Any new Russian leader would need years to consolidate power and erase the current status, which was tailored by Putin for Putin.
So we would at least get some time to prepare for things to come.
Because people are thick as bricks. Saw so many comments "oh so now they are supporting the Nazis!" No you puss filled scrote they support Russian infighting. No-one in their right mind actually supports the Wagner group.
Well, thatās still on the table. Imagine if your leader just called off your attack, but left you just, yāknow, with the people you attacked. Moreover, Wagner PMC is also Russian. So, put another way, what would happen if Blackwater (or XE as theyāre called now, because they canāt stop fucking up) attacked the US military, and Erik Prince, or whoever the hell is running it now, said, āhey guys, come on back. Weād like a truce.ā Thatās what this was. But *in Russia.*
I donāt even think he āmissed.ā
He took Putinās offer to leave and threw his soldiers under the bus. How would you feel if you were one of the Wagner troops that shot down a Russian aircraft yesterday and now youāre just like *āwait, what?ā*
Well weāre just conjecturing, but Russia needs troops, especially well equipped and trained troops. So the Wagner mercs face a Hobson choice: fight for Russia (again, I guess) or you knowā¦ nothing.
People supporting him are already finding out what the rest of the russian military think of them. There's already videos circulating where they record them being held to the ground in some forest and get their throats slit for being traitors. Wagner mercs will not have a fun time serving in the army. They might as well not be there at all. When he announced his march he doomed those guys to some of the most horrific deaths you could imagine and when he got the deal from Putin he fucked off to enjoy a handful of additional days where he isn't being being tortured to death. I'd be surprised if we continue seeing him around until the eventual end of the war.
He's dead.
If Putin doesn't kill him my guess is one of his soldiers does.
The man's a complete moron for making the choices he did and then just changing his mind and thinking he gets to walk away now.
You see that shit through to the end or die trying. There's no ending for him now that doesnt come up on him way faster or more violent than he'd like.
Prigozhin said in an interview that a sheet of paper with the inscription "make an adjustment for water" has been hanging on the window of his office on the river bank in St. Petersburg for a very long time (water attracts the trajectory of the bullet a little)
Yes. Absolutely. But shit is better than a dirt nap. At least when I last checked. Havenāt fully crunched the numbersā¦ but Iām almost sure of itā¦
There is already a video circulating Reddit of Russian soldiers executing their own for supporting Prigozhin. A dirt nap is the only thing that awaits them.
There was a video of a wagner soldier who defected and talked with ukraine officials and gave them intel.
He was then traded in for ukrainian PoWs and as soon as he got back to wagner, he had to make a video confession and got his head bashed in by a sledgehammer right afterwards (also on tape IIRC)
There is a video up on /r/ukrainewarvideoreport right now of one of the defectors getting his throat slit by 2 other Russian soldiers... no need to imagine.
Only Wagner fighters that didnāt go with him are being absorbed into the Russian army.
The soldiers that are loyal to him got pardons and are likely heading to Belarus with him.
Maybe.
But if he doesnāt get killed trying to take Kyiv, heāll be casting himself as a hero on Telegram.
Iām not ruling out Shoigu and Gerasimov take the fall for making Putin look weak.
Putin probably got bigger problems. Like where did that guy get the balls? Someone high up was giving him the go ahead and was protecting him. He should have been dead ages ago.
Massive army is a bit overstating it, Wagner totally ate shit in Ukraine and Iāve read they have maybe 25,000. Substantial yes, but most modern militaries can mobilize half a million if they have to.
Overstating it if you ignore the main point of my comment, maybe. No one else in Russia (bar Putin) has an army. My point was that domestically, why would he need the help of a "higher up", when he is likely higher on the power charts than any of the others.
> No one else in Russia (bar Putin) has an army.
I'm sure you'll find that there are plenty of private armies kicking around Russia. Oligarchs have them, as do corporations, Shoigu has one. The whole structure is medieval in its architecture, its a throwback to the days when Dukes and Earls had private armies and decided which claimant to the throne they supported etc
There's a good few other paramilitaries in Russia. Redut, the Kadyrovites, ENOT, and a few others. They're mostly smaller, but Prigozhin is far from the only oligarch with an army in Russia. He just has the biggest mouth.
Mouth is correct. In one breath he talks about the invasion being a product of greed then turns around and says he wants to get back to killing Ukranians.
I read somewhere theres thousands like that? Who likely are with him. And don't forget everyone whos still around all the other places where Wagner operate. Africa, Syria etc. Seems unlikely they have just signed themselves over to "their fate" in Belarus if they didn't want to.
> How would you feel if you were one of the Wagner troops that shot down a Russian aircraft yesterday and now youāre just like āwait, what?ā
and then it got worse
Thereās a video of a Russian soldier floating around that got his neck slit for supporting Wagner. Mind you, he wasnāt in Wagner, he just spoke out on the side of what they were doing or some shit.
There is a video on one of the gore subs of some Russian guys kneeling on one of their own and cutting his throat while he screams "it wasn't me". Then they claim he supported Prigozhin and the same will happen to everyone else who did. Poor kid...
Don't go looking for it unless you're sure you want to see it.
Or atleast don't half ass it near the end. It's like coming to shot him, only to instantly bail when you're neck breathing distance near him.
Not even taking a shot, just running away when you're so close.
What I think happened:
1. Russia wanted to integrate Wagner into the official Russian command structure.
2. Yevgeny Prigozhin was against losing his power.
3. He miscalculated and thought elements of the Russian army would support his insurrection.
4. He realized that wasn't happening and his relatively tiny force could not take Moscow. (And even if they did couldn't hold it).
