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Residency Evil posted:I don’t understand how Prigozhin survives next week. I think it's likely there's more to the deal than the Russian government is admitting to publicly: quote:Peskov declined to say whether any concessions had been made to Prigozhin, other than guarantees of safety for him - something he said Putin had given his word to vouch for - and for Prigozhin's men, to persuade him to withdraw all his forces. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-mercenary-boss-prigozhin-move-belarus-under-wagner-deal-kremlin-says-2023-06-24/ "That I can tell you about" seems like a pretty big caveat there.
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Jun 25, 2023 00:12
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Chalks posted:Ukraine launched an offensive with thousands of armoured vehicles and one of the Ukrainian columns lost 15 of them. Russia had a mutiny of tens of thousands of soldiers who almost marched all the way to Moscow after Prigozhin said the Russian forces were getting absolutely destroyed and the authorities were covering up the numbers of casualties. Yeah I kinda expected them to clean house once they had western equipment and instead saw them get dumpstered by the Russian military and now I realize I’ve let the Gulf War ruin my perception of how these things are supposed to go. It seems like they’re still outgunned and have a massive disadvantage with Russian air assets harassing any potential offensive and the news articles are coming out saying the west is losing patience with Ukraine and thinks the offensive is going too slowly. Which is unfair because if the west fought this the war would have been over by now since they have all the air assets.
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Jun 25, 2023 00:13
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Pakled posted:Did those Russian helicopters getting shot down by Wagner last night not actually happen, or are they just not going to face any consequences for that? Boys will be boys.
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Jun 25, 2023 00:14
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Pakled posted:Did those Russian helicopters getting shot down by Wagner last night not actually happen, or are they just not going to face any consequences for that? yes the helicopters shot down are real. We cannot predict the consequences yet until more of master manipulator Alex G L's deal come to light
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Jun 25, 2023 00:15
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Ra Ra Rasputin posted:Hypothetical, Wagner kept marching on Moscow and Prigozhin kicks his feet up on Putin's desk in the kremlin, what then? He gets overthrown in a week or less by someone more competent, ruthless, and connected. A true Russian Civil War is going to be peak  .
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Jun 25, 2023 00:19
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Kraftwerk posted:Yeah I kinda expected them to clean house once they had western equipment and instead saw them get dumpstered by the Russian military and now I realize I’ve let the Gulf War ruin my perception of how these things are supposed to go. It seems like they’re still outgunned and have a massive disadvantage with Russian air assets harassing any potential offensive and the news articles are coming out saying the west is losing patience with Ukraine and thinks the offensive is going too slowly. I think people are also underplaying how much Ukraine is still ultimately working with a conscript army and not an experienced, professional western-style military like, say, the US'. Way too many people say they're trying to ground their expectations in reality, but seem to keep expecting this to play out like the end of the Lord of the Rings where you just have one big boom and everything just magically resolves itself.
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Jun 25, 2023 00:24
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BIG HEADLINE posted:He gets overthrown in a week or less by someone more competent, ruthless, and connected. Like you launch this massive foreign war to distract from your issues at home and then poo poo gradually gets worse until you are suddenly powerless
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Jun 25, 2023 00:25
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Kraftwerk posted:Yeah I kinda expected them to clean house once they had western equipment and instead saw them get dumpstered by the Russian military and now I realize I’ve let the Gulf War ruin my perception of how these things are supposed to go. It seems like they’re still outgunned and have a massive disadvantage with Russian air assets harassing any potential offensive and the news articles are coming out saying the west is losing patience with Ukraine and thinks the offensive is going too slowly. Yeah, it's still a peer conflict in many ways, and minefields are going to be extremely difficult to traverse under fire no matter how great your armour is. Right now, Ukraine is performing probing attacks against well prepared defences, looking for weak spots. When they find them, they push and we get news about a handful of settlements being liberated, and then the front line stabilises again. This will keep happening as they approach the first line of fortifications. Then we'll see how tough they are, and if Ukraine has found a substantial weak point, they'll commit a substantial force to break through. Russian air power (helicopters specifically) is a real issue, you're right. But also, Russia has been losing them at a rate of about 1 every few days since the counteroffensive began. Wagner shooting down 5 of them today probably helped too! Verified equipment losses over the last 3 days for Russia is 59 including 13 artillery pieces. The figure for Ukraine is 16. Considering offensive action should mean an increase in losses, and the fact that Ukraine is trying to keep silent about the battles compared to Russia who publicise every Ukrainian loss, this paints a very healthy picture at the moment.
