This is just armored vehicles rolling down a road. No context, no way to validate timestamp, no nothing. Even if it was precautionary stationing of troops, as done when the National Guard is activated, it doesn't mean the country is undergoing a revolution. Sorry.
Of course - it is unfolding right now. We'll get a better picture later, but for now I'm posting what I can get (along with sources so everyone can follow up/make their mind).
Yeah, but its 1,000 freeway km, with no substantial existing prepared defenses short of the forces deployed in Moscow as part of the emergency plan that’s been activated, not 1,000 km defended like Bakhmut where every meter takes an eternity and extracts a high price. Its maybe a day or so away, which gives no meaningful time for mobilization and defensive deployments that would slow down ang advance.
Prigozhin may have bit off more than he can chew unless there are immediate mass defections to his side (or at least mass refusals to engage against Wagner), but there’s unlikely to be anything meaningful stopping him from reaching Moscow with whatever forces he decides to send.
"The leftovers of Wagners on the outskirts of Bakhmut opened fire on the regular roads of the Russian Federation.
Our assault brigades see everything, systematic strikes are now being carried out on the positions of the Russians.
You would hear the radio broadcast of these ** now.
The impression is that part of the Russian regular troops are killing their own, and it seems that part of the military is supporting Prigozhin. While it is not clear what is finally happening, it is a bloodbath"
Wagner's command is competent. The recent border incursions show Russia is lightly fortified, possibly Moscow, too. The wild card would appear to be the FSB. Do they tend ultranationalist? Or will they be loyal to Shoigu?
At some point the risk of dying between action and inaction becomes similar enough that the value of winning is worth it. Someone who has little to lose is more easily driven to action.
I really don’t know much about the FSB. How many forces do they have? How much equipment? We have seen that they’re capable of carrying out extraterritorial assassinations and have kept Putin in power for decades by infiltrating and breaking up and political opposition. This is a different story: a full-scale military coup by a private army.
But it remains to be seen whether or not Prigozhin would try to topple Putin or merely the army leadership in order to put himself in command of the war. The video statement I saw him make [1] would suggest he’s intending to gain control of Putin but keep him as a figurehead.
You know the guy has been pushing for war economy, closed borders, full mobilization and total war? Stabilizing my ass — if he ever takes power, it's likely to become even worse for everyone involved.
> the guy has been pushing for war economy, closed borders, full mobilization and total war
He's also saying the war was a mistake.
Prigozhin's base is ultranationalist–that's what's propelling him now. If he succeeds in taking the reins of the state, his base and thus incentives shift. The new rhetoric may reflect him realizing he's closer to that than anyone realized.
Wagner PMC has responded to the pleas of RU generals for them to not to listen to Prigozhin:
> Все генералы, которые с трясущимися руками обращаются к музыкантам с призывами остановиться уже фактически подписали себе приговор. Трибунал обязательно будет. Суровикин еще ответит за сдачу Херсона.
> (Google Translate) All the generals who, with trembling hands, appeal to the musicians to stop, have actually signed their own sentence. There will be a tribunal. Surovikin will still answer for the surrender of Kherson.
Who knows, too soon. But Prigozhin did seemingly lose to Shoigu earlier when Putin agreed to have all the "external" soldiers to be under the ShoiguúMoD command.
So this may very well be the final fight between the two.
It could be a psyop, but it's far from absurd. Tensions between Yevgeny Prigozhin and Putin have been high. Most notable were the public threats from Wagner to pull out of Bakhmut due to lack of supplies. If anyone has the potential to seize power away from Putin, it's Prigozhin.
Prigozhin has an army, one which is vital to Putin's war effort. Do you really think Prigozhin wouldn't turn on Putin given the opportunity?
true: but looking at whats being posted on telegram and twitter, it looks like the russian security services (which probably weren't affected by the russian army recruitment draft) still have a lot of people (and brand new shiny jeeps and afvs, despite the shortage of new vehicles in ukraine for them).
It's easy to call something a psyop, but have you got a specific reason why this would be done? It's not like that would confuse their enemy in any way, same areas need reclaiming anyway, same troops can be observed. "There's internal conflict" has been known for a while and unless there's practical impact, it doesn't seem to affect what Ukraine needs to do.
Because announcing a coup in advance is stupendously idiotic?
Ina traditional coup on MONDAY at 3 am soldiers roll into the TV stations and various government buildings. They announcing a change of government and people turn up to work Monday morning.
On Friday evening?! They must be copying the failed Turkey coup that had to move forwards because they were uncovered.
> a traditional coup on MONDAY at 3 am soldiers roll into the TV stations and various government buildings
This is a military coup. The army is in Zaporizhia. Moscow is defended by the FSB and national guard. Prigozhin needs to rally disgruntled forces to his side to enable him to move his troops. Quietly maneuvering would hand the narrative to the regime.
