With Lukashenko being involved in the “truce” it could be that Belarus has agreed to take Shoigu and Gerasimov as exiles stripped of rank, in exchange for not proceeding with the coup.
Prigozhin orders his troops back to their bases. The “coup” appears to be over almost before it really began.
Was this some kind of elaborate charade between Prighozin and Putin perhaps to set up some scapegoats in the Russian military? Very bizarre incident.
Has the Trojan horse scam been considered? Is it possible he and Putin might be working together.
I don’t think it’s over yet. No idea what happens now.
I think a part of the end-game is deciding who is going to take the blame for this total screw up of a war, that had the consequence of damaging the Russian economy for a generation and revealing the Russian military as a paper tiger.
It may have been a plot between Putin and Wagner to blame the other mooks in the dept of defense. Or something else.
But someone is going to have to take the fall for the ill-advised invasion, eventually.
Is there any chance that Russia’s neighbors will see this as a chance to attack Russia on a different front? The Russian army, already weak and poor, is stretched very thin by fighting (and so far losing) two separate “military actions.”
Absent Russian nukes, certainly. Given Russian nukes, almost certainly not.
We had a thread on this “distracted weakened Russia” digression a few weeks ago.
True, but now they’re more distracted and more weakened. Eventually, someone is going to make a move.
Excerpt From the Atlantic article written 24 hours ago when this was simple…
Going back to “Why now?” and cogent comments by @Chronos at about #46 & subsequent …
The legislative action to absorb Wagner into MoD was the equivalent of Prigozhin walking into a prepared ambush by MoD & FSB. In that baleful situation, the least bad play (and it’s still a very bad one) is to counterattack into the ambush. Ready or not the fight is right here right now and you’re already in the middle of it. Him driving to Moscow is about his only (slim) hope of survival.
As others have said, he will have known this day was coming for some time, in generalities if not in detail. He will have been trying to recruit allies in the Kremlin, MoD, & FSB to take his side when (not if) push came to shove. Was he successful enough? We shall see.
In most more conventional coups, most of the regular troops and mid-level leaders (both military and security services) take the path of:
- Keep your head down and wait until a winner among the generals emerges, then swear retroactive allegiance despite the fact your prompt actions in staunch support were stymied by ... reasons.
This latest news of Prigozhin stopping at the gates of Moscow is very interesting. It suggests a deal is in the offing. Or it suggests the whole edifice of Russian power is teetering in the balance now as the various metaphorical demolition charges explode and the various bureaucratic mutinies play out.
It also suggests Prigozhin has no real concern that the pause gives MoD the time to deploy more reserve forces to defend the capital. Which suggests MoD’s cupboard really is bare and Prigozhin knows it.
When Russia and Belarus first joined together as the “Union State” in 1990 Yeltsin was in the Kremlin and Lukashenko intended that when weak Yeltsin fell, he’d be the one to take charge in both countries. That obviously did not happen. Now Lukashenko has nukes (maybe) and is in Moscow right now (maybe). Very interesting.
It would be an epic geopolitical coup and some serious 5D chess if somehow Lukashenko ended up besting Putin now for control of Russia. Not the way to bet, but this whole failed war then sorta-coup is not something most analysts would have bet on.
OK, Prigozhin stopping right at the edge of Moscow makes no sense whatsoever. At this point, the only way he gets out of this alive is if Putin falls, right? The only possibility I can even conceive of is that Putin was so desperate that he sent word “You’re right, it was all Shoigu’s fault, and there’s a window heading for him right now.”. But you’d think that that announcement would be public?
Sounds like Prigozhin couldn’t convince the military to join him in his coup, or collaborators backed out. Then he took the off ramp that Putin offered via Lukashenko. I’d expect an accident in his near future.
For some reason this all made me think of ancient history, specifically the history of Alaric the Goth. For many years prior to sacking Rome, Alaric was nominally a Roman client/ally on the Danube border and oscillated merrily between holding the border and pillaging his way across the Balkans at the head of a horde of Goths, all the while dropping hints that he’d go back to the border if he was offered better lands, a higher rank or a more important command. During this period, his horde was repeatedly trapped by Roman armies - and repeatedly allowed to withdraw back to the border, because the Romans needed the border garrisoned, and cutting another deal with Alaric was better that trying to deal with the gaping hole in the defences where the Goths had been.
Prigozhin may have been trying to say to Putin “Look, I know I can’t win a proper fight against you. But what I can do is pull my boys out of Bakhmut and collapse the the whole of the Donetsk front. Now would you rather have my boys on the Donets, or Zelensky on the Russian border?”
I also think that it’s something like this. Just a little flex to say that that you better give me more respect because I can fuck you up.
You don’t drive a significant force ~1100km to the Capital to prove to the Boss that you’re better off deployed back at the border.
Prigozhin has been running the Alaric the Goth play all along in the media. This is different.
IMO he made the run hoping to escape the bureaucratic ambush I mentioned above.
An alternative interpretation is Moscow may have laid a trap here letting Prigozhin cover a long stretch very quickly against negligible opposition where now Wagner is more or less strung out along that road, far from any friendly supply. If Russian forces can close off his tail back in Rostov, he’s all flank, no mass, and surrounded by hundreds of km of mostly inhospitable Russian countryside. It becomes a slow-motion form of the Iraqi Highway of Death, where Wagner’s forces are killed, co-opted, or melt into the countryside and Wagner simply evaporates as a coherent military force and as a political power center. Russia has used its vastness as a swamp with which to envelop invaders since the days of the Kievan Rus.
As always in the coup business: if you take a shot at the King, you’d better not miss.
A sudden fatal illness after drinking some tea.
From the Washington Post:
Mercenaries have halted their travel toward Moscow and turned back from the city, Wagner Group leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin said in an audio message Saturday. After a day of mounting tension in Russia as Prigozhin’s forces advanced in the direction of the capital, his statement appeared to signal an end to the immediate crisis.
Criminal charges previously started against Prigozhin will be dropped, and the Wagner boss will go to Belarus, said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. The guarantee that Prigozhin will be able to go to Belarus is based on Putin’s word, according to Peskov. Pro-Kremlin media also reported that 15 Russian servicemen were killed in clashes with Wagner forces, though no official figures on casualties have been released. The Washington Post could not independently verify the casualties.
Prigozhin said his forces came within 200 kilometers, or about 124 miles, of Moscow, and now “we turn our columns around and leave in the opposite direction to the field camps according to the plan.” The Post could not immediately clarify his whereabouts.
Maybe Putin will off Lukashenko and give Prigozhin Belarus as his fiefdom. Okay, wild, but no wilder than what’s happening.
Or accidentally falling out a window…three times.
He’s probably already been quite alert to such common hazards for years. And careful about touching doorknobs. His personal security probably prevents any ice axes being in the vicinity.
He has already captured one city - the primary staging grounds for the war. If he’s been, officially, nominated the new head of the military, he can basically grab and hold any cities and bases that are already under his control. He doesn’t need to go all the way back to the front.
I’d venture to guess that he’ll try to create his own semi-autonomous state and look towards Tito for inspiration on how to deal with Putin.