Posted on 06/26/2023 9:26:40 PM PDT by Cronos
As a two-mile-long convoy of military mutineers neared Moscow Saturday, a Russian presidential plane took off from the capital at 2:15 p.m. local time. It flew in the direction of President Putin’s native St. Petersburg until disappearing from radar at 3:06 p.m., according to Flight Radar.
“Putin is working at the Kremlin,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
A Russian air force attack on the mutineers was a fiasco. Soldiers from the Wagner mercenary group shot down six helicopters and one Ilyushin IL-18 airborne command center. The combined shootdowns killed 30 Russian airmen. Debris from one falling helicopter set ablaze the oil depot of Voronezh.
“There has not been such a tragedy in the history of our aviation for a long time,” a Russian TV presenter, Vladimir Solovyov, lamented Saturday night. “How many aircraft have we lost today? What is this?”
In Voronezh, the “Wagnerites” took control of local military facilities. the 277th Parachute Regiment switched sides.
“I ask everyone to get out of our way,” Prigozhin boomed
...Normally, Moscow would have been protected by the 4th Guards Tank Division, a unit set up by Stalin to guard the capital against western invaders. Before Putin’s attack on Ukraine last year, this unit had about 225 tanks and 300 armored personnel carriers. They suffered 80 percent losses in the Ukraine war, largely in Kharkiv and Luhansk. The British Defense Ministry has estimated it will take years to rebuild the division.
To defend the Moscow region without tanks, local authorities blocked highways with school buses and dump trucks, and started to dig up asphalt with excavators. Bridges over the Oka River were blockaded. Inside Moscow, more blockades were erected and Mayor Sergei Sobyanin imposed a “counter-terrorist regime.” Panic spread among some residents and all air tickets out of Moscow were sold out by Saturday night,
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
St. Petersburg is Putin’s home=base from the 90s.
That’s where he signed on Prigozhin.
Prigozhin was born in 1961 in what was then Leningrad. As a teenager he was caught, and punished, for theft — the first in a series of increasingly more serious crimes, including armed robbery and trafficking in underage minors, that led to him serving just over nine years in prison.
He was released in 1990 at a time when the Soviet Union was in the full throes of Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika reforms. Along with his mother’s second husband, Prigozhin opened a chain of hot dog stands, which, by his own account, was wildly successful.
It’s unclear when Prigozhin’s relationship with Putin first developed, though as a budding entrepreneur in St. Petersburg he most likely would have crossed paths with Putin, whose political career started in the city’s mayor office in the 1990s.
Prigozhin later got into the restaurant business; his St. Petersburg eateries were luxurious and frequented by the city’s powerful and elite. He later expanded his food business into catering contracts under a company called Concord Catering — first for schools, hospitals, and prisons, and then for bigger government events.
He also snagged catering contracts for the Kremlin and other Russian elites, earning him the moniker “Putin’s chef.”
In 2012, Prigozhin’s companies netted a lucrative contract from a Defense Ministry agency to provide food and catering services for the Russian military. The contract ended a few years later after Sergei Shoigu, an emergency situations minister and longtime Putin loyalist, was appointed defense minister— a fact that may have later fueled Prigozhin’s enmity toward Shoigu.
As to Putin - In May 1990, Putin was appointed as an advisor on international affairs to the mayor of Leningrad Anatoly Sobchak.
On 28 June 1991, he became head of the Committee for External Relations of the Mayor’s Office. Within a year, Putin was investigated by the city legislative council led by Marina Salye. It was concluded that he had understated prices and permitted the export of metals valued at $93 million in exchange for foreign food aid that never arrived
In March 1994, Putin was appointed as first deputy chairman of the Government of Saint Petersburg. In May 1995, he organized the Saint Petersburg branch of the pro-government Our Home – Russia political party, the liberal party of power founded by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. In 1995, he managed the legislative election campaign for that party, and from 1995 through June 1997, he was the leader of its Saint Petersburg branch.