Nobody said Moscow is undefended. Just less able to defend itself than usual. Much of the Russian Western military district is deployed towards Ukraine. Sensibly, Putin’s most loyal should have been held back. But the war is going terribly. If his loyalists were forward deployed, that changes the calculus.
UK MoD estimated earlier in the year that 97% of the Russian Army was deployed to Ukraine.
The 1st Guards Tank Army, which includes the elite units traditionally tasked with Moscow's defense, the 2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division and the 4th Guards Tank Division has been heavily committed in Ukraine for most of the war.
There is a defensive plan activated and deployment of forces in Moscow, sure, but Wagner has a lot of troops and combat experience, and what Russia has kept available at home mostly aren’t regular army troops, but Nationa Guard troops mainly used for intimidating civilians.
> Because announcing a coup in advance is stupendously idiotic?
There are different kinds of blows directed at leadership that work primarily by surprise seizure or elimonation of key personnel and/or facilities, perhaps the most traditional “military coup”.
There are mass mutinies by military formations, which are essentially armed direct-action protests by troops, often under their established leadership. A sizable formation declaring them and calling on others to join is not at all unheard of. Functionally, they can succeed as a form of coup or half-coup (replacing the top leadership or forcing concessions) while retaining the basic state infrastructure, or end up as a key part of a more complete revolution (or, obviously, just fail). They are a very real historical thing.
It does look that way. Where would the "Wagner" group get new weapons supplies for a successful coup? The CIA?
I've heard multiple times that the "Wagner" group has actually been set up by the FSB and that this Prigozhin character is just a front man. Which makes sense, because how would a single individual set up such a large military organization?
It is possible that the troops have become loyal to him. They'd still have to fight the entire Russian, Chechen, Belarus, ... armies.
Why the psyop? Last time that guy made compromising videos was shortly before the fall of Bakhmut as a distraction. For all we know he is still FSB.
It makes perfect sense if you’ve been following the Russian factional infighting, and a lot more sense than it being a psyop does. Whose psyop? To what end?
I expected it to be better planned and coordinated. This sounds to me like a vanilla power struggle. “Sign here”, “fuck off”, “sign or die”, “try it”
This can all be settled with a phone call.
“What do you want?”
“Respect, autonomy, support”
“Done”
“Turning around now”
I was thinking “oh great opportunity for Ukraine to push forward”, then “oh, if it’s fake and Ukraine pushes forward and over-extends it’ll go badly for them”
But if you and I can figure that out in five minutes from around the world it’s unlikely that battle-hardened war leaders will fall for a trap.
Sounds better than sabblerattling with nuclear warheads.
Ukraine is still receiving weapons. Agaisnt all odds, the west has recognized they had better at least keep the war in Ukraine, not allow Russia to extend their frontiers.
The terrorist regime in russia is collapsing. Ideally, the terrorist state of russia will be completely formatted, with all those loyal to putin arrested or killed.
This is the best prospect for peace on this planet. Are you not happy about this?
Why would they want to? If this does escalate enough, it would make more sense for them to redouble the efforts for their offensive - they still have plenty of reserves that haven't entered the fray yet.
And then, if the plan to cut off Crimea succeeds, they could try to negotiate with Russia - on much stronger terms.
I don't know, when the board changes you look for openings. On the military side, I would use the distraction to extract battlefield gains. On the diplomatic side, maybe Putin is willing to give up more, now, than he (or his successor) will later.
And Ukraine has the convenient position of just telling Wagner forces something along the lines of "you're a bunch of war criminals, but anyone observed retreating into Russia isn't going to be pursued" if they want to let the infighting do the maximum amount of damage.
Ukraine struggles with ideas what to do with unloyal population on ukranian occupied territories. Main ideas are "we just mass deport locals to Russia" (FTR that's a genocide and not because of destination) and "we just forbid russian propaganda there and everyone would magically start love us and accept ukrainization".
And you are talking about russian territories that combined have size of half of Ukraine and which population is extremely unloyal to ukranian government.
If you are talking about what to do with unloyal locals in Donetsk and Luhansk, I took it from ukranian propaganda, not russian.
Russian government and it's mass-media has no trust in any questions (especially in Ukraine-related), no sane person trusts them, even ultra-Z-pro-war-vatniks (if we can call them sane).
Many of my close friends are from the temporarily occupied territories. They speak russian, but they hate russia.
They all fucking hate russia.
For your claim to be so wildly inaccurate shows you haven't even a shred of credibility. And to accuse the Ukrainian government of genocide is disgusting.
Nobody knows you. Whatever you want to argue, you're going to have to rely on references and coherence, because nobody cares about being shamed by anonymous commenter #1,234,567,890.
