Gee I bet the CIA and State Dept are breaking out popcorn.

A fragile situation.

Putin's going to address the oligarchy masquerading as a gas station masquerading as a country.

Imagine the lucky guy who gets to execute the warrant.

Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said his forces were in control of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don Saturday morning. NBC News has not verified that claim, but video posted to social media shows armored vehicles on the city's streets.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/russia-attempted-coup-mercenaries-wagner-rebellion-rcna90921#rcrd14601

Whatever the outcome of this, there goes any chance of a peace deal. Ukraine is going to assume that if they just hold on long enough and keep attritting Russian forces, they'll win. And this rebellion by the head of Wagner will convince hawks in America and Europe (and a lot of the public) that arms should continue to be sent to Ukraine.

Whatever the outcome of this, there goes any chance of a peace deal. — RogueAI

Quite the opposite. Russia can sign peace, just as made peace with Japan (during the Russo-Japanese war), with Germany (WW1) or Poland (Polish-Soviet war).

Why is it so hard to understand that this one of those disastrous wars Russia has started that has lead to internal strife and humiliation? Putin has been a disaster for Russia.

You're correct of course, but I don't think Russia will go for a deal that doesn't give them any Ukranian territory. Putin could not survive that.

Besides, Putin has now the perfect ”Dolchstoss” reason just why the war in Ukraine went bad. He can forget now Ukraine. Internal security is more important.

Russia is more closer to civil war and break up than ever. And even if Putin can contain the situation, the unstability of Russia should be evident to all.

Prigozhin is running a few lucrative businesses, including the Central African Republic.

It's all about following the money. You've got to understand that these private militaries, they need money to function, they need resources to function... We're talking about billions of dollars here, perhaps even more. — David Otto

Experts estimate Wagner's projected revenue for the timber alone to be close to $1 billion, while the potential revenue from the Ndassima mine — now run entirely by Wagner — is estimated conservatively at around $2.7 billion. — CBS · May 16, 2023

They have a good lot of re$ource$. Doesn't mean they can stride in and hang Shoigu of course. :)

Actually Putin referred to 1917 in his speech, so he is already using the dolchstoss argument.

All hail the mighty new nation of Wagnerstan!

This is a jailbreak on a nationwide scale!

lol, I guess I was right about Putin speed running the Russian Revolution.

Before this all blew up, I did find myself asking: how were the overwhelming majority of Russia specialists so surprised by how poorly Russia's military functioned? Why did the scale of the rot elude them? The Afghan National Army style ranks of ghost soldiers and ghost vehicles who only exist on paper to funnel payments, the sold off fuel, the broken down vehicles abandoned a day into a major invasion? Virtually no one expected it.

Why not? We're told Putin's regime is essentially the fusion of organized crime with the elements of the former KGB. Journalists claim to have uncovered vast money b laundering operations for Putin and his inner circle. Why wouldn't the rot spread downwards?

Basically, why should we be shocked to learn that Putin's rule was as hollowed out as the military?

One should recall that neither the February nor October Revolutions were primarily mass uprisings. To be sure, there were riots precipitating action in February, but the removal of the Tsar was a palace coup and the rise of the Bolsheviks was accomplished by a small cadre of armed partisans (smaller than Wagner) and the total apathy of the population. It wasn't the might of the Bolsheviks that won, but that the conscript army and even much of the officer corps initially had no interest in defending the government.

Wagner represents an existential threat only to the degree that the main bulk of the military will be unwilling to fight them. If Russia really is largely mobilizing just a small cadre of loyalist, reliable "special forces," to deal with them, then that shows a lack of faith in the military. You can't do an urban assault against veterans of a Verdun-like battle without either destroying the city of taking huge losses. If they jump to shelling their own city, I doubt it goes well for morale to say the least. So they are in a pickle, because the Russian military is in no place to lay siege to even a Ukrainian city the size of Rostov, against a force the size of Wagner, let alone doing it quickly with tight ROE, no indiscriminate use of force, and no logistics set up.