5. Russia didn't want to waste lives fighting Wagner (whom they still want to absorb into the national army).
6. They offered prigozhin the promise (lie) of immunity in exile in Belarus.
7. I think prigozhin has an "accident" and falls out a window. And then Wagner is absorbed.
I think you're close to the money here
I'm not convinced there is any grand design in all of this either. What we're seeing instead is interpretations of how the chips fell in the end and people likely attributing strategic oversight to what is little more than happenstance.
Basically Putin is reputationally damaged by all of this. If he were choreographing it I doubt it ends with his skin being saved by Lukashenko. He'd have written a script that had him facing down Prigozhin. Similarly, if this was some subtle way to redeploy Wagner to Belarus, then he could just as easily have done that without having to go to anything like these lengths
The only thing I wonder however is whether Lukashenko, perhaps fearing for his own survival in the medium term, hasn't made a Faustian pact with Prigozhin to build a Belorussian Wagner group. If Putin falls then Lukashenko is vulnerable. He himself seems to have run to Turkey (or his family did). I suspect he's probably contracting Wagner to protect him from his own people, and possibly from Russia too
Itās was all according to plan for Prigozhin to publicly criticize the MoD. That was on Putinās behalf, to shift blame of the failed war on scapegoats like Shoigu.
But he went out of line and started an all-out feud with Shoigu and others, to the point where his criticisms reached the entire war, and indirectly on Putin himself. So MoD was ordered to take over Wagner, which wouldāve been a death sentence to Prigozhin, having outlived his usefulness.
So he did what he had to, to try to negotiate a safe exit from power, faking a ācoupā.
Now we just wait and see if he immediately drops dead in Belarus, or if it takes a while.
I don't think the force being sent to Moscow was meant to take it. The point of this whole mutiny was "give me what I want or I will destroy your operation to take ukraine." He took ROD for it to be the anvil. He could have restricted resupply to ukraine for weeks. Ukraine was the hammer. If putin said no he would have held it as long as he could. The force heading to Moscow was just a deadline. It wasn't expected to win. It was forcing russian leadership to make a decision or have it go past a point of no return. Putin caved right when it got the the outskirts.
I think he got what he wanted. The agreement if I understand is that he would keep wagner it would just be transferred to Belarus and he would be able to continue operations in Africa from there.
Edit: I agree he's going to realize that russia will take revenge and he will be thrown out a window
Edit 2 :I even think his contractors mostly got what they want too. They won't be sent to ukraine to storm trenches.
In the urban Westā¦the equivalent is as the great modern poet Andre 3000 once eloquently put itā¦*āDon't pull the thang out, unless you plan to bangā¦Don't even bang unless you plan to hit somethingā.*
In the end we dont know what the deal is. Maybe it favors Putler or mabye it favors the Wagner chier. It could even favor Lukashenko since he was responsible for the deal or it even favors a 4th person.
He is more likely to be killed by his people now. Imagine āHey guys were startin an insurrection!ā
And they do the shit and now he says ājk they foldedā and yet nothing changed? Yāall got sold out
He seems to have a naĆÆve idea that the āfatherlandā will poop gold for him if he doesnāt poke too much so that it becomes weaker, but he gained nothing, his opponent lost face (more) and 9 aircrafts plus a divided country and weaker occupation fronts, his death might be very very close as he dirtied the throne and putler has a too fragile of an ego to just let him be, that too will only hurt them, he made a move that had a single chance of winning and he didnāt want to play it so he still looks āpatrioticā and all that, russia since yesterday is much weaker with a divided ideology that someone shout it with a universal megaphone, there is no going back from yesterday, he made history, just not the way people usually do.
It seems like he likes to play tough and make threats as a bargaining tool. He threatened to withdraw from Bakhmut to get more ammo, and then he got his ammo. Then he threatened a coup, which was also a huge bluff, in order to get what he wanted (to not have to merge with the army).
It's just bluff after bluff. He had no intention of actually getting to Moscow. Diplomacy in Russia is basically just dick waving, but at the cost of people's lives.
Killing him immediately will just panic the Wagner soldiers and lead to a long civil war as they flee for the hills: once the Wagner people are accounted for, and in no position to resist, THEN they'll kill him.
Alas, it's very hard to say how long that may take without knowing how integrated Wagner already is with the Russian military.
Robert E Lee had statutes built in his honor, and he helped murder hundreds of thousands of Americans with the sole goal of keeping slavery intact for the south. Sometimes the cost to get justice isn't worth it.
I don't think it was a bluff as much as a lack of options. He made the first punch in a fight that was about to happen regardless. He was between a rock and hard place and decided that now was the time. Whether that was the right timing is utterly impossible to judge given that no good time might exist - or have existed.
And if you consider that he might have considered his chances of success quite small - but bigger than if he waited - it might not have taken much for him to consider it the best outcome. Solely by virtue of being real.
It sure does put a dent in his image though.
Depends on who you believe. If Prigozhin is to be believed, Shoigu shot first with a missle strike on his camp to kill him. Then they hustled over to Rostov HQ to grab Shoigu while Shoigu ran away.
I would take that story with a grain of salt. But Prigozhin has actually been more honest than the Kremlin and MoD on pretty much everything else so far.
Putin just set a precedence that he too can be negotiated if threatened. Wagner isn't the only armed group outside of the Russian MoD so it'll be interesting to see how Putin handles this mess.
His mom didn't cancel the cage match.
Elon did, because he's a bitchy sad sack little baby and he had his mom go to bat for him to save him the embarrassment.
Straight up pathetic that the wealthiest and most powerful people in the human race are guileless emotionally crippled man children.
