After thinking it over, I'm persuaded by the users who argued that this story is intellectually and historically interesting and therefore deserves a thread on HN – as long as it can stay out of flamewar. If you're going to comment, please make sure you're posting in the intended spirit of intellectual curiosity, and please avoid the shallow, tropey, flamebaity style.
It's clearly tied to the account that does the sharing, so internally they must track that. what they track that for is another question but I don't know the answer to that.
This sequence of events left a strange aftertaste: first striking observation was that there was no enough information about what’s going on and there is still not enough. Everything could be narrowed down to a few sources in Telegram giving very brief updates. The reporting by traditional media had a lot of „not independently confirmed“ details. This was very strange, given that everything was happening in a densely populated area - Rostov, Voronezh, Lipetsk and Tula are big cities, M4 is an important highway with a lot of traffic. I would expect minute-by-minute coverage with a lot of pictures, maps, estimates of how much time they need to reach Moscow etc.
Second observation was that the regime did not exist in the moment: with few notable exceptions, we have not even seen faces of anyone from national security council. Some local actions of the governors, fortification of Moscow, pathetic speech of Putin in the morning and that’s it. The weakness of it in the face of a violent force was exposed.
Third observation was unexpectedly high visible support of Wagner by people. Many laughing at situation or agreeing with Prigozhin‘s demands, some bringing food and water to mercenaries in Rostov. All despite that PMC Wagner is a criminal organization famous for extra-judicial executions, war crimes etc. An organization led by an open nazi (Utkin) and assembled from prisoners, many of which were convicted for violent crimes. It is crazy how people can even think of collaborating with them.
And the outcome, a deal that says Putin is no longer in control without saying it. Could it be some conspiracy to purge elites while keeping the supreme leader in power? It does not look so. It looks like he for the first time in history was forced to eat the pill. Yet he is still a president and business is as usual. It is a very dangerous moment if we remember that Russia still has nuclear weapons and it is big enough that even without using them by falling apart it can destabilize the entire world.
>first striking observation was that there was no enough information about what’s going on and there is still not enough.
I "ran" a bot/crawler hobby project that takes a russian-speaking telegram channel as an input and outputs the messages in a translated form, including text, images and video. During this situation I realized this became really relevant so I improved during the coup it to support multiple input channels and to keep a queue as post processing takes long for videos, and to provide audio transcriptions (Prigozhin himself likes to post audio clips)
I don't think its true that there was not much information. There actually was minute-by-minute updates by citizens, Wagner itself, establishment-oriented channels etc. You can read the backlog if you want:
https://t.me/translatedrussianpropaganda
At the peak there was some real queue and I had to switch from running it on an ARM VM to my 12-core local system just to keep up. Whisper takes the longest to run, and given it translates spoken russian really well, I claim it was the first source of information in several occasions for people that don't speak Russian, for the few people that actually joined the channel (I didn't advertise it but on a small forum because I knew it might become a maintenance/fixing burden).
// This sequence of events left a strange aftertaste: first striking observation was that there was no enough information
I find this to be a universal fact of the war in Ukraine.
I speak Russian natively and most of my family (dad and both in-laws) grew up in Ukraine.
So you'd think that compared to an average Westerner I could be well I formed about what's happening.
Yet I find it completely impossible. An amalgam of Russian sources will present a totally different tactical and historical picture than that of Western and Ukrainian sources.
I can chose to believe the later based on emotion and prevalent sentiment of where I live but objectively I don't feel confident going in either direction.
It's crazy to me that someone can feel certainty here with access to only one of the sides' information.
Perhaps and even likely this has been the case in every war but it's the first one where I am so accutely aware of it.
It's not a new phenomenon. During the Chechenia war, On European TV, the poor Chechenia was invaded and civilians dying. My Russian friend was telling me on Russian TV it was all murderous Chechen terrorists attempting a coup.
On the verge of the second Iraq invasion, on European TV, there was doubt about claims of WMD but a hint of oil and USA agenda. American TV at my friends house was rallying that Saddam and his regime must be ended immediately.
> On the verge of the second Iraq invasion, on European TV, there was doubt about claims of WMD but a hint of oil and USA agenda. American TV at my friends house was rallying that Saddam and his regime must be ended immediately.
Can you point exactly what you mean by international law? Because I think you're handwaving over something that does not exist, at least in the way you imply it does.
It's really hard for russians to believe anything but official russian party line. There is a real russian nazi bias of believing in "great russia" and "lesser" Ukrainians. Then all the news are filtered through that confirmation bias.
If you really want to stay objective, ground yourself in hard facts like
1. russia invaded Ukraine
2. russia bombed various cities to the ground
3. russia lost its originally invaded territories around Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson regions which amounts about half since 2022 invasion
4. russian military losses as reported by Ukraine are close enough to media confirmed by OSINT like oryx etc.
5. maps are hard truth which is mostly converge to the same from both sides
That said, nobody can convince anyone who wants to stay delusional. And ru propaganda machine (including online bots) is largely directed at constantly generating multiple conflicting lies to muddy the waters.
I found this true in the early days, but I think there has been some settlement on basic facts.
The Russians have not conquered Kyiv, their invasion has stalled but they have caused enormous damage. Ukraine has not managed to expel the invading army, though they seem determined to do so.
It seems like Russian sources have largely taken the mask off. They are there to weaken the West and strengthen themselves and are fine with that coming at the expense of Ukraine. They continue to call Ukrainians bad names, but it feels less like a serious critique of Ukrainian nationhood and more of a rallying cry for their own benefit.
The two sides do disagree on specific issues like who dropped which bomb where and who controls a given village but we seem to have moved on from the days when Russia was claiming total victory. Some of Ukraine's messages about the future are very optimistic, but it's always important to take forward looking statements with a grain of salt.
> Some of Ukraine's messages about the future are very optimistic, but it's always important to take forward looking statements with a grain of salt.
I don't understand what you tried to say. All statements about the future are statements of intent, not statements of fact. Grains of salt are not required when someone says something like "I'm going to join a gym and lose a couple of pounds." Ukraine puts out statements that are very optimistic about their future because that's their intention, and that's just it.
> Second observation was that the regime did not exist in the moment: with few notable exceptions, we have not even seen faces of anyone from national security council. Some local actions of the governors, fortification of Moscow, pathetic speech of Putin in the morning and that’s it. The weakness of it in the face of a violent force was exposed.
This is, in my experience, actually a good indication that the event was truly a surprise to the Russian government. Their media apparatus is very good at having a cohesive narrative and lots of talking points in place before planned information operations, and they're not typically great at responding to events on the ground as they unfold, usually needing a couple of days to assemble a media campaign in response to unexpected events. The lack of any coordinated information response is a tell that the Russian government didn't anticipate this whole shebang.
Literally none of these points were apparent here. It shows a weak Russian state, was covered only as so far as necessary and what the message would be was completely unclear. Don't hire mercenaries?
> At @abc we had foreign bureaus in Beijing, Beirut, Berlin, Cairo, Frankfort, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Tel Aviv and Tokyo.
My dad was in newspapers. He worked at all types, everywhere from medium sized cities in the south and Midwest to big cities on the east coast (up to and including the New York Times).
During that era (last quarter of the 20th century), every one of those papers (not just the NYT) had a significant foreign presence. That list above of ABC bureaus - the foreign bureaus for a national broadcast network - is not that much more longer than the list of foreign bureaus for an average newspaper with a circulation of 300k-500k. I recall one of my dad’s papers in the ‘80s having bureaus in Moscow, Bombay, Karachi, London, Jerusalem… surely also places like Rome, Paris and Tokyo. I think those are all gone now.
No, not because of this. I’m not from the Default Country and work with Russian sources directly. It would not be unusual to see this in any Western media (e.g.German or British) reporting on a subject in a foreign country. It was unusual to see it in local news.
A lot of that is because Reuters, AP, and Bloomberg have a pretty strong backbench of freelancer journalists globally, which helps them with sourcing international news.
Most news in general has been financialized because margins are very low, leading to everyone depending on wire services for 80-90% of all reporting. Take a look at articles on both CNN and Fox, both will source 80-90% of their articles from the same wire services and add a sprinkle of commentary+opinion.
> Third observation was unexpectedly high visible support of Wagner by people. Many laughing at situation or agreeing with Prigozhin‘s demands, some bringing food and water to mercenaries in Rostov.
During Soviet times, many Russians learned to be _incredibly_ supportive of large gangs of people with guns and tanks standing in their front yard. There can be a horde of Romulans invading and they’ll be lining the road with water bottles and flower garlands.
People there still remember family members being carted away in box trucks for asking when they can expect the next food shipment. Russia is, and mostly has always been, ruled by violent thugs that believe their monopoly on violence should be exercised swiftly, frequently, and harshly.
Look how any kind of perceived criticism (or perceived lack of jubilant support) has been treated at any time in their past. Any public display of loyalty, any vox-pop interview - completely meaningless.
Re: [The] first striking observation was that there was no[t] enough information...
I'd long ago realised that this was a significant indicator of a crisis situation in many contexts. These range from military attack to natural disaster to political or business unrest.
The first indications of the atom bomb attack on Hiroshima were a) scattered reports of a "large explosion" and b) instant loss of all telegraph communications from a point some distance from the city centre inwards. Though the bomb struck early in day, it wasn't until that afternoon that an Imperial Japanese Army observation plane was able to fly over the city and surveil the damage, and the next day that the cause was known, after the United States informed Japan through diplomatic channels.
Similarly, when the HMS Sheffield was struck by Argentinian Exocet missiles during the Falklands War, the immediate effects were a loss of communications with the ship, and the first accurate information arrived, via heliocopter, along with the first casualties transported off the Sheffield.
In widespread natural disasters, particularly earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes, there is often some communications from major urban centres, but even those are limited and often outlying regions are entirely cut off. I recall when following a major Chilean earthquake, the US immediately offered satellite telephones, which could be used to report on conditions from remote communities.
In business or personal relationship usually characterised by open channels, "no news is bad news" is a useful heuristic.
For start-ups and business, there's an almost ridiculously predictable progression of blog (and more recently: social media) updates, initially exuberant, enthusiastic, and often technical, shifting to highly-managed public relations releases focusing on business and social factors, to ... silence. The latter often ends with a "next stage in our story" post, i.e., "we're shutting down".
And in political and military situations, what used to be a fat channel of communications (though not necessarily useful or accurate) is cut off as chains of command become unclear, leadership and spokespersons scramble for safety, and rumour and gossip spew forth. That last is its own interesting mix: the genuinely confused or misinformed, often, but also those trying to influence or exploit circumstances.
That "official channels" bit has been the case, and a major failing of news organisations for over a century. Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz pointed this out in a 1920 New Republic article, "A Test of the News", commenting in large part on the New York Times's coverage (and failings) of the Russian Revolution. In particular was the issue of ideologically-tinged coverage, here anti-Communist principally. (Later the bias would run the other direction, particularly in the 1930s during the Holodomor.)
Lippmann and Merz note:
The analysis shows how seriously misled was the Times by its reliance upon the official purveyors of information. It indicates that statements of fact emanating from governments and the circles around governments as well as from the leaders of political movements cannot be taken as judgements of fact by an independent press. They indicate opinion, they are controlled by special purpose, and they are not trustworthy news. If, for example, the Russian Minister of War says that the armies of Russia were never stronger, that cannot be accepted by a newspaper as news that the armies of Russia are stronger than ever. The only news in the statement is that the Minister says they are stronger.
They continue to note the especially insidious nature of the anonymous source. The whole article is interesting reading, and bears strong parallels to events occurring today.
As do the practices Lippmann and criticise. Over a century later, news organisations still rely overwhelmingly on official (and unofficial) government spokespersons, and in the majority of cases treat such pronouncements as statements of fact, even where severe credibility issues are well known. Much of this is a result of availability heuristics (government mouthpieces are easy to find, and generally want to talk), reputation, and relationships established between journalists and sources. It is much more work to find truly independent, credible, and unmotivated witnesses.
And so, when things go pear-shaped, the official sources tend to become scarce.
Related to the disaster / comms failure dynamic I mentioned above: one rough proxy for determining how bad a widespread disaster in fact is is to look at where casualty reports have not yet been received. Again: capital and major cities typically preserve some communications capacity. Outlying regions are far more likely to be cut off, and by looking at the relative size and significance of locations that are making reports, as well as patterns of communications cessation, it's possible to make some inferences about total magnitude. Note that offical tallies of morbidity and mortality are based on received, credible, verified reports, which is to say, official statistics will almost always understate actual impacts, possibly for hours, days, or weeks, depending on overall severity. The 2004 Boxing Day Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami comes to mind, with full official counts taking months or years to finally settle.
Prisoners provided a decent chunk of recruitment for Ukrainian forces at the beginning of the war as well. Regardless of country, prison population represents a group, already familiar with weapons, violence, and audacity to use them, which can be reliably sourced for fighting or advancing other interests that require extreme measures. Even if Wagner is dissolved, its remnants will control the criminal underworld of Russia and will be a punitive instrument for any dissent.
In the early days of the war back in 2014-15, it wasn't as professional due to the institutional collapse that comes with the changing of an entire political system which lead to questionable Militias being formed.
There was a lot of work on professionalizing the essentially greenfield Ukrainian Army by NATO members like Canada, US, UK, France, Germany, Türkiye, etc.
That said, a number of the unsavory militias from the 2014-15 period (such as the Azov Brigade and the Dudayev Battalion) still exist in a limited form, but largely neutered due to the efforts out to professionalize the Ukrainian Army.
The general level of professionalism has certainly not increased since February 2022. That is to be expected though. On the other hand, combat effectiveness has definitely increased.
> The reporting by traditional media had a lot of „not independently confirmed“ details. This was very strange, given that everything was happening in a densely populated area - Rostov, Voronezh, Lipetsk and Tula are big cities, M4 is an important highway with a lot of traffic.
Think about how many videos exist of generic Russian troops and tanks moving on the M4 and around the Ministry of Defense building in Rostov just on Twitter alone. Most of the time the only way to differentiate Wagner from regular troops is a little patch on their arms.
It’s very hard to verify the date a video was taken, even when there’s several of them online. Deception is always a concern and it takes time to gather enough experts to cross verify facts and find trustworthy sources on the ground.
This whole incident was actually quite accessible this time around - a lot less fog of war than usual. Google Maps showed blockages on the M4 and Prigozhin sent out audio messages via official channels.
Well, that’s the thing: there’s not that many evidence from specific points. Imagine having relatives in Efremov or Novocherkassk, knowing that sometimes there’s fighting between Wagner and army or FSB, and not being able to tell if there’s any risk for your family. Tracking such a big force on your own turf should have been an easy task for MVD or FSB. Maybe even for some big newspapers. Visual ID, plates etc. At least some Wagner vehicles were easily recognizable.
I would expect minute-by-minute coverage with a lot of pictures, maps, estimates of how much time they need to reach Moscow etc.
This existed, it just didn't exist in the traditional media. Look in the right discord servers and there were new videos being posted every 5 minutes as the convoy was moving around.
I do work with many types of sources - a habit developed in times when I was doing this professionally for some state actors. The coverage in social media made the impression of continuous data stream, but information density was really low if you filter it.
Starting about a year ago, western news sources markedly reduced coverage. There coverage wasn't that great anyway - mostly people hanging around Moscow, Berlin, or Kiev and reporting what they heard. The few outlets that continued a higher pace of coverage mostly stopped around January of this year. And what coverage they have is mostly from them looking at Telegram and other social media.
On the face of it, you might say "pick your poison" when choosing between Russian and Ukrainian social media sources, but the pro-Russian sources hae been consistently counter factual, stating things like the number of Patriot systems destroyed as much higher than the number of systems in theater. There are some quality pro-Ukraine sources that I've found provide consistently good info.
Why would people not support Wagner over the regular army, and specifically over Shoigu and Gerasimov that he alleges to target? I can explain. None of the reasoning below is meant to excuse or praise Wagner or the rest of Russian actors in the region, but nevertheless, it's valuable to understand people's perspective.
This stuff about Utkin's Nazism, with Prigozhin himself son of a Jewish man, is completely peripheral and not in any way more salient than fringe National Socialist elements and Azov symbolic on the Ukrainian side that Russians make much hay of (in spite of Zelensky, too, being Jewish). The accusation just doesn't bite when there's a Slav on Slav war going on, it's only good for propaganda and twitter point-scoring, neither side there is seriously making decisions with relation to WWII political compass.