Wasn't the reliance on a private army a telling sign? Isn't arresting anti-war and dissident activists/protestors and then sending them to the front to gain leadership experience and a chance to b radicalize your army almost always a bad idea?

Then again, no one saw the USSR's collapse coming until it happened. Not that this spells collapse, but you can't argue it's a good sign for Putin.

Gee I bet the CIA and State Dept are breaking out popcorn. — Wayfarer

Don't you know? It's a CIA/State Dept/NATO coup! They are omnipresent and all-powerful. Nothing in the world happens but through their agency and intent. Nothing important, anyway.

Actually Putin referred to 1917 in his speech, so he is already using the dolchstoss argument. — ssu

He literally used the words "stab in the back" in his televised speech (and following him - a lineup of loyal politicians, including Chechen strongman Kadyrov, who had allied with Prigozhine on occasion).

Isn't arresting anti-war and dissident activists/protestors and then sending them to the front to gain leadership experience and a chance to b radicalize your army almost always a bad idea? — Count Timothy von Icarus

That was one mistake they did not repeat this time around. Reportedly, when Wagner and then MoD were recruiting fighters from prisons, political prisoners were strictly excluded.

Cool down dudes, that's obviously a feint. Wagner troops are not enough to conquer the entire Russia, even less Moscow, or 17/4567th of Kamtchatka. These are hard numbers, sorry. Even Mearshaimer said it somehow somewhere somewhen. The rest is trite Crypto-Pluto-Nazi-Sionist-LGBT-Neocapitalist-Imperialist-Amerikan propaganda. The US has lost the war between Ukraine and Russia. But feel free to believe your lies.

Wasn't the reliance on a private army a telling sign? Isn't arresting anti-war and dissident activists/protestors and then sending them to the front to gain leadership experience and a chance to b radicalize your army almost always a bad idea? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think there may have been an impression that Ukraine wouldn't fight back, and that the US might ignore the event as Obama ignored their seizure of the Crimea. Maybe he just wasn't expecting Biden's resolve.

Also, Putin has historically been able to shore up his power by military ventures. He benefits from a quagmire as much as he would a victory, just in terms of eliminating any hint of democracy in Russia.

Yes, but they punished protestors by conscripting them to the front, so it seems the lesson wasn't totally learned

Also, Putin has historically been able to shore up his power by military ventures. He benefits from a quagmire as much as he would a victory, just in terms of eliminating any hint of democracy in Russia.

Not so much this time though. His plane left Moscow and neither he or Medvedev have done a public video to counter rumors they have fled the capitol the way Zelensky or many other leaders have done in similar instances in the past.


Also, Lukashenko, who I assume is in a good place to know the security situation, appears to have fled Belarus. His private plane shot off to Turkey over night.

And, it doesn't look good. The pictures of the barricades around Moscow are all manned by Rosgvardiya, Putin's internal strong arm. But these guys are police, for keeping order and getting dissidents. They lack heavy arms.

They were used for the initial invasion of Ukraine and disintegrated on contact with a military force with tanks and IFVs. All they have is trucks and small arms. They're also used to acting with impunity, being the self serving muscle. They're morale is suspect.

The only large scale desertions in the war I am aware of is from the Rosgvardiya taking losses, then packing up and going home against orders. We know of at least some of these because there were 700+ court cases over these, probably a way to try to sure up their discipline. Maybe the military forces are elsewhere, but these guys are unlikely to slow down the advance, especially if it is picking up regular army forces on the way as they claim.

And to think, everyone made fun of Kojima saying the plot of Metal Gear Solid was unrealistic...

Do you mean Prigozhin is going to make it all the way to Moscow and take over?

Seems that is the plan. I figured they would stay in Rostov but they are already halfway there and have only faced resistance from the air. This hasn't slowed them yet and there appears to be footage of several aircraft being downed by their AA while presumably trying to attack.

The barricades being thrown up around Moscow seem to suggest they think it is a possibility. At full speed, a frontal advance party is about 6 hours away (by slow IFV speeds), so it's not exactly far. And having municipal busses parked to block the roads would suggest better options aren't available.