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Jun 25, 2023 00:28
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Ukraine is doing fine with their offensive. The lines are heavily mined which is going to slow any initial advance as you have to clear the mine fields before you can push. You will have a break through or two in the coming weeks and then things will get spicy. As we just saw with Wagner once you get past the initial defenses the Russian lines are somewhere between ineffective and non-existent. Morale in Russian forces was bad before I assume is going to crater now. Also this just showed that an ambitious commander can literally take over the country if they want to. I believe this is the beginning of the end for Putin and the current Russian government. It is going to be very interesting to see what is going to happen coming out of this.
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Jun 25, 2023 00:30
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 A strange 24 hours and very little change. Prigozhin gets a dacha in Belarus, Wagner is folded in with the rest of the Russian army, and Putin is still running everything. How much did this hurt Putin?
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Jun 25, 2023 00:32
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Pakled posted:Did those Russian helicopters getting shot down by Wagner last night not actually happen, or are they just not going to face any consequences for that? Life is cheap in Motherland.
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Jun 25, 2023 00:34
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Reputationally, very much so. He can't hold the powe stable, government officials were running away on private jets, propagandists keeping quiet to see who wins, the lame rear end speech invoking 1917 - two of the world's most successful uprisings. Now anyone following the war knows not just that the boyars are bad, the Czar is a loch that can be threatened and put in his place by force
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Jun 25, 2023 00:37
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All those videos of regiments appealing to Putin nicely for ammunition, medical care, competent leadership? Now they're going to be actual mutinies because it's been demonstrated that you can shake loose a few fruits from the tree with violence.
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Jun 25, 2023 00:40
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I just want to know how anybody who is a serious business analyst expects to understand the decision making coming out of Russia. This whole coup thing is insane and baffling. Like somebody really had a model of behavior that saw any of this happening? (Ok, I did see on twitter analyst who called the Putin and Prigozhin negotiate and pretend nothing ever happened angle, but the coup in general seems nuts)
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Jun 25, 2023 00:40
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Pakled posted:Did those Russian helicopters getting shot down by Wagner last night not actually happen, or are they just not going to face any consequences for that? Impossible to know. The footage we have seen makes it apparent that at least one was shot down. As for consequences? Wait and see. Honestly if anyone other than leadership suffers consequences, we will likely never know.
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Jun 25, 2023 00:42
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It seems like the guys who really got screwed were the Wagner rank-and-file, since Prigozhin whipped them up to mutiny and then bounced at the earliest opportunity. I mean gently caress ‘em but that’s probably not going to work out well for them.
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Jun 25, 2023 00:44
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Kraftwerk posted:Yeah I kinda expected them to clean house once they had western equipment and instead saw them get dumpstered by the Russian military and now I realize I’ve let the Gulf War ruin my perception of how these things are supposed to go. It seems like they’re still outgunned and have a massive disadvantage with Russian air assets harassing any potential offensive and the news articles are coming out saying the west is losing patience with Ukraine and thinks the offensive is going too slowly. 3 Bradley’s and a couple Leopards = dumpstered. 
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Jun 25, 2023 00:45
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HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:How much did this hurt Putin? In a material sense, not much. Image-wise, it's of course a major embarrassment. It remains to be seen what impact this will have on Putin's grasp of power. He, like most dictators, keeps power by preventing anyone else from gathering too much independent power. Wagner was a possibly unique exception, and the uprising probably reminded Putin of why such concentration of independent power should be avoided. Even if no-one else is strong enough to challenge Putin, my guess is that he will put in even more effort in disrupting the rise of power centres, which in particular might manifest as fracturing military command even more. I think there will be no significant impact in the short term, however, and Putin may be too old for any long term effects to matter. The most embarrassing part of all this is probably that Lukashenko of all people had to lend a helping hand.
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Jun 25, 2023 00:45
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HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:
Hey, the circus is in town!
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Jun 25, 2023 00:46
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The only thing I can think of... Prigozhin realized he was going to win instead of die in a blaze of glory and said, "No, that sounds like a lot of work." Still bizarre given that he was on the cusp of victory.
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Jun 25, 2023 00:47
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HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:A strange 24 hours and very little change. Prigozhin gets a dacha in Belarus, Wagner is folded in with the rest of the Russian army, and Putin is still running everything. How much did this hurt Putin? Remains to be seen what the other terms were, i.e. will Shoigu and Gerasimov keep their positions or not. This wasn't good optics at all and a big distraction in the middle of a war, but the Prigozhin vs. Shoigu conflict has been in the air for months so this could be seen as pulling off a bandage if the bargain deal's secret bits were reasonable and if this really ends here. Of course if next the Kadyrovites march to Moscow...
