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Even the languaged used by Prigozhin in how he avoided leveling accusations directly at Putin has similarities in medieval rebellions where vassal Barons were rarely out for regicide....only to "save" him from his scheming and evil councilors who had led him astray.
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Jun 25, 2023 02:10
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BungMonkey posted:
It's interesting because most everyone who keeps up with it wasn't calling it a coup until there was a sharp escalation in rhetoric and Prigozhin, iirc, posted about needing a new president or something. Then all the sudden the coup narrative really took off. But it turns out it was just Prigozhin popping off at the mouth and rageposting, and he was perfectly cool with getting paid off and returning to status quo. It's a classic mercenary tale.
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Jun 25, 2023 02:26
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MikeC posted:Even the languaged used by Prigozhin in how he avoided leveling accusations directly at Putin has similarities in medieval rebellions where vassal Barons were rarely out for regicide....only to "save" him from his scheming and evil councilors who had led him astray. I suppose bestowing and guaranteeing the assets and wealth of a small select group in exchange for their loyalty is key a component of feudalism. Instead of land it's just corporations and monopolies and the serfs mostly work in cublices so that's nice.
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Jun 25, 2023 02:27
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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. The deal is supposed to absolve them from punishment for the mutiny, it remains to be seen if that matters. I can't help but think the people who are really screwed are the civilians who came out to cheer for Wagner's attempted coup. They have no reason to expect any mercy.
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Jun 25, 2023 02:28
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Interesting. The Roman empire did slowly fracture (also into both two separately ruled empires) and independent and vassal states, as it morphed from at its height absorbing them as it expanded to abandoning provinces as it declined (one king famously bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans), and the emperors increasingly had to massively bribe their own powerful bodyguard army (the Praetorian guard) to support them in or after coups and whatnot, let alone the standing army. Interestingly the currency was increasingly devalued with raging inflation by literally reducing the amount of precious metal in the coinage. But the other and less relevant issue was hordes of migrants and invading armies from the steppe to the east along the Rhine/Danube axis disrupting trade and requiring lots of investment in new ways of fighting, like more cavalry which meant the additional and immense expense of taking care of an army of horses, whereas the slowly fracturing Russia is not facing waves of migration and invasions. Also the terms of imperial command were generally far shorter than Putin's has been, and in the 4th century CE, there was an enormous and official shift to Christianity imposed by Constantine, and while I may stand corrected, I don't believe the church has a large influence in the small sphere of Russian leadership, and the church grew to have massive amounts of influence in both the split western and eastern empires as it dissolved. I don't do Twitter, so I wonder how else this person is drawing comparisons.
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Jun 25, 2023 02:30
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BungMonkey posted: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. What happens now? Are Shoigu and Gerasimov just going to go back to work as if nothing happened? Is Prigozhin just going to live Belarus as a de-facto exile? How are Russian soldiers supposed to go back to fighting just after he was just called a traitor by Putin and the war a farce?
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Jun 25, 2023 02:45
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Given that Prigozhin has just conclusively demonstrated that Russia's military is more inclined to answer to him than Putin it seems insane to think he will be allowed to live.
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Jun 25, 2023 02:48
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Huggybear posted:Interesting. The Roman empire did slowly fracture (also into both two separately ruled empires) and independent and vassal states, as it morphed from at its height absorbing them as it expanded to abandoning provinces as it declined (one king famously bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans), and the emperors increasingly had to massively bribe their own powerful bodyguard army (the Praetorian guard) to support them in or after coups and whatnot, let alone the standing army. Interestingly the currency was increasingly devalued with raging inflation by literally reducing the amount of precious metal in the coinage. But the other and less relevant issue was hordes of migrants and invading armies from the steppe to the east along the Rhine/Danube axis disrupting trade and requiring lots of investment in new ways of fighting, like more cavalry which meant the additional and immense expense of taking care of an army of horses, whereas the slowly fracturing Russia is not facing waves of migration and invasions. Also the terms of imperial command were generally far shorter than Putin's has been, and in the 4th century CE, there was an enormous and official shift to Christianity imposed by Constantine, and while I may stand corrected, I don't believe the church has a large influence in the small sphere of Russian leadership, and the church grew to have massive amounts of influence in both the split western and eastern empires as it dissolved. They have a fantastic blog. https://acoup.blog/
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Jun 25, 2023 02:49
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:What happens now? Are Shoigu and Gerasimov just going to go back to work as if nothing happened? Is Prigozhin just going to live Belarus as a de-facto exile? How are Russian soldiers supposed to go back to fighting just after he was just called a traitor by Putin and the war a farce?
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Jun 25, 2023 02:50
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It has been brought to my attention that the largest city captured by Russian forces in this war was Rostov-on-don. 