I didn't say that they love Russia. Heck, even many russians hate Russia the way it is now.
What I am saying is that even reintegration of population of occupied territories is not an easy task. That's why in ukranian public space there's no easy plan of doing this because they know would be a hard work (mass deporations wouldn't be accepted by EU and US for reason I stated and "we just turn off russian propaganda" is necessary but not sufficient by itself).
And you are talking about integration of 13+ mil population of your direct enemy that is even harder work. What for?
All of these regions except Belgorod cannot fully supply own budgets and they recieve dotations from federal budget (even Belgorod barely does this and tearing established economic connections with other russian regions would severe it's ecomonic abilities). So it's not an economic reason like "we would tax them to get money".
Next what about integration in ukranian society. Ukraine nation was indeed forged in this war, but russians never were part of it (ukranian society). So this means that Ukraine would have to federalise (which it clearly avoided) or it will try to ukrainise russian population (that would create additional tensions). So for the point of internal politics this would only bring additional problems too.
Now maybe this will help in internations politics somehow? Ukraine is clearly directing itself towards eurointegration. One of the reasons why EU was uncertain about Ukraine joining it was size of the country. Now after ukranian martyrship that's unlikely to be an issue but it definitely would be if Ukraine somehow gets 50% bigger. At least it won't help with direction towards EU.
I don't know ukranian politics wery well and I don't see any viable reasons for Ukraine to join these russian regions.
But maybe you being more familiar with what happens inside Ukraine can enlighten me because I may be missing something or see some aspects in wrong light.
Wagner leader Prigozhin is gambling and betting everything on red (or black?).
The problem for the Russian government is that many ordinary pro-war Russians see Prigozhin as a hero. If they kill him, he'll become a martyr.
For all I care both sides are war criminals and should answer for their atrocities in Ukraine. If they can kill each other without also killing civilians, don't think we should stand in their way too much.
Prigozhin seems to be playing this savvily. Extremely savvily. He isn't directly threatening Putin. There is a face-saving change in which Shoigu et al are executed and Prigozhin and Putin split their cookies. Putin can frame it as discovering they lied to him, and possibly even re-set expectations for the war in Ukraine.
What if the whole thing is about Putin setting up some lower level fall guys for a loss in Ukraine? Prigozhin maybe? Provoke him into doing something crazy, take him out, then claim he is responsible for failure on the front or even that he's a traitor and was working with Ukraine or something.
Totally an armchair opinion, but I think Prigozhin is a toast and he knows it. He cannot fight (troops hated, plus ranks decimated in Bakhmut) and cannot hide (no one will take him). He may be just trying to go down with a bang. My 2c.
Wagner are actualy the coup masters, that was like their main job.
Wagner's bread and butter before the war was getting control of small countries and especially gold and diamond mines and other valuable resources in Africa.
Maybe Prygozhyn reckons russia is about as weak as one of those countries now and he can take it. He has some popular support. Sure russia has the nukes, but they cant use them to stop a coup, are they gonna nuke themselves?
Wagner definitely can fight and I think this is a real danger for Putin. The invasion did not go well and he's vulnerable to more hawkish members of the military who wish to escalate the war.
It's not guaranteed that units will agree to deploy against other Russians. Not guaranteed that if they deploy they will fight. Not guaranteed that if they fight they will win.
Wagner has crossed the Rubicon and now it's do or die for them. They'll fight hard and are probably the most capable individual fighting force in Russia right now. Biggest challenge they face is air strikes. But if they brought SAMs with them or the air force won't bomb things will get dicey quickly.
> Wagner has crossed the Rubicon
Prigozhin did, and maybe a few of his top lieutenants, but Wagner is not a uniform structure. Wagner is a mix of:
A) Older, experienced soldiers of fortune types. They did tours in Africa and other places and know how to fight. They are not too numerous and they have absolutely no interest in politics, fairness and especially any conflict with regular Russian forces. They are doing the job, they want to get paid, but instead of the paycheck the latest adventure is likely to stamp them with "treason".
B) New cannon fodder, hired from poor regions for decent (for their area) money after the invasion. They are not experienced fighters and they suffered greatly in Bakhmut. This is not your coup makers. Putin tells them to come home, they will.
C) Prison rabble, taken from prisons often with 10+ year of their sentence remaining. Their contract is that if they survive a 6-month tour they get remaining sentence voided. There are a lot of them. Getting killed in Bakhmut was a part of the contract. But this march gives them nothing. Instead of walking free they will likely end up back in prison, with new scars. If Russian army offers to honor the original contract (freedom for a 6-month tour), they will just as happily fight for it.
I do not think there is any desire at Wagner to fight the Russian army. In fact this may be a theater, designed in Kremlin to tighten the screws at home and as a side benefit to snuff out Prigozhin who seems to be getting unhinged lately. But we shall see...
