey: this is Russia. One possible narrative nests inside another inside yet another, like matryoshka dolls.
None of this makes sense. So obviously there is something deeper going on that does make sense, either that or Putin is just a cuck, or Prigo is simply mentally unhinged. Good thing none of this is our business.
My personal theory is that Prigo the mercenary got turned with a promise that the US would recognize him as the leader of Russia and help him solidify power, and this was a plan by our CIA to end the war in a couple of days on NATO's terms, that is, replacing Putin with a US stooge, and that once Prigo's men have been dealt with, he is going to discover the tender mercies of the FSB's interrogation techniques. Or, like people on Twitter have been saying, it was all a ploy to smoke out traitors, and to move Wagner to the Polish border without causing a major outcry.
I doubt it was a ploy, because the harm to the standing of the Russian Federation is real and extensive. Russia had been making great progress on the diplomatic front, not just with China and Africa, but with the Saudis as well. Everybody is going to have to recalculate before making huge bets of national prestige on a regime that may prove to be unstable. Though the fact that *nobody* appears to have joined in may mitigate that somewhat. IDK, time will tell. Putin does appear to have been strengthened domestically, and he managed to declare martial law, kind of like what the Democrats used J6 for, to strengthen his hold on power. The dream of a Russian coup is further away than ever, now.
Meanwhile, progress towards WW3 continues apace.
"Survives," but how long?
Wagner Group's attempt to overthrow Putin would have been complicated by the need to minimize casualties among their soldiers' family members.
Exit, stage left.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, nice to know ya, but don't accept tea from any strangers.
Certainly, the surface narrative makes perfect sense. Putin dropped some bombs on Wagner, presumably because he wanted to show them who was the boss. Prigozhin gets angry and marches on Rostov, then toward Moscow, to show Putin that he's not the boss. Neither side wants a civil war, so they do a deal.
Both sides are willing to take their chances on a deal. Putin figures he can kill Prigozhin eventually. Prigozhin figures Putin will be overthrown soon. After all, he's shown Putin to be weak (remember the panicky speech where he called them traitors), and he's yanked away an important chunk of Putin's fighting force in Ukraine.
Putin wants to сделать Россию снова великой,
Trump wants to Make America Great Again
Trump = Putin QED
pretty tight argument reasoning.
“Gentlemen. If you're going to take Vienna, take it.”
― Napoléon Bonaparte
"But, hey: this is Russia. One possible narrative nests inside another inside yet another, like matryoshka dolls."
The opening of each episode of the old BBC miniseries "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" was one doll after another being removed.
https://youtu.be/mNKKWe2FUww
One benefit of being a Le Carre fan is realizing how much deception and manipulation is (potentially) behind every global news story. The whole "Trump colludes with Russia" narrative could have been a Le Carre novel. Too bad he was a leftist, or I think he would have spoken on Trump's behalf.
Off topic, but wasn't Russia setting bounties on American soldiers in Afghanistan? I remember reading that in the Atlantic, and hearing that brought up in a debate.
Tim said:
>> My personal theory is that Prigo the mercenary got turned with a promise that the US would recognize him as the leader of Russia and help him solidify power, and this was a plan by our CIA to end the war in a couple of days <<
If this is true, that the US and its allies was backing Prigo, then they likely offered him an escape plan if things didn't go well. If so, we should expect Prigo to show up in Poland or Kiev very soon. Its a short trip.
Attention citizens:
Until further notice, debate is bad and only bad people want to debate.
That is all.
Owen: "But, hey: this is Russia. One possible narrative nests inside another inside yet another, like matryoshka dolls."
Indeed.
Thus it is amazing just how many commenters show up here to lecture all and sundry with absolute certitude.
This mindreading + All-knowing + All-seeing Sauron-like eye thing seems to be spreading from the Althouse lefties to non-lefty commenters as if it were a mass contagion.
The convicts, recruited as cannon fodder, for offensives are not that useful in this type of operation. But the real fighters in Wagner group are the former Russian army/police/security special unit vets. Those are the operators. And also those most likely to have contact in the regular forces. The kind of contact who could use this to effect quiet changes in their units and organizations in the face of an insurrection. Putin may not have been the target, but rather the army wanted to clear out bad officers and politicals. Making this a subordinate coup.
Or Putin is short for this world and one of the 130 or so who control Russia just moved his people for the coming leadership fight.
Prigozhin accepts safe exile in Belarus...
There's a nominally public agreement. Between a crime gang capo with an army, and...another crime gang capo, with a bigger army. Who has a well-known habit of killing his adversaries.
I wanna see the side-letters to that "agreement".
(The whole thing is so bizarre that I'm inclined to believe the wild theory that Putin and Prigozhin cooked it up together.)
“Putin and Russia are a mess. The entire Ukrainian war is a meat-grinder of a mess. And we (the US) seem intent on keeping it going, like paying for another season of a show you like watching. It's all hideous. I see nothing right being done from any country involved in this. Nothing. Everyone is doing the wrong thing, and telling the world it's the right thing.”
Exactly. Generally I eschew the lofty “everybody’s wrong” stance but it’s unavoidable here. Truly a Game of Morons.
