Posted on 06/23/2023 5:20:07 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
The owner of the Wagner private military contractor made his most direct challenge to the Kremlin yet on Friday, calling for an armed rebellion aimed at ousting Russia’s defense minister. The security services reacted immediately by opening a criminal investigation into Yevgeny Prigozhin and calling for his arrest.
In a sign of how seriously the Kremlin was taking the threat, security was heightened in Moscow and in Rostov-on-Don, which is home to the Russian military headquarters for the southern region and also oversees the fighting in Ukraine.
Prigozhin claimed Saturday that his forces had reached Rostov, saying they faced no resistance from young conscripts at checkpoints and adding that his forces “aren’t fighting against children.”
“But we will destroy anyone who stands in our way,” he said. “We are moving forward and will go until the end.”
He claimed that the chief of the General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, scrambled warplanes to strike Wagner’s convoys, which were driving alongside ordinary vehicles.
Prigozhin said Wagner field camps in Ukraine were struck by rockets, helicopter gunships and artillery fire on orders from Gerasimov following a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, at which they decided to destroy Wagner.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Prigo offers context
https://youtu.be/V8thO6S5duE?t=34
Soldiers fight for reasons. A good leader offers good reasons. Bad leaders ...not so much.
It’s about 125 miles of good road between Bakhmut and Rostov.
It is a very long way to move armor.
That’d be cool if Putin got Ceausescu’d.
If not, he'll have to pull a Stalin. I don't think he has enough support to do that.
I don’t know.
It’s interesting
That’s only a problem if you have to move armor.
If there are troops defending Moscow, I assume they are mostly 18 year old conscripts. They're not going to fight against battle hardened Wagner troops returning from Bakhmut.
All of the Russian troops are in Ukraine right now.
It seems likely the Wagner PMC forces are heading for the major Russian Army HQ base at Novocherkassk, northeast of Rostov-on-Don.
If the commander of that base is a Prigozhin ally and the Wagner forces manage to successfully encamp at the base, they will have access to air defense assets and ammunition supplies and will present an extremely difficult problem for forces loyal to Shoigu and Gerasimov.
So, the Wagner group may not have so very far to go. If they can take the HQ of the Russian army fighting Ukraine, they will have taken the majority of Russian army forces.
Posted for 100th time today...Meanwhile, how is that Ukrainian counteroffensive going?
The Russians got knocked out of WWI when the Bolsheviks seized power from Tsar Nicholas II.
Looks like Putin is going to meet a similar fate.
The Russians got knocked out of WWI when the Bolsheviks seized power from Tsar Nicholas II.
Not quite. The Bolsheviks seized power from the provisional government.
There’s no video of them, but there is video of Russian security locking the roads down. They’re just trying to feed Ukraine a “this is our moment” gambit. Russia’s lines are all defensive and they need the Ukrainians to attack it.
They’re making great progress.
Peace talks now before it’s too late!
He might just win the coup without going to Moscow. Much of the Russian military is already deployed. If the Russian commanders on the front stand down ……it’s over and a walk in the park to Moscow.
Yep. Unless Putin is able to redeploy his troops from Ukraine to Moscow.
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