I think you are underestimating the potential of a shared trauma experience in Bakhmut and a new motivating factor of "revenge". Whether it's enough is uncertain, but it has to factor.
I'll say this, the guy is bold as hell. He's an absolute maniac and probably worse than Putin but he sure isn't afraid of anything. One can only hope he wrecks enough chaos make the war in Ukraine untenable.
I'll also say this, Putin played his hand as poorly as humanly possible. He spent decades stockpiling loyalty and political capital with an iron fist and spent it all in less two years and has absolutely nothing to show for it. I think it's time to admit that beneath his steely-eyed, stoic demeanor he isn't half as smart as he's been given credit for.
This guy is just pushing his own militaristic agenda. Also, he's not a general. He's the head of a mercenary/human trafficking organization. The US equivalent would be Erik Prince who has definitely been working his own agenda also and it isn't more benevolent than the Pentagon.
He watched the US disaster with Iraq and was like “oh yeah? hold my vodka…”
He even spread lies about Ukrainian bio weapons (WMDs!) in an echo of the Iraq war buildup BS.
Someone should have told him that Iraq was a disaster for the US and is now widely regarded as such by most of DC (whether or not they say it in public).
Yes, hence the “hold my vodka” joke. Usually that trope (original is “hold my beer”) indicates that the second imitator is going to do something far worse or dumber.
Not sure about the origin but it may be one of the “famous last words” list jokes. Other famous last words I remember included “watch this” and “I got this bro.”
Is he bold and unafraid? My thought is he believes he has a 0% chance of living to this time next year given the current way things are going. If rebelling increases his odds to 0.5% and he doesn't care about the lives of anyone else it's the logical thing to do.
An unfortunate Russian passport holder, my parents were one of richest people in Russian Far East in the early nineties.
Hackernewsers knows well I am extremely anti-Russian.
The West massively misunderstands Russia, and how it works on the inside. If you watch CSIS, RAND, Aspen institute, you will see 10 talking heads each talking his own completely different story, and none of them tells more than a Russian highschooler can.
Seeing Westerners instinctively reaching for "the best known source" tells why something like this came as a surprise in the first place, while this exact scenario been a watercooler talk for most Russians, both in Ukraine, and Russia itself.
Why Western experts driving the conversation on Russia, China, etc are completely blind to things known to every highschooler?
The reason is they are all having near zero personal experience outside politics, but Russia has no politics as such. None of them had that visceral back alley survival experience, which shape you for life.
> Seeing Westerners instinctively reaching for "the best known source" tells why something like this came as a surprise in the first place, while this exact scenario been a watercooler talk for most Russians, both in Ukraine, and Russia itself.
> Why Western experts driving the conversation on Russia, China, etc are completely blind to things known to every highschooler?
I’m not sure I follow you here. You’re saying that Westerners don’t understand things even known to high schoolers in Russia. I believe you.
But then you say it’s because we try and find the best source for our information, and that also seems true. But it also seems like you’re saying that that’s the wrong course of action?
It reads like you’re telling us that our sources aren’t good enough, but also complaining that we’re trying to find good sources.
At any rate, I don’t happen to know any Russian high schoolers, so I have no way of asking them directly what it is that they talk about at the watercooler. I’d ask you, but that would just be me instinctively reaching for another “best known source”.
He is complaining that the West does a poor job of elevating well-informed commenters to prominence. Having close association to the Soviet/Russia watching community since the 1980s, I agree. The problem is that the kind of people who get the on-the-ground experience you need are not the type who play politics well and rise in organizations.
It's also because journalists are experts in nothing but journalism.
Instead of finding domain experts and giving them communications training and a platform to reach an audience, we instead find people with nothing useful to share, and give them journalism degrees.
Journalism should be an activity that our most knowledgeable people do, not our least.
> finding domain experts and giving them communications training and a platform to reach an audience
Good journalism is hard. Being a domain expert in some area doesn’t naturally translate into a talent or passion for journalism or public outreach.
Overall, I do agree with you. I just think it’s easier said than done. I’d say the legacy blue checks were often an example of what you’re describing—but those are now meaningless for evaluating if someone is a domain expert.
"the best known source" is specific to each individual. I've never scene the referenced site before the post today so am unlikely to take what it says at face value with out more research. As someone who follows the news on the war by reading understandingwar.org I'm not surprised this has happened.
Maybe you missed this blog post of Timothy Snyder [1] from October last year:
Is it a stretch to suppose that Prigozhin is sparing whatever valuable men and material he has left? He has been openly recruiting Russian prisoners to fight for Wagner in Ukraine; I would venture the supposition that he is sending them to die and keeping back the men and equipment who might have a future in some other endeavor. [...] In the overall logic that I am describing, rivals would seek to conserve whatever fighting forces they have, either to protect their own personal interests during an unpredictable time, or to make a play for Moscow.
