Here's my educated guess: - Putin promised Prigozhin he could run the war if he took Bakhmut (IE, take Shoygu's job). Prigozhin proceeds to slowly, incrementally, embarrassingly take Bakhmut at any cost, spending longer on a nothing city with no tactical advantage than the Kaiser spent on Verdun. Meanwhile Shoygu twigs to what's up and stitches Prigozhin. - Prigozhin knows he's being stitched up but also knows that there's fuckall chance of taking Bakhmut, which means there's less than fuckall chance of taking anything else in Ukraine, so he starts hoarding ammo - Bakhmut is about as taken as it's gonna be and the Ukrainians start probing for weakness. Things go badly for Russia, but not "collapse immediately" badly. Prigozhin goes to Putin and says "lemme turn this shit around, you told me I could" and Putin points out what a shitty job he did of taking Bakhmut - Putin blows the Kakhovka Dam, which is a war crime the likes of which the UN is not going to ignore. Suddenly bashing POW heads in with a sledgehammer starts to look venial. Meanwhile Fox News cross-examines the shit out of Trump, who looks like a week-old party balloon. The best theory I've heard on "what the fuck is Putin's plan" is "Hold the line until Trump wins re-election in 2024 at which point the West goes away and Russia collects its winnings." I don't think anyone in Russia thinks Trump has a chance anymore. The invasion of Ukraine makes total sense with Trump in power, can maybe be saved with an ascendant Republican congress throwing shit everywhere, and is absolutely fucking doomed with a Democratic second term and Fox News made Trump look like a fool in his safe space. - Prigozhin recognizes he can either use his ammo on the Ukrainians, who are by all accounts on the ragged edge of opening a can of whoopass, or he can reshuffle the deck. Apparently he was back at St. Petersberg HQ just like 36 hours ago; FSB raided Wagner HQ, apparently missing Prigozhin by minutes. I'll bet there was a phone call. - Prigozhin grabs Rostov-on-Don in 90 minutes. It took the Nazis 90 days. There is now no resupply for Russian troops in-theater because most resupply runs through Rostov-on-Don. He grabs Voronezh in less time, and a convoy starts moving on Moscow. He publicly demands the traitors Shoygu and Gerasimov (minister of defense and first deputy) and says he won't interfere with the vitally important war against the Nazis in Kyiv. I think things could have gone two ways here: (1) Putin gives up Shoygu and Gerasimov, Progzhin takes over the war effort, tries to wind it down and take over power. Putin is slowly nudged to his dacha where he lives out a couple years in luxury before drinking polonium tea. (2) Putin doesn't give up Shoygu and Gerasimov but lies low. Prigozhin rips into Moscow, Russian troops suck as they are obviously doing, Putin ends up captive and Prigozhin says he was out of touch shame shame we'll let the hero of the fatherland retire gracefully to his dacha and eventually drink polonium tea. Either way, the minute Prigozhin started back-talking the MoD back in February/March Putin was kinda fukt. He's in power because he has no rivals. Prigozhin started trying on the rival role and didn't get slapped down. At that point Shakespeare says "if you come at the king you must kill him." Putin knows this. He's fucking up royally, though. This is a reference to the Kornilov Putsch. Which is interesting because from a Bolshevik/Soviet point of view it's the straw that broke the old order's back and allowed the Bolsheviks to come to power. It's also interesting because the Soviet/Bolshevik standpoint on WWI was that it was an elitist quagmire that stole the lifeblood of the proletariat for the vainglorious frippery of the bourgeoisie. So while Putin definitely wants to paint Prigozhin as Kornilov, a dilettante who ultimately did nothing but make things worse, he can't really do so without painting himself as the Tsar. Or Kerensky. Neither of which have been particularly popular in Russia over the past 100 years. And here he's uhh kinda aligning himself with the Whites. _____________________________________________________________ I think everyone is confused. But I also think that the most underestimated force in the world is fatigue, and I think things tend to fail slowly, then all at once. We've been saying for a year that this is a body blow to Russian politics and society, and here it is.I'm confused. What is happening with this story.
It was such a blow that was dealt to Russia in 1917 when the country was fighting in World War I, but its victory was stolen.
Intrigues, bickering and politicking behind the back of the army and the people turned out to be the greatest catastrophe, the destruction of the army and the state, loss of huge territories, resulting in a tragedy and a civil war.
The deck has been reshuffled. I wonder what the fallout will be.
Yeah. man. This could go any number of ways. - Putin has demonstrated that yes indeed, he will sell out senior cabinet members for his personal safety. Shoygu is a loyalist's loyalist, one of the keener political creatures in the menagerie. - Prigozhin knows full well that Lukashenko has been given the task of making him dead. Lukashenko knows that Prigozhin knows. Putin knows that Lukashenko wants his job; Lukashenko knows that he went to Russia and nearly died. - The man-on-the-street clearly gives no fucks either way, which should surprise no one. What was "nobody can replace Putin" could become a full-fledged Game of Thrones where pretty much everyone is Reek or worse. A whole bunch of stuff that has been buttoned down for decades is now flapping in the breeze. This is like when they locked Gorbachev in his dacha but then let him come home.
I wonder what will happen to the Wagner operations in Libya and Sudan, if Prigozhin will be able to remain in control of them or if they somehow also will be absorbed into the regular army structure. Either way sounds like a headache for the Kremlin.
I think that comes down to who collects the money. Wagner is more than just irregulars, it's a bunch of guys who didn't fit into the Russian command and control structure. Wagner lets them be themselves. If they wanted to be regulars they would be; they don't. Not only that but if they slide back into regular army they're gonna be "the Wagner guy" everywhere they go and being "potential Wagner material" is what got them out of the regular military in the first place. There likely aren't a lot of Wagnerites excited for the prospect of rejoining Putin's org chart. I think it's telling that Lukashenko may or may not have had himself a polonium Arnold Palmer in March, may or may not have a passel of ex-Soviet tactical nuclear weapons on his turf, and may or may not have the cooperation with the guy who got a tank column to within 120 miles of Moscow before he was given amnesty to leave. If I had to guess, Lukashenko told Putin "allow me to murder him for you my liege" and told Prigozhin "let's murder Putin together." Putin was absolutely, positively buying time, and he was paying for it by giving Prigozhin options. The fact that Lukashenko jumped in the middle of this and said "I'm sure I can benefit from this somehow" does not simplify matters in the slightest.