Ukraine ping
This could turn out to be a damp squib, but it appears Prigozhin is now playing for all the marbles. Putin staged the age-old summons to a general at war to return alone to the capital (to be relieved of the troops he commands) as a loyalty test. Prigozhin is responding as Caesar did, by moving towards the Rubicon, army in tow.
Tanks on Moscow streets. Russia vs Wagner’s and other dissatisfied.
This is very dicey
Ha ha.
War is weird but Russia is INSANE.
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
“Wagner mercenary boss faces arrest over ‘incitement to armed rebellion’”
About damn time that Putin started acting like the US DOJ.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend?
But, which one is my friend and which is the enemy.
The Russians are so confusing.
Anywho, Putin is the villain in all of this.
The Western democracies have a good record of allowing failed Generals to retire in good graces.
Autocrats, Kings, Tyrants, Dictators, have a bad record of executing generals who did not meet the grade...
This may be something, it may be nothing, deceit is an important part of warfare. Sowing distrust into the other side's camp is an age-old tactic.
Well... yeah... if he actually said what he said that’s actual incitement.
And nowhere NEAR what happened on Jan 6.
Coups never succeed without the army’s backing.
If this one is not fake, it will be squelched rapidly. If it’s fake, it will expose the leading dissidents who fall for it, and they will be defenestrated rapidly.
The Russian government brought this upon themselves.
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.
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.