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Jun 25, 2023 00:50
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Jesus Christ what a clusterfuck.
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Jun 25, 2023 00:58
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:What in the name of God happened since I logged off Everything and then nothing.
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Jun 25, 2023 00:59
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Ra Ra Rasputin posted:Hypothetical, Wagner kept marching on Moscow and Prigozhin kicks his feet up on Putin's desk in the kremlin, what then? One of my favorite quotes from the other thread is "In a week, Russia will have a tyrannical, genocidal, dictator as a leader". quote:How much did this hurt Putin? I'm seeing people try to spin the idea he's not hurt that much. There is no way it's not devastating. An army rebels and nearly walks into your capital that you flee from, and then you pardon them and give concessions. I don't see how the rest of his political career isn't him putting out fires until he's engulfed by them. Potentially literally.
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Jun 25, 2023 00:59
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Kraftwerk posted:Yeah I kinda expected them to clean house once they had western equipment and instead saw them get dumpstered by the Russian military and now I realize I’ve let the Gulf War ruin my perception of how these things are supposed to go. It seems like they’re still outgunned and have a massive disadvantage with Russian air assets harassing any potential offensive and the news articles are coming out saying the west is losing patience with Ukraine and thinks the offensive is going too slowly. I'm trying to put this as politely as possible but it feels like you have a very sensationalist view of how wars are supposed to work, and that seems to be affecting your judgment of how the war is going. This may be a roundabout comfort, but consider this: You've been consistently screaming that Ukraine is inevitably doomed because the West isn't giving up enough of its wonder weapons to ensure victory. You have now realized that Western equipment isn't actually invincible and that they do, and are SUPPOSED to, take losses. Have you considered that if your analysis of how effective Western weapons are is flawed, your analysis of the state of the entire war itself may be just as flawed, and perhaps Ukraine isn't actually as doomed as you've whipped yourself up into believing? For that matter, where are you getting your info anyways? Which articles written by who exactly are saying "The West" is losing patience, and who exactly is "the West"? Biden? Macron? The voting public of the UK? From what I recall of what you've said before have you just been mainlining Twitter or something? Don't do that, it's bad for your brain and it's mostly not going to leave you more informed than otherwise.
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Jun 25, 2023 01:00
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My guess is that Prigozhin didn't think he'd get that far, or didn't anticipate the damage his success would do to the country as a whole. If he did manage to turn enough of the army to take Moscow in 3 days, the government would collapse, Ukraine would seize on the opportunity, and they would immediately lose the war. I think he banked on a hard-faced standoff, not almost causing the country to collapse into chaos. My guess is that Putin or shoigu threatened to pull the pin by withdrawing troops from Ukraine. No point in winning if the prize is being king of the ashpile
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Jun 25, 2023 01:02
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He isn't hell-bent on winning the war, it's Putin's war. Prigozhin has been respectful towards the armed forces of Ukraine and has been borderline saying that the war is stupid. It's very likely he saw his end with being forced to be absorbed into the military, made the first move, possibly saw that the system didn't collapse to take over and actual fighting would have to take place in Moscow, and is now cashing out a small victory that leaves him as the bigger man with big balls that can come back like Napoleon when the country really starts to fall apart and there's a power vacuum
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Jun 25, 2023 01:11
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Nam Taf posted:Life is cheap in Motherland. Pilot training isn't, though.
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Jun 25, 2023 01:13
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OddObserver posted:Pilot training isn't, though. Neither are airframes.
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Jun 25, 2023 01:19
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Tomn posted:I'm trying to put this as politely as possible but it feels like you have a very sensationalist view of how wars are supposed to work, and that seems to be affecting your judgment of how the war is going. This may be a roundabout comfort, but consider this: You've been consistently screaming that Ukraine is inevitably doomed because the West isn't giving up enough of its wonder weapons to ensure victory. You have now realized that Western equipment isn't actually invincible and that they do, and are SUPPOSED to, take losses. Have you considered that if your analysis of how effective Western weapons are is flawed, your analysis of the state of the entire war itself may be just as flawed, and perhaps Ukraine isn't actually as doomed as you've whipped yourself up into believing? Yeah that’s fair. Twitter and occasionally I get push notifications from Reuters and CNN. I’ll have to be more careful and I’m going to take your advice.
