It sounds like Wagner Group will continue, but under new management. At least that seems to be the Kremlin’s plan. Whether all Wagner troops will be happy to go along with it is another matter, given the antipathy that has built up between Wagner and Ministry of Defence.
[Embedded tweets seems to be working again]
And it’s oldish news from June 12th but still interesting: the story of an airman who defected from Russia.
Putin’s press secretary had said that Putin’s announcements in his speech “will, without exaggeration, determine the future of Russia”. However, it seems to have been a bit of a nothingburger, with no new announcements.
Also, Lukashenko’s now not doing his speech.
The best part:
I made steps to avoid large bloodshed. This needed time including letting those who made a mistake change their mind and see the consequences this will lead to.
Those tanks rolling unimpeded toward Moscow? All part of Putin’s master plan.
Correct, please do not continue this discussion here.
Appears that Putin and co still haven’t gotten their messaging together. I am far from an expert, but it’s hard to see how a “strongman” dictator like Putin survives for long when he’s looking so incredibly weak.
I’ve heard the Dnipro is a major obstacle. Great news that Ukrainian forces have crossed. It should help eliminate the Russian artillery positions that pound Kherson City.
Link Ukrainian troops reportedly reclaim territory in Kherson province | Ukraine | The Guardian
Looks like we’re not going to have to wait for the challenges to Putin’s strongman authority to begin.
‘Angry Patriots Club’ - I do love that with a thousand beating 
. It’s so on the nose it could be a pimple.
CNN article confirming the NYT report that US intelligence was on to Prigozhin in the last couple of weeks is sorta interesting in what it implies about Wagner’s capability. On the one hand Putin was caught off guard. On the other Senator Mark Warner, part of the ‘Gang of Eight’ that would have been briefed on this, hints that Prigozhin’s ‘25,000 soldiers’ might have been a bit (or perhaps more than a bit) of an exaggeration. Finally it appears analysts seem to think that Prigozhin was on his way to getting smeared if he actually tried to assault Moscow and realization of that fact more than anything else may have led to him stepping back from the brink.
All of which points towards a likelihood that Wagner is perhaps rather less of a threat to open a serious new front from Belarus even if a substantial portion them actually make that jump. Ukraine, being no dummies after almost getting caught out the last time, purportedly have substantial forces held back around Kyiv. Wagner also needed a lot of regular army support to operate around Bakhmut and they’ll get a lot less of that in Belarus.
Wagner will be handing over their heavy weapons to the regular army. And apparently the Russian National Guard knew about the rebellion beforehand from Prigozhin‘s own people. Probably hoping the Guard would either join in or get out of the way.
Ukraine reclaims some land taken in 2014. It’s a significant shift in the war. Ukraine is fighting Donetsk People’s Republic forces instead of Russian soldiers.
Link Ukraine likely to have retaken land occupied by Russia since 2014, UK's MoD says
This is the only part of your narrative that doesn’t hold together. Putin fleeing Moscow would have been expected in the case of a coup attempt, so should have been part of the planning all along. Putin is known for playing shell games with himself, so people quite often have no idea where he actually is at any given time. There were plenty of reasons to think he’d do the same in the face of any kind of mutiny or coup.
I don’t know if we’ll ever learn the real reason Wagner backed off. My suspicion is that Putin threatened to nuke the lead elements of Wagner’s column that was heading to Moscow, and maybe nuke Rostov as well, to destroy Wagner’s supply dumps they’d captured, as well as to show what happens to any city that supports Wagner. Prigozhin believed that threat enough, and cared enough, to back down. What happens to Prigozhin now is anyone’s guess, but I can’t imagine it will be healthy.
Not even close to being neccessary, Putin could have called in his air force and flattened everything heading towards Moscow at any time. No need to use nukes on your own territory when you haven’t used your other resources. There is zero sign that the air force was “holding back” to see which side was stronger. Putin has been holding them back throughout the Ukrainian war because he knows the NATO/American air defense woud cause great damage and that they would be difficult to replace quickly. The Wagner air defenses were designed and built by Russia, so not much of a threat to overcome since they train against them.
Yeah, that’s the weird part-- So why didn’t Putin attack Prigozhin’s forces from the air?
And now I’m wondering if some of those weapons they had over might be sabotaged, in such a way that they blow up in their users’ faces.
Very little of what happened makes any sense, from either a military or political point of view. The Russian regular forces should have been able to make short work of the Wagner forces, but didn’t. Either Putin couldn’t get them to fight for him, or Putin showed a level of restraint that is entirely unlike him. If his control of the regular military is so weak, why would Wagner give up so easily?
And who here thinks Putin will really just let Wagner get away with this? Why is Prigozhin acting like Putin will let him get away with it? None of it makes sense.
Prigo perhaps could have won the fight in the short term (i.e. taken Moscow), but what then? Then it’s civil war, and ISTM Prigo didn’t have the stomach for that.
But again, Prigozhin should have known that. Why start the fight at all if he wasn’t ready to finish it? It would have been better for him to just go AWOL with a large guard force of his troops, if he just wanted out of Ukraine.
AFAICT, Wagner was about to be forcibly dismantled. Prigo just wanted to avoid that, so he created some leverage and got a deal. Still seems dumb, but maybe he had reports that they were coming to make him disappear so this was all he could do.
Except that doesn’t explain why Putin wouldn’t just bomb their convoys. Or just accept this “deal”. A deal before a mutiny, sure, that makes sense. But after? It just makes Putin look weak, and we know Putin hates that.
I’ll just note that we have an entire other thread for speculating on Prigozhin’s motivations and thought processes. Though nobody can really make sense of it there, either.