And of course, no citation ever given. Every Russian is woke and we’re just ignorant.
Every western expert everywhere has been saying forever that Putin wasn’t going anywhere until someone in the defense arena had enough to take on the security state. And it won’t matter how it turns out, as the new Vlad will be the same as the old Vlad.
We know all we need to know abput Russia. A people without agency looking for a new daddy.
> Seeing Westerners instinctively reaching for "the best known source" tells why something like this came as a surprise in the first place
Except for the specific timing, it didn’t, really. The spiralling conflict between Prigozhin and the military establishment has been heavily covered in Western media, that a catastrophic breach was a likely eventuality has been talked about by Western experts for a while, and was seen as particularly likely with the recent move to consolidate control of the PMCs under MoD command, which was viewed as directed very much at Prigozhin specifically.
Zerohedge, which is basically just a Russian propaganda source, is saying that the Wagner chief is already attempting to walk back his comments. Which kind of makes sense, as a moderately sized PMC has approximately zero chance against the might of a nation. So I'm not really sure that anything is gonna happen here. Hope I'm wrong, though.
Related tangent: I predict that certain political movements in the US and Europe will implode if the Putin regime does. Would love to see if I'm right. Making popcorn.
I wouldn't be so sure. Prigozhin founded the Internet Research Agency (Russian troll farm) for Putin back in 2013. He's the go-to guy for disinformation.
What kind of reaction people expect from this hackernews post?
Anything that goes against the dogma will get shut down?
What's the veracity of this article to begin with?
In the age of digital transformation, what are the chances we are reading fake news from the Ukrainian front?
They attack each other? well, if they killed some russians and stole their missiles, it's easy to create confusion on the adversary camp, capture a general, train a model and spread fake news with deep fakes etc etc
Until we get a proper source, we can only speculate
Few days ago reports were saying that the counter offensive was a complete failure, so who to trust? where is the truth?
Multiple reports in multiple major outlets are reporting that he is accusing Russia of attacking his troops. I think the coup part is speculative but the accusation is a heavy one and implies that he feels at war with Moscow already.
Edit: Quick followup, NY Time has it top of the fold. Russia is accusing Wagner of fomenting a coup and the Kremlin is deploying armor to the streets of Moscow. This isn't definitely happening but it's a credible story.
I am not sorry to break the charm, but there is "SOMETHING" about it on Russian Television. You can't believe all details, but now both parts (East and West) are reporting that this is happening.
Something is definitely happening, there's lot's of videos of military vehicles on the streets of multiple russian cities and the main tv channel just announced some kind of an emergency broadcast.
Prigozhin, via AP Wagner channel, calls for Rosgvardia to join him, or "things will go badly":
"The most promising politician appeals to the National Guard (Rosgvardia) with an offer that is better not refused. Obeying criminal orders and attempting to interfere with the planned campaign of Justice will end badly for employees who have made the wrong choice."
Taking what we're seeing at face value, Prigozhin is credibly threatening to march on Moscow. He isn't announcing anything in advance, he's using public channels to sway leaders to his side.
232 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 255 ms ] threadhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66005256
https://archive.is/jWcb8
I am getting popcorn.
https://twitter.com/Liveuamap/status/1672359193863487491
I'm trying to add more info but it is (as one might expect) quite chaotic right now.
/jk
Something is clearly happening, but it's hard to tell exactly what. Fog of war and all that.
Some armored vehicles were put on the streets of Moscow and Rostov (which is located near the border with Ukraine), but that's about it.
https://t.me/svtvnews/31224 https://t.me/svtvnews/31232
Edit… Also reports of fighting between Wagner and russia's national guard on the Rostov-Moscow highway. Wagner are on the move towards Moscow.
Source?
Yeah, but its 1,000 freeway km, with no substantial existing prepared defenses short of the forces deployed in Moscow as part of the emergency plan that’s been activated, not 1,000 km defended like Bakhmut where every meter takes an eternity and extracts a high price. Its maybe a day or so away, which gives no meaningful time for mobilization and defensive deployments that would slow down ang advance.
Prigozhin may have bit off more than he can chew unless there are immediate mass defections to his side (or at least mass refusals to engage against Wagner), but there’s unlikely to be anything meaningful stopping him from reaching Moscow with whatever forces he decides to send.
I’ve seen a video that appears to support the idea that a helicopter was at least fired at.
OSINT community has been doing a stellar job with visual confirmation of Russian losses.
https://t.me/pilotblog/4885
Our assault brigades see everything, systematic strikes are now being carried out on the positions of the Russians.
You would hear the radio broadcast of these ** now.
