More theatrically, Suppose they gave a coup and nobody came?
Nukes can be launched with a lot more than an ICBM. Air to ground missiles, nuclear bombs dropped from aircraft, medium and short range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, artillery, even mortars, although I don’t think the mortar-launched nukes are still in inventory anywhere.
I wouldn’t expect Belarus to attack Kiev with an Intercontinental ballistic missile, and Russia firing one would invite nuclear retaliation. I’m just saying that if you want enough deniability to forestall a retaliation, moving nukes to Belarus and then having ‘crazy’ Wagner do the deed after being booted from Russia might be enough.
I don’t know if this is what’s going on, and it’s probably unlikely, but it’s a possibility that shouldn’t be discounted. I’ll bet the military is wargaming it already.
I don’t think anyone is going to launch nukes. NATO’s overwhelming conventional advantage means that we wouldn’t have to meet a lone “rogue” nuke with a nuclear response – if some Russian “rogue” launched a nuke at Ukraine, NATO could simply sink all of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, and strike every Russian installation in Crimea and the Donbas, etc., all with conventional weapons. Russia surely realizes this.
Further, nukes in Ukraine wouldn’t help Russia’s war effort. What would they do, obliterate Kyiv? How does that help Russia’s goals?
The Wager with the Wagner holds the Coup that is True
I think at this point, the goal is to kill every citizen of Ukraine.
Headline says it all
No irony to see here, folks. Move along.
(Captain America I understood that reference meme)
That seems unlikely in the short term, barring heavy successful recruitment. Peak strength of Wagner in Ukraine was estimated by outsiders at ~50,000, but that was guessed to be 80% convicts and that was before the massive casualties taken around Bakhmut and the discharge of surviving convicts after they completed their six month terms. As I mentioned in the war thread Senator Mark Warner, who was one of the handful of people briefed by US intelligence agencies as part of the Gang of Eight, has hinted that Prigozhin was probably exaggerating when he claimed he had ‘25,000’ soldiers behind him. Subtract those that don’t make the jump as well.
Beyond that even though they had some heavy equipment, Wagner just isn’t a miniature combined arms army, exactly. It’s mostly light infantry which needed a lot of regular army support (which they complained they weren’t getting enough of) to function in intense combat. Don’t know that Belarus can or would provide that.
Putin must have sent an envoy to the convoy to make that deal that he could seal.
The Putin with the poison’s in the danger with the Wagner.
But does he have the crew that is true?
Wagner’s troops are mostly former Russian prisoners at this point. So even if they have families in Russia, there’s no guarantee they’d be allowed to remain out of prison.
Belorus is accepting Trump’s nightmare immigration scenario. The one saving grace is that for many of them, the only crime may have been disliking Putin. But there must be thousands of hardened criminals in the bunch, all further traumatised by Russian prison and then vicious, gory combat. It’s a pretty challenging assimilation scenario. I predict the Wagner crime gangs will be the bane of Belorus for decades to come.
Yeah, fiction has a lot of examples of someone liberating a prison full of political prisoners who go on to become noble freedom fighters… but even in a repressive authoritarian country, there are a lot of folks who end up in prison because they’re murderers, rapists, or the like. And in this particular case…
Do you think that those guys were at the top of the list to give them guns and put them out with other like-minded individuals? The ones who got into Wagner’s work-release program were probably mostly the ones who were in prison in the first place because they like hurting people.
I don’t think this is true. I believe most of the criminal recruits in Wagner have either been killed, or completed their 6-month tour and received their pardon. I think most of the Wagnerians that will be in Belarus will be from their core forces of army vets etc.
According to the BBC, they are still recruiting:
The Wagner Group is still recruiting fighters across Russia, days after staging a mutiny that led Vladimir Putin to raise fears of civil war.
Using a Russian phone number, we called more than a dozen recruitment centres saying, if asked, that we were inquiring on behalf of a brother.
All those who replied confirmed that it was business as usual.
From Kaliningrad in the west to Krasnodar in the south, no-one believed the group was being disbanded.
In the Arctic city of Murmansk, a woman at the Viking sports club confirmed that she was still signing up fighters for Ukraine.
“That’s where we are recruiting for, yes. If someone wants to go, they just have to call me and we’ll set a day.”
Wagner’s long list of contact points are mostly based at fight clubs, including martial arts schools and boxing clubs.
Several people who picked up the phone stressed that new members were signing contracts with the mercenary group itself, not the Russian defence ministry.
There’s a ‘live updates’ style article in CNN today: Kremlin says Wagner chief Prigozhin met with Putin after attempted rebellion.
To be a fly on the wall during that meeting! I can only imagine:
Putin: Welcome. Would you like a vodka?
Prigozhin: No, thank you.
Putin: Coffee? Tea?
Prigozhin: I’m good, thanks.
Putin: A refreshing American La Croix? You can open the can yourself.
Prigozhin: Nothing for me.
Putin (holding out umbrella): The forecast calls for rain. Would you like to borrow my umbrella?
Prigozhin: Please keep that thing away from me.
you forgot the end of the conversation:
Putin: Gee, it’s hot in this room–let’s open a window, okay?"
Good one! I forgot defenestration is the new favorite enemy-dispatching tactic of choice for the Kremlin.
“Oh, that must be my secretary. Would you mind opening the door for her?”
“By the way, what do you think of this new perfume?”