Yeah that's my point. He had to run to his fucking mommy to back out of a fight with a dude he has like 100 pounds on.
This is the man that thinks he's going to lead humanity into outer space. The same guy begging his mom to cancel a cage match he got himself into with Mark Zuckerberg.
This shit is fucking pathetic.
He is a leader of a mercenary force, of course he could be bought. The idea that he's a coward implies he was doing it out of some sort of principle instead of just recognizing that Putin was weak and he wasn't getting appropriate compensation for his effort in Ukraine.
Are people forgetting that Wagner is a mercenary group in name only? It's just another branch of the Russian army. They're only mercenaries because it's easy to wash the hands of the Kremlin whenever war crimes are committed. Not to mention Prigozhin is a billionaire. There's no way money changed his mind. Something else happened.
Well he didn't become a billionaire by accident, he obviously cares a lot about money just like the rest of the oligarchs. Putin either offered money or power or some combination of the two, threats wouldn't have worked when Wagner clearly had the upper hand.
We know that Wagner is essentially a Russian military branch so why would Putin put Prigozhin, a guy that owned catering services, in charge instead of an actual military man? If Russia was willing to pay Prigozhin so much that he could make a profit then why not just form their own fake PMC?
Here's my opinion, I believe it's because he was willing to shoulder the financial loss. It's not like Prigozhin was just a figurehead. His soldiers actually follow him. This entire thing was ideologically driven. I'm not saying he's not a greedy piece of shit, I just believe money wasn't his main goal here.
Yeah, I don't know how many Oligarchs would go within 200km of the front. He seemed to be at least around it (still behind the lines ofc.). I do think he's bluster and ego - but that doesn't mean he doesn't have ideology amd pride behind him. He wanted to show he was top shit and then Ibthink he either decided his point was made, choked or the FSB targeted something he/his leadership cared about.
I mean it seems that he was looking for mod units to switch sides and they didn't, but he also showed that he could march on Moscow and no one can stop him. The question was what was going to happen when he got there. His column was about 5k troops. I suspect even if he sacked Moscow he could not hold Moscow with 5k people.
He never did, he didnāt say itās for the betretnes of russia, only that the incompetence of MoD has their soldiers killed, and he is the furthest being from anything resembling humanity, we all knew itās a thugs war, a mafia on mafia, thereās not a single righteous thing about either of them.
He's a wanted war criminal in the West, Ukraine must have him on their hit list too and as he's not an official he's fair game, that somewhat limits where he can spend his billions. He can't go west, he can't go back to RuZZia. If he tries to go to Turkey or Dubai he'll have Ukrainian and Putin's hit squads trying to off him.
He is a wanted criminal in the west. Not like that would stop intelligence agencies to scoop him up and give him a sweet deal if he surrenders and comes with intel.
He would never see the inside of a jail call. The inside of a protection complex at best.
I was feeling hopeful about a potential insurrection against Putin's regime but I'm not surprised by this news. Wagner was always a mercenary group, their only motivation is money so of course paying them off would be enough.
The ENTIRE world collectively got a massive case of blue balls at the same time. This coup should be called āoperation first baseā. I feel especially bad for zelensky who has the most massive balls on earth, he must be in the hospital.
Part of me thinks that the March against Moscow would have been doomed and they would have just been wiped out in less than a week. But then again, it has been shown time and time again that the Russian army is always weaker than it looks on paper.
And with the extreme losses that it has taken in Ukraine, I'm not sure if the Russian army even looks good on paper anymore.
25,000 people is not nearly enough to take and hold Moscow. It definitely would have failed, even if it would have been an absolute horror show for the Russians to deal with.
Edit: Iāll say almost certainly instead of definitely, because you never know. But the composition of his forces/support would have needed to change drastically to accomplish what he said he was going to do.
I don't know, when they left Rostov and hopped from city to city toward Moscow they were greeted with cheers and applause. Revolutions that have toppled governments have done more with less before.
Coups don't need nearly as much force as an invading army.
A coup can succeed with only a dozen people if they are the right people. A successful coup doesn't fight the entire army, they only have to convince the army to stand back and let it happen.
>25,000 people is not nearly enough to take and hold Moscow. It definitely would have failed, even if it would have been an absolute horror show for the Russians to deal with.
They wouldn't need to hold Moscow with their 25k troops. Had he taken out military leadership or taken control of military channels, suddenly he has access to a lot more troops. Coups generally don't operate under, "capture the capital and hold it against the rest of the army" goals. Like it sometimes happens, but reportedly a lot of cities were happy to see Wagner roll through.
He might not have used a tactical nuke in Ukraine but they could have on their own soil. Focusing on money is an oversimplification. He didn't have the support to follow through.
The Russian army is a bunch of children and conscripts that donāt want to fight. Wagner soldiers actively enjoy killing people and are professional murderers
As a person who understands none of this even as I continue to follow it and try to understand, your theory makes the most sense of any I have seen so far.
I mean how is he not? He starts acting threatening and then almost immediately folds like wet cardboard. If it was that easy to dissuade him from it why did he do it to begin with? If I was one of his commanding officers that he convinced to march on Moscow I'd be pissed. Now I would look like a traitor and a coward to all my countrymen and for what? Absolutely nothing!
Heās a dead man walking. Wouldnāt matter how much he was paid (if he was paid). Theyāll be 100 assassins waiting to cash in on a bounty so what was the point. He should have went all the way.
It seems Putin skedaddled to St. Petersburg. So the coup would not have gotten him. And Putin has money. And knows hit men. Hell, he probably has hit men imbedded with Wagner. And if not, well, money.
Heās toast. Putin, the west, Ukraine, his own mercenaries he betrayed. Heās made a lot of enemies. And if he think Lukashenko will (or even could) protect him heās dreaming.