The impression is that part of the Russian regular troops are killing their own, and it seems that part of the military is supporting Prigozhin. While it is not clear what is finally happening, it is a bloodbath"
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1672329674729373696
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/16723584970679705...
Wagner's command is competent. The recent border incursions show Russia is lightly fortified, possibly Moscow, too. The wild card would appear to be the FSB. Do they tend ultranationalist? Or will they be loyal to Shoigu?
The best way to ensure his own safety at this point is a coup.
He still may think that gives him better odds than not attempting the coup does, under current conditions...
But it remains to be seen whether or not Prigozhin would try to topple Putin or merely the army leadership in order to put himself in command of the war. The video statement I saw him make [1] would suggest he’s intending to gain control of Putin but keep him as a figurehead.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvLiQysKPhQ
These took months if not years to prepare, even with domestic ones.
He's also saying the war was a mistake.
Prigozhin's base is ultranationalist–that's what's propelling him now. If he succeeds in taking the reins of the state, his base and thus incentives shift. The new rhetoric may reflect him realizing he's closer to that than anyone realized.
You realise he's off his rocker, right? The stopped clock has just been momentarily right.
There is no situation where it is a good idea that a mercenary army leader whose staff are criminals takes power over a nuclear-armed state.
Do we really expect Putin to manage a peaceful transfer of power? Devil you know, and all that.
> Все генералы, которые с трясущимися руками обращаются к музыкантам с призывами остановиться уже фактически подписали себе приговор. Трибунал обязательно будет. Суровикин еще ответит за сдачу Херсона.
> (Google Translate) All the generals who, with trembling hands, appeal to the musicians to stop, have actually signed their own sentence. There will be a tribunal. Surovikin will still answer for the surrender of Kherson.
https://t.me/apwagner/9116
So this may very well be the final fight between the two.
Prigozhin has an army, one which is vital to Putin's war effort. Do you really think Prigozhin wouldn't turn on Putin given the opportunity?
Ina traditional coup on MONDAY at 3 am soldiers roll into the TV stations and various government buildings. They announcing a change of government and people turn up to work Monday morning.
On Friday evening?! They must be copying the failed Turkey coup that had to move forwards because they were uncovered.
This is a military coup. The army is in Zaporizhia. Moscow is defended by the FSB and national guard. Prigozhin needs to rally disgruntled forces to his side to enable him to move his troops. Quietly maneuvering would hand the narrative to the regime.
Might as well see the world end in style.
Ah, yes, all 3 regiments, none left in Moscow.
Nobody said Moscow is undefended. Just less able to defend itself than usual. Much of the Russian Western military district is deployed towards Ukraine. Sensibly, Putin’s most loyal should have been held back. But the war is going terribly. If his loyalists were forward deployed, that changes the calculus.
The 1st Guards Tank Army, which includes the elite units traditionally tasked with Moscow's defense, the 2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division and the 4th Guards Tank Division has been heavily committed in Ukraine for most of the war.
There is a defensive plan activated and deployment of forces in Moscow, sure, but Wagner has a lot of troops and combat experience, and what Russia has kept available at home mostly aren’t regular army troops, but Nationa Guard troops mainly used for intimidating civilians.
3% is not enough to keep the lights in a country this big.
It's no question where are the most but 3%? Doubt it.
There are different kinds of blows directed at leadership that work primarily by surprise seizure or elimonation of key personnel and/or facilities, perhaps the most traditional “military coup”.
There are mass mutinies by military formations, which are essentially armed direct-action protests by troops, often under their established leadership. A sizable formation declaring them and calling on others to join is not at all unheard of. Functionally, they can succeed as a form of coup or half-coup (replacing the top leadership or forcing concessions) while retaining the basic state infrastructure, or end up as a key part of a more complete revolution (or, obviously, just fail). They are a very real historical thing.
I've heard multiple times that the "Wagner" group has actually been set up by the FSB and that this Prigozhin character is just a front man. Which makes sense, because how would a single individual set up such a large military organization?
It is possible that the troops have become loyal to him. They'd still have to fight the entire Russian, Chechen, Belarus, ... armies.
Why the psyop? Last time that guy made compromising videos was shortly before the fall of Bakhmut as a distraction. For all we know he is still FSB.
But if you and I can figure that out in five minutes from around the world it’s unlikely that battle-hardened war leaders will fall for a trap.
When one of the commanders realizes they're physically between the army and the unguarded palace.
The head of state who's besting them in a war? Yes, that guy.
Ukraine is still receiving weapons. Agaisnt all odds, the west has recognized they had better at least keep the war in Ukraine, not allow Russia to extend their frontiers.
This is the best prospect for peace on this planet. Are you not happy about this?
And then, if the plan to cut off Crimea succeeds, they could try to negotiate with Russia - on much stronger terms.