—> Information about his criminal activities in St. Petersburg can be found in the book “Wowa, Wolodia, Wladimir”
An admission, Kiry?
When he entered Rostov, and then Voronezh, the army groups not only did NOT resist him, but divisions joined him.
He didn’t face any opposition on his march - which shows that he was expecting people turning to join him and that was happening.
Now the question is - would that have been enough? Well, that’s anyone’s guess now
Yet we had tons of Putin supporters (did you do so as well?) who claimed that Bakhmut was not insignificant
Russian intel most certainly did not know in advance - as is clear from the FSB’s actions. The KGB would have stymied Prigozhin before he even got to Rostov.
Instead, this action has shown Russia has no defense and is very, very weak — definitely not the image the FSB would want to show.
1. a Russian presidential plane took off from the capital at 2:15 p.m. local time. It flew in the direction of President Putin’s native St. Petersburg until disappearing from radar at 3:06 p.m., according to Flight Radar --> Flight radar's data showing clearly that this happened -- Russian President Vladimir Putin's special Il96-300PU aircraft took off from Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport to St. Petersburg at 14:16 Moscow time,
Do you, wladpusher, dispute that statement?
2. Dmitry Peskov claimed Putin was working at the Kremlin -- are you claiming Peskov didn't say that?
3. "A Russian air force attack on the mutineers was a fiasco. Soldiers from the Wagner mercenary group shot down six helicopters and one Ilyushin IL-18 airborne command center. The combined shootdowns killed 30 Russian airmen. Debris from one falling helicopter set ablaze the oil depot of Voronezh." --> those are stated by the Russian official media as well as in Putin's speech "condemning the mutineers" - are you claiming that did not happen?
4. “There has not been such a tragedy in the history of our aviation for a long time,” a Russian TV presenter, Vladimir Solovyov, lamented Saturday night. “How many aircraft have we lost today? What is this?” ---> are you, wladpusher, claiming that Solovyov didn't say this?
5. "In Voronezh, the “Wagnerites” took control of local military facilities." --> this is also verified in many sources. Do you claim this didn't happen?
6. "The 277th Parachute Regiment switched sides." -- this is verified by only one other source, yet they were based in Voronezh and didn't fight - so seems plausible. Are you claiming this didn't happen?
7. Prigozhin's statement - do you say he didn't say that
and so on and so on -- whatever the source may be, the facts hold up -- or do you have other facts from the Kremlin?
I'm saying that your pal the Re-Animator may not be the original account holder. :)
you were referring to yourself as the re-animator as well?
My posting history is well-known, you lying clown.
Hope you have a good medications plan...
It's why Vasily Blokhin was able to have his way with them at Katyn.
Prigozhin has exposed the Putin Stooges as total Fools.
Now they hate him.
Kiry is a Russian troll who works cheap.
So what does that mean? You hijacked an original FReeper's account and are now using it to troll the Ukraine/Russia war threads?
Disbanding Wagner was a problem the Russian military was in the process of tackling. That problem has now been solved. Other than a handful of hired murderers (most likely hired killers on the West’s payroll), the nation and military rallied to Putin. Putin is stronger today than he was a week ago. The Russian military has also removed the cancer and is now more reliable and disciplined. Not mentioned during this episode is the fact that the Uke counteroffensive has been a complete bust. Did you also note that your Uke Churchill cancelled Ukrainian elections indefinitely?
I mean that the original account holder of the Free Republic id "USA-France" should have used a less crackable password.
Because that would explain the multi-year posting gap, snek-bot.
There are MANY such accounts - the majority of which are SUDDEN supporters of The Ukraine.
you do realize that's a lie, right?
Wagner, filled with criminals, walked into Rostov-on-Don and Voronezh and faced zero resistance.
In fact they were welcomed by the military there and some joined them on their "march" to Moscow
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