Posted on 06/23/2023 12:07:27 PM PDT by marcusmaximus
The Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin has said Russia’s defence ministry concocted false pretences to trick Vladimir Putin into invading Ukraine and said Moscow could have avoided the war entirely.
In a half-hour tirade Prigozhin, founder of the notorious Wagner mercenary group, claimed Russia had faced no immediate threat from Ukraine when Putin began his full-scale invasion last year and accused the army’s top brass of deceiving the Russian president for their own personal gain.
The extraordinary rant, posted on social media on Friday, was the former caterer’s latest salvo in a long-running spat with defence minister Sergei Shoigu, who Prigozhin has accused of sabotaging the war effort together with Valery Gerasimov, chief of Russia’s general staff.
Prigozhin’s regular diatribes, in which he claims Russia runs the risk of losing the war after Ukraine began a counteroffensive earlier this month, indicate elite infighting is getting fiercer as Moscow’s war effort continues to struggle.
Though Prigozhin notably refrained from criticising Putin personally and has backed the war’s goals, the video was the first time he publicly questioned Russia’s rationale for the full-scale invasion.
“There was nothing out of the ordinary on February 24,” said Prigozhin, referring to the day Putin ordered the invasion. “The defence ministry is trying to deceive the president and society by saying Ukraine was going mad with aggression and was planning to attack us together with the whole Nato bloc.”
Instead, Prigozhin claimed Shoigu had convinced Putin the war was necessary so “a bunch of bastards could rule the roost and show off about what a strong army they have”, then botched the invasion through “incompetent planning”.
“For some reason, this bunch of idiots thought they were so smart-assed that nobody would understand what they were up to or stop them on their way to Kyiv,” he added.
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
Nonsense. There was no coup in 2014. Yanukovych abandoned his job and the Ukrainian Parliament removed him from office by a unanimous vote.
Wagner Group Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said Russian Defense Ministry attacked the group's bases in the rear.
"We have 25,000 (soldiers), and we're going to respond," he said.
Oh please, don’t forget the part creepy ‘ol Uncle Joe played as Shit Stirrer in Chief!! I blame this whole mess on Hunter’s dad.
We did bait Russia so we could degrade their ability to ally with China when that war comes.
Biden gave Putin the green light to invade Ukraine in a “minor incursion”. And Putin and his military screwed up the deal.
Maybe you have other words for when a violent mob overthrows a duly elected government in an unconstutional manner, but coup is also appropriate. Nuland wasn't organizing the replacement governments in the weeks prior on a mere hunch. That's laughably naïve.
Yanukovych abandoned his job and the Ukrainian Parliament removed him from office by a unanimous vote.
Yanukovych fled a murderous mob after they rejected a compromise that included early elections. He was not removed constitutionally. Impeachment of the Ukrainian president required not only charges to be filed (they weren't), but it also requires a 3/4's vote of the full Rada - 338 votes.
The 328 votes for removal of the president carry as much authority as 60 Senators voting to remove the U.S. President - not enough!
It was a coup by any definition of the word, or honest assessment of how the change in power was achieved (murderous mob violence, and ignoring Constitutional procedure to replace duly elected officials).
Well, the founder of Wagner, Dmitry Utkin, is an actual Nazi, with Nazi tattoos. He selected the name because Wagner was Hitler's favorite composer. Wagner still has plenty of Nazis and still uses Nazi symbology. Some of their units are straight-up Nazi, like Rusich and Zimargl groups and led by Nazis (like Alexey Milchakov). Here's their Wagner unit patches.
He should have known better than to try to find the cup with the ace under it.
I’ve said for twelve years that Putin was great at playing poker, and making bluffs, but one day he’d run out of luck. Gamblers always do.
You may be correct, but the issue is not how much credibility he has on FR but how much credibility he has inside Russia and how will his message resonate there.
The war will end when Putin gets overthrown in a coup.
Most of what he says is partly true, but exaggerated and twisted to his needs. He's sometimes a huge drama queen, but this rant goes a little far. I'm not even sure it's real.
Right-and the US got tricked into a mail order presient ... because of Nancy’s pandemic trick
What a world!!
All the lies are coming from the Biden regime and Victoria Nuland, who went out of their way to assure this proxy war occurred no matter how many died, no matter how much territory Ukraine lost, no matter how many tax dollars were waste and regardless of how much the people of this country suffered because of it.
What no pictures of Putin with his shirt off today, Marcus? Does mean Prigozhin is the latest object of your homoerotic desires? What is it about you and older Russian men? You definitely have a fetish.
You seem b1tt3r
Where’s Putin?
The Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin is so dead.
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