I don't know, when the board changes you look for openings. On the military side, I would use the distraction to extract battlefield gains. On the diplomatic side, maybe Putin is willing to give up more, now, than he (or his successor) will later.
I imagine that territory could be the Bryansk, Kursk, Bilhorod, Rostov, and Krasnodar oblasts.
Russian government and it's mass-media has no trust in any questions (especially in Ukraine-related), no sane person trusts them, even ultra-Z-pro-war-vatniks (if we can call them sane).
Many of my close friends are from the temporarily occupied territories. They speak russian, but they hate russia.
They all fucking hate russia.
For your claim to be so wildly inaccurate shows you haven't even a shred of credibility. And to accuse the Ukrainian government of genocide is disgusting.
Go and take a long hard look in the mirror.
And you are talking about integration of 13+ mil population of your direct enemy that is even harder work. What for?
All of these regions except Belgorod cannot fully supply own budgets and they recieve dotations from federal budget (even Belgorod barely does this and tearing established economic connections with other russian regions would severe it's ecomonic abilities). So it's not an economic reason like "we would tax them to get money".
Next what about integration in ukranian society. Ukraine nation was indeed forged in this war, but russians never were part of it (ukranian society). So this means that Ukraine would have to federalise (which it clearly avoided) or it will try to ukrainise russian population (that would create additional tensions). So for the point of internal politics this would only bring additional problems too.
Now maybe this will help in internations politics somehow? Ukraine is clearly directing itself towards eurointegration. One of the reasons why EU was uncertain about Ukraine joining it was size of the country. Now after ukranian martyrship that's unlikely to be an issue but it definitely would be if Ukraine somehow gets 50% bigger. At least it won't help with direction towards EU.
I don't know ukranian politics wery well and I don't see any viable reasons for Ukraine to join these russian regions.
But maybe you being more familiar with what happens inside Ukraine can enlighten me because I may be missing something or see some aspects in wrong light.
The problem for the Russian government is that many ordinary pro-war Russians see Prigozhin as a hero. If they kill him, he'll become a martyr.
For all I care both sides are war criminals and should answer for their atrocities in Ukraine. If they can kill each other without also killing civilians, don't think we should stand in their way too much.
Prigozhin seems to be playing this savvily. Extremely savvily. He isn't directly threatening Putin. There is a face-saving change in which Shoigu et al are executed and Prigozhin and Putin split their cookies. Putin can frame it as discovering they lied to him, and possibly even re-set expectations for the war in Ukraine.
It's not guaranteed that units will agree to deploy against other Russians. Not guaranteed that if they deploy they will fight. Not guaranteed that if they fight they will win.
Wagner has crossed the Rubicon and now it's do or die for them. They'll fight hard and are probably the most capable individual fighting force in Russia right now. Biggest challenge they face is air strikes. But if they brought SAMs with them or the air force won't bomb things will get dicey quickly.
A) Older, experienced soldiers of fortune types. They did tours in Africa and other places and know how to fight. They are not too numerous and they have absolutely no interest in politics, fairness and especially any conflict with regular Russian forces. They are doing the job, they want to get paid, but instead of the paycheck the latest adventure is likely to stamp them with "treason".
B) New cannon fodder, hired from poor regions for decent (for their area) money after the invasion. They are not experienced fighters and they suffered greatly in Bakhmut. This is not your coup makers. Putin tells them to come home, they will.
C) Prison rabble, taken from prisons often with 10+ year of their sentence remaining. Their contract is that if they survive a 6-month tour they get remaining sentence voided. There are a lot of them. Getting killed in Bakhmut was a part of the contract. But this march gives them nothing. Instead of walking free they will likely end up back in prison, with new scars. If Russian army offers to honor the original contract (freedom for a 6-month tour), they will just as happily fight for it.
I do not think there is any desire at Wagner to fight the Russian army. In fact this may be a theater, designed in Kremlin to tighten the screws at home and as a side benefit to snuff out Prigozhin who seems to be getting unhinged lately. But we shall see...
I'll also say this, Putin played his hand as poorly as humanly possible. He spent decades stockpiling loyalty and political capital with an iron fist and spent it all in less two years and has absolutely nothing to show for it. I think it's time to admit that beneath his steely-eyed, stoic demeanor he isn't half as smart as he's been given credit for.
It’s just part of the game
He even spread lies about Ukrainian bio weapons (WMDs!) in an echo of the Iraq war buildup BS.
Someone should have told him that Iraq was a disaster for the US and is now widely regarded as such by most of DC (whether or not they say it in public).
Russia has lost over 100k in a year and effectively destroyed their economy and place in the world outside of nukes, all for basically no reason.
Not sure about the origin but it may be one of the “famous last words” list jokes. Other famous last words I remember included “watch this” and “I got this bro.”
