ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

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

What I mean is they'd already been withdrawn from Ukraine before Yevgeny led us his merry little dance up the M4 towards Moscow.

Prigozhin was literally running out of murderers, rapists and child molesters he could feed into the meat grinder before all this.

... convicted murderers, rapists and child molesters, that is.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Lukashenko had offered to mediate, with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s agreement, because he had known Prigozhin personally for around 20 years.

Pretty funny thing to say as Putin has obviously also known Priggo even longer.

exactly. i think the most interesting aspect of this whole circus will be how it was handled/not handled by the kremlin and putin’s involvement/the lack of.

I don't have a clue what exactly played out, but if it's at all what it looked like, then how does Prigozhin sleep at night, knowing Putin must have already put out a John Wick style global hit on him?

Lukashenko: "Lads..."

Adam Curtis bookmarking footage for the past 24 hours:pic.twitter.com/WxNdhUXAqy

— Isaac (@GalaxyPeaBrain) June 24, 2023

Lukashenko: "Lads..."

― Chyiv Kyiv (Fetchboy), Saturday, 24 June 2023 21:37 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

Good little narrative.

Below is a brief description of Prigozhin's mutiny and the factors that contributed to its outcome. We, as observers, initially missed important details due to the scarcity of information and lack of time for in-depth analysis. Here's the perspective that currently seems most…

— Tatiana Stanovaya (@Stanovaya) June 25, 2023

Interesting, but the assertion at the end that Putin "can manage with his own forces" is highly debatable. Manage what exactly? Slowly losing in Ukraine while his country falls apart? None of this would have happened if Putin actually had things under control.

tough job pretending to know things for the rand corp or whoever

That looks a more than reasonable analysis to me, for something pretty uncertain. Which part are you taking issue with?

nah

Stanovaya says that Wagner Group will be dissolved as part of the deal. I had missed that development. That leaves Prigozhin naked to Putin's power and any promises made about his future are written on tissue paper. I'm a bit surprised this blood-and-guts fire-breather who chose a skull as the Wagner Group emblem meekly accepted an exile with Putin's hand around his throat every day for as long as he continues to live. Just another LARPer I guess.

Wagner has been reported as very active in sub-Saharan nations and close to governments in the Arabian peninsula. What replaces them? Or are those ties now dissolved, too?

The Wagner troops who didn’t participate in the march will be able to enlist in the Russian army. The ones who did participate will not be charged. This is what was reported anyway.

Not sure if this means they will go with Prigozhin to Belarus. Obviously Wagner will no longer get Russian state funding so I’m not sure how they will continue to exist.

russia had already moved to fold wagner and the rest of the private armies into the official military, thats prob the main thing that precipitated all this

Now comes the purge. I bet even some of the lower than low ranking Wagner grunts won't be safe even though they are all apparently getting absorbed into the Russian military.

tough job pretending to know things for the rand corp or whoever

― lag∞n, Sunday, 25 June 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Go on...sounds like an ok analysis given the bizarre nature of what happened. But if you have anything else?

I mean if Russia was already folding the Wagner group into its military why did yesterday happen?

Interesting, but the assertion at the end that Putin "can manage with his own forces" is highly debatable. Manage what exactly? Slowly losing in Ukraine while his country falls apart? None of this would have happened if Putin actually had things under control.

― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Sunday, 25 June 2023 bookmarkflaglink

I only dip in now and then but it seems like we are in for a prolonged stalemate. So I took that as "Putin can keep the war effort going". I don't see Russia falling apart with anyone to take over.

One thing she didn't work through is the notion that this could weaken Putin. Repercussions bit in brackets.

if you guys want to say why you think that tweets so incredible i might reply but just being like "its good" then demanding my rebuttal is not that compelling, and its not my theory that russia was folding wagner et al into the official military, last week or so russia made a new rule that all mercenaries had to register with the military which was widely seen as the first step towards said folding

The tweet is pretty good. You've gone no and not come up with anything as good as that when trying to explain yesterday's events. That's all.

the tweet is just a lil story that doesnt even make internal sense

Its moving pretty fast so I'm likely missing something! I didn't think the summary was incredible, just informative for a lay person, I was just curious about where it might be wrong and what your take on it was! I know Russia was folding Wagner into the military on July 1, but I didn't think the tweet contradicted that

xp

in such chaotic circumstances with such an impulsive headcase driving events, you won't always find that it all makes sense