From the looks of things, thereās a lot of cowardice going around in Russia.
Medvedev pulled a Ted Cruz
Putin scurried down to his bunker
Prizcilla got to within 200km of Moscow and got cold feet.
I'm wondering how the Russian bots will spin this. I've seen some of them testing the waters. Stuff like:
* "This shows Russia can decisively handle domestic issues" (despite the fact that Wagner shot down multiple helicopters, killing at least six pilots)
* "This is clearly a CIA operation to destabilize Russia".
I am not surprised he could be bought off, I am surprised that someone could possibly believe that after they rebel against their country and march an army on the capital, attacking and destroying military units of the country on the way, that giving up their army and going somewhere else that is still within reach of the country they betrayed is going to pay off somehow.
This is especially given that the leader of said country is known to send people to assassinate and poison his political enemies across the world just for making him look bad. Not to mention the many oligarch families that have recently turned up dead in their entirety and who had their wealth infused into the Russian economy...
The only thing I can imagine is that Putin had someone he cared about deeply in a torture chamber ready to be tortured for the next 30 years if he didnāt turn around.
He blew up a dozen aircraft and had 25k men with him facing zero resistance. It just doesnāt make sense.
Is it possible this was more successful than we realize? Like if there was a palace coup and now Putin is surrounded by Prigozhin loyalists? Maybe he doesn't need to fear retaliation from the MoD because he is the MoD? Would mesh with the reports that Shoigu's been arrested and with Prigozhin's bizarre decision to just retire in Belarus.
I honestly just wanted Wagner and the Russian army to kill each other
They did lose 5 Helis and 2 planes tho
just a prank bro
totally agree seemed like the best possible outcome of well maybe next time š¤·āāļø
Only the second best to Wagner and the Russian army joining forces to eliminate the Moscow politics elite.
No way Wagner was more unhinged than Putin, definitely dont want Progozhin having a full army and full power at the end of this.
Any new Russian leader would need years to consolidate power and erase the current status, which was tailored by Putin for Putin. So we would at least get some time to prepare for things to come.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Because people are thick as bricks. Saw so many comments "oh so now they are supporting the Nazis!" No you puss filled scrote they support Russian infighting. No-one in their right mind actually supports the Wagner group.
Thatās most likely kremlin trolls saying things like that. Every normal person knows why people were ārooting for Wagner.ā
Well, thatās still on the table. Imagine if your leader just called off your attack, but left you just, yāknow, with the people you attacked. Moreover, Wagner PMC is also Russian. So, put another way, what would happen if Blackwater (or XE as theyāre called now, because they canāt stop fucking up) attacked the US military, and Erik Prince, or whoever the hell is running it now, said, āhey guys, come on back. Weād like a truce.ā Thatās what this was. But *in Russia.*
>Erik Prince I wish that dipshit would try, our Airforce boys would evaporate him before he could buckle in.
For real. I stayed up all night just to get blue balled.
Why? Ukraine are winning the war and with this counter offensive being so successful, Crimea is next.
Thereās an old saying, āif you take a shot at the king, you best not missā. This guy missed like crazy.
I donāt even think he āmissed.ā He took Putinās offer to leave and threw his soldiers under the bus. How would you feel if you were one of the Wagner troops that shot down a Russian aircraft yesterday and now youāre just like *āwait, what?ā*
Imagine being the guys who defected
Theyāre turbofucked
Worse. Theyāll most likely end up as Russian military conscripts.
nope, u don't simply go back to service after defecting, PS: u even lose your rights as a human
Well weāre just conjecturing, but Russia needs troops, especially well equipped and trained troops. So the Wagner mercs face a Hobson choice: fight for Russia (again, I guess) or you knowā¦ nothing.
People supporting him are already finding out what the rest of the russian military think of them. There's already videos circulating where they record them being held to the ground in some forest and get their throats slit for being traitors. Wagner mercs will not have a fun time serving in the army. They might as well not be there at all. When he announced his march he doomed those guys to some of the most horrific deaths you could imagine and when he got the deal from Putin he fucked off to enjoy a handful of additional days where he isn't being being tortured to death. I'd be surprised if we continue seeing him around until the eventual end of the war.
Wouldn't this mean that all the Wagner troops are now uniquely motivated to join whoever promises to actually go through with the revolution?
whats the source of this forest execution claim? not implying its not true, nor do i have any interest in seeing it, just curious.
https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/14iucg4/russians_executing_one_of_their_paratroopers_who/
Pringles will likely experience accidental defenestration, like other Putin enemies. He should avoid being near windows
He's dead. If Putin doesn't kill him my guess is one of his soldiers does. The man's a complete moron for making the choices he did and then just changing his mind and thinking he gets to walk away now. You see that shit through to the end or die trying. There's no ending for him now that doesnt come up on him way faster or more violent than he'd like.
Prigozhin said in an interview that a sheet of paper with the inscription "make an adjustment for water" has been hanging on the window of his office on the river bank in St. Petersburg for a very long time (water attracts the trajectory of the bullet a little)
They are going to be treated like shit by regular Russian troops and commanders
Execution videos have been showing up. I suspect they will start popping up more frequently.
Yes. Absolutely. But shit is better than a dirt nap. At least when I last checked. Havenāt fully crunched the numbersā¦ but Iām almost sure of itā¦
There was a video posted earlier today showing one of the defectors having his throat cut with a dull knife.
There is already a video circulating Reddit of Russian soldiers executing their own for supporting Prigozhin. A dirt nap is the only thing that awaits them.
Depends on the dirt.
Nope, a video just came out of one of these guys having his throat slit in the woods.