And the assumption that Russia can somehow be neutralized or turned into a U.S./Euro lapdog is absolutely ridiculous. Putin or no, Russia’s interests will always be at odds with the non-Slavic West. And Russia will always weather temporary disaster.
Somewhere, Saddam Hussein is laughing his ass off.
Tim in Vermont has it right.
Tim: "My personal theory is that Prigo the mercenary got turned with a promise that the US would recognize him as the leader of Russia and help him solidify power, and this was a plan by our CIA to end the war in a couple of days"
Gerda Sprinchorn: "If this is true, that the US and its allies was backing Prigo, then they likely offered him an escape plan if things didn't go well. If so, we should expect Prigo to show up in Poland or Kiev very soon. Its a short trip."
Are you sure about that?
It might be instructive to review the case of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem...along with thousands of our other "allies" that the US "Best and the Brightest"/neo-cons have happily abandoned over the decades.
Bob Boyd said...
"Wagner Group's attempt to overthrow Putin would have been complicated by the need to minimize casualties among their soldiers' family members."
Exact thought I had. The most effective tyrants play dirty.
"When you strike at a king, you must kill him." -Emerson, famously cribbing from Machiavelli.
On the other hand, a prince who fails to enact revenge and is incapable of crushing those who attempt to oppose him, or is unwilling to do so, only invites more challenges.
Neither side looking good. But that isn't news.
"Changed" because the Tsar has been seen as weak, he declared them all traitors and has now pardoned them. That is weakness. How this will end is unknown. It isn't completely over yet, the players are on the board still and only shifting position.
Does this mean that we can ask Ukraine to return the cash and weaponry that they don't need anymore?
Just asking.
1. The CIA has successfully orchestrated an intentionally fraudulent coup by co-opting a mercenary warlord in the middle of a bloody war in Slavic Europe that will lead to a Russian dictator's downfall.
2. The CIA can't tie their own fucking shoes.
Some people are capable of holding both of these opinions at the same time.
I don't see the Wagner Group fighters quietly signing-up to be in the Russian military in July after they just marched on Moscow because the Russian military was so messed up and they were being required to join it in June. And I don't see the Russians winning in the Ukraine without Wagner. This could be sort of solved by replacing the top Russian military leadership. There's a change.
But that wouldn't be a real solution unless you think that the top military leadership is quite different to the next tier of generals. I think they're the same all the way down. So there's no change possible.
But there must be a change.
The Wagner march on Moscow showed strong support for Prigozhin. Can you imagine trying to shape young men ready to cheer Prigozhin into an army that can and will fight the Ukrainians? You can put very poor fighters into trenches where they can hold out against stronger, better fighters, and you can put men behind these anti-war soldiers who will shoot them if they leave the trenches. In that sense, Putin can continue the war with pissed-off young men who don't want to be cannon fodder. But now Russians see the war isn't supported by other Russians. That's a real change. You need a dependable group of mercenaries to keep a war going when the people don't want to fight and there is no such a group in Russia any more.
Tune in again next week for more exciting Adventures of the Kremlin. Next week: Which P gets the poison?
Are we sure this is for real and not a story line for a Tom Clancy novel?
What a bizarre time we are living in.
It is quite interesting to read all these speculations. Without knowing much more than anyone else, but carefully following Prigogine over the past year, I would argue that the simplest explanation is the mostly likely: He has a severe case of PTSD, due to arranging for about 10,000 of his "brethren-thieves" to be killed (Based on his statements he seems to be genuinely suffering about 50,000+ K Ukrainian's his troops killed as well, as he would rather have them on his side fighting NATO, but he does not seem to feel personally responsible for them, that is, he blames Zelenski). So, he simply flipped, which is why he will likely be forgiven, once and if they clear him of any foreign involvement. Interestingly, the breaking point was that his troops by accident shot down a non-threatening plane (IL-22) with ten people on board. That, he could not justify to himself.
Exile is pretty standard in Russia as a punishment. One of the most successful rulers and Empresses, Elizabeth, abandoned capital punishment altogether, and Putin is actually following her example. It is considered a particular strength from Russian perspective. Also, making a mess so near Moscow was too risky, and they were mostly trying to slow PMCs down without ever activating the full-army-guard-units that are based there. Peter the Great provided different examples (multiple), but he was never really forgiven for it, and Putin, despite often comparing himself to him, is aware of that.
Those claiming otherwise are probably viewing it through the lense of the American justice system. Where Clinton had to prove his manhood by ordering a person to be executed...
Owen: "But, hey: this is Russia. One possible narrative nests inside another inside yet another, like matryoshka dolls."
Remember the scene from the Godfather where Vito makes the peace with the Tataglias? Hpw'd that work out for the Tataglias? And Barzini?
What if this was all just a ploy to smoke out Putin"s deep cover opponents? Fake a coup and see who cheers for or against it. Remember all the big shots in Moscow who fell out of windows lately?
Putin is KGB. He doesn't care how many peasants he has to sacrifice to secure his grip on power. The first rule when dealing with intel is to believe nothing and suspect everyone.
here's One Thing; that we can Know, for SURE..