War crimes? This whole – unrecognized – war is a crime if we're serious about it, and regular Russian military is neck deep in war crimes, and it wasn't (far as anyone knows) Wagner that had terrorized Bucha, obliterated Mariupol or blew up the Kahovka dam, to name just three high-profile atrocities.
Executions? The most recent case was them executing a defector (and a repeat criminal offender, from Ukraine, who had been serving a term for aggravated murder prior to his recruitment and defection). I don't think it's surprising when people in a rather harsh society shrug about such things (not to whatabout, but how many Americans would approve or at least not object to Snowden's execution?).
On the other hand, there are very salient reasons Russians support Wagner.
1. They just have a compelling, powerful image. It is known that they've succeeded in a few areas where regular forces have failed; Prigozhin is somewhat good at moving speeches; and they've been effective at exaggerating the difference and appropriating credit. Reminder that Prigozhin is a man of many talents and careers, one among those being management of the so-called Internet Research Agency [1]; catering business, paramilitary operations and illustration of children's books [2] aside, he's been in charge of propaganda for a long time now.
2. Adding to that, they just have an outsized presence in people's minds, there are catchy edgy music videos [3] and decently made movies [4] of their production (with military history buffs praising that movie), many affiliated Telegram channels, they're just very online, including Prigozhin personally – unlike Russian Ministry of Defense that's infamously behind the times, secretive, prone to embarrassing transparent lies, "boomer-like". It's another Russian self-own, in a sense, because the MoD grasped at Wagnerite meme magic to rescue the perception of the campaign, and became overshadowed as a result.
3. The war is not genuinely popular, especially now that it's clearly close to being lost. Surveys to the effect that 70% of Russians support the war omit details that this support is often in the form "we'll be exterminated if we surrender" [5], it's not driven by some positive expectation of Imperial greatness but by fear, very much like 1945 Germany but exacerbated by connectivity [6]; there was an awful lot of chauvinistic smugness early on, but not now. Prigozhin articulates criticism of the status quo (Ukraine never planned to attack, the operation was a mistake, it needlessly made Ukraine into a real threat, eroded Russian prestige, brought NATO closer to the heart of Russia than it'd have been otherwise etc.) [7] that resonates with people vastly more than coping output of the official organs.
4. People really, truly hate and look down on Shoigu, even people in the regular army. Thus they did not open fire at Wagner forces, and there's such a volatile situation that soldiers at the frontline are often not given arms, due to fear of mutiny. It is known at this point, in large part thanks to Wagner propaganda, that Shoigu is a corrupt bureaucratic oaf not qualified for his job, who appopriates vast sums and even diverts military resources for his pampered daughter, who only became a Minister due to his ties within Russian elite (he's one of the most powerful members of the gang, jumping between top-level posts for three decades). He's a lightning rod for all aspects of dissatisfaction with the way the war has gone for Russia (which might be part of why Putin keeps him around). And he's specifically hated by the unorganized but powerful undercurrent of ethnic Russian nationalism, due to being perceived as a strongly identifying Tuvan Buddhist [8] feudal lord with a private army [9] who is completely beyond any reproach and glibly sends tens of thousands of Russians (plus of course other peoples) to the meatgrinder, in meat waves, for zero benefit. Shoigu is understood as "noviop" [10], a member of semi-artificial Soviet post-ethnic people, and the deeper one's ethno-nationalism, the less support he gets, with people really concerned about Slavic race and so on charging him with slaughter of Slavs on both sides. In contrast, Prigozhin plays up his Russophilic and Slavophilic attitude, has his son serving in Wagner, cries crocodile tears about the loss of lives, and very pointedly, repeatedly drives the connection, in very simple language: "the "Tuvan degenerate" Shoigu denies us materiel – thousands of our Russian boys are getting killed by the enemy". With Ukrainians apparently unbeatable and, frankly, acting in their right, the conclusion about ways to stop boys from being killed becomes obvious enough. Like Kadyrov, his fellow warlord, he conspicuously does not accuse the Supreme Leader of any wrongdoing, but the implication about actions he believes are legitimate for Putin to take are clear.
In short, it's best to understand the situation not so much as Wagner group being popular with Russians on its own merits, but as Russia having arrived at the metastable condition where any cohesive military unit that seems competent and starts a mutiny against the Ministry of Defense can expect nontrivial cooperation from the masses and other forces. This is, I believe, is exactly why Prigozhin is acting in such a bizarre manner: he is making clear to Putin that he could easily move around and destabilize the war effort, all to secure his own survival – in the way that popular field commanders of "Novorossiya" failed to do, and got eliminated on Kremlin orders as potential competitors for control.
Wagner is theoretically easy to destroy, but has enough momentum to topple the Army and potentially send the whole regime into tailspin, with how unpopular Shoigu is; yet Putin is too invested in his little mafia family to throw Shoigu to the dogs; and if he keeps covering for Shoigu, the whole "good Czar, bad boyars" scheme implodes. So the equilibrium is letting Prigozhin go, with his force. At least for now.
I wonder when Prigozhin has started working on this.
This is mostly romantic western propaganda. We (the NATO) are the good ones, which is not part of your essay, and the bad ones are the Russians. This is reflected in the sources as well, which are exclusively pro-west ones as far as I can see.
Just as an example: Currently in our media Russians blew up the Kahovka dam. At no time anyone asks why they'd do that. It is detrimental to Russias strategy in the same way Russia does not profit from blowing up Nord Stream. The only reason for blowing up the dam would be to stop Ukraine forces at that flank, however the Russians were in control of the dam and they could have just opened it. Again this is similar to Nord Stream.
Could Russians have done it still? Sure, not all actions need to make sense, but it wouldn't be my first guess.
> With Ukrainians apparently unbeatable [...]
Not sure as meant as quote or not, but this does not hold water at all. Even Ukrainian officials say that the offensive isn't up to par currently. And by now we saw enough broken Leopards to say that the deliveries didn't have their desired effect either. Why are we in this war again?
I cite Western sources solely because I presume most people here don't read Russian. I had to look it up.
My personal hypothesis about the dam is that it was negligence and perhaps a misguided attempt to "partially demolish it". The main piece of evidence against Ukrainian/Western action is the resolution of Russian Government "On the specifics of application in the territories of the Donetsk People's Republic, Luhansk People's Republic, Zaporizhzhia region and Kherson region of the provisions of the legislation of the Russian Federation in the field of industrial safety of hazardous production facilities and safety of hydraulic structures", issued a week prior to the catastrophe[1], that says among many other similar things:
> d) technical investigation of the causes of accidents at hazardous production facilities and accidents at hydraulic structures shall be carried out by commissions headed by representatives of the authorized bodies.
> a) The provisions of Part Six of Article 10 of the Federal Law "On Safety of Hydraulic Structures" shall not apply until 1 September, 2023;
> 8. Until March 1, 2024 the information on hydraulic structures, located in the territories of the Donetsk People's Republic, Lugansk People's Republic, Zaporozhye Region and Kherson Region and put into operation until June 1, 2023, may be submitted for their inclusion in the Russian register of hydraulic structures without submission of the declaration of safety of hydraulic structures.
> *10. Until January 1, 2028 the technical investigation of accidents at hazardous production facilities and accidents at hydraulic structures, which occurred as a result of military actions, sabotage and terrorist acts, shall not be carried out.*
I'm way past trying to reason about qui bono. Sometimes it works (Nord Stream), sometimes Russia is just a magical place where stuff happens.
> I cite Western sources solely because I presume most people here don't read Russian. I had to look it up.
Source 4. and 7. are Russian. It also wasn't about the language, but affiliation.
> My personal hypothesis about the dam is that it was negligence and perhaps a misguided attempt to "partially demolish it".
Why?
> The main piece of evidence against Ukrainian/Western action is the resolution of Russian Government "On the specifics of application in the territories of the Donetsk People's Republic, Luhansk People's Republic, Zaporizhzhia region and Kherson region of the provisions of the legislation of the Russian Federation in the field of industrial safety of hazardous production facilities and safety of hydraulic structures", issued a week prior to the catastrophe[1], that says among many other similar things: [...]
This proves exactly nothing, except that Russians knew about this attack vector. Especially because according to them it was attacked weeks prior. Could be a lie, but they indeed reported it weeks prior.
> I'm way past trying to reason about qui bono. Sometimes it works (Nord Stream), sometimes Russia is just a magical place where stuff happens.
Did you forget that Russia was behind Nord Stream as well for weeks? Past cui bono is la-la-land.
>> My personal hypothesis about the dam is that it was negligence and perhaps a misguided attempt to "partially demolish it".
>Why?
I would agree with that, because it is consistent with the general state of affairs in Russian army and government structures responsible for Ukraine. They lack intellectual capacity to evaluate all the consequences of their actions or inaction. Even if they had it, the responsible people may have not communicated it to the peers - only to the command vertical, where the message could have been lost or did not reach decision makers in time.
> Could Russians have done it still? Sure, not all actions need to make sense, but it wouldn't be my first guess.
So what is your first guess. Because I think it makes plenty of sense that Russia would blow up the dam, but even if we accepted your premise that it doesn’t, then for what actor does it make more sense to blow up the dam than Russia?
You may be the one who needs to take a step back and question if you’ve been consuming propaganda.
Especially considering Russia was the only one with the plausible means to do so, and a reasonable motive to rig the dam for demolition even if not to blow it up immediately (which I agree, was a dumb decision, probably an error either in communication or execution).
> So what is your first guess. Because I think it makes plenty of sense that Russia would blow up the dam, but even if we accepted your premise that it doesn’t, then for what actor does it make more sense to blow up the dam than Russia?
Russia had the means to block the flank at will. It does block that part for a week, sure, but after that Russia has no control over it anymore.
> [...] and question if you’ve been consuming propaganda.
That is beside the point. We all only/mostly consume propaganda. It's when you think that one side tells the truth, that you're being manipulated.
> It is crazy how people can even think of collaborating with them.
It is not crazy, if you take into account that the genocidal war is very popular among Russians, and the only complain they have is that it is not going according to their expectations. They blame the top military officials for that and think that wagner will be more efficient in killing Ukrainians.
Another option (which I'm partial to) is something like "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
Not everyone is on top of who's part of the mercenary company and some people could just see this as "a change", so they would offer some support.
Not making a statement of "how things really are" here, just saying that sometimes an explanation might be "jeez, finally there's some change, maybe something will happen out of this" and not "let me go support these genocidal mercenaries".
Yeah I agree. Prigozhin going after the war and saying it was always unjustified yesterday was an olive branch to at least a sizable minority of Russians who are not as GP says supporting a genocidal war.
He knows the regime is weak and pulled all the levers he could to make it look weaker and get himself more support. He's not tricking anyone, others know what he is but by suddenly speaking against the war he's signalled clearly they have the same immediate goals. I'd imagine that also went through some conscripted or otherwise unenthusiastic soldiers heads when they decided not to confront his mercenaries.
I think Putin expected Russian soldiers to resist when he gave a tough speech last night. They all watched except the air force.
What does that even mean? They tried to go 'fallujah' on Kyiv, it failed miserably. Back during Fallujah, if the locals were loaded with Javelins, things might have turned out differently for them as well.
>Third observation was unexpectedly high visible support of Wagner by people. Many laughing at situation or agreeing with Prigozhin‘s demands, some bringing food and water to mercenaries in Rostov. All despite that PMC Wagner is a criminal organization famous for extra-judicial executions, war crimes etc. An organization led by an open nazi (Utkin) and assembled from prisoners, many of which were convicted for violent crimes. It is crazy how people can even think of collaborating with them.
This raises an interesting question for me.
The invasion of Ukraine enjoys popular support inside Russia - around 70%.
The justification continuously put forward regarding why such a large proportion of the Russian population supports the invasion is that they've been brain-washed by state media into believing that Ukraine requires "de-Nazification".
That the Wagner group enjoys such popular support, while their Nazi sympathies are also common knowledge^ makes this justification questionable.
My best, admittedly totally speculative, guess right now is that the Russian populace has a far better/non-brainwashed understanding of the geopolitical situation than what is commonly suggested, and that while everyone is happy to go along with the de-Nazification pretence, in reality the populace harbours the same ambitions for a return of Russian imperial power that the Russian leadership does, and also holds similar moralistic perspective.
^I believe this to be the case, but I'm not certain. At the very least there doesn't seem a state sponsored campaign to hide it
> That the Wagner group enjoys such popular support, while their Nazi sympathies are also common knowledge^ makes this justification questionable.
I remember reading somewhere, that "Nazism" means something rather different in Russian culture than in Western culture. In the West, you say "Nazi" and the first thing most people think of is the Nazi mass murder of Jews, the Holocaust–that's what the school curriculum focuses on. But in Russia, you say "Nazi" and the first thing most people think of is the Nazi mass murder of Russians–that's what the Russian school curriculum focuses on. In the West, "Nazi=homicidal anti-semitism"; in Russia, "Nazi=homicidal Russophobia".
But, given that, what sense do they make of a group of Russian "Nazis" who support the Kremlin and fight its wars? It is a bit like if you met a group of neo-Nazis, and discovered they were all openly and proudly Jewish. If something doesn't make sense, people often just choose to pay no attention to it.
Similarly, the Russian accusations that Ukraine is a "neo-Nazi regime" seem ludicrous to Western ears – "Zelenskyy is of Jewish descent, his great grandparents died in the Holocaust, how can he be a Nazi?" But to most Russians, for whom the primary meaning of "Nazi" is not "antisemite" but "Russophobe", the idea that "Ukrainian nationalism=Nazism" makes more sense, and Zelenskyy's Jewishness appears irrelevant.
> But in Russia, you say "Nazi" and the first thing most people think of is the Nazi mass murder of Russians–that's what the Russian school curriculum focuses on. In the West, "Nazi=homicidal anti-semitism"; in Russia, "Nazi=homicidal Russophobia".
In Canada there is a monument to a Nazi SS division [1], because it was made up of Ukrainian volunteers fighting the Soviets, post-Holodomor that was seen as the lesser of two evils.
So with that small bit of trivia in mind, your explanation really does make sense and I'm surprised I haven't seen it put or thought of it that way. I reckon that context is probably also relevant to the "nazi-ism" of Ukrainian paramilitary (and now formal military) units like Azov Brigade? (although being close to totally ignorant on the subject, for all I know said groups are equally antisemitic).
Whether we are talking about Ukrainian nationalists, or Croatian nationalists, or Finns, or whoever else – if the Nazis are the only people willing to be your allies, what do you do?
And in India: Subhas Chandra Bose, one of the leaders of the Indian independence movement, chose to ally himself with Hitler and Imperial Japan. Many Indians today still view him as a hero, and do not think his willingness to fight with the Axis condemns him. At the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Japan, where Japan's war criminals are deified, there is a statute honouring the Indian judge Radhabinod Pal, who was the only judge at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial to acquit all the defendants. Through the memories of Bose and Pal, the governments of India and Japan have found something to bond over–their shared sympathy for the losing side in the Second World War.
"if the Nazis are the only people willing to be your allies"
Hmm, I wonder why. Maybe because of this [0]:
"An UVO brochure from 1929 stated: "Terror will be not only a means of self-defense, but also a form of agitation, which will affect friend and foe alike, regardless of whether they desire it or not."
The UVO organized a number of assassination attempts on some of the most renowned Polish and Ukrainian politicians, some of which were successful."
That is what I have heard as well. Let’s be real, antisemitism never fell totally out of favor in Eastern Europe. I never bought for a second that Putin or any of the higher ups were worried about it. This also explains how a Jewish man can be called a Nazi with a straight face by Russian media and leaders. For many Russians, Nazi means Western European aligned organizations that kill Russians.
The Russian understanding of Nazism, like elsewhere, also includes aspects of racial purity, anti-Semitism, and ultra-nationalism, and a focus on "degeneracy" as the source of a nation's decline ("weak men make hard times").
Of course, the optics of being seen as a Nazi are very bad, so even Nazis are constantly pointing fingers and saying "no, THAT person is the true Nazi." But the facts aren't on their side, so we have no obligation to humor them when they say absurd things like "Zelenskyy is the true Nazi", when the man, aside from being Jewish, also isn't espousing Nazi ideology.
I lean more anti-fascist than Nazi apologist, but there's a huge difference between:
> “Wagner” is literally a Nazi dog whistle. Wagner group are not just small-n “nazis”
and
> Or at least some of them are.
This isn't the type of substantive comment that HN is looking for. It definitely leans towards "flamebait" while lacking substance that the rest of us can work with or learn from. I don't even necessarily disagree with you, but I would argue that this comment doesn't add anything helpful to this discussion.
“Some of them” = the group leadership who name the group, given that it is a Nazi reference. Richard Wagner was a notorious antisemite and Hitler was a fan.
It’s like calling the group “88 Division”. Sure, not all of the grunts working for them are dyed-in-the-wool Nazis, but the leadership sure are.
> given that it is a Nazi reference. Richard Wagner was a notorious antisemite and Hitler was a fan.
Wagner was never a Nazi – he died six years before Hitler was born. Wagner isn't my thing, but not all fans of his music (even today) are Nazis. Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, was a big Wagner fan–of course, he knew Wagner was a rabid antisemite, but he managed to look past that and appreciate his music in spite of his antisemitism. In 2001, the Israeli conductor Mendi Rodan–a Holocaust survivor–conducted the first public performance of one of Wagner's works in Israel since before the Second World War. If a Holocaust survivor can separate the artistic value of Wagner's music from Wagner's Jew-hatred, can others?
I wouldn't recommend naming something after him–especially in contemporary English-speaking culture which is very focused on the historical associations of names–although it is easy to forget how specific that (relatively recent development) is to a particular cultural sphere, something alien to much of the globe–but I wouldn't assume someone who did so was necessarily motivated by any sympathy for Nazism or antisemitism, especially someone coming from a culture which lacks that focus.
Actually, here's an open source project named Wagner, and obviously in reference to the composer – https://github.com/spite/Wagner – maybe an unfortunate choice of name, but I see no reason to accuse the author of sympathy for Nazism or antisemitism
> It’s like calling the group “88 Division”. Sure, not all of the grunts working for them are dyed-in-the-wool Nazis, but the leadership sure are.
"88" can mean a lot of different things. To Australians of a certain age, it may make them think of Australia's bicentenary celebrations in 1988. Some in the UK may remember "Charter 88", a left-of-centre constitutional reform pressure group founded in that year. In Chinese culture, 88 means good luck–and as someone who lives in a country with a significant Chinese minority, I've seen it used in that sense a lot over the years. I have no idea what (if anything) "88" means in Russia, but I wouldn't assume a hypothetical Russian group with "88" in its name necessarily had anything to do with Nazism. "88" as a neo-Nazi code is part of American culture, in other cultures 88 means completely different things, or nothing at all. Even in US culture, it has meanings unrelated to Nazism (amateur radio, NASCAR)
Yes, that’s how dog whistles work. They have plausible deniability. I’m sure that Wagner group are just fans of classical music and it’s all a big misunderstanding!
The other thing about "dog whistles": you can claim anything you want is a "dog whistle", and even if it isn't, it is almost impossible for anybody to prove you wrong. It is an unfalsifiable claim, and unfalsifiable claims rarely have much value.
I'm no fan of Wagner PMC – they are brutes guilty of war crimes – but why bother with this worthless "dog whistle" criticism of them when there are lots of real atrocities we can condemn them for?
Who are you talking about here? Yevgeny Prigozhin? Dmitry Utkin?
And what is the evidence either of them is a "nazi sympathizer"?
As I said, I'm no fan of either man – I expect the day will come when the ICC indicts both of them for war crimes – but I don't see the point of labelling them as "nazis" on the basis of flimsy evidence. The case that they are war criminals is much stronger than the case that they are Nazis – and surely being a war criminal is a lot worse than being a Nazi (not all of whom were guilty of war crimes/crimes against humanity/genocide–Franz von Papen joined the Nazi Party and served Nazi Germany as its ambassador–first to Austria and then to Turkey–but the Nuremberg Trial acquitted him of all charges)
Please don't cross into personal attack or flamewar, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. You can make your substantive points without any of that.
Maybe you should stop to argue in bad faith? The guys behind this are nazis with nazis tatoos, a name and a logo inspired by nazis and are doing nazi-like actions and support nazi racial ideologies.
You broke the site guidelines badly in this thread. If someone else is wrong or you feel they are, it's enough to substantively show how what they are saying is wrong. Adding name-calling and personal attack just poisons the thread, evokes worse from others, and discredits your own argument. If you happen to be right, that's particularly bad because then you end up discrediting the truth, which hurts everyone (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).
Apologies if it came this way, I didn't point out (or wanted to) if they are wrong or not, I just wanted to expose some flaimbait and sophisms used to defend neo-nazi groups.
I felt like using sophisms to defend neo-nazis wasn't in the spirit of HN, I come here for the intellectual curiosity and productive messages.
I'm sorry, but I don't see how that's an accurate representation of what you did in this thread. You attacked the other user badly, in violation of HN guidelines like "assume good faith", and accused them of doing a bunch of things that (at least from what I saw) they hadn't done. That's not cool.
I know that with a topic this provocative it's difficult to read other people correctly, but the site guidelines provide explicit guidance about that too:
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
I'm not "Trying to construct threads in bad faith" or "bikeshedding" or whatever else. It isn't a violation of the site guidelines to disagree with you.
Also, you accuse me of violating the guidelines, but your allegation never cites their text; whereas, in accusing me of "bad faith" you are violating an explicit statement in them ("Assume good faith")
> I'm not "Trying to construct threads in bad faith" or "bikeshedding" or whatever else. It isn't a violation of the site guidelines to disagree with you.
This comment is yet another example of how you are not arguing in good faith.
You're somehow trying to misrepresent the problem of your insistence in downplaying and even denying evidence of Wagner's neonazi and white supremacists ties as just people disagreeing, and then passing yourself as a victim for being attacked for not agreeing with something. This is a gross misrepresentation of the whole discussion.
You're referring to a guy covered in Nazi tattoos who created an organization reflecting Nazi ideology and with known tie with white supremacists and neonazi ideologies as having no objective ties to Nazi ideologies. While you deny that, you're desperately trying to pass off any remark refuting your baseless claim as being attacks o difference of opinions, when actually you're irrationally denying evidence and insisting on pushing a blatantly false idea.
You don't seem to be arguing in good faith, and it looks you're trying to manipulate and distort things to whitewash neonazi organizations under the excuse of relativizing evidence, shift burdens of proof, and manipulating objectivisim bars to still claim a fact is not verified in spite of all the evidence and thus it should be treated as false. This is not good faith, and screams as neonazi apologism.
You've broken HN's rules badly in this argument, and you've done it repeatedly elsewhere. We end up having to ban accounts that do this, so please stick to the rules from now on.
If someone else is wrong or you feel they are, the good options include (1) post correct information substantively, so the rest of us can learn (this is very different from calling names and attacking personally, as you and others did in this thread); (2) downvote and/or (if the comment breaks the site guidelines) flag the post; (3) chalk it up to the internet being wrong and simply move on.
You are theoretically correct, but in this specific case name of PMC Wagner was taken by association with Nazi and founder of PMC is neonazi. 88 in Russia means the same as in all white supremacist groups — Hitlergrüß (HH).
It is interesting to compare the German Wikipedia and the English Wikipedia articles on him – both cite some of the same sources, but German Wikipedia presents it as conclusive "he's a Nazi", the English Wikipedia article says "sources X, Y, Z have alleged he is a Nazi due to reasons P, Q, R", but leaves it up to the reader to decide if those sources and their reasons are convincing.
Also, "88 = Heil Hitler" doesn't make a lot of sense in Russian, since H is not the 8th letter of the Russian alphabet (it is Ж, normally transliterated as zh), and "Heil Hitler" in Russian is хайль гитлер – х is the 20th letter of the Russian alphabet not the 8th.
As someone who knows Russian international politics and subcultures well I can tell you that German wiki is correct and that Russian nazi do know Latin alphabet. I knew some Russian skinheads with 14/88 tattoos and it meant for them exactly the same as for neonazi elsewhere in Europe or USA.
> Also, "88 = Heil Hitler" doesn't make a lot of sense in Russian
14/88 doesn't make a lot of sense in Russian, doesn't stop it from being plastered all over the place by different militias (Including, but not limited to, Wagner).
Obviously I didn't downvote you, since you were replying to me, and you can't downvote direct replies. But here's my guess as to why others did it:
You didn't come across as getting the point of what I was saying – my point was "if in your own mind, your fundamental definition of group X is that they are anti-Y, people who are (openly and proudly) X and Y simultaneously doesn't make any sense, and when faced with a situation which makes zero sense given pre-existing assumptions, many people will react by just ignoring it". "Neo-Nazis who are all openly and proudly Jewish" was just an illustrative example; "neo-Nazis who are all openly and proudly LGBT" or "neo-Nazis who are all openly and proudly Romani" or even "neo-Nazis who are all openly and proudly LGBT Romani", work as examples too.
Your comment also comes across as a generic tangent which isn't trying to add anything original or insightful to the discussion, just repeating facts most people here already know. Yes, we all know the Nazis committed crimes against many different groups – you didn't mention the disabled, the mentally ill, Poles, Serbs (murdered by the Nazis' Ustashe allies in Croatia), Black people, Jehovah's Witnesses, Freemasons, the Czechs of Lidice, among others – but is simply pointing that out adding anything useful to the conversation? We don't need to list every single victim of Nazi crimes every time they become the topic, and "you forgot about X, they were victims too" is rarely a valuable contribution.
Finally, reaching for "anti-LGBT sentiment" as an explanation for the downvotes, rather than considering other possible explanations, such as those I mention above – isn't helping either.
> "Zelenskyy is of Jewish descent, his great grandparents died in the Holocaust, how can he be a Nazi?"
This level of kindergarten logic from a grown ass men never cease to amaze me.
>> In March 2015, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced that the Azov Regiment would be among the first units to be trained by United States Army troops in the Operation Fearless Guardian training mission.[282][283] US training however was withdrawn on 12 June 2015, as the US House of Representatives passed an amendment blocking any aid (including arms and training) to the regiment due to its neo-Nazi background.[284][285] *However, the amendment was later removed in November 2015,[284]*
Dictatorships tend to be extremely popular. Saddam Hussein, for instance, was elected with 99% approval! These dictators must be good at something.....
> in reality the populace harbours the same ambitions for a return of Russian imperial power that the Russian leadership does, and also holds similar moralistic perspective
Or people are terrified that if they appear to not be supporting the war they would end up in the gulags or, ironically, get sent to the frontlines with a gun pointed at their back.
> The invasion of Ukraine enjoys popular support inside Russia - around 70%.
You should not take this number seriously. It has been greatly exaggerated by russian propaganda. At the same time there is no independent reliable polling in russia at this time. Also, Russians are reluctant to share their real views due to harsh criminal+administrative penalties for "spreading fakes about the army". The war vividly exposed all the corruption, grift, lawlessness, inefficiencies in russia on a huge scale. But people are anemic and resined to their fate. 20 years of putin took the wind out of their sails.
> the Russian populace has a far better/non-brainwashed understanding of the geopolitical situation than what is commonly suggested
I think this is probably true in a very limited, bone-deep way. They sense the power dynamics, feel the desire to be on top. What's needed is a rationalization for the conscious mind, to ease the path for it to come to the same conclusion, to endorse the actions you already wanted to take. Propaganda does just fine with that.
With that said, I think there are pretty large areas of detailed fact re: the state of the invasion, the economy, etc, where they are in fact deceived. All we can say about that is that it's extremely difficult to stand up under a constant barrage of one perspective when that one comes to your door and the other is restricted enough that you at least have to go out of your way for it. Especially if it's been that way your whole life.
"The invasion of Ukraine enjoys popular support inside Russia - around 70%"
How can you get this number? Today in Russia any question by a pollster sounds like "Do you support the war or do you want to get fined for "discreditation of the army"?".
I remember quite different reaction to the Western polls in Crimea showing that huge majority support reunification with Russia -- "No, no, you can't believe any polls conducted in a non-free country, people there are just afraid to say they hate Russia and want back to the Ukraine".
"while their Nazi sympathies are also common knowledge"
I don't know anyone who knows that and supports Wagner.
> The reporting by traditional media had a lot of „not independently confirmed“ details. This was very strange, given that everything was happening in a densely populated area - Rostov, Voronezh, Lipetsk and Tula are big cities, M4 is an important highway with a lot of traffic. I would expect minute-by-minute coverage with a lot of pictures, maps, estimates of how much time they need to reach Moscow etc.
1. Russia does not have journalists.
2. When people see a military putsch, they don't normally stop to film it. They run for their lives instead.
> with few notable exceptions, we have not even seen faces of anyone from national security council. Some local actions of the governors, fortification of Moscow, pathetic speech of Putin in the morning and that’s it.
3. Everybody was waiting to see who will win, and join the winning side
> All despite that PMC Wagner is a criminal organization famous for extra-judicial executions, war crimes etc. An organization led by an open nazi (Utkin) and assembled from prisoners, many of which were convicted for violent crimes. It is crazy how people can even think of collaborating with them.
4. I'm surprised this coming as a surprise to anybody. They would've gotten the same treatment in much of the world.
> Russia still has nuclear weapons and it is big enough that even without using them by falling apart it can destabilize the entire world.
Russia will be 100 times less of a treat to the world, if it crashes, and breaks apart.
This is factually incorrect and probably ideologically charged statement. Freedom of press in Russia is significantly restricted but good journalism is far from being dead. Sometimes you have to read between the lines or understand the affiliations to filter the content, but it still can provide you a lot of valuable information.
Are any of your observations based on reporting from MSM - the same propaganda machine that spread the Ghost of Kiev fable and other ludicrous Ukraine fables? If this was in fact a treasonous act by Prigozhin then a gruesome death is awaiting him. He, and his co-conspirators, will be made examples of. Secondly, their families will also be targeted to instill additional fear into anyone else thinking about it.
I'm inclined to believe that this entire drama was manufactured by the MSM working with US Intelligence to spread the fallacy that there is chaos on the Russian side. Prigozhin may have been upset that he wasn't getting the support his men needed and may have retreated in protest. And even that is pure speculation.
Prigozhin isn't an idiot and if he purportedly did what the MSM is parroting then he failed spectacularly and sending Putin a j/k, bff? SMS isn't going to cut it. If Prigozhin is alive a week from now, then this was just more manufactured bullshit from the MSM.
I worked in the media analysis field before and know very well how to handle my sources of information. For me the term MSM does not make sense: everyone has affiliations and agenda, whether it is NYT, RT or some random guy in Telegram or Discord. Working with NYT or RT or Bild is easier, because you know how their distortion bubble looks and where extra fact checking is necessary. Publications in anonymous social media accounts are worse - there must be zero trust by default.
The most likely answer for what is going on here is the one right on the surface. Prigozhin realized that he could try to take Moscow, but he'd ultimately be defeated, Putin was already gone. He acted without any political support and without having a bunch of aces up your sleeve an attempted coup is destined to fail. It would also drag units away from Ukraine to deal with him and undermine Russian efforts in the face of the Ukrainian offensive. Prigozhin is still fighting against Ukraine and probably recognized that he would go down in Russian history as a traitor. It was very likely just a rash miscalculation by Prigozhin. He's hoping to use this as political leverage now, but my guess would be that he winds up dead pretty soon. I doubt there's any 4 dimensional chess going on.
If this is the case, then this isn't going to be the Russian Civil War/Coup that people had hoped to end the war. Russia is certainly a mess though, and this might cause other political forces in Russia to act.
The logic is good but implies you MUST go for it. I can’t imagine he’s so stupid as to not see that. Crossing the rubicon means you can’t go back.
I am reminded of the story:
Chen Sheng was an officer serving the Qin Dynasty, famous for their draconian punishments. He was supposed to lead his army to a rendezvous point, but he got delayed by heavy rains and it became clear he was going to arrive late.
Chen turns to his friend Wu Guang and asks “What’s the penalty for being late?”
“Death,” says Wu.
“And what’s the penalty for rebellion?”
“Death,” says Wu.
“Well then…” says Chen Sheng.
And thus began the famous Dazexiang Uprising, which caused thousands of deaths and helped usher in a period of instability and chaos that resulted in the fall of the Qin Dynasty three years later.
Really. It's a threshold problem. If the penalty for shoplifting is death, and the penalty for a massacre is death, a good number of sociopathic shoplifters will gamble for freedom via massacre. (It's rational.)
It's why dictatorships consistently flame out. If there is no peaceful transition of power, losing power means death. That incentivises a dictator on the edge to take risks that otherwise make no sense because even a minute chance of success is worth it.
In the context of a Russian revolution, this animates concerns around our species' first nuclear civil war.
But this provides interesting signal: under certain circumstances, Putin is willing to flee via private aircraft for safety. Whether intentional or not, stimulus and response has been observed.
To be clear, that is the established protocol for the commander and chief of most militaries. That’s why such a big deal was made when Zelensky didn’t leave Kyiv despite advancing Russian forces. If there was a credible threat to President Biden he would be on Air Force One immediately.
I think 9/11 did. Granted President George W. Bush was famously reading a book to school children when it happened, but I believe he stayed Airborne on Air Force One for several additional hours as a precaution.
Also President Madison evacuated Washington, DC during the War of 1812.
Continuity of Operations (COOP) is a United States federal government initiative, required by U.S. Presidential Policy Directive 40 (PPD-40), to ensure that agencies are able to continue performance of essential functions under a broad range of circumstances. PPD-40 specifies certain requirements for continuity plan development, including the requirement that all federal executive branch departments and agencies develop an integrated, overlapping continuity capability, that supports the eight National Essential Functions (NEFs) described in the document.
Nowhere. AF1 can be refueled in the air indefinitely, and carries enough food and water for several days. You ground civilian traffic and shoot down anything non-military in the air; nothing's getting to you.
Depends on where the threat is coming from, obviously.
There's the Pentagon, Raven Rock Mountain Complex, Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center, Cheyenne Mountain Complex, the Greenbrier bunker, the Peters Mountain facility, 33 Thomas Street, nearly a dozen aircraft carriers, Camp David, and god knows how many military bases.
Or he could just board the doomsday fleet of E-4Bs and stay in the air
Depending on the circumstances he may stay in the air until the threat was resolved. Assuming the US tanker fleet isn't wiped out Air Force One and its escorts can stay aloft indefinitely and act as a command center for the military. That's the plan in case of nuclear war.
Seems logical that he would use a green screen whether he was in Ukraine or not.
Very start of an invasion doesn't feel like a great time to be broadcasting your exact location. Also maybe not a great time to be doing outtakes in the open streets.
I don't have a whole lot of information to say whether he actually stayed or not. I assume there would be a ton of credible evidence in one direction or the other - photos, videos, etc. But either way, I'm just saying that I could definitely understand the need for a professional studio and obfuscation of location.
Such a strange take. Of course any public appearance of any government head is propaganda. If propaganda ever has a value, it’s the assured image of a commander in chief in the war time, when the troop have to face a stronger enemy who outnumber them. They need to know their leader is there with them. It’s a matter of survival for Ukraine. Do you think a well shaved Zelenskyy in impeccable suits, sitting behind long table — like Putin — is more suitable?
In a way, yes I would find it more plausible if Zelenskyy looked like the trope of president should look like.
I sincerely would have been more likely to believed that Putin is ran evil warmonger, and that Zelenskyy is a paragon, if it wasn’t the case there was so much of this top-down pressure in the US to make sure people don’t accidentally pick the wrong side to root for.
If I saw that the facts were plainly speaking for themselves I would believe them. But they aren’t, so I have to be very critical.
I understand the need for this propaganda in Ukraine for the sake of Ukrainians. I don’t understand why in the US, Ukrainian propaganda has a state sanctioned monopoly over Russian propaganda.
I still don't understand your take, you are very wary of Ukrainian propaganda because the US supports it. So look at the facts: Russia invaded a neighbouring country, butchered civilians, hazed cities.
Your take on propaganda because a president of a country being invaded doesn't dress the part you expect is seriously bizarre. You're not being critical, you are being cynical.
Zelenskyy dressing a certain way and standing in front of a green screen to look like he is in Kiev was just one thing that came to mind specifically because the poster I was responding to was talking about how Zelenskyy was so unique for doing this.
Since that was the aspect of the propaganda that was relevant at the moment, that’s what I focused on. But it is a tiny part of the whole, and yes on its own I agree that it appears quite trivial and inconsequential. But when mass media (including new media) ceaselessly bombards the entire population with tiny things like this over the course of years, then it has a very real and drastic effect. And most nefarious of all, because this kind of propoganda is ever present and so subtle, it is almost invisible. And when you do point out any one of its many aspects you get responses exactly like this: that it is trivial and inconsequential and why don’t I just get with the program, and isn’t it obvious there’s good guys and there’s bad guys and isn’t it obvious who is who.
> and why don’t I just get with the program, and isn’t it obvious there’s good guys and there’s bad guys and isn’t it obvious who is who.
And this is the cynical post-modernist post-truth part that I criticise about your position. It's just a doubt of everything, of what's even real, and so you are just playing your part of the propaganda that made you think that way. The issue in post-truth is that your take is just another parroted version of "what's even real?". Even on this case, where it's pretty clear who are the bad guys, you prefer to be cynical and not even believe what your eyes can see.
You've been bombarded by subtle or overt propaganda your whole life, by governments and corporations. It's not by being cynical that you are somehow better than others or not being influenced by it, you aren't immune to it by believing nothing. Or by being a contrarian.
I think my stance is the total opposite of post modernist. I believe exactly what I can verify myself. Either with my own eyes or through real life people that I know personally and know how far I can trust. There is no reason to believe anything else.
There is no reason to believe anything in the media. Anyone who doesn’t suffer from Gell-Mann amnesia should know this is the right stance, it’s not even necessary to believe that it’s all propaganda to reach this conclusion.
This is the stance of post-truth, exactly one aspect of post-modernism.
Even more because you won't ever be able to verify every single piece of information yourself, you don't have access to all the data possible to verify it. You don't have access to people.
Again, you not trusting anything is the result of falling for propaganda that told you that nothing is trustworthy.
Are you going to reproduce every single scientific experiment to be able to verify them? Are you going to travel to every single place that has news about to interview people yourself and get your own conclusions? Nope, you just don't believe anything, you went to the extreme cynicism side.
It's impossible to achieve what you wrote, it's a lie you tell yourself because it's uncomfortable to trust, there's no truth except your own and that is... Very, very post-modern.
It’s not like he’s traipsing around in full combat kit. The look he has chosen is probably meant to convey that 1: we’re at war (regardless of what conditions might be like at your particular location), and 2: I’m not living a pampered lifestyle while you’re sitting in the cold and the dark under threat of missile and drone attack. (Whether that’s true or not is beside the point)
Another signal - a sparsely equipped army of a few thousand can march in from Ukraine and take Moscow in a matter of hours, facing minimal resistance. Regardless of the outcome I’m sure NATO has been taking detailed notes.
This I don't think is very surprising. Unless the defense expects it and has time to prepare, the speeds achievable by military vehicles, especially combined with well-developed road infrastructure of modern urbanized countries, means that the attacker can easily cover large distances fast.
In other words: APCs on a highway are not that different from intercity buses, and highways are designed to let you cross the country quickly.
russian army did try to slow him down from the air. but they managed to take down 6 helicopters and one airplane (flying command center).
all the army/etc on his way was simply surrendering
Right. It would've been a different story if the Russian army treated them as enemy - their air forces could've stopped the convoy dead at any point of their choosing.
Highways let you move fast only as long as they're intact and no one is shooting at you; otherwise, they make you an easy target. Russian army experienced that first-hand in the first two months of their invasion of Ukraine.
>Right. It would've been a different story if the Russian army treated them as enemy - their air forces could've stopped the convoy dead at any point of their choosing.
my point was that they tried and they failed. wagner has a bunch of manpads and few pantsir sam systems. they tried to bomb them on highway from planes but missed and kill civilians in track. they also tried to shoot at them missles at voronezh but blew up some petrol refinary. they also tried to bomb some bridge to block road to moscow - but also missed
> they also tried to shoot at them missles at voronezh but blew up some petrol refinary
No, I believe the oil refinery got blown up by a Wagner surface to air missile. The Wagners were trying to shoot down a federal Ka-52, the helicopter successfully deployed countermeasures, and the missile flew off target into the backstop - which happened to be a refinery.
There are two videos of the event from different angles circulating on telegram, it's pretty clear.
the reports were saying that wagners camped at refinery and helis tried to shoot at them.
either way, helis definitely weren't there on behalf of santa claus with early presents delivery
Is this confirmed? I stayed away from the news firehose this time, and only followed BBC live reporting, and IIRC there was no confirmation there of any bombing attempt, successful or otherwise.
there are videos of helis shooting refinery and planes bombing bridge (followed by video of somebody driving near the bridge and holes in highway or near it).
about track on highway - there are videos of it burning with commentary that plane try to bomb wagner convoy but missed
I can only imagine in the US that if we could not use aircraft directly on the convoy, say they have very good air defense, we'd have dumped the bridges on the interstates in less than a day.
Yes, and I'm pretty sure Russia could do that too - if they were getting Blitzkrieged by some outside enemy force. Here, it was a theoretically friendly and small force, that suddenly turned around and drove towards Moscow. Given how much damage blowing up bridges and highways would do to the country, and somewhat unclear threat from the approaching mercenaries, I don't think anyone on the defense side considered dropping a bridge on the highway to be a reasonable move.
From what I've heard (personal hearsay, got no independent sources), some excavators were sent to ruin highways.
Edit: here's a link but this is not on the main highway. Unsure of the scale of this "operation" and if this was ordered from top brass or local initiative.
"I don't think anyone on the defense side considered dropping a bridge on the highway to be a reasonable move."
It surely was considered. I can imagine in the state of panic even tactical nukes were considered, but sure, not reasonable.
But if Wagner forces would have actually pushed through, then they definitely would have blown up bridges, if the alternative would have been Moscow under siege or house to house fighting.
Yeah if aliens for some reason wanted an invasion of the US homeland by zombie mindcontrolling the army of one other country (and had some way to negate nukes) their best chance wouldn't be China or the EU but Canada and Mexico, just because of the developed land transport infrastructure between the countries
They faced minimal resistance because those in power wanted to give them minimal resistance (not to stir up bad blood before the matter is resolved otherwise). If they were an actual emeny unit (not an ex-ally in negotiations, which was the case) they'd be obliterated by air and land in minutes.
And of course marching towards Moscow only staying hundrends of kilometers away from it (while being let to march), and "taking Moscow in a matter of hours" is a totally different thing.
lets see: in less than 2 days they took over 2 regional centers, southern military headquarters (in process captured deputy minister of defense and deputy chief of military intelligence) and 2 military airbases. marched unopposed for few hundred miles towards moscow and stopped only because they decided to do (also took down a bunch of military aircrafts.).
at same time russian government managed only to put a bunch of tracks with sand on highways to block it, demolish parts of highway and bomb their own bridge.
prior to this, last month, some RDK and Russian Legion performed ~10km deep incursions into russia, pretty much unopposed and stayed there for a days.
so no, it's not only onliners. it's just state of russian state. where everything is fake and for show
Yes, minutes, just like russia could take Kyiv last year, they just chose to turn around as a gesture of goodwill. Definitely no weakness and incompetence there.
Reality is ground forces let wagner pass out of fear/solidarity. Only aviation tried, and failed hard to stop the convoy.
It’s not news to anyone that NATO could win a (conventional) war with Russia. The important result is that any sizable chunk of military force in Russia itself stands a good chance of it.
Why risk nuclear armageddon when you can conveniently switch sides at the slightest occasion. It's not like armies marching to shuffle a few chairs in big offices were a matter of deep ideological conflict or worse.
I think you should do some research on the topic before you conclude that "NATO is out of ammunition". I highly recommend Perun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deK98IeTjfY .
I'd look to how NATO ran out of PGMs etc when fighting in Libya. I didn't see a big uptick in arms purchases after that. Also, Germany recently crowed about sending 1000 155mm artillery rounds. That's like 3 hours of firing at Ukraine's current rate. The reason Germany has been so slow to provide weaponry to Ukraine is that it is a shell of its former self. The Kriegsmarine has been a joke for decades, the Luftwaffe can barely put 60 aircraft in the air, and the Heer has fewer tanks than Poland, and most of these tanks are in poor condition and shared with the Netherlands.
NATO is not what it was before 1989, and will take decades to come back up to a minimally acceptable level.
There are huge institutional challenges for this to occur. Production facilities have all been consolidated (as they have in the US since the end of the Cold War.) Budgets are also a problem; the majority of NATO members aren't even making the 2% of GDP goal. And there are also some demographic issues; the population of the EU is aging and military service doesn't have as strong an appeal. Will Germany reinstate the draft?
And some things do take decades, even in perfect conditions. Building up a navy takes time due to the long construction timelines for ships. Developing coordination for combined arms operations requires both good officers and non-coms. These take time to develop as well, and need to be continually sustained.
You can set up a schedule to train non-coms in 2-3 months, that doesn't mean they'll be very good. Experience is extremely valuable at this level.
And surely you understand that the US economy and state of industry in 1943 (when the Liberty ships were being launched daily) is quite different than today? Only one country currently has the shipbuilding capacity to even think of something like that. The US (and Europe) have closed down a huge number of shipyards since the end of the Cold War, and it would take decades to create new ones, with trained workforces. All the US shipyards are short workers in almost all categories.
> You can set up a schedule to train non-coms in 2-3 months, that doesn't mean they'll be very good. Experience is extremely valuable at this level.
This one statement means you don’t know what you’re talking about. Non commissioned officers are E4 rank, you can leave bootcamp at E3 rank. 6 months later get E4. NCO only requires experience at the E7 or above level, which don’t fight only lead.
The knowledge is there when he needs it. It comes down from upstairs. They tell him what he needs to know, they tell him what he needs to say, and they feed him all the borscht he can eat. And then there's the extra potato ration on Tuesdays to look forward to.
That's the amusing part. The sad part is that the people behind the troll farms still think they're fooling anybody in the West.
Whatever the answer is, it wouldn't provide any evidence for or against what's being discussed. Processes used by the US military don't tell you anything about practices of the Russian presidential plane.
At best we have no information about the Russian presidential plane, which is exactly my point. We make all these assumptions about what's happening without any real basis for those assumptions. This is why I say most of the news around Russia/Ukraine is propaganda. It's all told with the narrative that the west wants.
Note: I support Ukraine, Russia is absolutely in the wrong
Why, did people expect him to be an idiot or go Avengers style and fight himself, perhaps with bare hands? Of course he'll go somewhere safe and work from there. That's what leaders all over the world too in such crisis moments, if an attack is suspected.
Wagner claimed a strength of 25k, actual number advancing on Moscow was probably lower. Not a good look for someone who has cultivated a strongman image for decades to be fleeing from that.
A demonstration of strength by that oddball player who was never really respected by his peers because he didn't go to the right school but who somehow got along very well with the big boss.Except on those days they fall out. His co-underlings were envious of that, likely plotted a little, therefore the outsider had to posture to reassert his position. Posture he did, now the big boss says I forgive you if you come back at my side. To the "from the right school" underlings this is a clear message that they have to accept the outsider. Prigoshin won, not what he claimed to strive for (though he would have taken that in a pinch I guess) but what he actually wanted.
It's an incredibly weird situation. Putin can't kill Prigozhin without compromising his ability to ever make future deals with his underlings, but he also cannot allow him to live and maintain his image of being in control of Russia.
I read the defense minister resigned in a deal negotiated by Lukashenko, and charges dropped against Prigozhin
That’s an absolute win, for Prigozhin, since that was the original goal
this internal issue has nothing to do with anyone outside of that region
thats a pretty big shakeup. “I dont like this guy and there is no political process to remove him so I brought in my private army, the President fleed and he resigned in 10 hours”
Seems like a terrible outcome for Putin. He looks really weak and presumably just lost most if not all of Wagner, who were his most effective troops. He might have Prigozhin poisoned, but that would probably cause further instability internally as it causes more of his leadership to realize he'll clearly betray anybody and his word isn't worth anything.
> and presumably just lost most if not all of Wagner
That remains to be seen? Might be that some of their warriors will take the offer to join the military, and others... might select (or be given) new leadership, and go back to Ukraine to resume their regular business there.
If this really was Prigozhin vs. MoD, then that particular issue might be a closed case. Mercenaries are what they are - they're loyal to themselves and money, not state policy. Prigozhin got them to march at Moscow, so they did; then got them to march back, safe and sound, so they did. Russian government can just say "okay, no shots fired, no hard feelings" and leave it at that; it's not like they trusted them in the first place.
Putin angle though, that's a new thing. One way of spinning today's events is that Prigozhin took a swing at the Tsar, missed, and still lived to talk about it. Leaving it at that is not safe for the Tsar.
Wait and see where Wagner ends up in Belarus. Watch it be some convenient spot along Ukraine border.
I’m not saying that was the original plan, but even just moving 20K Wagner troop as part of the deal, even with no intention of attack, would draw a significant chunk of ukraines attention.
And if the Ukrainians don’t move additional defense, then an opportunistic attack might be on the table for some exchange that would be mutually beneficial to the Russian factions.
Let me be clear, this was not meant to be a grand ruse, but that doesn’t it can’t be turned in to one after the fact in order for the opposing Russian sides to salvage their situation.
I don't think you can say what Prigozhin said yesterday about the war and then get people to participate in it under your command. He was pretty crystal clear that the war was an unjustified clusterfuck.
Only the ones who "didn't march" to Moscow, so roughly 20k are ineligible for these MoD contracts that are being forced on the rest of them. I would imagine those 20k are the more experienced, more loyal ones who are well paid and protected by Prigozhin.
Lukashenka is a wily operator and has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for 20 years. The offer is exile for Prigozhin personally, not an open invitation for everybody in Wagner to come to Belarus.
Yeah, from the outside, this seems like a very poor outcome for Prigozhin. Regardless of what money or access or whatever was promised in return to standing down, he is effectively trapped in the non-Western economic block due to his actions in Ukraine. In this part of the world, anything you own is only as useful as your ability to prevent politically-connected people from taking it from you. I can't see how his position now could possibly be construed as more personally advantageous than 72 hours ago, but I'm sure there's much more happening behind the curtain than we will ever be aware of.
> Prigozhin realized that he could try to take Moscow, but he'd ultimately be defeated, Putin was already gone.
Cannot be - on this level it's basic/simple strategy, if he's as good as he says he is then he would have forseen such situation => I don't believe in a "sudden realization/enlightenment" by Prigozhin.
Yes, I don't think Prigozhin had any sudden realization that there was a gap in his plan. My guess is that he was in some way out maneuvered. I don't mean that purely in a military sense of maneuvering troops/resources etc. From the long history of brutal internal struggles and backstabbing, my shot in the dark guess is that he was counting on support from key individuals in power and it either never materialized or was withdrawn.
I think it's also possible that it was never a legitimate attempt on his part. He may never have expected it to succeed, but it would cause enough problems that it forced Russian leadership to back away and be willing to cut a deal that lets Prigozhin keep his life (for now) in exile. He'd been incrementally pushing things for months for a variety of reasons (real anger over lack of material support? Pure power play? Who knows). But unlike critical journalists, oligarchs and political enemies that have been assassinated over the years, Prigozhin had an army to use as leverage. Though I still won't be surprised if he's the next person to fall out a window or die from a novel poisoning method.
I'm not sure. Surovikin was generally regarded as a friend of Prigozhin, and so I was surprised when he publicly appealed for Wagner to stop. Now I'm wondering if it was part of the plan all along? Prigozhin exposes Putin as a paper tiger, now sits back (surrounded by tens of thousands of troops to protect him) and waits for Ukraine to win, without him being blamed for it. Then he steps into the Kremlin. Maybe?
> It would also drag units away from Ukraine to deal with him and undermine Russian efforts in the face of the Ukrainian offensive.
Prigozhin has been repeatedly casting doubt on the decision of attacking Ukraine for the past couple of weeks. He went as far as rejecting Russian propaganda on how Ukraine provoked it and stating that Ukraine only reacted to Russian's military presence. He even proceeded to pin the blame of this Russian quagmire on Putin and the Russian MoD.
Before starting the military coup, Prigozhin laid the groundwork to pin Russia's invasion of Ukraine as betraying Russia by weakening it. Keeping Russia's armed forces in Ukraine was also critical for the success of his military coup.
I don't think your scenario is plausible. There's something else in play.
> The most likely answer for what is going on here is the one right on the surface. Prigozhin realized that he could try to take Moscow, but he'd ultimately be defeated
I think this coupled with the military didn’t seem to come over to his side in large enough numbers quickly enough indicated it was going to be a real fight, and not a one or two day affair. Otherwise, yes, Progozhin is a dead man walking.
It was a huge miscalculation. Even Russians that hate Putin are not going to be comfortable with support for a coup from a private military.
Peter Zeihan stated the obvious in a video on this that Wagner would have been decimated from the air on their way to Moscow too. I don't think you need to attend an Army war college to figure that out.
Ultimately, someone crazy enough to build a giant private army is going to do crazy things.
None of this seems good to me unless one is cheering for the doomsday clock to strike midnight.
Yeah it seems like he smartly sold at the top here. He wasn’t going to have any more advantageous of a position and he cashed it in at the perfect time.
Yeah he got no support, everyone sided with Putin. I think he knows the end is near. He’ll hide in Belarus for as long as he can but I bet he knows he crossed the line.
It depends on if Lukashenko can use Wagner rather than the Russian army to shore up his own regime. I would not be surprised to hear Prigozhin had accidentally fallen out a window of a tall building, and only slightly surprised to hear he is Belarus’ next defense minister.
Well, there is one more likely answer.
he was complaining about who will control businesses in the territories that were occupied by his gangs. Might that be that he got what he wanted and viola?
IMO the friendly fire on his camp was a cover/false flag to begin the "march for justice". The coordination/speed his coup attempt had couldn't be set up in such a short amount of time (since the "friendly fire" incident), so it was planned for at least a few weeks.
I've been following this on Twitter, and so far as I can tell it's a bar fight between a couple of crazy old guys who both happen to have an army.
Prigozhin's rationale for this episode seems to be intense annoyance that he wasn't getting respect.
And now - as he believes - he's got that after a show of strength, everyone can go home and pretend it never happened.
It's insanity. Just bonkers. All of it.
Some Ukrainians I know tell me there's local suspicion that was a feint or a ruse to see where Ukraine would attack. It's an interesting idea, but that seems a lot of effort and drama for a very small reward.
We like to think that international politics is a group of intelligent and suave individuals working things out, but it is much more predictive and instructive to consider it as toddlers brawling in a preschool whilst their parents are brawling at the local tavern.
We like to think that ‘the government’ is in any way any combination of sane, shrewd, or smart. As if it’s this entity that has its own mind.
I’ve worked with various Australian federal government agencies for ten years now. Three years ago we moved to the capital, Canberra.
It turns out ‘the government’ is just a bunch of people who happen to live in this one city. They’re as average as the rest of us. They were born here because their parents live here and these are the jobs here so that’s what they do.
In fact few outsiders come here because the city is famously boring. [0]
The mystery is why we would think that this group of people were any different from the rest of us.
[0]: Actually it’s a charming little town. Don’t tell anybody.
"Do you not know, my son, with how very little wisdom the world is governed?" (in a letter to his son Johan written in 1648; in the original Latin it reads: An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia mundus regatur?).
>Prigozhin's rationale for this episode seems to be intense annoyance that he wasn't getting respect.
i think his intense annoyance might be result of some assassination attempt. he claimed yesterday that wagner bases were bombed. on one of the yesterdays videos he has rather deep and long fresh looking cut on his face
>Some Ukrainians I know tell me there's local suspicion that was a feint or a ruse to see where Ukraine would attack.
I'm credulous of this. It's a lot of effort and drama but the stakes are extremely high too. If it lured Ukraine into a death trap it would pay for itself.
The fact that very little fighting occurred and nobody even went to prison is suspicious.
The fact that Prigozhin demonstrated extreme personal loyalty to Putin in the past and vice versa on a level few others have matched is also suggestive. Who else would you ask to run a fake coup?
Also haven't something like 20 pilots been killed when their planes/helicopters were shot down? If something is for show you probably don't want to kill some of your more highly trained people for no reason while also damaging their surviving peer's moral.
It's only Prigozhin going to Belaruse, not Wagner. He's effectively lost his army and is now in exile. Though I'm guessing he'd only agree to the deal if he was able to bring along an escort of some amount of Wagner troops loyal to him and/or some other reliable guarantee of his safety.
Whatever you want to call it, coup, rebellion, whatever, it seems clear that this event will provide a Dolchstoß explanation for the loss of the Ukraine war that will be used to keep revanchist militarism alive.
There is a TASS article from yesterday where the FSB, in english translation, literally said "stab in the back". Unfortunately swapping languages from an article doesn't get the original, so I have no idea what the idiom may be in russian.
That won't help Putin, though (probably). He's probably fatally weakened by all this, as the Kaiser didn't remain in power past the end of WWI. What it will do is provide nationalistic fodder for the next nationalistic firebrand in 20 years.
There is an enormous pule of Dolchstoß explanations already collected to be used on as per needed basis. The events of today are adding to it but far from dwarfing it.
That being said stab in the back doesn't involve antisemitism in Slavic languages. I have the same idiom in Polish, and it's just an idiom for betrayal.
It's also a common idiom in the German language, but in a different form: The Dolchstoß is associated with WWI and antisemitic ideas, while in den Rücken fallen (literally to fall into someone's back) is the linguistic backstab figure.
This seems absurd to turn around after commiting this -- an armed rebellion.
I've just read a Russian telegram channel post (https://t.me/volyamedia/703) theorizing and referring to anonymous sources in higher ranks, that this was a push from the president administration and FSB against MoD, with Prigozhin being just the public side. This is of course based on anonymous sources and must be taken with caution, but it is a good explanation of what could have happened.
If we assume just 2 sides, Kremlin+MoD vs Wagner, this agreement looks impossible or a fake move.
From Kremlin position, leaving Prigozhin go away peacefully means this kind of uprisings with big demands are going to repeat. From Prigozhin's position, this means to step back after becoming an existential threat and try to co-live peacefully. Very implausible.
So I had only 2 explanations: 1) he lied and was preparing more offensive, or 2) he actually got some undeclineable offer: get some money, go abroad, or to say Afrika with another mission. But still, for Kremlin, (2) looks a very short-sighted decision and undermining of own position.
Thus, the version of an internal fight seems plausible. If we assume that the PA & FSB were ready to let the state lose this much reputation, or put their frontlines at risk of collapse during the counteroffensive, then things seem to agree with each other. (And collapsing front lines are a liability of MoD, not FSB anyway.)
3. Prigozhin lashed out and got in over his head, realized he committed to a suicide mission with no political support and is trying to back out of it any way that he can.
> From Kremlin position, leaving Prigozhin go away peacefully means this kind of uprisings with big demands are going to repeat. From Prigozhin's position, this means to step back after becoming an existential threat and try to co-live peacefully. Very implausible.
Yes, he's probably a dead man walking, that doesn't mean that the Kremlin can't agree to allow him to walk away peacefully while they come up with a way to assassinate him. The Kremlin will better understand that trope about diplomacy being the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.
Well, this is plausible too, because 1) I've not seen signs of him being a suicidal fanatic, and 2) there were witnesses that he didn't amass enough support from the military.
How is the current situation better than establishing Moscow beachhead and announcing in TV you are the new temporary president? Lets not kid ourselves, Moscow wouldnt hold, all they had was light infantry with few armored cars and garbage/dump trucks filled with sand to block the streets. Most likely military would just let them pass like in Rostov.
I'm thinking along similar lines - he must have been supported by some powerful people from the shadows. Not sure if it's the FSB and president though, they both came out against Wagner. Maybe a faction within FSB though? Maybe some oligarchs?
As for why he withdraw, I don't think it was because he got a sweet deal, but rather that his backers wavered in their support and giving him an offer of exile was the only favor they were capable of granting him.
Prigozhin agreed to a fake stand-down; his troops have been in action for 18 hours, this allows them to regroup and rest for a night and commence again in the morning, with some drummed up excuse.
Prigozhin didn't get the support he expected from the military, so he was was motivated to settle, but had enough support to threaten Moscow, so Putin was motivated to settle. Outcomes - a hardliner in charge of the Russian military, Putin quietly retires in a year or two, hands over reigns without the violence.
Prigozhin was threatened with a tactical nuke, decided it wasn't worth it.
One of Prigozhin's desired outcomes - a change of the guard in Russia's MoD was inevitable given the incompetence shown in the defense of this mutiny. Even if things got truly violent and Wagner was destroyed by force, Shoigu and Gerasimov were out.
Prigozhin's communications are a mix of brutal honesty and subtle manipulation. His allies are a mix of the competent and the fanatical. Overall, the whole thing is bizarre. I'm not convinced it's over.
There's another versin of what happened. Here's a post in telegram theorizing and referring to anonymous sources in the governmnet, suggesting it's a big fight between president administration management and FSB against MoD Shoigu+Gerasimov and Rostech corporation over the assets and state contracts of the latter. (post: https://t.me/volyamedia/703)
Apart from that it's entirely built on anonymous sources, this gives some plausible explanation, because if we consider just 2 sides (Prigozhin/Wagner vs Government), a genuine stand-down seems impossible. Leaving Prigozhin go away undermines the authority of Putin among those in top power.
But with 3 or 4 sides (Wagner, MoD & Rostech, PA & FSB, Putin & closest people) this explains their moves much better.
Although, if PA & FSB really did this, it's very reckless, putting the entire campaign at risk -- like quick frontline collapse.
So I admit the case with inner fight possible, though prorably the fake stand-down is more probable.
The narrator of Burning Chrome lost his arm in a war, hang gliding at night over Kiev (as it was then). A dolphin in Johnny Mnemonic was trained for navy service.
The cyberpunks were a bit ahead of reality in these situations...
> Prigozhin was threatened with a tactical nuke, decided it wasn't worth it.
I have trouble believing there was a credible threat of nukes. Nuking your own territory is an unambiguous way to signal you've completely lost control of everything.
Blowing up dams is a pretty standard thing whatever side is on defense to do. Ukraine did it earlier in this war, Russia did it (much smaller dam) after Kakhovka, the Netherlands has done it, Belgium has done it. Blowing up nuclear power plants is way less common.
You do realize Ukraine has bragged multiple times about hitting the dam, right? And that Russia has much more to lose over the flooding than Ukraine does?
> You do realize Ukraine has bragged multiple times about hitting the dam, right? And that Russia has much more to lose over the flooding than Ukraine does?
Russia has already admitted to blowing the dam, it was likely blown from the inside as the dam itself is super strong.
Russia did it to try and hinder the progress of the counter offensive.
>> "We mined everything on Kakhovka HPP. So, they'll f*king blow it up and will wash away Ukrainian Armed Forces on the other side" - a Russian says. The video was published on 10 December, 2022.
>> Russian soldier Yegor Guzenko, who is fighting in the Kherson region, admitted that Russia blew up the dam in Nova Kakhovka to stop Ukrainian army He also said that the Russian army should also blow up other dams on the Dnieper
Your sources are fake and ridiculous. This has been addressed by better writers than me, so I will go ahead and quote them here:
>Not to be blunt, but this is an egregiously bad bit of trickery and it’s difficult to believe that people are falling for it. To begin with, this is an interview with a Ukrainian blogger and youtuber who goes by the screen name “Edgar Myrotvorets” - interestingly naming himself after the infamous Ukrainian kill list. The “Russian soldier” who he is interviewing is allegedly a gentleman named Yegor Guzenko. Yegor seems to be an interesting fellow - he pops up on social media periodically largely to confess to stereotyped Russian war crimes, like kidnapping civilians and executing Ukrainian prisoners, and of course blowing up dams.
>Essentially, we are being asked to believe that there is a Russian soldier out there who is giving interviews to Ukrainian media in which he confesses to all of Russia’s nefarious activities, and then goes about his duties without being stopped or punished. It should be pretty obvious that Yegor is actually Yehor, and is not a Russian soldier at all but a Ukrainian impersonator - funnily enough, Yegor also has a beard even though the Russian MOD has been cracking down on facial hair.
So the errors in your reply are numerous. First: The person on the right side is a UKRAINIAN blogger, who's channel can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/@edgar_ua
Yes, because the Russian soldier who claims to have executed prisoners is going to be chummy enough with Ukrainian media to go and have a 30 minute live-streamed video where it’s quite apparent that they’re friends. And he wouldn’t immediately catch a bullet from the SBU for leaking secrets.
Oh, and here’s another question. The blogger says “our guys” - as in, the Russians. Why would a Ukrainian blogger be calling Russian soldiers “our guys”?
Was he trying to represent himself as a Russian news source? This would be rather bizarre, as he posted this on his YouTube site that professes to be Ukrainian.
The point being, the whole thing is a blatant fake, and people like you double down on their jingoistic rhetoric because they can’t imaging being fooled by such half-witted propaganda.
> The point being, the whole thing is a blatant fake, and people like you double down on their jingoistic rhetoric because they can’t imaging being fooled by such half-witted propaganda.
Speaking of propaganda.
Who's your source?, the words that you quote are useless without an actual person to put them too.
Theres also now plenty of news articles that have multiple bits of evidence that you have conveniently just left out.
You have a lot to type for someone without a single source.
Totally different. The dam has a bunch of circumstantial evidence which together overwhelmingly indicate Russia. The same is not true of the pipeline, where there is hardly any such evidence.
The dam also has a pretty clear motive. While the only clear motive for the pipeline are the Americans. But there is a sever lack of evidence to back up any narrative indicating them.
Blowing up a nuclear power plant is about two big, scary, 'DO NOT CROSS EXCEPT IN EXISTENTIAL EMERGENCY' red lines away from blowing up a nuclear bomb.
The problem with tactical nuclear weapons is that it crosses a line that other people will cross right back at you.
Whereas covering a country in Agent Orange or depleted uranium, or radiactive crap from an entombed reactor is, like, a Tuesday when it comes to industrialized warfare.
Wasn't that one of the extra headlines in Robocop? Something about South Africa—still under the apartheid regime at time of premier—were “forced” to nuke one of their own cities because of unrest.
> No one had done that, but that’s the general theory as to why South Africa developed nukes.
No, it was for external use; that’s why when there was a clear internal existential threat, instead of using the weapons, they dismantled them and the program to prevent the successor regime from having them.
Possibly, but per a 1993 NY Times article on the program:
> Mr. de Klerk told Parliament that the program, one of the nuclear era's most closely guarded secrets, was begun in 1974 because of the apartheid Government's sense of isolation and its fear of Communist designs in the region.
"Prigozhin didn't get the support he expected from the military, so he was was motivated to settle, but had enough support to threaten Moscow, so Putin was motivated to settle. Outcomes - a hardliner in charge of the Russian military, Putin quietly retires in a year or two, hands over reigns without the violence"
Mostly agree, except to the conclusion. I do not think Putin is ready to hand over the power and he rather rules till he dies (one way or the other).
And of course it is far from over, because whoever wins, it ain't people who have much respect for human rights or lifes.
I like your first thought. That seems realistically possible.
I'm not sure your second is realistic. I don't think there's any scenario where at least one of Putin and Prigozhin don't die. If Prigozhin "settles", he will be shortly assassinated. (Watch out for windows!) Putin might be able to quietly retire, but I think the odds are against that one, too.
I would think death would be preferable to retirement for Putin. To give up his current position would simply be making him a really tempting bargaining chip for the next generation at the top, to live in unimaginable anxiety that you will be offered up to any of the thousands of enemies you've created over the past 20 years of strongman rule.
What could he possibly trade to the next ruler to maintain leverage over them and indefinitely guarantee his safety? From the West, the ICC, the Islamists, the Chechens, the Ukrainians, the Syrians? All the mafia bosses and oligarchs that he's subjugated inside of Russia? He literally has to stay in power simply to be able to sleep at night.
And it's not just him: his family, his friends, his legacy is all at risk. To give up power is to give up all his leverage to ever control the safety of anyone or anything he has ever cared about. There's no safe retirement plan for a person who has lived the life he has.
Subjugated? Russia is literally a modern day feudal state. The oligarchs are the regime's vassals. They get a slice of the country's resources which they export and share the profits with the regime/president. Or they get government contracts.
Yes, but there were a lot of vassals who were not on board with the new top-down direction in the early 2000s. Putin made a lot of enemies with vassals that didn't want to play ball with the new rules, Khodorkovsky being a notable example. There's surely plenty of others that weren't steamrolled as badly and still retain the ability to strike back at him if he's no longer the all-important boss of Russia.
That's the post-Soviet oligarchs who thought Russia had become a free market economy didn't get that they have to bow to the new czar. Of course, there wasn't a flip the switch moment from state A to B. It all became increasingly authoritarian during Putin's several mandates. He put his allies in key positions, favorised loyal interest groups, locked up or otherwise liquidated potential adversaries. It's really a mafia state, just like the late sen. Jonh McCaine said, but since they have wide popular support, I think we can safely call it feudalism.
I've read an article and they've identified somewhere after April 2008 when the Bucharest NATO Summit (Putin was also present) took place and before August 2008, when the Russian invasion of Georgia began as the moment Putin ultimately decided to invade a nearby state in order to prevent NATO expansion into post-Soviet states. That's his red line, that's why he also invaded Ukraine. He still views these countries as part of the USSR/Russian world, just like Belarus where he currently tries a Crimean-style Anschluss. The reality is quite a bit different.
Prigozhin's going to get poisoned / assassinated within 3 months. Maybe within 2 weeks. He's crazy if he think's he'll survive to see 2024 without a successful rebellion. He's a dead man walking, and I don't understand what could possibly be in the deal that could convince him otherwise
Prigozhin's going to get poisoned / assassinated within 3 months.
I think that depends on how we got here. One theory could be that another country or set of countries paid him to turn against Russia and promised he could live wherever he wants with a nice stash of cash should he accomplish some specific tasks. The reason I think this could be the case is that mercs are generally only faithful to money and anything that gives them more power. I'm sure he realized he did not have a future of money or power in Russia so it might not have taken that much to turn him.
But he's not a merc. He's a billionaire who funded a merc company because he likes that shit. He has money. He doesn't have the power he probably wanted to have. But going into exile is not going to do his power craving any good. If he aimed at toppling the minister of defence or even the president, how on earth would he be satisfied with getting some money or some contract by Belarus or some other country?
I once heard that during the Cold War nobody could work out what was reason going on in the USSR because it seemed like a constant back stabbing brawl.
I'm starting to see what they meant.
Absolutely everyone looks ridiculous, Putin somehow manages to survive another day and the roulette wheel begins to spin again.
Putin might actually be in trouble. Obviously Wagner can't defeat the whole of the russian army, but he's got a large number of battle hardened troops who could stage an effective assault against Putin, overwhelming his person security.
The other factor is Prigozhin is popular with the rank and file in the russian army, and so has a chance to effectively control the army if he decapitated the leadership. Putin's underlings would probably fall in behind him if they believed he did.
Putin, for all his personal power, is only one guy, he depends on the loyalty of the people around him, and this being russia, I imagine they're very much looking out for themselves, rather than some higher calling, so they can be convinced of what's good for them in the current situation.
At the end of the day all you need is one person and one bullet, right? See: JFK, Indira Gandhi, John Lennon, many more. 50,000 people all with a lot of bullets seems like a bit of a problem no matter what. Gandhi in particular is interesting, as she was murdered by two of her Sikh bodyguards angry over how she dealt with the Sikh independence movement at the time. Who knows who will get "inspired" from this action, and what they will do.
Learn from the past. Assassinating the dictator just creates a power vacuum that someone else fills. Look at Iraq. The US killed Osama Bin Laden. Then Al Qaeda. Now there’s ISUS and they control everything there. Figure out what will fill the power vacuum or you may do more harm than good.
Counter-examples: Hitler, Mussolini, Pinochet, Fujimori, Franco, Nigerian dictatorships, Taiwan, and probably a few more. Not all were "assassinated", but countries really can transition to something better.
"Learn from the past" doesn't mean "look at this one example where things went wrong and then never do anything even remotely like that ever again".
"and this being russia...", is there a place where most people are not, for the most part, looking out for themselves? You seem to be implying that Russia is special in that regard.
It is. I think in most Western capitals most people in government are driven by ideology, patriotism, public service or simply professionalism and people are not in fear of their lives. I think in Putin's russia self-preservation/survival is top of mind. It's a brutal culture and it would only be more so at the highest levels. You only have to look to the high number of defenestrations of high level individuals that have happened in recent years.
So, assuming this is true, and there isn’t still a, possibly secret and/or smaller, force secretly heading for Moscow, how would this pan out for Wagner and its leader?
To me this looked like an “all in”, but apparently, they think it wasn’t. What could have convinced him and his troops that any promises made would be held?
Are there historical precedents for this kind of action where the revolter stopped their advance, and lived happily ever after?
>To me this looked like an “all in”, but apparently, they think it wasn’t. What could have convinced him and his troops that any promises made would be held?
My guess is that he was counting on support from within the Russian power structure that was promised but then didn't materialize, and now he knows that following through would be suicide, and giving up at least offers a non-zero chance of survival.
Another possible explanation: it was a setup, planned by Putin from beginning to end in order to improve his strongman image and eliminate Wagner as a threat. Prigozhin was given the offer to play along and end up powerless but rich - and alive. That offer could be credible because if Prigozhin gives up control of Wagner, he helped Putin and is not a threat to him anymore.
> - deal was supposrdly negotiated by a widely disrespected Lukashenko, not by Putin.
Lukashenko is Putin's puppet; Putin couldn't negotiate in first person without appearing as weak.
It's possible that both Prigozhin and Putin tested their own strength and concluded that they both can be hurt badly. I believe that we'll know more by looking at what will happen to Shoigu and Gerasimov in the next days.
> Lukashenko is Putin's puppet; Putin couldn't negotiate in first person without appearing as weak.
Ah yes, instead it was negotiated by the unpopular ridiculed Lukashenko everyone views as a clown. This makes Putin seem strong.
Also strong:
Putin in the morning: these traitors will be brought to justice, I authorize Ministry of Defence to use any means possible. I give you my word.
Putin in the evening: we drop all charges against this military coup (who also killed at least 12 soldiers furing their march on Moscow), and I give my word the Prigozhin can just go to Belarus.
So strong.
It's funny how putinophiles will try to contort reality to a ridiculous degree to find an angle to prove Putin is a superhuman playing 12-dimensional chess.
Now imagine any Western leader doing the same, and how you would ridicule them.
I didn't write that Putin's image was being strengthened by having Lukashenko act as puppet, the point is that he had to choose between being weakened or weakened and ridiculed. Also, in the same context they granted impunity to all Wagner soldiers; this must come from Putin, not Lukashenko, which has zero power in Russian affairs.
Moreover, note that the two Russian officials shown talking with Prigozhin in Rostov are Shoigu's #2 and Gerasimov #2. They didn't seem entirely comfortable in that video, but that sends a message nonetheless. Also, Prigozhin never addressed Putin directly. There's a lot of stuff going on there, probably too much to draw conclusions, but I'm sure we'll see some people "disappear" or die of "natural causes" quite soon.
Sorry, didn't look at the user name because "Putin couldn't talk to Prigozhin directly because that would make him weak that's why this was done by the clown Lukashenko which made Putin look even weaker" and further justifications are no different from that post.
The Putin's setup theory is the most convincing I've heard so far.
One thing that doesn't make sense to me is that Prigozhin used an alleged Russian missile attack on a wagner base as justification to start this charade. If the Russian government really wanted to neutralize Wagner, one can only think they would have taken more effective and quick measures to do so, rather than a half-hassed missile attack. There's no logic behind it, some piece of the puzzle is missing.
Prigozhin videos from the last months show a man trying to find a credible excuse to get out from the frying pan, without being prosecuted by desertion, and before being killed while sleeping by his own men trapped in Bahmut.
In some way he succeeded into putting as much distance as possible between himself and the Ukraine counterattack (even if this means selling Wagner to the Russian army in exchange for a golden ticket for himself and the Wagner leaders). All without looking like a treason towards the rest of mercenaries.
Would not surprise me if the other wagnerites will be forced to enter in the Russian army and used routinely as cannon fodder, as they did before with the Russian soldiers.
>My guess is that he was counting on support from within the Russian power structure that was promised but then didn't materialize
Thats not how russia works. In russia you show up with a gun, say "Im Tzar now" and everyone obeys out of fear. Occupying main centers of power in Moscow (MoD, TV, Kremlin) would be enough for Prigozhin to claim being the new ruler. That one brigade "defending" Moscow didnt even have heavy weapons. Wagner tanks would cut thru them like hot knife.
Imo, the most interesting aspect of this story and its subsequent thread of comments is the absolute torrent of information to come from sources all over the internet, international media, and so-called experts, and the sheer impossible task of separating fact from fiction on a minute-by-minute basis.
I've been trying to see signs of this movement on webcams along the route. No success so far, but I was looking well north of Rostov.
This is the kind of event you need to look at on maps. There's a freeway all the way from Rostov to Moscow. It's flat country in good weather. The first big natural obstacle is the bridges at the Oka River, and Russian Federation armored units are reportedly already in position at those bridges. So that's where the major battle would have been.
Re: "absolute torrent of information". No. A small amount of information relayed through different paths and amplified. Be aware of that.
Wagner keeps the media focus on Ukraine, but their real business is in Africa [1].
My cynical suspicion is that this whole affair was really about Prigozhin finding a way to keep the buckets of money that he has been making from smuggling African gold; by moving to Belarus he keeps the majority of the spoils, with Lukashenko probably taking a cut.
This is actually the most likely. There were tides that could mean them losing money and so we get prosaic greed based infighting threat. The rocket strike got debunked as fake; the rest of his claims are phrased to look "just" for the public while being transparent to those who control the money flow. Remember he never said Putin has to go or similar but he called for people in charge of military budget to be replaced. (Ignore fake spam channels that pretend to be Prigozhin)
I have seen a similar analysis by Ukrainian intelligence and it seems what fits bizarre events well
Prigozhin was deeply concerned with getting personally marginalized as his private army gets further incorporated into the MoD due to their operational significance. This was evident from his rhetoric around Wagner contract negotiations.
So this was his way of saying "I'm powerful, I'm in control, I matter". It was always about him and feeling tossed aside by powerful officials like Shoigu and Gerasimov, who need his army but don't care about Prigozhin. It had nothing to do with policy difference, it was just a pure demonstration of raw power.
I would be surprised if Shoigu or Gerasimov get pushed out as a result, I think it is more likely that Prigozhin got guarantees about his own future within the military establishment, something of an "honorary general".
Yes. A lot of commenters here seem to be unaware that the Wagner Group had become uncomfortably powerful for Putin even prior to the Ukraine conflict, and that the incorporation of Wagner soldiers into the Russian Army is a clear signal that the Wagner Group is now being unwound and Prigozhin’s days as the leader of a “second russian army” are over. I suspect that Prigozhin realized that he was being “retired” far too late, made a rash, desperate attempt to court popular support (he’s prone to rash decisions) but decided that he probably couldn’t pull it off.
When all this finishes, Prigozhin is going to need one hell of a biographer. It's a book I'd read for sure. How do you go from running a hot dog stand to leading a mercenary force in -- a coup? Is that what's going on? It's unclear. But whatever is happening there's some fascinating character arc underneath.
Information & propaganda wars are so asymmetrical I sometimes wish there was less reporting until it was actually clear what is going on. It's all just one fog of uncertainty and whoever thinks what is being reported now is correct is probably mistaken. Somehow this buildup of troops was completely unreported, even though any intelligence agency worth its salt should have seen concentration and movement of troops for days if not weeks. Completely unreported in the media AFAIK, and all of a sudden all media is reporting Wagner is going full steam ahead towards Moscow.
Eh around the time of the Wagner pullout from Bakmut there has been signs that there was a large amount of discontent between the mercenaries and the MOD. They had been throwing threats at each other along with rumors of shooting at each other at times.
Oddly enough on some more of the hypothetical and conspiratorial parts of the net possibilities like this have been discussed for weeks. It's just so odd to see this happen in real life.
I can only imagine what it’s going to be like in a few countries’ intelligence departments as well. Several countries with well-regarded intelligence operations have functionally signaled, “Well, we didn’t expect this!”
The rest of the planet really didn’t see this coming on Friday. It was borderline late 1990s military-espionage-themed Hollywood action movie stuff.
There’s likely a couple of intelligence orgs that aren’t happy they ended up flat-footed, and didn’t see this coming when it did.
Many people didn’t expect 24.02 to happen, thinking that it was too obvious that the attack will fail. Yet it happened, because Putin felt cornered and modern Russian masculine culture does not allow to step back. Same with Prigozhin: we could not see it happening, because we did not know how he felt when he decided to start planning the raid. Rationality of the strong leaders is often exaggerated: their chain of reasoning may be generally perfect, but the original assumptions can be purely emotional. Predicting them is an difficult task for intelligence services and getting inside data from Wagner to crack it would not be easy.
Cornered from seizing crimea in 2014 and creating/supporting two Donbas breakaway regions?
I don’t think he was cornered at all, just impatient. He’s 70 years old and the conflict had frozen for 8 years. Barely anyone even cared in western europe/US. That’s perfect for Russia! But can he really live for much longer? He may not think he has many more years to dedicate to the task.
Now the invasion has completely backfired and he is in a political corner he backed himself into. If your theory of Russian machismo is correct, he can’t back down from trying to beat up a smaller weaker country - and he simply can’t beat them.
So he has to lose in Ukraine, beat the first coup, and consolidate power simultaneously. I believe Putin will be just like Erdogan who used the 2016 “coup” to eliminate political enemies.
People died in Turkey in 2016, there was damage- but Erdogan emerged stronger and won subsequent elections. Maybe there will be Russian proscription lists and purges now.
They saw it incorrectly then. This has been one of the most tremendous unforced errors in Russian history.
Now everyone realizes that they are a weak successor state who has completely squandered their military inheritance from the USSR. Russian conservatives may not realize it, which is fine, as they are willing to rapidly expend away their soviet inventory. Their modern weak economy can’t afford to rearm. They have eliminated themselves from the great game.
Not only did they fail to stop NATO - it expanded and added 1,340 km of direct border contact.
No, they saw it correctly — in a world where Russia could not join NATO (Putin claims he was rejected), the threat was persistent and something had to be done with it. The biggest mistake of Putin was to rely on fake intelligence data and fake army to start the war, showing that he had only the visibility of control in recent years which was carefully created by puppet media and his own administration. A dictator in control would plan a war, not a takeover. A democratic leader would just apply for NATO and EU membership according to the procedure and work hard on improving the relationships with neighbors.
The story of this century seems increasingly obvious to me. Either we invent superintelligent AI that saves us, or increasing incompetence, decay, and "tragedy of the commons" type problems cause us to eventually blow ourselves up.
I think that is really unlikely, because Prigoshin stated that the war was a misstake and that Ukraine was never a threat to russia.
That is 100% against every major decision of Putin and a direct attack to his authority, even though he softened it up by stating he was wrongly informed by the military.
That still makes Putin weak, when he, who was raised by the KGB, is not able to get acurate information. (He does have internet btw. and he speaks more than russian.)
I don't think anything is settled yet. But yes, Putin is weak.
Everyone knows, even in russia, that the war is a desaster.
And now Prigoshin and his Wagner forces, who stood for the only few victories in the last time, turned against Putin. (Even stating, that the war was wrong in the first place and that there never was a threat from Ukraine towards russia.)
And Wagner has the reputation of being ruthless and efficient.
The common national guards really don't want to fight them. They could surely bomb them all to death, but then who will fight and win for russia?
There is currently a ukraine offensive going on. And Wagner occupied an important military HQ in rostov. They will never forgive Prigoshin for that, that is sure, but he plays the only card he has - brute force.
And they came already within 250 km of moscow with little resistance. But that is also, because they don't want to actually fight.
That's the problem for these kinds of strongmen dictators - any sign of weakness is a major political problem and one which he may not outlive. And in fairness to Stalin (and you won't hear me complementing Stalin too much usually), he didn't flee Moscow in 1941 when other armies were approaching.
At this point, I think Prigozhin is more likely trying to get a deal to leave russia and keep his billions & life.
Highly doubt Wagner will be kept around and likely the defense minister will be kept. That said, the defense minister ran away in the fighting, probably justification to sack him
I believe they were trying to force all Wagner fighters to sign a new contract with the Ministry of Defence by July 1st. Apparently this is no longer the case, although nothing confirmed 100% yet.
Does anyone else find the mercenary industry a strange thing in war? Business dealings made under the assumptions of the status quo, between entities who are able to entirely change what the status quo is in an instant
Get paid in gold or diamonds. Also you can take a bet that property given to you in occupied territory will remain in your possession after hostilities. This is what Hitler did in ww2 to retain his generals' loyalty.
Many have mentioned Machiavelli on the untrustworthiness of mercenaries, but looking at it from their point of view (eg. Xenophon's 10'000) I'd guess most mercenaries are well aware that with little loyalty going the other direction, they're the most likely to get tossed under the proverbial bus/off the proverbial troika.
As someone who has family in northern Ukraine I am now very worried about the possibility of another, Wagner-led offensive from Belarus to Kyiv (the only viable route to Kyiv).
Lukashenko is not an independent agent, he is Putin’s slave. Zero chances Prigozin just retires in Belaruss.
The last one came through Belarus, didn't it? With Russia basically as prepared as they'd get, and with a pretty decent element of suprise against a fairly unprepared opponent?
I don't think anyone's getting near Kyiv again in this war.
Not really. Wagner units haven’t actually performed that well. Better than the clown car assault on Kyiv, but no remarkable successes. The bravado around Bakhmut is not compelling. At the end of the day they have the same shitty equipment and that’s hard to overcome. Human wave tactics and leveling cities with artillery can work for urban warfare. It wouldn’t work for actual defensive lines.
> Wagner demonstrated themselves as the most competent russist units
That seems to be a low bar; they spent nine months taking a town of 70k in a separatist province. Kyiv is a... different target, and I fully expect the Belarussian border is well fortified now.
Against an army of tanks large enough to take Kyiv? Only a few options. Recall that the first attempt stalled in a giant traffic jam because they couldn’t leave the road.
Keep trowing jailbirds against a meat grinder until the machine chokes was his main strategy. Losing thousands of men in a very consistent basis is being brutal and ruthless, not competent. They just played with different cards and rules than the other soldiers.
No public statements by officials of any government or organization can be believed. They may or may not be telling the truth. The story will be spun in accordance to whims/wishes of whoever is spinning it. It could be a coup attempt by Wagner or maybe the longtime Putin loyalist is doing this for Putin to see who in the military end up demonstrating a lack of loyalty to Putin. There are lots of possibilities but whatever the truth is it is a fascinating story.
Churchill’s quote seems apt. Russia is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
You'd have to be on pretty shaky group to be ok with the optics of all this along with multiple aircraft and helicopters shot down as the tradeoff to 'see what shakes out'.
I wrote that before reading about this. However, my overall point is that trying to understand Kremlin politics is very difficult and those of us on this site don’t really understand the dynamics. Putin and his cabal are the last generation of Soviet trained leaders and their views and ways of operating are not all relatable to those not similarly trained.
Seems well planned. On a Friday night when most troops were drunk and going into the weekend.
The end result is a bit unclear, i still think that Prigozhin will fall from a window ( or however they want to get rid of him).
But I can't believe it's only Shiogu he was after, who wanted him dead ( revenge), that's a huge risk to take.
I first thought he just wanted to boost his political ambition, but he did attack Putin ( the tsar can never be at fault in Russian culture). This action has portrayed Putin as weak internally and history wise, weak leaders were killed. I don't think it's forgivable.
All in all, this wasn't a coup.
This was putting military pressure for political reasons.
The main advantage was speed and showing how incompetent the current Russian generals are.
If Shiogu will be replaced, that's not good news. He's a incompetent loyalist without any military experience and a pure politician, it benefited Ukraine a lot from my POV.
At this point this guy will be arrested I think, how many lives were lost and billions of rubles of equipement destroyed due to this?
No blood shed is a lie too if reports of downed choppers and planes are to be believed.
He didn't have the guts or the support to go through, and even announcing of trying to reach Moscow was stupid.
Amongst all this, where the heck is the Russian Air Force? They were planning to reach Moscow via usual roads, would have been very easy for a couple of MIGs to smoke them like the US Air Force did in 1991 in Iraq's Highway to Hell.
This whole war in Ukraine is very bizarre, no Navy, no Air Force, just ground war and drones, it's like the really expensive pieces of equipment are too costly to be risked for Ukraine.
Russia, and Putin specifically, has to do something about this. Prigozhin can't be allowed to go free after this - he directly challenged state authority in really unambiguous terms. He took control of Rostov, he was openly marching towards Moscow.
"Where is the Russian Air Force," is a common question in the Ukrainian conflict. They've mostly been lobbing standoff weapons from inside Russia to avoid losses to AA, as they lack the SEAD capability to operate safely closer. Given the supposed shoot downs of helicopters, I can see not wanting to risk getting closer. Plus all they're probably down to dumb bombs, making it quite hard to hit much accurately at a distance.
> would have been very easy for a couple of MIGs to smoke them like the US Air Force did in 1991 in Iraq's Highway to Hell.
There were videos on Twitter of the Wagner columns using pretty serious short & medium range air defences.
It’s hard to infer exactly how much air defence Wagner has, but even a couple of Pantsirs would make air strikes very dangerous for non stealth aircraft.
In short, due to inadequate military planning, completely failed intelligence and some smart moves by Ukrainian military, Russia failed to destroy Ukrainian Air Defence in the first hours of war and this failure predetermined the rest. With air superiority Russia could reach their goals in the first months of war even despite the resistance. They could not operate freely in Ukrainian air and now with Patriot and IRIS systems deployed it is completely impossible.
What has happened today is hard to explain. Probably lack of command and coordination between FSB and military.
> This whole war in Ukraine is very bizarre, no Navy, no Air Force, just ground war and drones, it's like the really expensive pieces of equipment are too costly to be risked for Ukraine.
Russia's air force is supposedly a major problem for the Ukrainians during the current offensive, that's why Zelensky is so adamant about getting fighter jets ASAP.
But even in this case Russia rarely directly engages ukraine with aircraft. The S300 is risky to go up against directly. They just don't have the ECM and number of aircraft needed to take out significant numbers of Ukrainian anti aircraft sites.
Prigozhin is showing that in terms of controlling the narrative he's in a different league than most of his compatriots.
I see this as a continuation of what this whole debacle is all about: regime change.
A large part of the official motivation behind this invasion is preventing civil war in Russia. That's why Ukraine was supposed to be "stabilized".
Putin presents himself as a source of stability and that's how he's perceived for the most part.
To attempt to upend this order is to be either foolish, or very certain of one's position with hard data to back that up. Prigozhin still hasn't been defenestrated, so I suppose it's more the latter than the former.
There are no factions in Russia capable of starting and winning a civil war. The country's military is deliberately fragmented into many small departments, each with their own standing infantry forces, and its security apparatus is tasked to ensure that they don't all rebel together.
There may be some serious internal power struggle that an outside observer cannot see, but it's far more likely that the invasion was not a desperation move, but just one of the many steps that Putin makes to increase his internal perception of legitimacy.
There's no reason, besides our domestic propaganda and wishful/magical thinking to believe that it was a desperation move from him. His internal-to-Russia legitimacy was quite high prior to the war.
(And it's hard to tell what it is now, because of the crackdown on speech and dissent. So you get political pundits who are talking out their ass four fifths of the time assuring is that no, this time, he's totally on the brink of being out, pinky swear...)
----
Bonus points: If most of your military command is staffed by spineless bootlickers, who were promoted for their loyalty, as opposed to competence, they are very unlikely to join any rebellion against you. There's a good reason for a nation that is secure from outside invasion to have an incompetent military...
Russia, as a nuclear nation, is 100% secure from external invasion. It doesn't need a military that is able to fight, it needs a military that knows that it has to be loyal to the big guy.
This past day was weird, but seems to be the exception that... Proves the rule?
You don't march halfway to Moscow, occupy a couple of large cities without much bloodshed, and then turn back just after a quick negotiation. In a single day.
Either this is part of the plan of how Prigozhin is managed by Kreml -- and as such, a part of how the subdivisions of power are managed and constantly reorganised -- or Prigozhin had acquired some valuable piece of power but he needed to march towards Moscow in order to be taken seriously.
You don't try something like this unless you know you're going to get out of it.
There's so much we don't know, and won't know for a while.
Big questions:
1. What was Prigozhin's attack plan? He was an experienced military commander who had fought against tough opposition and won. He and his staff would have had a plan with some chance of working. Zooming up the freeway to Moscow was going to run into opposition at some point. Probably at a major bridge, which is where armored assaults traditionally get stuck. Then what? What was the plan? A deal with the other side to get out of the way? Some advance forces to seize key bridges and choke points?
Forcing an opposed river crossing is difficult, and more importantly here, slow. A coup has to be fast, winning before the other side gets fully mobilized. Slow coups either fail or turn into civil wars.
2. After reaching Moscow, then what? 5000 troops could not take Moscow. But they might be enough to take out Putin. Was that the commander's intent?
In the aftermath of this, look to see which mid-level Russian commanders get purged. This had a chance if it had some support, or at least lack of opposition, on the Russian military side. Without that, it was going nowhere. Prigozhin must have some indications of support from somebody.
I'm thinking this was more about personal opportunistic enrichment than any particular patriotic duty or political aspirations. Lukashenko acted as negotiator and go-between. Prigozhin will relocate to Belarus, is no longer considered a fugitive, and Wagner PMCs are back to situation normal.
No, the new situation is apparently that Wagner's soldiers become Russian soldiers. (Do they get a choice? Probably not.) Does that mean the Wagner Group is finished as an organization?
I think what I’m learning the most through this is that my rational world is not everyone’s rational world. So many of these actions make zero sense to me. They’re illogical. They insist that there’s surely more to the story. But I think it could easily just be, “I’m tired. You can have everything you want if I can just take ten figures and retire quietly.”
Wagner head was getting replaced because he was getting too much power
Putin doesn't like someone else with power, that's why the military has weak leaders ( loyalty > Battlefield success).
Wagner head became aware that he's going to die, he misled his soldiers to get out of their Russian MOD contract so they would join his minor rebellion.
As soon as he got the assurance he's going to survive after his bold move ( his only move, since he got ignored by Russian military leaders), he jumped ship to Belarus.
Doesn’t make much sense at that point. Putin will have him killed at some future date, regardless of what was promised to him. He’s considered a war criminal everywhere else.
The only thing that makes sense to me about this outcome is that the Wagner commander realized that his push to Moscow was doomed (for reasons) and the only non-suicidal approach was to negotiate some kind of deal that preserves his control of his militia, a bunch of cash and great PR. At least, this approach gives a non-zero chance of survival.
Looking from the outside, I suspect we overestimated his chances of success because of how surprising the action was and quite frankly, we wanted that to be true. If this were true, this deal would make no sense at all.
1) The Russian militias about to be tricked to join Wagner against the Kremlin dodged a bullet directly to their heads.
Ukrainian army not reacting hastily to manbearprig's display was also a wise move.
2) The event showed how fragile are both (Kremlin and Wagner) currently.
Prigozhin has declined his unique chance to recycle from War criminal into a top respected politician in the PostPutinism. Making a lot of noise bragging about taking the Kremlin in hours, just to end exiled in Belarus has no sense. Is too risky unless the only point was a desperate attempt to escape from a certain death in the war front while saving face.
3) The recent visit of African leaders had some influence in the decision, probably
Wagner has been spoon-feed with African gold and diamonds since 2014, often taken by assassination and force. This can happen only with the complicity of several African governments and with Putin receiving a part of the loot. But the current lack of grain hits directly against the political survival of those people in power. Now everybody knows who is behind Wagner, so the African politicians must choose between either supporting Wagner (while praying not to be dethroned by them in the future), or not aggravating the man who holds the key of the grain in Kremlin (and, with luck, avoiding a situation of famine and rebellion by their own citizens). Goldmine's access could close for Wagner tomorrow, and Putin would still be receiving his part by a different channel.
4) Wagner's future is bleak and Prigozhin future is uncertain.
In the best of cases Wagner will be put in a icebox and let alone to lick its wounds but without a new sponsor the private army can't sustain themselves and will disintegrate in several gangs. Putin was Cesar once, but now is looking more and more like a new Nero, so Prigozhin could just wait the opportunity to return to PostPutin Russia, keep a low profile and have a future as oligarch even if Wagner don't survive. In any case Belarus could be a complicated retire, where a rogue tactical nuke could "malfunction" at any time, creating a plausible deniability situation for Putin. Lukashenko and Prighozin could be beheaded in one single movement, assimilating Belarus into Russia and giving Putin something to show and a sort of "victory".
This was really unexpected and the outcome was also unexpected. Not that it failed, but that it failed the way it did. This leads me to believe something different will happen soon. It looks like the Wagner leader is going to Belarus, the attack vector of Kiev. If we see Wagner forces follow, this could indicate a Wagner offensive on Kiev. It could also be a push to replace the Belarusian army and install the Wagner leader as the new dictator of Belarus with Russia's blessing.
Could be greatest head fake in military history if Russia trying to convince Ukraine that things are chaotic to lure them into an over confident state.
"I'm angry, I will make a video that causes trouble unless you meet my demands. Btw I still love Putin, it's those damn Russian generals who are to blame."
"You met my demands, okay, crisis over. :)"
So was it all an opportunistic ploy by Prigozhin to get a lifestyle upgrade in Belarus and more catering contracts and PMC prison recruits?
My opinion is that he expected to come into Kremlin while Putin and other officials are fled. With support of some army parts and probably some oligarchs (won't believe he did it on his own). In this case he would have declared himself as new president. Something went wrong and he realized that this plan's not going to work.
I think the best lesson to learn here is that we should never jump to any conclusions about rapidly changing situations in which there is very little verifiable information and a ton of astroturfing and disinformation by a variety of interested parties.
I think this is a circus, where Putin and Prigozhin are completely aligned, and the point of that show is to make one point: if the West doesn't like Putin, there are options that are much worse.
But it doesn’t make that point effectively; we’re all scratching our heads wondering what actually happened. And most likely Prigozhin would be almost exactly as bad as Putin from a Western perspective.
It might be domestic political theatre, but Russia is not going to stage a coup attempt for Macron’s benefit. But more likely this is just one of many cases of power struggles with mercenaries over the past few millennia.
The point is not for me and you to scratch our heads; the point is for the guys in the White House to scratch their heads.
> It might be domestic political theatre
It's not domestic; it's international political theatre.
> for Macron’s benefit
It's for Putin's benefit; it sends a "negotiate with me as others might be worse" signal to the West. Macron is not a beneficiary; he's a target audience.
Having said all that to explain my point, the whole point might be wrong.
I am sure it was the original intent of Prigozhin from the start, to blackmail Russians into getting "exit ticket" so he could move on to Belarus, live like a king and basically retire. It involved Lukashenko (another tyrant) so Putin would have second thoughts when he will order hit on him, which he will at some point.
Prigozhin apparently has a wife and children in Russia. Who, according to standard web sources, are deeply entrenched in Russian society and big business.
There need not be complex political chess boards behind this move. Putin could simply have told his former friend that his choices were (1) leave, or (2) bye-bye family.
So Prigozhin just forgot about his family before starting the fight? Or didn't think anyone would think to threaten his family? Seems very unlikely to me.
Perhaps at one time I'd have called the entire situation unlikely, on many levels.
But we're talking about brinkmanship in a decades-old personal relationship between two individuals (Prig. & Put.) whose senses of context and honour patently are warped by ordinary standards, as evidenced by their past and ongoing actions.
It seems not at all far fetched to me that, in such a strange relationship, each others personal family would be seen as sacrosanct... up to a point.
There's one problem with that explanation. If Prigozhin thought that his family was at risk, or if he cared, he had all the information before he attacked. Why then attack, only to then have the obvious move used on you?
He specifically avoided criticising Putin himself, assuming that his long personal ties, friendship and deep trust with Putin would leave his family sacrosanct. His attacks were on underlings.
This sort of thing plays out in the corporate world too. That is, a fairly senior OG person who isn't the actual boss has a breakdown or burnout, and takes it out by sending long scathing emails-to-all-staff, complaints to directors, etc, "secure" in the assumption that they're just playing out some long standing internal issues and that things will be put right. Sometimes it doesn't quite work out as hoped, and that person finds to their surprise that their removal is the outcome.
Tbh. All NATO members should just put tanks at the border with Russia.
Russia will have no choice after their current weak performance ( Wagner could proceed a whopping 1000 km. Near Moscow - that's huge) to retreat some Russian troops from Ukraine.
And that should make it easier for Ukraine for their counter offensive.
I know that keeping this story and discussion on Hacker News was a conscious decision from the mod (dang). But I still want to express my opinion that this kind of content is exactly what I'm not here for. Many things are interesting but still don't belong on Hacker News.
I'm looking especially for IT stuff, computer science and startup related content, but I'm also happy for all other kind of technological or scientifically interesting content.
I'm not looking for politics, religion or daily news.
The amusing part is that this whole adventure looks like a bunch of drunks starting a fight at the pub while russians are just watching idle.
The tragic part is that Ukrainians are the victims in all this.
A shame really, because east europe needs a powerful, but civilised and democratic, russia. It’s the only way to counter continental west european colonialism.
Instead what we have is a russia thats poorer than the poorest eu member states, frankly, pathetic in every way and simply unforgivable.
Not sure why they'd do that. Both Putin and Prigozhin were basically accusing each other of treason as Wagner was marching towards Moscow and shooting down Russian helicopters and planes. And now they're both just basically backing down, leaving behind a bunch of destruction on Russian soil.
There were so far reaching effects too. They even shut down national TV and blocked websites in the risk of propaganda against them. I don't think it was for show either.
Can everyone please avoid the shallow/flamebait style in this thread? Otherwise we're going to end up with something nasty and boring.
edit: I originally posted this as a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36460954 but that was a dumb idea (sorry pmarreck). I don't want to single out a particular user and didn't mean to shame anyone.
What is shallow about the comment your answered or flamebait. You might not see any interest in it, but I do see it. He really has a point. Russia does have problems fighting ukraine WITH the help of wagner, how will it fare against both?
I feel it's kinda insulting the tone here. I see this trend in hacker news that we use the guidelines as a way to insult or belittle other people's comments. It's agressive but in a cunny way.
"Good luck with that" is a trope and "he's already basically lost the war" is grandiose rhetoric. A one-liner consisting of those two things is both shallow and flamebait in the sense that we use those terms. This isn't a borderline call!
(but I shouldn't have used a moderation reply as a place to ask "everyone" something, since that could inadvertently generate a mob reaction and that's the last thing we want here)
Moderation comments are never intended as an insult or aggressive, but of course it's all too easy to come across that way without meaning to. If you or anyone wants to suggest ways to be more neutral about bringing up the guidelines, I'd be happy to take advice about it. However, that's different from changing the moderation standard, which is well established on HN.
I think you've slightly missed the mark on this one. Lots of things are tropes (there are tropes in your comment too, such as 'borderline call'), and saying that Putin has basically lost the war (whether true or false) isn't anywhere close to being 'grandiose rhetoric'. I don't think anyone expects you to get things right 100% of the time. It seems to me that calling this one particular comment flamebait was just a mistake. While it's not a very interesting comment, it's at least free of the wild speculation that you can find in many of the unmoderated comments in this thread.
I guess my criterion for 'grandiose rhetoric' is the bigness of a claim divided by the amount of information provided to support it. When the numerator is big and the denominator is small, that's what I mean by grandiose. It's one of the most common qualities on the internet, and one of the least interesting.
I can't agree that I missed the mark on that comment - what I said seems well within standard mod practice on HN. But it's fine that you disagree - there's always going to be disagreement on specific cases, since we all have different backgrounds and therefore different perceptions. It's the principles that matter.
You asked for constructive suggestions in your original comment. I'd suggest not using the word 'grandiose' in this way. If someone accused me of using 'grandiose rhetoric', then I certainly wouldn't think they just meant to say that I'd made a strong claim without supporting evidence.
The denominator is necessarily small as we're talking about a breaking news story obscured by the fog of war. If this is the bar that comments still have to reach in this context, then I wonder if the story should just remain flagged.
>I guess my criterion for 'grandiose rhetoric' is the bigness of a claim divided by the amount of information provided to support it. When the numerator is big and the denominator is small, that's what I mean by grandiose.
you just described a majority of discussions around AI/Chat GPT here. Or around twitter/facebook/etc. using this criteria they should be outright banned from here.
There are an awful lot of shallow takes on geopolitics here and in general, because … how do I put this in a non-insulting way … it’s a complex topic that doesn’t lend itself to pithy internet comments by those without a deep knowledge. Nation states do weird things, like how the US policy towards Cuba (itself complex) is almost entire driven by the electoral college for presidential elections and domestic demographics, but security still matters.
Our debates on Twitter, Facebook, crypto, and AI are pithy because we all know the topics well, and have mostly made up our minds about them. Often there’s not a lot to add not included in the article.
>Our debates on Twitter, Facebook, crypto, and AI are pithy because we all know the topics well, and have mostly made up our minds about them. Often there’s not a lot to add not included in the article.
they are pithy yet shallow. full of "grandiose rhetoric". "made up our minds" doesn't equal "sufficiently knowledgeable"
you could banish all typical, repeatable, pointless discussions to one day a week: "free-style Wednesdays" and reserve rest of the week for news that are actually new and educational. also could be interesting to see "no rules/mods friday".
This isn't kindergarten, I don't want all discussion reduced to anodyne abstractions. I think we can handle a robust exchange of views now and again, even if they're not expressed the way you would express them.
No one's asking for 'kindergarten' and I'm a bit puzzled why you would use that word, since the kindergarten side of the internet is the very flamewar dreck we're trying to avoid.
It's an idiom I use a lot, because 'be nice and polite all the time under any circumstances' is something I associate with kindergarten. Small children don't have flamewars, although I see how they're reminiscent of schoolyard fights.
Still, I think posters need to accept some expressive/emotive language in discourse. 'Good luck with that' may be a trope as a way to sarcastically express skepticism, but it's hardly offensive or conversation-terminating.I like to know how people are feeling in regard to a contentious topic, whether or not I find them or their argument agreeable. draining away all emotion/idiom introduces its own problems; callous or cruel remarks may be couched in pseudo-objectivity and the language of necessity/inevitability.
I think you don't realize that you are in fact treating us as kids or teenagers. Telling someone his, in good faith, comment, is below the guideline threshold is insulting. It's one of the polite, absolutely not vulgar, ways, to say someone's comment is idiotic without answering it. If you think someone hasn't provided enough evidence to back his claim, please ask him to do in a meaningful discussion. The kind of remarks where you just assume someone is just a weird internet troll, do not serve the discussion, nor the website users. Please understand that saying something politely, as in hiding behind the guidelines, doesn't make it acceptable if the message is insulting. We should thrive to build a community based on mutual respect.
I don't agree that HN moderation comments are doing anything like that. Most of the posts I reply to aren't idiotic (to use your word), and most comments that might strike me personally as idiotic (again, your word not mine) are within the site guidelines.
Moderation isn't about assessing who's right or wrong on a topic. That's the community's job, and I'm pretty sure the bulk of the community would not at all appreciate it if we tried to take that role.
The guidelines are kind of vague on purpose. When you say that some comment is a flamebait it is insulting. When you say that someone's comment is just an internet trope, it's insulting. You don't just enforce guidelines, you also make a very subjective judgement. I'm not going to argue anymore, I feel like talking to a politician that answers with bad faith and dodges the point.
> I think we can handle a robust exchange of views now and again, even if they're not expressed the way you would express them.
The comment in question didn't add anything to the discussion, it was just a snarky remark. Hence no actual exchange of views could be derived from it, only insults between factions.
That was the most intense war played out over cyber channels I've seen.
Telegram, Twitter, some idiot on LinkedIn. OSINT everywhere. Lots of blocked sites in Russia. Possible attacks on Google maps. A shame HN opted out. You get this sort of thing once a decade. I guess with the internet exploding it might happen again sooner.
No offense but the live tweeting from people thirsty for “entertainment” looking for and cracking jokes about news updates on the advance made me a little queasy.
These days I saw a website where you could pay to write down your name on warheads that would eventually explode on someone's head. By the looks and numbers it had it seemed very mainstream and popular.
It doesn't matter which side we're talking about. This kind of thing is insane and dehumanized.
As long as the bombs are blowing up people that my government has
spent years propagandizing me to have really strong opinions about, why shouldn't I be engaging in that sort of thing?
With so much nukes Russia has, I am wondering if the US' export of instability to the border of a country that has more nukes that the US really worth it. I also understand that lots of folks see it as "export of democracy" and gonna hate the comment. But what you gonna say on the first nuke use? Second, third?
"If we’re intelligent thinkers, we’ll study to understand the reasons for Russia doing what they did, even if we personally don’t agree with it. We’ll have come to this opinion not by viewing (censored) Google searches, but by exploring history through the independent media, not the mainstream narrative. I’ve known Russian and Ukrainian people, and don’t want anyone to die. But, just like you learned in grade school, why is America the world’s police?
Why don’t you protest the military industrial complex Dwight Eisenhower warned us about? Why not protest the fact that we have about 700 military bases? That’s not national defense, that’s offense. I can go on, but you have two radio shows where you can discuss politics. Why put it in the magazine too? Maybe start a political podcast and keep the magazine for unbiased hacker information that hackers of all countries can read.
Why keep writing editorials about fighting something you’ll never change or win? You wrote yourself, the system is broken. I can agree with that. Emmanuel Goldstein is a character in 1984. In that book, George Orwell teaches us about an evil, all-controlling government. By writing so adamantly about a few government topics, and taking a side on this or that trendy cause, you’re missing the bigger picture. You’re missing the forest for a few trees.
Economically, if the federal government dismantled itself to the bare essentials (national defense, not offense), those people and resources will move to the private sector, allowing more innovation without the burden of the cost of big government. Studies and history have proven that increased surveillance and loss of freedom have not stopped terrorists, as shown in Boston, Paris, and all the beheading videos on the Dark Web.
Americans should fix things at home before we go running around the world spreading our agenda. Instead of fixing a broken system, we have to start over. We should read history and remember the values the country was founded on, which are individual freedom and liberty, not satisfying groups of people at the expense of that individual freedom and liberty."
My friend, I'm from Ukraine myself (Berdychiv) with roots in both countries, and I can tell you your comment doesn't make sense. I inherited apartment in Kiev which I was hoping to use for retirement, but I won't be able to go there because of somebody decided to claim their rights on the country.
My pacifist nature wanted to leave in peace, and now I don't know who to blame: east, west, Putin, Zelensky, US, Russia. My family has been affected, and you're telling me my comment doesn't make sense...
My comment makes sense, because now I personally can understand what happened to those millions civilians in the Middle East.
I hope you understand that I am not asking you to _change_ your point of view, and I do not insist that my comment is correct, and your comment doesn't make any sense. All I recommend is to think critically, try to understand one small little person online, real one, regardless of what western/eastern propaganda says, regardless of what you read in mainstream media.
I am American myself (naturalized), but if you're American thinking you need to help somebody - I don't need your ambitions, because it's me paying for that, not you.
> I inherited apartment in Kiev which I was hoping to use for retirement, but I won't be able to go there because of somebody decided to claim their rights on the country.
I just fail to see how that's the US fault
You'd prefer that the "west" close their eyes and let your country be absorbed by Russia ? To save your retirement flat ? Would you go back there to retire under Putin's regime or whatever will come next ? I frankly don't get it
I understand that it's war and it's hell, but regardless of the US intervention Ukrainians were going to pay a very high price.
It's probably the only US intervention since ww2 that can be explained without too much mental gymnastic. They're far from being angels but they didn't invade you country, regardless of what they did in the middle east.
Of course, it's not the US fault, because you're so helpful. Thanks for your help, buddy. But you better solve your own problems. Is it familiar narrative? Pretty much the entire non-western world is thinking like that, except yourself, of course. Because you are so helpful.
> I understand that it's war and it's hell, but regardless of the US intervention Ukrainians were going to pay a very high price.
There were many-many ways to avoid the war, or at least make the conflict less impactful for small little people. I can't believe people in 2023 are so pro-war.
> You'd prefer that the "west" close their eyes and let your country be absorbed by Russia ?
I'd prefer to stop people killing each other. It is so easy to do that, the only thing that is needed is the political will. However, some folks in the US/EU/RU/UA government spread lots of propaganda on why we need to "help". The West only wants to "help" because they will get political benefits, and they don't care about people dying, it's not the number one priority.
If you believe this started as the US doing anything, I have a bridge (or an LLM) to sell you ...
The US (and the West) reacted to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. I think they've done an amazing job given the horrible starting premise. Still, they're trying to achieve balance and many things can go wrong.
Do you believe letting Russia take over Ukraine (or half of it) was a better option? Or getting NATO directly involved?
I don't know about drugs. Ego, messiah complex, and delusions of invincibility? Sure.
Putin got where he was through reality-TV-level ostentatious displays of strength. Prigozhin likely figured he was the only one who could boast measurable gains in the war, and the same tactics would work for him.
My guess is his miscalculation was assuming he was more popular among the rank-and-file Russian military and police than he is, and it's too early to tell if that's actually a miscalculation.
Why would they change their mind this quick, the narrative doesn't make sense at all, it's very hard to get proper source, so we'll have to compose with what we have
My suspicion is that Prigozhin got recruited by a Western agency (CIA?) with the intent to destabilize Russia from the inside.
Key here is to discredit the Kremlin, by e.g. exposing or at least making them seem incompetent. Later a coup/revolution is staged to cause internal conflict and make Russia unable to continue the war in Ukraine.
Given how short this "coup" was and how easy Wagner seemed to get off with this stunt I suspect Prigozhin instead informed the Kremlin (or Putin directly) and played along. He would likely get supported during the coup by whoever recruited him. If this is the case those assets are probably arrested by now.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: I know that (as of this moment) the story may have passed its sensational peak - if so, that's a good thing on HN. We're trying for reflective, not reflexive, conversation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor....