Posted on 06/23/2023 4:42:30 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
If this one is not fake, it will be squelched rapidly.
It is hard to tell if the army backs the coup, or not, until it succeeds or fails. It is usually a few commanders which make the difference.
Intermediate states include relatively prolonged civil war.
Mostly they don’t know when to leave the party. Both Bob Denard and “Mad” Mike Hoare kept trying to revive the glory days of the 60’s well past their “best by” date. As a friend once said, nothing is more pathetic than an aging Romeo, I suppose it applies to soldiers for hire as well.
True words
I doubt that everybody in the army loves this war. The army didn’t support the Communist Party thirty years ago.
Putin/Russia has allowed private armies (PMCs) to become far too large and powerful. Wagner is by far the best known, but there are many others. These private armies are used around the world as a proxy military to advance Putin's geopolitical, military, and economic interests without the sensitivities or blowback of deploying Russian troops. These armies are growing in number, with some of them answering to oligarchs instead of the Kremlin. Thus far, the primary mission of PMC's has been to undermine western/American interests. That could change quickly.
Ukraine ping
Seruzawa: [It wouldn’t be surprising to see a mercenary go completely bonkers. You have to be mostly bonkers to be one in the first place]
The thing about this coup attempt is that it’s far more risky than the bloodless kind you get from securing buy-ins in exchange for promises of promotion, which is how Brezhnev toppled Khrushchev. Yeltsin’s coup against Gorby was based on schmoozing. He got a couple of generals to go along, and both Gorby and the CCCP were history.
Prigozhin’s is force-on-force. No one knows if he has been able to get a few channels open to Putin’s commanders. But Prigozhin’s best bet is to have an insider, preferably a low-ranker with no resources behind him, plunge the dagger in, by perhaps taking Putin hostage.
However, to personally assume power, like Caesar, Prigozhin may need to be the man who routed the incumbent. Unlike Caesar*, who was an aristocrat and a consul alongside Pompey, Prigozhin wasn’t exactly part of the any pre-revolt succession scenario. So his legitimacy will have to be established the old-fashioned way, with a test of arms.
* Despite his noble lineage, Caesar encountered serious resistance because his efforts were both revolutionary and retrograde. He had overstepped his authority by not relinquishing his troops. His victory would mean, in essence, a return to monarchy. And that is exactly what happened. His destruction of the Optimates who opposed him was a precursor to the end of the Roman Republic and beginning of the Roman Empire.
Mercenaries are famous for putting their own interests above all others...
“They’re not mercenaries. Wagner is just a plausibly-deniable arm of the Russian armed forces. They’re more highly-selected and more elite than the regular Russian army. They get better quality because they’re better-paid, better-trained and better-led.”
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Correct. Everybody else calling the Wagner group “mercenaries“ is dead wrong. This is a dispute within the Russian government, mainly because the entirety of the Russian armed forces have been unable to successfully defeat a nation one fifth of its size, led by a comedian , with the strategic initiative, in short order. Putin is viewed as being weak and ripe for overthrow, particularly by more hardline people within the government. I am frankly surprised that nothing of this sort occurred earlier, though perhaps Prigozhin couldn’t make his move until he had a demonstrated success under his belt.
Ukraine ping
marktwain: [It is hard to tell if the army backs the coup, or not, until it succeeds or fails. It is usually a few commanders which make the difference.
Intermediate states include relatively prolonged civil war.]
Prigozhin has proven his mettle through Wagner’s superior performance relative to the regulars in Ukraine. To the extent they think (1) he’s a potential winner and (2) he will give them a fairer shake than Putin, some will side with him. That’s why Prigozhin kept broadcasting his wins - he saw the day that Putin might move against him.
Being known as a winner is critical to attracting support. No matter how noble the cause - and this is just a struggle for power - to join anyone in armed revolt is rolling the dice with your life and the lives of everyone you know. Potential recruits for the revolt want the best odds possible.
To the extent that support penetrates Putin’s inner circle, the day could come that Putin is “arrested” and paraded in public as the evil genius behind the “criminal aggression” in Ukraine. At which point every crime under the sun is allocated to Putin, and he’s brought, bound and trussed, to the Hague. That way, Prigozhin or whomever follows Putin can give the West an excuse to lift sanctions on Russia, impose some nominal amount of reparations and return to making money from each other as they did antebellum.
Interesting that none of the usual pro-Putin propaganda posters are at work tonight. I wonder why?
They may need to figure out which side they will back...
Ukraine ping
Ancesthntr: [Putin is viewed as being weak and ripe for overthrow, particularly by more hardline people within the government.]
The Russian government brought this upon themselves.
Except right now, there is so much breaking news they can't drown it out. The RFC just repeats Russian MOD talking points, filtered through RT, TASS, telegram, then pro-Russian useful idiots.
Since none of their sources have put out talking points, they have nothing to use except denial and name calling. That doesn't work during breaking news.
Ukraine ping
Widget Jr: [It’s evening shift now. Normally the Russia Fan Club (™) pick on UMCRevMom@aol.com‘s on her evening thread.
Except right now, there is so much breaking news they can’t drown it out. The RFC just repeats Russian MOD talking points, filtered through RT, TASS, telegram, then pro-Russian useful idiots.
Since none of their sources have put out talking points, they have nothing to use except denial and name calling. That doesn’t work during breaking news. ]
Russia... They’ve been oh so close to being great... Except they aren’t... And they never will be... They are a pathetic excuse for greatness... Peter the ‘Great’... Catherine the ‘Great’... Etc., etc.... They have always been a subpar nation incapable of achieving anything ‘Great’... Because they are a backward and incompetent backwater country.
England conquered the world, the French conquered nothing... the Spanish conquered nothing... The Russian’s conquered less than nothing.
Beating a depleted and already beaten Germany was their one great achievement... And afterwards... They melted back to the obscurity that they have exemplified for centuries.
[Interesting that none of the usual pro-Putin propaganda posters are at work tonight. I wonder why?]
He looks like a real nutter.
Ukraine ping
An insidious carrot Prigozhin has placed in front of the rank and file? By calling the war unjust, he has opened the way to an end to the conflict. Defectors to Wagner face the prospect of an end to Russian roulette in Ukraine and the possibility of reward in a new regime under Prigozhin. Whereas their only reward for fighting Wagner, if they survive, is a return to rolling the dice with their lives in Ukraine. It’s hard to tell how high the likelihood of success is at this early stage, but there are elements that may offset the huge disparity in resources, chiefly those that may trigger passivity or outright defections from government forces.
If you were to gauge the contractor front and the general Russian Army....they are at two ends. They will never hook-up and have a friendly situation.
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