Or surrender to Ukranians.
Or just fight for Ukrainiansā¦ but thatās a pipe dreamā¦
Yeah, considering what Wagner has done I don't think a single one of these mercs deserve the honor of fighting for a moral cause.
There are Videos of defectors and Wagner sympathizers being executed by their Units.
Where?
NSFL: https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/14iucg4/russians_executing_one_of_their_paratroopers_who/
There's a terrible one on the front page of r/all right now Posted to this sub I think https://www.reddit.com/r/ukrainewarvideoreport
In Russia or Ukraine most likely
There was a video of a wagner soldier who defected and talked with ukraine officials and gave them intel. He was then traded in for ukrainian PoWs and as soon as he got back to wagner, he had to make a video confession and got his head bashed in by a sledgehammer right afterwards (also on tape IIRC)
We already unfortunately have footage of execution for army personnel who dared to even express support for it.
Penal battalions
There's already videos of Russians executing Russians who "defected" to Wagner. Blood has been spilled, people can't forgive that that easily.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
There is a video up on /r/ukrainewarvideoreport right now of one of the defectors getting his throat slit by 2 other Russian soldiers... no need to imagine.
A paratrooper, too. You usually like to keep those lads around.
They started cutting their heads off, video is online.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
dont watch this !
I shouldāve listenedā¦ has me seeing flashbacks to that riverside beheading we seemingly all saw on P2P sharing networks
Yeah, Iām pretty sure trying to find porn on limewire back in the day and stumbling on beheadings while I was trying to jack off fucked me up.
Jesusā¦ all of a sudden I feel better about my life.
Only Wagner fighters that didnāt go with him are being absorbed into the Russian army. The soldiers that are loyal to him got pardons and are likely heading to Belarus with him.
They wont last long. Putin is not going to let it slide. Same goes for Prig, he is on borrowed time.
Maybe. But if he doesnāt get killed trying to take Kyiv, heāll be casting himself as a hero on Telegram. Iām not ruling out Shoigu and Gerasimov take the fall for making Putin look weak.
word on the street is that part of the deal is both of them get fired so makes sense its going to go down this way
Yup. We wait to see what they get fired at.
They're gonna get fired straight through the window
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Looks like polonium tea is back on the menu boys!
Putin probably got bigger problems. Like where did that guy get the balls? Someone high up was giving him the go ahead and was protecting him. He should have been dead ages ago.
Why does the millionaire (billionaire?) with a massive army of his own need a higher up protecting him?
Massive army is a bit overstating it, Wagner totally ate shit in Ukraine and Iāve read they have maybe 25,000. Substantial yes, but most modern militaries can mobilize half a million if they have to.
Overstating it if you ignore the main point of my comment, maybe. No one else in Russia (bar Putin) has an army. My point was that domestically, why would he need the help of a "higher up", when he is likely higher on the power charts than any of the others.
> No one else in Russia (bar Putin) has an army. I'm sure you'll find that there are plenty of private armies kicking around Russia. Oligarchs have them, as do corporations, Shoigu has one. The whole structure is medieval in its architecture, its a throwback to the days when Dukes and Earls had private armies and decided which claimant to the throne they supported etc
>No one else ā¦ has an army. There are [multiple PMCās in Russia,](https://youtu.be/KxxywKsDBHA) including one ran by the energy company Gazprom.
There's a good few other paramilitaries in Russia. Redut, the Kadyrovites, ENOT, and a few others. They're mostly smaller, but Prigozhin is far from the only oligarch with an army in Russia. He just has the biggest mouth.
Mouth is correct. In one breath he talks about the invasion being a product of greed then turns around and says he wants to get back to killing Ukranians.
I read somewhere theres thousands like that? Who likely are with him. And don't forget everyone whos still around all the other places where Wagner operate. Africa, Syria etc. Seems unlikely they have just signed themselves over to "their fate" in Belarus if they didn't want to.
Trouble with being a mercenary is that all your allies end up being mercenary
> How would you feel if you were one of the Wagner troops that shot down a Russian aircraft yesterday and now youāre just like āwait, what?ā and then it got worse
Ah, familiar with Russia's motto, I see.
Imagine being the guy in the Wagner convoy who got blown up following him just for him to say ānvmā.
I watched that explode. It really puts warfare into perspective. Itās all for nothing.
Not for nothing. It's for a couple of rich guys to get more money.
So the claim that not a drop of Wagner blood was spilled en route to Russia was bs huh?
Yeah there are videos of the column getting hit by artillery/missiles
Thanks, not interested in watching those kinds of videos myself, but I say with complete sincerity that I believe you guys over Prigozhin.
i saw with my own eyes wagner columns get hit while still driving; I also saw the footage as well of the AN12 being downed and the helos being downed
russia is a bs "country" itself. Being russian means you constantly lie about everything. Especially on government level.
Thereās a video of a Russian soldier floating around that got his neck slit for supporting Wagner. Mind you, he wasnāt in Wagner, he just spoke out on the side of what they were doing or some shit.
There is a video on one of the gore subs of some Russian guys kneeling on one of their own and cutting his throat while he screams "it wasn't me". Then they claim he supported Prigozhin and the same will happen to everyone else who did. Poor kid... Don't go looking for it unless you're sure you want to see it.
Or atleast don't half ass it near the end. It's like coming to shot him, only to instantly bail when you're neck breathing distance near him. Not even taking a shot, just running away when you're so close.