Everything that we read in the media is fabricated lies.
This doesn't mean that reality isn't that far from what the lies say,
it just means that Everything that we read in the media is fabricated lies.
It does not make sense. If you are going to march on the capital, that's high treason. The only options at that point are to see it to the end or to flee. There's no going back. The best case scenario for a "deal" is that they will wait six months to quietly have you poisoned or accidentally fall out of a window.
The conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day with this, and probably one of the conspiracy theories is going to be correct.
So what happens to the Wagner mercenaries in Ukraine? Do they keep fighting? Go home? Reportedly Putin’s guys confiscated $37 million in cash they were to be paid with so now what?
Seems so long ago Putin was on his deathbed.
It's not complicated. Putin put out a hit on Prigozhin but failed.
Prigozhin, having nothing to lose, went first to the Ukraine theater HQ and then on toward Moscow. He had no plan other than revenge. Again, nothing to lose. Might as well fight. His homies are loyal.
Both Prigozhin and Putin are gangsters. Putin has the bigger gang but more to lose in a fight. So, they negotiated.
It's business.
Wouldn't the simplest explanation be that the reason Prigozhin started marching towards Moscow was that somebody paid him to, and that the reason he turned aside was that somebody paid him to?
After all, isn't the reason that Prigozhin was attacking Ukraine in the first place that someone paid him to?
It's my understanding that this is how mercenaries work.
(Though, to be fair, to this point in my career I have not had the opportunity to hire mercenaries, so maybe there is something I am missing).
And suddenly I think of the money that supposedly we realized we still "owed" Ukraine due to an "accounting error," and wonder what we almost got for our 6 billion dollars (and who put up >6 billion dollars....)
The video of young women cheering for the Wagner mercenaries is being interpreted as showing the Putin has lost the populace. But it seems to me that if people in eastern Ukraine are cheering for the Wagner mercenaries, who up until two days ago were fighting the Ukraine army, then the populace can't be very keen on having the Ukraine army take back that territory. And that is going to be a significant problem even if (and I think it's doubtful) the Ukraine "counter-offensive" every goes anywhere: all the areas occupied by Russia / Wagner have probably been effectively "ethnically cleansed." How are we going to put the toothpaste back into that tube? Push all the ethnic Russians out of the Donbass and do our own "ethnic cleansing"?
"Putin is short for this world...."
Well... Putin is short, period. But I notice he's still around. Given his antagonist's free pass to Belarus (Victoria Nuland's ancestral homeland, BTW) and apparent golden parachute, negotiated with lightning speed on well-greased rails, I would say that Putin has probably utilized these events to identify those within his military that are bearing... shall we say, wavering loyalties? It's always good to know if the words will be backed by deeds - or not. Regular house-cleanings keep the palace safe & secure, if you know what I mean.
As for the retirement plan, I wouldn't start any long books, Yevgeny, unless they're about Loose Ends.
"Wouldn't the simplest explanation be that the reason Prigozhin started marching towards Moscow was that somebody paid him to, and that the reason he turned aside was that somebody paid him to? After all, isn't the reason that Prigozhin was attacking Ukraine in the first place that someone paid him to? It's my understanding that this is how mercenaries work."
Yes, true, that would be even simpler explanation -- but it has to pass "does it fit known facts?", "does it make loose with definitions?", and similar tests. Aside from using "mercenaries" for Wagner in Ukraine (not Africa), in the same way that Soviets used to call our soldiers mercenaries (i.e., not conscripts), it requires a lot of unsupported assumptions about mysterious hands paying off a large number of Russian generals around Moscow. Otherwise, do you see Xenophon or John Hawkwood doing something that would make their deaths and deaths of their families this certain? But I am sure in a month NYT will have a source claiming exactly this, including names of generals that were bribed but chickened out... Germans did this with Stalin, of course, who anyway itched to start purging.
Interestingly, patriotic, but less bloodthirsty, Ukrainian blogs are actually stating that they wish any of their generals would care for their troops as much as Prigogine (-zhine) cared for his.
Prof. M. Drout (7:27pm):
The "young women cheering for the Wagner mercenaries" were NOT in Eastern Ukraine, they were in Rostov-on-Don, which is in Russia, and is the headquarters and supply hub for the Russian campaign against Ukraine. Their cheering Wagner provides no evidence whatsoever about what ethnic Russians in Donbas think. They are Russians who want the Russian army to kill Ukrainians more efficiently, and were cheering the man they think can do it.
Ethnic Russians in the Donbas are mostly deeply disappointed with their Russian allies, who don't check ethnic IDs before raping and robbing the locals. The fact that Putin suddenly declared that the 'armies' of the two pseudo-republics were part of the Russian army a few months ago, and had his generals take control of them, showed just how 'independent' they are. Most of the actual volunteers are dead, and Russia's now drafting replacements as cannon fodder.
Mica (5:33am):
Can you link to some of these "patriotic, but less bloodthirsty, Ukrainian blogs" that say Prigozhin cares more about his troops than Ukrainian generals do?
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