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Jun 25, 2023 02:51
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BungMonkey posted:The politically savvy thing to do is to push a narrative that Shoigu and Gerasimov are massively corrupt, incompetent, and deceptive to externalize accountability on them for everything that's gone wrong. This also gives Putin a politically acceptable out for the war if he wants it. If I was a big bad evil dictator... I could see just maybe purging everyone or just throwing Shoigu and Gerasimov under the bus but but there's no way I'd let Prigozhin simply get away with it. The pessimistic part of me feels like Prigozhin will become exiled, Shoigu and Gerasimov forced into early retirement but just placed with loyalists who continue sending young Russians into the meat grinder. And the war continues... 
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Jun 25, 2023 02:56
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Irony Be My Shield posted:Given that Prigozhin has just conclusively demonstrated that Russia's military is more inclined to answer to him than Putin it seems insane to think he will be allowed to live. This can easily be spun because it was mostly bloodless minus the poor poor Russian pilots. They didn't "join him" they just "didn't interfere with his peaceful protest." It happened so fast almost everyone can have plausible deniability for hard commitments.
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Jun 25, 2023 02:58
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:there's no way I'd let Prigozhin simply get away with it.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:11
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:If I was a big bad evil dictator... I could see just maybe purging everyone or just throwing Shoigu and Gerasimov under the bus but but there's no way I'd let Prigozhin simply get away with it. Obviously Putin and his minions want to keep things going in the hopes of a miracle but the instability this war is causing literally forced him to flee his capital. Right now there are ambitious people in Russia who are sharpening their knives. And his biggest challenger just got banished to Elba.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:11
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BabyFur Denny posted:if they had a bunch of MBTs in Moscow, they would have shown them off at the parade If it gets out that Putin was saving the good stuff for his personal guards while the troops were dying in Ukraine with Cold War leftovers, things could really get ugly.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:12
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Great news for Ukraine - Wagner action could be the fatal blow to Russia's war efforts. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/24/ukrainians-dream-wagner-action-fatal-blow-war-kyiv-mutiny?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other ... “Events are developing according to the scenario we talked about all last year,’’ said Mykhailo Podolyak, a key adviser to Zelenskiy. “The start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive finally destabilised the Russian elites, intensifying the internal split that arose after the defeat in Ukraine. Today we are actually witnessing the beginning of a civil war. At the same time, Ukraine continues to move along its own path. To the borders of 1991.’' ... Throughout yesterday, Ukrainian Telegram channels lit up with story after story suggesting the tide was turning. One claimed dozens of Russian units were withdrawing from the front to reach Russia and face the insurgency. Others said hundreds of soldiers were leaving the occupied territories to join the Wagner group. Another suggested Belarusian partisans were also preparing a coup to overthrow the Lukashenko regime. On Saturday evening, Oleksandr Tarnavsky, a Ukrainian commander, told the national news agency of Ukraine, Ukrinform, that its forces have liberated territories near the city of Krasnohorivka, in the Donetsk region, which have been occupied by pro-Russia separatists since 2014. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 25, 2023 03:21
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BungMonkey posted:Shoigu and Gerasimov escalated to a vassal war by rocketing Wagner and attempting to take over its holdings. Prigozhin did the job he was put in place to do by defending the political independence of Putin's shadow army and Putin's African assets. It would be neither politically, rationally, nor emotionally correct (within sociopath psychology) to punish Prigozhin's loyalty. Uh huh, Shoigu and Gerasimov made moves to take over all PMCs including Wagner in utter secrecy right? Putin couldn't have seen this coming?
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Jun 25, 2023 03:22
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On the whole I am just gonna remain fascinating that this poo poo managed to escalate to the point where the stakes were incredibly high and managed to work out the best way to both look weak and stupid, with no real winners to speak of besides Ukraine my congratulations to this tits-up dumbshit empire called russia
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Jun 25, 2023 03:23
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fatherboxx posted:The tank that got stuck in circus gates today provided the best visual metaphor so far it's nice to have at least one thing happen that is absolutely certain
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Jun 25, 2023 03:25
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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? It happened, and they are not going to be facing any consequences. The fighterbomber telegram channel (that has deep ties to VKS) is quite salty about it.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:27
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BungMonkey posted:Shoigu and Gerasimov escalated to a vassal war by rocketing Wagner and attempting to take over its holdings. Prigozhin did the job he was put in place to do by defending the political independence of Putin's shadow army and Putin's African assets. It would be neither politically, rationally, nor emotionally correct (within sociopath psychology) to punish Prigozhin's loyalty. So basically what you're saying is as a dictator Putin wants some level of his vassals playing stupid games to keep each other from getting too strong. However the idiots at the MOD took it too far and crossed a line where they were about to win stupid prizes for the entire regime. So once Putin figured out what was going on he gave his loyal commander a nod because the missile strike is obviously going too far and he just proved that he's got the strength to retaliate. Putin then slapped down the leaders of the idiots for taking poo poo this far once his personal commander proved he actually had the strength to fight back. Is that about right? Of course this does show him as potentially weak to outsiders (which may include other military leaders in his own regime) which might not be great in the long term, but does that sound like the logic at play here?
