ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

xp yes Wagner pilots have been operating russian jets

no way prigozhin gets away with this, and he will surely know that.

― Fizzles, Saturday, June 24, 2023 2:48 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

if he knew that then why would he have agreed to pack up, does he have some reason to believe that whatever promises were made to him will be kept, where is the power center of russia right now, how far is it from prigozhin

I don’t understand why putin would agree to concessions. It really makes it look like he’s lost control of the country, which I imagine he does not like…

I feel like we are getting jerked around somehow

Putin could have got away with making concessions if he hadn't made that intemperate butthurt speech to the entire nation earlier today.

Was russia not in a position to crush them before they got to moscow?

― treeship., Saturday, 24 June 2023 18:49 bookmarkflaglink

clearly not! though they did bomb petrol/oil reserves in rostov. i guess the speed of the movement and activity was the main issue, plus the fact so many of the troops were in ukraine? at some point they have to rock up somewhere though, and cities are easier to defend. crush was the wrong word though. with WG only having an estimated ~10k troops, i guess you just need to show enough resilience and resolve to make it fizzle out. hence again the importance of generals lining up to say they're backing putin. discouragement.

i think it's probably better seen as a mutiny than a coup, but one thing very evident from this is coups always used to go for the main means of broadcast communication. these days that's changed, with prigozhin able to 'broadcast' a message very easily on media channels, though not the main state ones of course. interesting to see how channels of communication change coup/insurrection tactics like this.

I think the major actors involved in this power struggle have other things on their minds than jerking us around.

^

So Putin is *this* weak

He has no authority over the oligarchs and warlords that work under him

thats what im thinking

Seems to me that if anyone was hoping for a Voltron-style alliance - Wagner uniting with Ukrainian forces and attracting dispirited Russian troops who dgaf... well, it doesn't sound like that was all that likely.

Although Russian history does kinda offer some precedent, so I can see why the thought was out there.

The only good news is that it was a distraction from the normal grind of killing people for no reason.

Seems to me that if anyone was hoping for a Voltron-style alliance - Wagner uniting with Ukrainian forces and attracting dispirited Russian troops who dgaf

Who thought this?

I was hoping Russia would need to withdraw from Ukraine to manage these internal tensions. Or perhaps would be unable to continue this war as other battalions followed Wagner’s lead and stopped fighting in Ukraine.

I thought that was an unlikely best case scenario.

xps - putin's done a bang up job of rather openly murdering any oligarchs that challenge him, but they did not have large private armies equipped with military technology that basically equals whatever the Russian army can muster

It seems like it was a bad call to let his caterer get this powerful

one interesting thing that prigozhin said while going feral is that the war is dumb and bad, wouldnt be surprised if thats a popular opinion amongst the russian elite, could be isolating putin

Tom - It was reported that Prigozhin maintained/maintains secret backchannel communications with Ukrainian military/officials. If this is/was true, I doubt they were talking about chess, or the weather, or where to get good borscht.

It has also been reported that he invited defectors from regular Russian forces.

Seems like at least he was hoping for some kind of cooperation against a common enemy.

And then changed his mind?

I have my doubts Ukraine military establishment would welcome an union with Wagner, even if they find themselves sharing similar objectives, the backchannels stuff is probably for dealing with POWs.

but hey everything is always speculation in this conflict what do we know etc

Is Wagner among the most ruthless participants in this war. I’ve been reading about them today and uh

Would the the Ukranians have been willing to fight alongside a murderous war criminal (their words) like Prigozhin who's spent the last 18 months trying to kill as many Ukranians as he can?

i mean if it helps you win, of course itd pretty hard to trust them

Hardly likely that Wagner were going to go back into Ukraine to kill Russians in the very breakaway regions they helped set up and the Ukrainians are not going to set foot on Russian soil so I'm not sure where this grand alliance was going to operate.

What was prigozhin’s goal? Did he want to take over Russia?

He may have been aiming to bait Putin into agreeing to demote (or worse) Shoigu and other key hawks just as a srsly audacious show of strength. Can't really see what Lukashenko could've offered him if acting directly under Putin or the point of that.

he just wanted to take the heat off hunter biden for a while

I did read that from some bluechecks earlier

I did read that from some bluechecks earlier

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

who the fuck know tbh. his main target for a while has been to remove the influence of shoigu and gerasimov who he (as far as i can tell rightly) sees as total incompetents more interested in covering their arses, and also as far as he is concerned taking credit for wagner group successes.

fuck knows what he was expecting to achieve with this though. it's not over by a long way.

xposts

LOL criminal case for Prigozhin has been dropped.

What was prigozhin’s goal? Did he want to take over Russia?

xps - based solely on my reading of his actions so far I'd say his overriding goal was preservation of his power base, meaning his personal control over Wagner Group. without that, he was dead meat. he appears to have calculated that the threat to that power base was at a critical tipping point, but if he moved quickly his ability to threaten Putin's control of Russia was credible enough to act on. as he pursued his maneuvers toward a coup, he didn't see sufficient defections to allow it to build to a rapid conclusion, so he pulled back into what he hopes is a temporarily safe position and now awaits further developments. and at least his power base is completely intact.

Maybe putin agreed to a change in leadership

Here's what Vlad said earlier today:

Everyone who deliberately embarked on the path of betrayal, who prepared an armed rebellion, embarked on the path of blackmail and terrorist methods will suffer inevitable punishment and answer both before the law and before our people.

... and ...

Those who organised and prepared the military rebellion, who took up arms against their comrades-in-arms, who betrayed Russia: they will answer for it.

We've all heard of politicians flip flopping but this takes the proverbial.

Maybe Putin will clarify that he was actually talking about Shoigu there

I have to believe Lukashenko was merely the front man for Putin as he negotiated with Prigozhin. Putin made some vital concessions and Prigozhin agreed to make it look like he was magnanimously backing down for the common good.

Turns out Yevgeny is going to toddle off to Belarus.

... and be a good boy, I assume.

Who could possibly believe the sledgehammer guy cares about preventing bloodshed?

diplomatic language is not about reality

I’m still curious about the thousands of Wagner people in Africa, Venezuela, etc., and how autonomous/directed they are.

So does Wagner go back to fighting in Ukraine? Hearing someone from a random think tank say no ...

Sidenote random "pro-freedom" think tanks gotta be US-funded right

Also, Bellingcat. Right?

So is this Belarus actively joining? Wagner getting their canon fodder from a new source (but why would they have more success from the north)?

⚡️Putin's spokesman: Criminal case against Prigozhin will be closed.

The criminal case against Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin will be closed, and he will move to Belarus, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) June 24, 2023

So does Wagner go back to fighting in Ukraine? Hearing someone from a random think tank say no ...

Well they aren't actually in Ukraine at the moment. They are however all over Africa and other places.

over/under on how much longer prigozhin remains alive