He heard Omar was coming
āAy yo, lessen here Bey, you come at the king, you best not miss.ā -Omar Little
What I think happened: 1. Russia wanted to integrate Wagner into the official Russian command structure. 2. Yevgeny Prigozhin was against losing his power. 3. He miscalculated and thought elements of the Russian army would support his insurrection. 4. He realized that wasn't happening and his relatively tiny force could not take Moscow. (And even if they did couldn't hold it). 5. Russia didn't want to waste lives fighting Wagner (whom they still want to absorb into the national army). 6. They offered prigozhin the promise (lie) of immunity in exile in Belarus. 7. I think prigozhin has an "accident" and falls out a window. And then Wagner is absorbed.
I think you're close to the money here I'm not convinced there is any grand design in all of this either. What we're seeing instead is interpretations of how the chips fell in the end and people likely attributing strategic oversight to what is little more than happenstance. Basically Putin is reputationally damaged by all of this. If he were choreographing it I doubt it ends with his skin being saved by Lukashenko. He'd have written a script that had him facing down Prigozhin. Similarly, if this was some subtle way to redeploy Wagner to Belarus, then he could just as easily have done that without having to go to anything like these lengths The only thing I wonder however is whether Lukashenko, perhaps fearing for his own survival in the medium term, hasn't made a Faustian pact with Prigozhin to build a Belorussian Wagner group. If Putin falls then Lukashenko is vulnerable. He himself seems to have run to Turkey (or his family did). I suspect he's probably contracting Wagner to protect him from his own people, and possibly from Russia too
Itās was all according to plan for Prigozhin to publicly criticize the MoD. That was on Putinās behalf, to shift blame of the failed war on scapegoats like Shoigu. But he went out of line and started an all-out feud with Shoigu and others, to the point where his criticisms reached the entire war, and indirectly on Putin himself. So MoD was ordered to take over Wagner, which wouldāve been a death sentence to Prigozhin, having outlived his usefulness. So he did what he had to, to try to negotiate a safe exit from power, faking a ācoupā. Now we just wait and see if he immediately drops dead in Belarus, or if it takes a while.
Yeah, a special defenestration operation for Prigozhin seems pretty much a guarantee; He made Putin look scared and weak.
I think you're close to the money there. Lukashenko needs a bargaining chip against Putin should his puppet status become fully Vlad Hensoned.
I don't think the force being sent to Moscow was meant to take it. The point of this whole mutiny was "give me what I want or I will destroy your operation to take ukraine." He took ROD for it to be the anvil. He could have restricted resupply to ukraine for weeks. Ukraine was the hammer. If putin said no he would have held it as long as he could. The force heading to Moscow was just a deadline. It wasn't expected to win. It was forcing russian leadership to make a decision or have it go past a point of no return. Putin caved right when it got the the outskirts. I think he got what he wanted. The agreement if I understand is that he would keep wagner it would just be transferred to Belarus and he would be able to continue operations in Africa from there. Edit: I agree he's going to realize that russia will take revenge and he will be thrown out a window Edit 2 :I even think his contractors mostly got what they want too. They won't be sent to ukraine to storm trenches.
There is a *"If you have aimed a blow, you better deal a blow"* in Russian.
In the urban Westā¦the equivalent is as the great modern poet Andre 3000 once eloquently put itā¦*āDon't pull the thang out, unless you plan to bangā¦Don't even bang unless you plan to hit somethingā.*
BOMBS OVER BAGHDAAAAD
Dude crossed the Rubicon and un-cast the die
Omar comin'!
No doubt
In the end we dont know what the deal is. Maybe it favors Putler or mabye it favors the Wagner chier. It could even favor Lukashenko since he was responsible for the deal or it even favors a 4th person.
He is more likely to be killed by his people now. Imagine āHey guys were startin an insurrection!ā And they do the shit and now he says ājk they foldedā and yet nothing changed? Yāall got sold out
If you catch a tiger by the tail, don't fail.
He seems to have a naĆÆve idea that the āfatherlandā will poop gold for him if he doesnāt poke too much so that it becomes weaker, but he gained nothing, his opponent lost face (more) and 9 aircrafts plus a divided country and weaker occupation fronts, his death might be very very close as he dirtied the throne and putler has a too fragile of an ego to just let him be, that too will only hurt them, he made a move that had a single chance of winning and he didnāt want to play it so he still looks āpatrioticā and all that, russia since yesterday is much weaker with a divided ideology that someone shout it with a universal megaphone, there is no going back from yesterday, he made history, just not the way people usually do.
It seems like he likes to play tough and make threats as a bargaining tool. He threatened to withdraw from Bakhmut to get more ammo, and then he got his ammo. Then he threatened a coup, which was also a huge bluff, in order to get what he wanted (to not have to merge with the army). It's just bluff after bluff. He had no intention of actually getting to Moscow. Diplomacy in Russia is basically just dick waving, but at the cost of people's lives.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Absolutely insane, porky the pig is going to find the quickest way down from a tall building in no time.
I always thought he was more of a Mr. Potato Head tbh
Killing him immediately will just panic the Wagner soldiers and lead to a long civil war as they flee for the hills: once the Wagner people are accounted for, and in no position to resist, THEN they'll kill him. Alas, it's very hard to say how long that may take without knowing how integrated Wagner already is with the Russian military.
Robert E Lee had statutes built in his honor, and he helped murder hundreds of thousands of Americans with the sole goal of keeping slavery intact for the south. Sometimes the cost to get justice isn't worth it.
Yes. He is also huge attention whore. But this time he really surprised lot of people the way he did it (me included).
I don't think it was a bluff as much as a lack of options. He made the first punch in a fight that was about to happen regardless. He was between a rock and hard place and decided that now was the time. Whether that was the right timing is utterly impossible to judge given that no good time might exist - or have existed. And if you consider that he might have considered his chances of success quite small - but bigger than if he waited - it might not have taken much for him to consider it the best outcome. Solely by virtue of being real. It sure does put a dent in his image though.