The whole military is on the front and can't really pack up and leave without letting Ukraine advance. Plus, ground commanders might want to see how this shakes out from afar while they have a plausible reason to do nothing.

Luka apparently fleeing is in a way more escalatory because Belarus has had a much stronger dissident movement and a much weaker military. I imagine this must seem like a golden opportunity there. But if something happens there, it hits Putin's credibility hard. Even if he fixes the current crisis, he can't conceivably "liberate" Ukraine and Belarus at the same time.

Wagner troops arrive at Lipetsk, major airbase and about 4 hours by road from Moscow

https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1672583840337100800?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet


At the moment the other side is making strong denunciations, but they'll need something a bit more persuasive to stop Wagner group marching straight into Moscow and mopping up the very small looking defending force.

Russian security forces were seen taking positions in southern Moscow, according to photos published by Russian business newspaper Vedomosti.

The images published by the paper showed Russian security forces in body armor and equipped with automatic weapons taking up a position near a highway linking Moscow with southern Russia.

https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-06-24-23/index.html

What security forces are these, I wonder, are they a match for experienced front line troops with a grudge?

Holy shit! Is this good or bad?

Reddit says part of the Russian national guard sent to defend Moscow defected to Prigozhin

From the pics it looks like all Rosgvardiya; essentially police. Outside of parking vehicles on the road they seem to have been unwilling to engage so far.

In other news, the Belarusian opposition fighting in Ukraine, who are by far and away the largest volunteer force involved in the war, released a national address telling Belarusian soldiers not to carry out orders to support the regime and to ignore the Russian "civil war," and focus on their oaths to Belarus. They claim that they will be arriving with the coordinated support of elements of the Belarusian military itself and will be deposing the current leadership (whose dictator appears to have fled the country already).

Like I said, even if Putin can contain Wagner within a week or two, that might be enough time to bring Lukashenko's dictatorship crashing down, and it's hard to see how Russia continues the war with Ukraine at that point. I suppose they could do a larger scale mobilization, both conscription and economic mobilization, but that just seems like it would fan the still smoldering coals of revolt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLA3nNS8i8g

There is also to consider that minorities, who gets a very low level of services from the Russian state, have been massively disproportionately hit by the conscription to date and have been increasingly vocal in criticism of the state. Leaders there, of factions not in power, could certain use this as an opportunity to push for independence. Then first mover collective action problem being solved allows for a lot more decisive moves to be made at a lower cost. Sort of "of everyone does it, they can't stop us all."

The Far East is increasingly less economically dependent on Russia. Russia needs it for resource extraction, but the people there, like the peoples of Central Asia, increasingly see China as a better model of rule and as a partner who can offer far more (e.g., Belt and Road). Tajikistan's leader said something to the effect of "I want to be a Deng, not a Putin."

In the run up to the Ukraine invasion all of the "Stan" nations had unprecedented unrest, and this, along with the revolt in Belarus, likely helped motivate the invasion. Putin saw Central Asia as being pulled out of Russia's orbit, into China's, and needed to make it look like a stronger partner. Leaders or would be leaders in autonomous regions have some reason to think they would do better as independent states that are clients of China than as part of Russia and if Russia can't stop a Wagner convoy to Moscow can they really stop minorities from driving home with their weapons and declaring independence?

But Beijing might see a bigger prize in playing kingmaker for the next Russian leader and try to hold that sort of thing back. Independence is probably a last ditch option to invoke if a liberal democratic regime looks to be winning in Russia (a liberal Russia that is part of the EU and/or NATO with a huge land border with China is a strategic nightmare for them).

The Russian Far East had just 20,000 Chinese nationals living in it in 2000. As China took over resource extraction this rose to 700,000 by 2014, about 12% of the population of that huge area. The Russians then asked China to stop publishing figures on this due to nationalist backlash about Chinese "colonization." Russia, but Chinese investment has kept growing, spiking with sanctions as other nation's nationals left in droves. Chinese nationals might be more like 15-20% of the population now.