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Jun 25, 2023 01:24
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WarpedLichen posted:I just want to know how anybody who is a serious business analyst expects to understand the decision making coming out of Russia. This whole coup thing is insane and baffling. Brett Devereaux, a historian who specializes in Europe from ~500BCE until around ~600AD has had pretty good analysis of the war overall, and of dynamics inside Russia.
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Jun 25, 2023 01:29
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Alexander Hamilton posted:It seems like the guys who really got screwed were the Wagner rank-and-file, since Prigozhin whipped them up to mutiny and then bounced at the earliest opportunity. I mean gently caress ‘em but that’s probably not going to work out well for them. I mentioned this before too. Wagner consists of criminals and fanatics who already defied one command structure, so why wouldn't they just kill Prig at this point? This is speculation, but I imagine Putin let him off loose thinking he might get killed by one of his own.
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Jun 25, 2023 01:31
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OddObserver posted:Pilot training isn't, though. Well hypothetically, but I think one fact the past 1.5 years have demonstrated is that Russia is more than capable of making training cheap 1600 rubles per chopper pilot and half that goes to a guy who is really missing his yacht right now
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Jun 25, 2023 01:32
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Am I correct in noting that the circus came to Rostov several days earlier than the signs indicated?
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Jun 25, 2023 01:32
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Wylie posted:Am I correct in noting that the circus came to Rostov several days earlier than the signs indicated? It says the circus started on 29th April. This was just guest artists.
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Jun 25, 2023 01:35
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Who do y'all recommend following for a detailed post-analysis of what happened in the coming days as more comes to light? The two academics I follow are understandably cautious and slow with their assessments.
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Jun 25, 2023 01:40
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Ynglaur posted:Brett Devereaux, a historian who specializes in Europe from ~500BCE until around ~600AD has had pretty good analysis of the war overall, and of dynamics inside Russia. https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux/status/1672677662932848641
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Jun 25, 2023 01:42
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In that vein, the icing on the cake would be if Shoigu and Gerasimov stay in charge of the MoD. They might be weak by design, but they proved that they command so little loyalty they can even stop a small column from marching into the capital. I mean, there has to be a limit to incompetence right?
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Jun 25, 2023 01:53
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Prigozhin's funding and authority is provided by Putin for a politically independent shadow army to develop Putin's African kleptocratic ventures and act as a backup plan/escape route to Africa in case Russian politics turn sour. Everyone else would prefer to see Prigozhin converted into a charred paste by a Kh-17. Prigozhin does not benefit from escalation. He doesn't have the political sway, the manpower, or the heavy equipment to win a real fight with the MoD. The only reason he fought the MoD over the past 48 hours was because the MoD has been dangerously escalating its way up to an existential fight with Wagner for years, culminating with straight-up rocketing Wagner directly. This was the Duke of Muscovy declaring war on the Duke of Afrikleptovy, and forcing Tsar Putin to take a side in a vassal conflict. Tsar Putin would prefer this vassal war not happen; he likes having a politically independent backup plan. Duke Prigozhin would prefer this vassal war not happen, he will probably lose his life to it (he has pissed off a lot of people with his loose tongue). Duke Shoigu and Duke Gerasimov think they will win easily. There's an interesting superposition here: if Prigozhin can't meaningfully resist the MoD in defending the independence of Putin's African interests, he was never actually of value to Putin. If Prigozhin *can* meaningfully resist the MoD, he is an extremely valuable politically independent backup plan for Putin. So, Wagner vs. MoD becomes much like Ukraine vs. Russia: the defending state is only going to get significant outside support if it can demonstrate it can plausibly win. Prigozhin's astonishing commitment to defending Putin's foreign interests earns it Putins support in the vassal war. This was never a coup. Prigozhin doesn't want the MoD and doesn't want the presidency. Prigozhin wanted Shoigu and Gerasimov deligitimized to where they could no longer escalate to a vassal war. He stated as much and made it clear by providing narratives that externalized accountability for everything that went wrong in Russia and Ukraine, including stuff that was very obviously Putin's fault, *specifically* onto Shoigu and Gerasimov. His invasion of Moscow was no longer necessary when it was agreed that Shoigu and Gerasimov were no longer a threat and he could go back to securing Putin's African interests.
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Jun 25, 2023 01:54
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"He's trying to overthrow Putin" is the "They hate us for our freedom" of our time. It is an infantile political narrative that ignores realistic motivations, stated intentions, and actual outcomes.
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Jun 25, 2023 02:04
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