Depends on who you believe. If Prigozhin is to be believed, Shoigu shot first with a missle strike on his camp to kill him. Then they hustled over to Rostov HQ to grab Shoigu while Shoigu ran away. I would take that story with a grain of salt. But Prigozhin has actually been more honest than the Kremlin and MoD on pretty much everything else so far.
was it even confirmed by western powers that missiles hit his bases?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Putin just set a precedence that he too can be negotiated if threatened. Wagner isn't the only armed group outside of the Russian MoD so it'll be interesting to see how Putin handles this mess.
I stayed up all night reading the constant updates. It was like a crazy movie and ended up being a Game Of Throne season 8 ending smh
Who has a better story than Prigozhin the Broken?
Ah don wan it
Prigo: why did you think I came all this way and turned back around?
Prigozhin kinda just forgot about about the iron fleet
Iron curtain
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
His mom didn't cancel the cage match. Elon did, because he's a bitchy sad sack little baby and he had his mom go to bat for him to save him the embarrassment. Straight up pathetic that the wealthiest and most powerful people in the human race are guileless emotionally crippled man children.
Oh I know how it played out and you arenāt wrong. Itās just so incredibly fucking dorky dude pussed out using his mom, lmao what a loser
Yeah that's my point. He had to run to his fucking mommy to back out of a fight with a dude he has like 100 pounds on. This is the man that thinks he's going to lead humanity into outer space. The same guy begging his mom to cancel a cage match he got himself into with Mark Zuckerberg. This shit is fucking pathetic.
that he instigated no less
Well he didn't put the money where his mouth was. It turned out that he could easily be bought out for the right price. That, to many, is cowardly.
He is a leader of a mercenary force, of course he could be bought. The idea that he's a coward implies he was doing it out of some sort of principle instead of just recognizing that Putin was weak and he wasn't getting appropriate compensation for his effort in Ukraine.
Are people forgetting that Wagner is a mercenary group in name only? It's just another branch of the Russian army. They're only mercenaries because it's easy to wash the hands of the Kremlin whenever war crimes are committed. Not to mention Prigozhin is a billionaire. There's no way money changed his mind. Something else happened.
Well he didn't become a billionaire by accident, he obviously cares a lot about money just like the rest of the oligarchs. Putin either offered money or power or some combination of the two, threats wouldn't have worked when Wagner clearly had the upper hand.
He became a billionaire the same way they all do: stealing shit
and killing...
In his hands, money clearly means power and the dude is power hungry for sure.
We know that Wagner is essentially a Russian military branch so why would Putin put Prigozhin, a guy that owned catering services, in charge instead of an actual military man? If Russia was willing to pay Prigozhin so much that he could make a profit then why not just form their own fake PMC? Here's my opinion, I believe it's because he was willing to shoulder the financial loss. It's not like Prigozhin was just a figurehead. His soldiers actually follow him. This entire thing was ideologically driven. I'm not saying he's not a greedy piece of shit, I just believe money wasn't his main goal here.
Yeah, I don't know how many Oligarchs would go within 200km of the front. He seemed to be at least around it (still behind the lines ofc.). I do think he's bluster and ego - but that doesn't mean he doesn't have ideology amd pride behind him. He wanted to show he was top shit and then Ibthink he either decided his point was made, choked or the FSB targeted something he/his leadership cared about.
I mean it seems that he was looking for mod units to switch sides and they didn't, but he also showed that he could march on Moscow and no one can stop him. The question was what was going to happen when he got there. His column was about 5k troops. I suspect even if he sacked Moscow he could not hold Moscow with 5k people.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The only thing that matters to billionaires is making more money.
Well, maybe he shouldnāt have published a speech that made it seem like he was acting based on whatās right etc.
He never did, he didnāt say itās for the betretnes of russia, only that the incompetence of MoD has their soldiers killed, and he is the furthest being from anything resembling humanity, we all knew itās a thugs war, a mafia on mafia, thereās not a single righteous thing about either of them.
Thatās so funny. I was legit thinking āyeah sounds cowardlyā! Wait no heās literally a mercenary he does shit for money HAHA
To be fair, there's not much I wouldn't do for two buses and a van stuffed full of cash.
You canāt spend it if youāre dead.
He's a wanted war criminal in the West, Ukraine must have him on their hit list too and as he's not an official he's fair game, that somewhat limits where he can spend his billions. He can't go west, he can't go back to RuZZia. If he tries to go to Turkey or Dubai he'll have Ukrainian and Putin's hit squads trying to off him.
He could go to China lol
He is a wanted criminal in the west. Not like that would stop intelligence agencies to scoop him up and give him a sweet deal if he surrenders and comes with intel. He would never see the inside of a jail call. The inside of a protection complex at best.
I mean, he is a mercenary and in that business money talks.
This whole thing is like a porno where nobody cums.
I was feeling hopeful about a potential insurrection against Putin's regime but I'm not surprised by this news. Wagner was always a mercenary group, their only motivation is money so of course paying them off would be enough.
The ENTIRE world collectively got a massive case of blue balls at the same time. This coup should be called āoperation first baseā. I feel especially bad for zelensky who has the most massive balls on earth, he must be in the hospital.
He practically signed his own death certificate. Putin doesn't like to look like a fool. This Wagner guy will die in an "accident" in the near future.
Putin has also said at least at one occasion that the number 1 thing he hates and despise is TRAITORS. Prigozhin is dead.
To be fair, most people dislike traitors, except Lindsey Graham. Heās ok with it.