The population of the Far East is also not majority Russian, the largest ethnicities are those indigenous to the region, followed by ethnic Mongolians, and another large contingent is minorities of the western half of the empire (Ukrainians, Jews, Chechens, etc.) whose ancestors were forcibly deported there by the Russian state. The former two of these are arguably culturally a good deal closer to China than Russia.

Which is all to say that something in Belarus could radically shift things and seems likely, but that there might be follow on revolts. Hell, maybe it will be good for long term world peace if Xi can trumpet some expansion in the north and accept that as his glory instead of going for Taiwan. China does still occasionally claim Russian land up there and they have had a history of annexing land from former Soviet states since the dissolution of the USSR (doing it to all their neighbors on a few occasions).

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/wagner-chief-yevgeny-prigozhin-appeals-to-russians-with-election-poster-nbn0bxpwf

Unclear. Prig ruling Russia as a warlord is in some ways potentially scarier than Putin, but doesn't seem like a likely final outcome even if Putin is killed by his guards or something dramatic like that.

Still, he might exert significantly more control over events for awhile, and he has generally been more hardline on "mobilizing," to win the war. That said, it seems that could just be posturing to court nationalists. His statements indicate a willingness to end the war, especially his painting it as the work of recalcitrant oligarchs.

Best case is a quick deposing of Putin and some sort of unity government and the withdrawal of Russia to at least the 2014 borders (although they recently lost land they've held since 2014). The problem though is that Ukraine will want to keep pushing while nationalists don't want to lose the Donbas or especially Crimea. Ukrainian attacks might help to unify the country around these, although it could also weaken the nationalists as they sink their efforts in holding Ukrainian land without the support of the whole Russian state.

Worst case is some sort of large defection to Wagner, but not enough to stop the MOD from still retaining their own army. Then you have a civil war, which isn't in anyone's interest, likely not even Ukraine's, at least not compared to a peaceful resolution. Given all the fault lines in Russian leadership, ambitions, grievances, etc. it seems like such a war might quickly degenerate into a multifaction struggle, like their last civil war. Wars with more factions tend to last longer because negotiation is harder with 6 parties than two, let alone 30+.

If that happens, who knows? Hell, it's unclear if it would even end with one unified Russia rather than multiple states in a stalemate. Plus there is the issue of their nuclear arsenal. A Russian MOD plane was allowed to take off with a transponder on and fly through Ukrainian air space earlier; I imagine that is about securing the weapons. Hopefully they have the good sense to destroy them if they look to be in risk of being taken. Hell, if I was in charge of them and saw a real civil war opening, I'd certainly give the order to dynamite them, nothing good could come from their use as leverage.

Prigozhin: “ ‘Wagner-on-Don’ sounds good. ”

Putin: “ Sorry Shoigu, take one for the team. ” :death:

The Russian bombing of Ukraine out of Rostov is reportedly still going on, or at least continued after Wagner took over. I don't think Prigozhin is particularly into leaving the Ukrainians alone. Nasty piece of work.

In the Tavry direction, the Defense Forces liberated the territories near Krasnohorivka in Donetsk region, which had been occupied since 2014. The movement of our forces continues. — Oleksandr Tarnavskyi (Jun 24, 2023)

Maybe the Belgorod attackers will surface again.

But Beijing might see a bigger prize in playing kingmaker for [...] — Count Timothy von Icarus

:gasp: :fire:

Prigozhin apparently wants:

• to hang Shoigu and Gerasimov
• roughly unrestricted access to the resources of the Defence Ministry or otherwise full support
• for the Armed Forces to "carry their weight"

But has also ...

• called out dis/mal/misinformation coming out of Moscow / the Kremlin, contradicting them
• elicited a number of responses, including threatening, from the Russian top
• apparently exposed weaknesses in Putin's Russia

Prigozhin: “ Our special operation will just take a couple days. ” :D

Round one is over.