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Jun 25, 2023 03:28
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WarpedLichen posted:Uh huh, Shoigu and Gerasimov made moves to take over all PMCs including Wagner in utter secrecy right? Putin couldn't have seen this coming? then Wagner forced their own issue and supporting them became the lowest-headache approach political support was conditional upon wagner's de-facto ability and willingness to resist, because that's the thing putin derives value from
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Jun 25, 2023 03:29
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I'm just curious what happens with all these PMCs that were popping up in Russia. I can't imagine Putin is going to look kindly on them given recent events.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:29
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Huggybear posted:I don't do Twitter, so I wonder how else this person is drawing comparisons. I don't do Twitter myself and I knew this guy before the conflict through his blog that was pointed out earlier, but basically the guy is a Roman historian so yeah, this is right up his wheelhouse (though if this were on his blog he'd usually include a big caveat about the dangers of drawing direct historical analogies, c'est la Twitter). Previously he spent most of his time on his blog analyzing pop culture through a historian's lens - he had a long and fascinating series breaking down the logistics of a city like Minas Tirith for example and how it compared to historical cities (spoiler: there is not nearly enough settled farmland around a city as big as depicted in the movies). He also had a pretty good series breaking down common pop culture myths about WW1 which is wandering a bit outside his core competence but was pretty well-researched regardless and tracked with what I've seen elsewhere. I haven't been paying too close attention to him lately, got other things on my mind, but he's apparently made some hay out of the Ukrainian War by drawing historical parallels. I suppose his focus has always been the intersection of pop culture and history and the Ukrainian War is, arguably, very much part of one and steadily becoming an important part of the other.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:30
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Alkydere posted:Putin then slapped down the leaders of the idiots for taking poo poo this far once his personal commander proved he actually had the strength to fight back.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:32
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BungMonkey posted:the MoD forced the issue and supporting them became the lowest-headache approach Sure... this is some 11d chess thing where giving a televised speech and calling them backstabbers is a completely normal and expected part of acquiescing to their demands right after. Just as planned.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:33
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I saw it reported hours ago that nobody was killed as a result of those helicopters being shot down, but haven't seen anything else about it. Who knows if it was true then or is now. Either way, Russia is no stranger to quietly burying their dead soldiers in unmarked graves if a situation calls for it.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:37
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Alkydere posted:So basically what you're saying is as a dictator Putin wants some level of his vassals playing stupid games to keep each other from getting too strong. However the idiots at the MOD took it too far and crossed a line where they were about to win stupid prizes for the entire regime. So once Putin figured out what was going on he gave his loyal commander a nod because the missile strike is obviously going too far and he just proved that he's got the strength to retaliate. Putin then slapped down the leaders of the idiots for taking poo poo this far once his personal commander proved he actually had the strength to fight back. I really doubt Prigozhin was as loyal as you suggest there. Putin doesn't come off looking good calling him a rebellious traitor and then turning around hours later and saying "NM we worked it out." As I see it. Wagner got fed up with the MoD trying to reel them in and marched on Moscow. Russia's troops were not putting up a meaningful resistance to Wagner, just letting them roll on through (other than the handful of helicopter assaults). Prigozhin wasn't getting the widespread support he expected from the oligarchs and fed up troops (they were letting him pass but not joining up). Meanwhile, Putin didn't have the forces in Moscow to defend it against ~20k Wagner guys (or the confidence they'd not just let them roll on through). So both sides decided to compromise rather than get into an unwinnable fight (for Prigozhin) and a crippling blow to their authority (for Putin)
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Jun 25, 2023 03:37
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BungMonkey posted:Bingo. So basically normal Russian stupid loving toxic masculinity games one upping each other until Putin finally had his coffee and realizes he needs to be the adult in the room with a tired blyat because it turns out the hotdog vendor isn't going to sit there and take it like a [Russian slur]. Nitrousoxide posted:I really doubt Prigozhin was as loyal as you suggest there. Putin doesn't come off looking good calling him a rebellious traitor and then turning around hours later and saying "NM we worked it out." Oh I have no doubt that Prigozhin's loyalty only extends as far as he fears Putin and wants Putin's money. He knows he's hosed outside of Putin's sphere of influence. He got what he wanted today but it eroded a lot of Putin's power over him, and everyone else really. I feel that basically Putin letting the MoD play stupid games has vastly eroded his power and this is basically the point where we point back in the future and go "Yeah that's when it visibly started to come apart". The whole Russian puppet show has been falling apart since Kiev didn't fall in 3 days, but there's rot, visible rot and when things finally visibly implode. Honestly I was mainly trying to wrap my head around Bung's logic. I'm not a Kremlin Whisperer and never will be. Just trying to work my way through another logic chain to see how we went from "Ohshit! Coup!" to "They're...just walking away?" Alkydere fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Jun 25, 2023 |
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Jun 25, 2023 03:39
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And let's not forget that the stupid games had escalated well beyond the realm of normalcy well before this when Wagner kidnapped Veneviten and forced him to confess to shooting at Wagner troops. This might not be how we saw this situation escalating, but it was clear the both parties were playing a game of chicken and Putin was the one who blinked.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:41
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BungMonkey posted:the MoD forced the issue and supporting them became the lowest-headache approach I think this explanation is just about as reasonable as any (other than "everybody was just reacting to each other until somebody, possibly lukashenko, sat down and had a think for three consecutive seconds"), but the character of Putin's speech still strikes me as Odd in this context. Going "death to traitors" before you know who has the advantage on the ground is at best ill considered.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:43
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acidx posted:I saw it reported hours ago that nobody was killed as a result of those helicopters being shot down, but haven't seen anything else about it. Who knows if it was true then or is now. Either way, Russia is no stranger to quietly burying their dead soldiers in unmarked graves if a situation calls for it. Between 13-20 Russian airmen were killed when different aircraft were shot down.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:45
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Alkydere posted:So basically normal Russian stupid loving toxic masculinity games one upping each other until Putin finally had his coffee and realizes he needs to be the adult in the room with a tired blyat because it turns out the hotdog vendor isn't going to sit there and take it like a [Russian slur].
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Jun 25, 2023 03:46
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acidx posted:I saw it reported hours ago that nobody was killed as a result of those helicopters being shot down, but haven't seen anything else about it. Who knows if it was true then or is now. Either way, Russia is no stranger to quietly burying their dead soldiers in unmarked graves if a situation calls for it. Russian Telegram types close to their air force are saying there were sixteen deaths and they are loving incensed.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:50
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Putin is haunted by what happened to his "colleagues". Gaddafi is the one that is cited the most, but Nazarbayav is another big influence. Kazakhstan's dictator tried to step down to a peaceful retirement, while still holding some power for security, and got outmaneuvered by his successor who ousted him and forced him to flee the country.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:50
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BungMonkey posted: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. Sorry, but what part of any of this is about securing Putin's African interests? Hell, the only reason Prigozhin could pull this off was because he was busy organizing forces in Ukraine, and explicitly not Africa. Is your argument that the MoD absorbing mercenaries directly into its command structure also means taking over Wagner's African operations? If that's the case, that seems like it's happening anyways? Details about what the deal was are sketchy but apparently Wagner mercs are getting amnesty and contracts to work with the MoD directly while Prigozhin fucks off to Belarus. How does any of that defend Putin's interests in the way you describe?
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Jun 25, 2023 03:52
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couple observations 1) the kadyrov deal with putin is worth ~several hundred billion rubles a year. making a problem go away pays very well. unclear if that was the goal or the in case of failure plan. 2a) wagner left but it doesn't actually appear that wagner was particularly impacted as a power structure or group capable of using force. Supplies will be an issue at some point, but that does not appear to be an especially urgent concern. 2b) i really want to know what russian mod shakeups are actually happening because that will tell the real story 3) the glacial and emphatically partial response to the coup is similarly suggestive. I would love to see an actual accounting of who actually mobilized beyond rozgvardia, some omon, and a handful of helos, but beyond those, everything else conspicuously stayed out of the way of the wagner force 4) wagner in belarus is a huge loving can of worms Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Jun 25, 2023 |
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Jun 25, 2023 03:53
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Irony Be My Shield posted:Given that Prigozhin has just conclusively demonstrated that Russia's military is more inclined to answer to him than Putin it seems insane to think he will be allowed to live. Yet given that he just took everybody for a ride they might be less inclined to answer next time.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:55
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Nitrousoxide posted:I really doubt Prigozhin was as loyal as you suggest there. Putin doesn't come off looking good calling him a rebellious traitor and then turning around hours later and saying "NM we worked it out." This makes the most sense of any explanation I've seen so far.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:55
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WarpedLichen posted:And let's not forget that the stupid games had escalated well beyond the realm of normalcy well before this when Wagner kidnapped Veneviten and forced him to confess to shooting at Wagner troops. You have a good memory, because I've already forgotten about that incident. Didn't this also stem from Wagner reportedly having to steal supplies from the regular army in and around Bakmut before that? I can't find the source I'm looking for right now.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:57
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