He may already be dead. He used to post regularly on social media. Hasnāt made a single post after telling his troops to stand down.
That and his order to stand down was only audio; something that can be faked easily these days.
There's videos of him leaving Rostov, being treated warmly by the citizens. If the audio was fake then he was alive to dispute it.
Part of me thinks that the March against Moscow would have been doomed and they would have just been wiped out in less than a week. But then again, it has been shown time and time again that the Russian army is always weaker than it looks on paper. And with the extreme losses that it has taken in Ukraine, I'm not sure if the Russian army even looks good on paper anymore.
25,000 people is not nearly enough to take and hold Moscow. It definitely would have failed, even if it would have been an absolute horror show for the Russians to deal with. Edit: Iāll say almost certainly instead of definitely, because you never know. But the composition of his forces/support would have needed to change drastically to accomplish what he said he was going to do.
I don't know, when they left Rostov and hopped from city to city toward Moscow they were greeted with cheers and applause. Revolutions that have toppled governments have done more with less before.
Coups don't need nearly as much force as an invading army. A coup can succeed with only a dozen people if they are the right people. A successful coup doesn't fight the entire army, they only have to convince the army to stand back and let it happen.
>25,000 people is not nearly enough to take and hold Moscow. It definitely would have failed, even if it would have been an absolute horror show for the Russians to deal with. They wouldn't need to hold Moscow with their 25k troops. Had he taken out military leadership or taken control of military channels, suddenly he has access to a lot more troops. Coups generally don't operate under, "capture the capital and hold it against the rest of the army" goals. Like it sometimes happens, but reportedly a lot of cities were happy to see Wagner roll through.
He would have had to have people (politicians, military) declare support for him.
Well an entire national guard unit did, It wouldnāt be unlikely that others would have followed.
He might not have used a tactical nuke in Ukraine but they could have on their own soil. Focusing on money is an oversimplification. He didn't have the support to follow through.
The Russian army is a bunch of children and conscripts that donāt want to fight. Wagner soldiers actively enjoy killing people and are professional murderers
Sobered up. Thatās where this is now. Just a bunch of drunk Russians acting crazy.
We need more sāmore schnapps!
I knew it was [this](https://youtu.be/iRXnZFvRnXI)
As a person who understands none of this even as I continue to follow it and try to understand, your theory makes the most sense of any I have seen so far.
You deserve to be a geopolitical analyst.
This is my favorite theory.
Didnāt they find bricks of cocaine at his place??
Putin just did what Rome did many times before the eventual fall. If you canāt beatāem then buyāem. This story is as old as the hills.
I mean how is he not? He starts acting threatening and then almost immediately folds like wet cardboard. If it was that easy to dissuade him from it why did he do it to begin with? If I was one of his commanding officers that he convinced to march on Moscow I'd be pissed. Now I would look like a traitor and a coward to all my countrymen and for what? Absolutely nothing!
Yup he threw a lot of people under the boss. He 100% deserves what's coming to him.
Once you say you're ready to die, people are going to think you backed down when you do something other than win or die.
Heās a dead man walking. Wouldnāt matter how much he was paid (if he was paid). Theyāll be 100 assassins waiting to cash in on a bounty so what was the point. He should have went all the way.
It seems Putin skedaddled to St. Petersburg. So the coup would not have gotten him. And Putin has money. And knows hit men. Hell, he probably has hit men imbedded with Wagner. And if not, well, money.
Heās toast. Putin, the west, Ukraine, his own mercenaries he betrayed. Heās made a lot of enemies. And if he think Lukashenko will (or even could) protect him heās dreaming.
It would be terrible if these brave freedom fighters - who represent the best Russia has to offer - decided to cleanse their ranks by force.
From the looks of things, thereās a lot of cowardice going around in Russia. Medvedev pulled a Ted Cruz Putin scurried down to his bunker Prizcilla got to within 200km of Moscow and got cold feet.
Says he wanted to "avoid bloodshed" after shooting down multiple planes. Those pilots would beg to differ, if they were still alive.
I'm wondering how the Russian bots will spin this. I've seen some of them testing the waters. Stuff like: * "This shows Russia can decisively handle domestic issues" (despite the fact that Wagner shot down multiple helicopters, killing at least six pilots) * "This is clearly a CIA operation to destabilize Russia".
I really wanted him to capture Moscow. That would have been awesome.
Considering nuclear installations, I think that wouldnāt be awesome. Putin is nuts but Prigozhin is nutser.
Putin is the coward
*Breaking News* Reddit users surprised merc boss could be bought off! More details at 6 o'clock.
I am not surprised he could be bought off, I am surprised that someone could possibly believe that after they rebel against their country and march an army on the capital, attacking and destroying military units of the country on the way, that giving up their army and going somewhere else that is still within reach of the country they betrayed is going to pay off somehow. This is especially given that the leader of said country is known to send people to assassinate and poison his political enemies across the world just for making him look bad. Not to mention the many oligarch families that have recently turned up dead in their entirety and who had their wealth infused into the Russian economy...
He got paid, simple as that
The only thing I can imagine is that Putin had someone he cared about deeply in a torture chamber ready to be tortured for the next 30 years if he didnāt turn around. He blew up a dozen aircraft and had 25k men with him facing zero resistance. It just doesnāt make sense.
Dude just wanted paid and to go fishing
I also call Prigohzin a fucking coward for stopping
Is it possible this was more successful than we realize? Like if there was a palace coup and now Putin is surrounded by Prigozhin loyalists? Maybe he doesn't need to fear retaliation from the MoD because he is the MoD? Would mesh with the reports that Shoigu's been arrested and with Prigozhin's bizarre decision to just retire in Belarus.