It's more like he's trying to save Putin's by saying "the war was not his [Putin's] fault.
Edit: note that the TASS coverage is far more up-to-date in russian than english. (protip: translate.yandex.com) Новость дополняется. https://tass.ru/delo-v-otnoshenii-prigozhina-ob-organizacii-...
Hackernewsers knows well I am extremely anti-Russian.
The West massively misunderstands Russia, and how it works on the inside. If you watch CSIS, RAND, Aspen institute, you will see 10 talking heads each talking his own completely different story, and none of them tells more than a Russian highschooler can.
Seeing Westerners instinctively reaching for "the best known source" tells why something like this came as a surprise in the first place, while this exact scenario been a watercooler talk for most Russians, both in Ukraine, and Russia itself.
Why Western experts driving the conversation on Russia, China, etc are completely blind to things known to every highschooler?
The reason is they are all having near zero personal experience outside politics, but Russia has no politics as such. None of them had that visceral back alley survival experience, which shape you for life.
> Why Western experts driving the conversation on Russia, China, etc are completely blind to things known to every highschooler?
I’m not sure I follow you here. You’re saying that Westerners don’t understand things even known to high schoolers in Russia. I believe you.
But then you say it’s because we try and find the best source for our information, and that also seems true. But it also seems like you’re saying that that’s the wrong course of action?
It reads like you’re telling us that our sources aren’t good enough, but also complaining that we’re trying to find good sources.
At any rate, I don’t happen to know any Russian high schoolers, so I have no way of asking them directly what it is that they talk about at the watercooler. I’d ask you, but that would just be me instinctively reaching for another “best known source”.
Instead of finding domain experts and giving them communications training and a platform to reach an audience, we instead find people with nothing useful to share, and give them journalism degrees.
Journalism should be an activity that our most knowledgeable people do, not our least.
Good journalism is hard. Being a domain expert in some area doesn’t naturally translate into a talent or passion for journalism or public outreach.
Overall, I do agree with you. I just think it’s easier said than done. I’d say the legacy blue checks were often an example of what you’re describing—but those are now meaningless for evaluating if someone is a domain expert.
And of course, no citation ever given. Every Russian is woke and we’re just ignorant.
Every western expert everywhere has been saying forever that Putin wasn’t going anywhere until someone in the defense arena had enough to take on the security state. And it won’t matter how it turns out, as the new Vlad will be the same as the old Vlad.
We know all we need to know abput Russia. A people without agency looking for a new daddy.
Except for the specific timing, it didn’t, really. The spiralling conflict between Prigozhin and the military establishment has been heavily covered in Western media, that a catastrophic breach was a likely eventuality has been talked about by Western experts for a while, and was seen as particularly likely with the recent move to consolidate control of the PMCs under MoD command, which was viewed as directed very much at Prigozhin specifically.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/wagner-chief-declares...
Anything that goes against the dogma will get shut down?
What's the veracity of this article to begin with?
In the age of digital transformation, what are the chances we are reading fake news from the Ukrainian front?
They attack each other? well, if they killed some russians and stole their missiles, it's easy to create confusion on the adversary camp, capture a general, train a model and spread fake news with deep fakes etc etc
Until we get a proper source, we can only speculate
Few days ago reports were saying that the counter offensive was a complete failure, so who to trust? where is the truth?
Edit: Quick followup, NY Time has it top of the fold. Russia is accusing Wagner of fomenting a coup and the Kremlin is deploying armor to the streets of Moscow. This isn't definitely happening but it's a credible story.
Why would leading figures on the russian side lie about their own failures?
When war criminal and terrorist Igor Girkin admits that russia has no chance to win, why would he lie?
I am not sorry to break the charm, but there is "SOMETHING" about it on Russian Television. You can't believe all details, but now both parts (East and West) are reporting that this is happening.
"The most promising politician appeals to the National Guard (Rosgvardia) with an offer that is better not refused. Obeying criminal orders and attempting to interfere with the planned campaign of Justice will end badly for employees who have made the wrong choice."
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1672364086812606470
Russian army is tied at the front, can’t leave it to protect the government.
Wagners are very angry at RU MoD and above for all the betrayals and missteps (art. ammo supply, surrenders, etc.)
RU public is tired of the war and disappointed in Putin (but can’t voice that because of laws that say you will go to jail for just showing UA flag).
What's going on?
On theory is that if he's arrested and tried in Russia he's mostly ineligible for war crime trial in the future.
Taking what we're seeing at face value, Prigozhin is credibly threatening to march on Moscow. He isn't announcing anything in advance, he's using public channels to sway leaders to his side.
> VKontakte blocked Prigozhin's statement on the basis of the decision of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation
https://t-me.translate.goog/s/Ateobreaking?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr...