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.
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.