From this article, it seems you are correct.
At some point, the head of the Wagner Group offered to reveal Russian positions in exchange for Bakhmut.
Those Discord leaks are a gift that keeps giving.
I was already of the opinion that Prigozhin is unlikely to survive the war. This makes me think it’s even less likely. I think his only chance is to surrender his units and hope for both asylum and to be given a secret identity (witness protection style) somewhere in the west. Even that is obviously unlikely.
Wagner forces are apparently doing a lot of merc jobs in parts of Africa. He could move down there and play kingmaker.
First he has to get out of Bakhmut. There’s no way Putin lets him leave to the east, an only slightly more likely Zelensky lets him leave to the west.
I don’t know, having him publicly bug out to Africa rather than continue doing Putin’s dirty work would be a hell of a propaganda coup.
I believe sledgehammering a POW makes him ineligible to go to the west. He has a pile of other war crimes stretching across multiple continents. Putin’s head on a platter wouldn’t save him from trial/assassination.
Zelensky seems to be improving at diplomacy. He’s visited Germany, France, and now the UK.
The UK is sending more long range drones and missiles to Ukraine. Ukraine is getting quite an arsenal.
Link UK pledges more weapons for Ukraine as Zelenskiy meets Sunak at Chequers | Defence policy | The Guardian
I agree. I also posit that Putin made sure that he and his men committed crimes like that for this exact reason.
Ukrainian artillery has done amazingly well but the battlefield is still unforgiving of complacency or inertia.
If you keep shooting and don’t scoot often enough, even Russian command and control can figure out how to order a counterbattery attack.
Oryx analysis estimates that the Ukranians have lost about 1/3 of their towed M777 guns and perhaps 20% of rheir M109 and AHS Krab self-propelled artillery pieces, apparently because they’re being set up in fixed firebases which are easy to counterfire.
UK has committed to begin training Ukrainian pilots on the F-16 this summer. I’d guess that would also include training maintenance crews.
Its going to take time to build a modern Air Force for Ukraine. This is an encouraging first step.
@LSLGuy
How would training pilots work? Would they build flight time by flying with NATO squadrons? You can only learn so much in a simulator?
Guardian
Darn good question. In my era taking a USAF pilot who was new to fighters to fully qualified in the F-16 took 6-7 months. Somebody experienced and current in a different USAF fighter could do it in 4 months. That was in a location with no weather challenges.
I did this before combat-level realistic simulation had been invented. Sims then were good for learning to operate the airplane, practicing instrument flying, and practicing emergencies. So enough to make one a qualified safe ferry pilot in whichever jet, but not to use it to fight. Nowadays combat-level sims are available although where and in what quantity I have no idea.
I do know that right now overall USAF has very little spare training capacity; in fact they’re short of pilots for lack of ability to train them. I don’t know much about NATO training capacity, but at least some of it is done at USAF bases too, mostly for the better weather than European gloom.
Thank you @LSLGuy
I remember News references to foreign military pilots training in the US.
Here’s one. The US Air Force program trained 30 Afghan pilots and 70 maintenance technicians. It was ended and pilot training responsibility shifted back to Afghanistan.
I see your point that a lot depends on the flight experience of the foreign pilots. Ukraine may not have many they can spare from supporting the war.
Link Air Force Ends Program That Trained Afghan Pilots to Fly the A-29 Super Tucano
I’m still not sure why Prigozhin hasn’t turned his troops around to march on Moscow. I’m not sure that Putin has anyone who can stop him: If he did, they’d be in Ukraine, too. And even if there is, you’d have to think that his chances would be better against them than against Ukraine.
Is Prigozhin wearing a remote-controlled explosive collar, or something? I mean, that’s the sort of Bond villain stunt that Putin would pull, but…
Because if you come at the king, you’d best not miss.
Actually, I’m pretty sure that there are plenty of Russian troops and militia still inside Russia, which will never be deployed to the front for this very reason. Most of the National Guard, I think, has been kept back.
Maj Gen Igor Kornet had a very bad hair day.
Yup. The Rosgvardiya is a genuine Praetorian Guard of the sort all good autocrats demand. While elements of it has been in combat here and there, purportedly since Oct of 2022 the full ODON division has been squatting balefully in Moscow, guarding against internal dissent.
Anyway, Wagner isn’t a fully functional army - it’s mostly merc light infantry that were intended to fight against outmatched opposition in the developing world. And Russia is really fucking big. Bakhmut is 600 miles from Moscow, more than enough time and space for the Russian army and air force (Wagner doesn’t have the IADS that Ukraine possesses) to flatten his toy army.
Ukraine would be thrilled, because that would be some instant gain. But Prigozhin would be quickly dead. If he ended up in a serious pissing contest with Putin his only real hope would be a backroom coup, not banging heads in a very likely doomed armed confrontation.
The mumblings on twitter are that the missile attack on Kyiv tonight got a Patriot battery. We’ll see.
I’ve read about the UK offering to train Ukrainian pilots on the F-16. I’ve also read that the RAF doesn’t fly F-16s. I don’t quite get how this will work
Sure, the Brits could borrow some F-16s, I guess. But do they have instructors who can train for that fighter type? If so, why?
Is the answer: “…something, something, something, NATO”?