Nice to see the Taliban retaking Kabul again, metaphorically.
If it was a desperate mutiny, rather than a reasonably carefully planned rebellion, it would have been put down by now. Or else Putin’s security apparatus is much, much weaker than we were lead to believe. Either way doesn’t bode well for Putin.
Yeah, latest reports I’ve seen are that either Wagner or someone sympathetic to them are now within 100 miles of Moscow. At this point, I’m having a hard time seeing how they don’t capture the city. And whatever comes after that, it’s tough to spin a mutinous mercenary company capturing the capital as anything other than a success for that company.
Iran reportedly referring to this as an “internal event” in Russia, and staying on sidelines.
I think Ryan is correct. This is Russian against Russian, the rest of the world is actually a tiny bit safer right now. What happens next could be much worse, but this has the potential to be a boon for the entire world.
Aside from all other matters, if Putin goes down at least this time we have someone in the White House who won’t punt the ball like the back in '91. Maybe this time we can make a serious dent in the terror of nuclear weapons.
I was going to add to add a wildly optimistic outcome to my previous post. If things come out just right, we could maybe convince Russia to give up their nukes in exchange for protection in the form of US bases near the Russia / China border. I know it’s a very unlikely outcome, but I can dream.
What would Prigozhin get out of that? The collective west deciding to ignore all the crimes he committed in Ukraine.
If Prigozin took over Russia, the West would leave him alone anyway. You know, because nukes. Literally zero chance of Russia giving up nukes.
A country with vast nuclear weapons stores becoming increasingly unstable, ruled by increasingly crazier thugs, could also be a boom for the entire world …
Best case IMHO is that neither Putin or Prigozhin lands on top but a place coup puts a placeholder for the oligarchs in place. Motivated by getting economic ties back so they get their lifestyles back.
Yeah, there is no way to spin this as a win for Putin and Russia. Putin’s facade of invulnerability is badly damaged by this.
We would leave him alone if takes a non-aggressive stance toward the west. We can talk them into giving up a lot of nukes and getting on the path toward world denukification also, at least to the extent we are. On top of the nukes, winter is coming to Russia. Russia is already going to suffer from Putin’s Ukraine fiasco for years to come. Whether by Prigo or anyone but Putin, the clear choice is some cooperation with the west short term. We have a chance to convince Russia to change in a fundamental way. They only have to stop invading and threatening other countries, but it’s hard for people and countries to break old habits. Even the same habits that lead to failure time and again.
I doubt very much that Russians would see this as a “clear choice”.
Whatever happens, it will likely be closer to this.
Update. (Not paywalled.)
Yep, this, especially when Russia knows firsthand what can happen when a country gives up their nukes in exchange for “security assurances”.
Ukraine: promise not to invade us if we give up nukes?
Russia: yeah, we pinky-swear!
Ukraine: hands over nukes
Russia: psyyyyyccchh!
You know, projection and all that.
I wonder if sacking Moscow would be enough to consider Putin officially overthrown. Wagner might have to keep going all the way to St. Petersburg.
What I haven’t seen is where Prigozhin is getting supplies for the army. It takes lots of gas. I trust he has money stored up, since the Russian paymaster is not going to be sending him money for Wagner in the near future. I’ve also seen reports that there has been fighting, though no direct reports - burned out equipment only.
Any competent military leadership would have put in troops to block Wagner long before now - if they wanted to, that is.
I’ve seen three different reports in the last couple of minutes that he is stopping short of Moscow and turning back, so as to “not spill Russian blood“. If it’s true, it just sounds like he was a man swinging for some kind of deal…
www.twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1672659713547436038?s=61&t=7zPHcBzjb1UW-wh6DrDc3g
Yeah, and fairly sober people are taking it at face value. It doesn’t make sense to me though. He can’t just stop, right? He’s a dead man, no?
It’s only June. There’s still a good month, month and a half before Russian winter.
Steal from civilians. Service stations along the route, that is.