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fatherboxx)
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OddObserver posted:^^^ To everybody going “this wasn’t a coup, it was a mutiny, Prigozhin said so himself, why would you jump the gun and call it a coup”: this is why. Because, in practice, whatever he intended, he went too far to reasonably back out of it alive so his only real chance at survival (in my eyes) involved bumping off Putin & his friends and getting the hell out of dodge (eg by handing the reigns to somebody better placed to calm things down and trying to broker a deal with somebody in the FSB to protect him) Any deal made with Putin once he started his march would get shreddered the second Putin was out of direct danger. I’m surprised it took less than 72 hours, but yeah that’s what bad faith actors and compulsive liars do I guess.
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Jun 26, 2023 21:21
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Great way to guarantee that the next guy attempting a coup never turns back.
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Jun 26, 2023 21:25
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Boris Galerkin posted:I have to imagine that even if a deal involving letting Prig quietly go away was actually made with the intention of being honored, that all the media narrative about how Putin is a beta/sigma (which is “worse”? idk) male would have led to him changing his mind to prove he’s still top dog. Putin can say literally anything and everything, the fact that Prigozhin is *apparently still alive is the only truth we can make any assessments on. This is another issue with building a political system entirely on deception, words become entirely useless, action is the only thing that anyone should bother paying attention to. Assuming Prigozhin is still alive, he knows Putin will have to say all kinds of strong man words to keep up the facade. No doubt Prigozhin will never approach a window or drink tea again in his life. But there must be some sort of deal keeping him alive regardless of Putin's rhetoric. And whatever it is it represents a fundamental flaw in Putin's political power. If the deal wasn't real Putin would have just killed him. There is literally no reason not to, it was out-and-out treason.
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Jun 26, 2023 21:27
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Chalks posted:I feel like Putin may be underestimating what Wagner could do if he moves against Prigozhin at this point. Obviously, nothing as bad as marching on Moscow, but I bet they could seriously gently caress some poo poo up in Russia. Likely nothing would be as damaging as simply surrendering to Ukraine.
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Jun 26, 2023 21:33
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Orthanc6 posted:Putin can say literally anything and everything, the fact that Prigozhin is *apparently still alive is the only truth we can make any assessments on. This is another issue with building a political system entirely on deception, words become entirely useless, action is the only thing that anyone should bother paying attention to. It still leaves a huge number of Wagner soldiers, Prigo supporters and Wagner affiliates into Russia, who by now know that they are getting the bullet one way or another. Not exactly a great outlook considering that they also are behind the frontlines inside Russia.
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Jun 26, 2023 21:35
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Honest question: how did Prigozhin not see this coming?
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Jun 26, 2023 21:37
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A negotiated peace with his mercenaries makes Putin look weak, so he will probably engage in a lot of gaslighting to confuse the issue. This is sort of like what would happen if Trump put Roger Stone in charge of a Blackwater and then narrowly avoided Blackwater burning down the White House.
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Jun 26, 2023 21:52
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mutata posted:It's technically possible Prigozhin took a ton of LSD and went to the bad place and when he finally came to he was 20 minutes outside of Moscow. Fear and Loathing in Moscow?
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Jun 26, 2023 21:52
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Dog Friday posted:Honest question: how did Prigozhin not see this coming? There was one pretty compelling theory on twitter posted earlier in the thread. Basically that he expected to have his troops stopped almost immediately, have a big show down then back down after getting some concessions about not dissolving Wagner. His friend Putin understands the value of his PMC and the elites around him were preventing him from getting his message through. He never expected for the Russian military to be paper thin inside Russia, never expected to be marching unopposed towards Moscow and most of all, never expected to be called a traitor and condemned by Putin. Once that happened, he freaked out but what could he do? If that was the case, it's no surprise that he immediately took the first off ramp he was offered, no matter how absurd or unrealistic.
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Jun 26, 2023 21:55
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Dog Friday posted:Honest question: how did Prigozhin not see this coming? I've been asking that myself this entire time, listened to subject experts, read, and have concluded that we may never know. At this point, I'd like to think it was also drugs? Lots and lots of drugs.
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Jun 26, 2023 21:55
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Hot Dog Hitler got hopped up on Panzerschokolade and drove all the way to Moscow.
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Jun 26, 2023 21:58
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Dog Friday posted:Honest question: how did Prigozhin not see this coming? He had nothing to lose and went all in. MoD was going to integrate Wagner into the army and, presumably, if they succeeded, they would have taken over Prigozhin's supply contracts as well, bleeding him further and probably putting into a danger zone after all poo poo he aired publicly.
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Jun 26, 2023 22:00
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Well, Prigo did stay behind in Rostov but he probably didn't expect to be just given the keys to the government buildings there either. While the population cheered. Or his totally-not-nazi commander getting to Moscow within 36 hours just by driving down the highway.
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Jun 26, 2023 22:01
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"Surely they'll give me what I want if I throw a big tantrum on social media." "Surely they'll give me what I want before I start pulling my troops out of Ukraine." "Surely they'll give me what I want before I start moving towards Rostov." "Surely they'll give me what I want before I surround the Southern Military District HQ." "Surely they'll give me what I want before I send another column towards Moscow." "Surely they'll give me what I want before that column gets halfway to Moscow." ---> "Surely they'll give me what I want before that column gets 2/3rds of the way to Moscow." "Surely they'll give me what I want before I enter Moscow proper." Makes as much sense as anything else.
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Jun 26, 2023 22:05
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Dog Friday posted:Honest question: how did Prigozhin not see this coming? His only chance to succeed was that Putin would blink first and promise changes in MoD and that Wagner would not be dismantled. By Saturday evening things were about to turn worse but Putin hadn't yet given the answer he'd hoped for. At that point continuing would have required fighting through the first actual defense line and that would have been even harder to explain afterwards than shooting down some helicopters that you say fired first. It would have made it an open rebellion and himself a villain, meanwhile what could his forces have accoplished in Moscow? Occupied the MoD building? None of the outcomes looked good or compatible with his goals. By continuing he could only have created chaos that would have helped Russia lose the war, and he would have become the scapegoat for the loss. So he was offered a way out of the situation, and out of desperation he trusted this gentleman from Minsk that he heard had experience with brokering binding agreements between Putin and others.
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Jun 26, 2023 22:16
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Moktaro posted:Fear and Loathing in Moscow? We can't stop here, this is Batka country!
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Jun 26, 2023 22:17
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By the way the whole "Prigozhin stopped after the FSB threatened his family" angle doesn't really work for me. This wasn't a spur of the moment thing and was planned beforehand. Weeks if not months. Did Prig and his lieutenants not think of this and not made arrangements for their families beforehand?
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Jun 26, 2023 22:21
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spankmeister posted:By the way the whole "Prigozhin stopped after the FSB threatened his family" angle doesn't really work for me. This wasn't a spur of the moment thing and was planned beforehand. Weeks if not months. Did Prig and his lieutenants not think of this and not made arrangements for their families beforehand? They might have thought that suitable amount of top-level FSB directors was bought off.
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Jun 26, 2023 22:25
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Randarkman posted:Lukashenko is now harboring an enemy of the Russian state. How awkward. So now Prigozhin and Wagner are in Belarus with Luka who helped to broker the deal with Putin. Now Putin has gone back on that deal which makes Luka look like he either schemed with Putin or he got double crossed as well in the eyes of Wagner. It'll be interesting to see the line Luka takes going forward, I assume he'll just stay by Putin's side but it'll be awkward with Wagner in his country.
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Jun 26, 2023 22:43
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kemikalkadet posted:So now Prigozhin and Wagner are in Belarus with Luka who helped to broker the deal with Putin. Now Putin has gone back on that deal which makes Luka look like he either schemed with Putin or he got double crossed as well in the eyes of Wagner. It'll be interesting to see the line Luka takes going forward, I assume he'll just stay by Putin's side but it'll be awkward with Wagner in his country. Do you think they got all the tanks and artillery and weapons with them to Belarus? A bunch of unarmed exiles are not quite the same threat as they were a moment ago, unless they join partisans in which case lol
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Jun 26, 2023 22:50
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spankmeister posted:By the way the whole "Prigozhin stopped after the FSB threatened his family" angle doesn't really work for me. This wasn't a spur of the moment thing and was planned beforehand. Weeks if not months. Did Prig and his lieutenants not think of this and not made arrangements for their families beforehand? yeah similar to the 'prigozhin is suddenly at risk' stuff neglects that he's been in open turf war with shoigu and much of the mod for ages and that mod has been openly murderous with its intentions towards wagner going back half a decade. i don't buy for a second that there was some sudden new threat to prigozhin beyond what had mostly been a constant. dude has as many enemies as anyone on the planet. there's a reason why you will never see him make appearances with less than a couple of dozen very heavily armed people milling around. similarly the 'how did he not foresee it' has it backwards: what was entirely obvious as that mod was working to strip him of his mercenary outfit, which has been both his protection and his source of power. the potential outcome of a hostile takeover was effectively the same whether he let it happen or took a shot at making something happen, and the latter at least has a potential for a favorable outcome. I also do not buy that this is over until prigozhin is actually dead and in the ground with a stake through his heart and wagner is actually dismantled and fully subsumed into mod. at the moment I'm unclear who exactly would be able to effect the dismantling.
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Jun 26, 2023 22:51
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Been F5'ing since the weekend.
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Jun 26, 2023 22:51
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Name Change posted:Likely nothing would be as damaging as simply surrendering to Ukraine. That's definitely not accurate. If he were to decide to go scorched earth over being betrayed he could blow a significant portion of the Russian supply lines beyond quick repair.
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Jun 26, 2023 23:02
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Belarusian hajun, a reliable monitoring outlet of military activity, reported that no one saw or reported any Wagner mercs in Belarus https://t.me/bbcrussian/48483 And at the same time Tsichanousksya is saying that Luka was not a mediator between Putin and Prigozhin, but a mailman https://t.me/bbcrussian/48482 Tracks with the idea that Belarusian role in all of this is overstated and misleading
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Jun 26, 2023 23:07
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Shifty Pony posted:That's definitely not accurate. If he were to decide to go scorched earth over being betrayed he could blow a significant portion of the Russian supply lines beyond quick repair. He should have captured the Kerch bridge and mined it.
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Jun 26, 2023 23:08
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What's the main small arm being used by each side? AK-74s? Are the Russians fielding meaningful numbers of AK-12s yet?
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Jun 26, 2023 23:15
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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The thing is that even if Putin gets Priggy thrown out of a window that doesn't open now, it's still going to be abundantly clear that you might well be able to mount an armed insurrection against the Russian state, you just have to fully commit and be willing to take Moscow because otherwise Putin's gonna offer you a way out and then stab you with a blade of refined polonium. Does Prigozhin have any obvious successors to leadership of Wagner? If so, and if they have ambitions, they could easily whip their guys up into a bigger frenzy than ever by saying "Prigozhin trusted Putin because he wanted to avoid spilling Russian blood, but he was betrayed. We need to drive on Moscow a second time, and we need to keep going this time, because we cannot live in safety while Putin holds power and because we must avenge our noble leader." It's probably the only route I can see that they could turn a crowd of mercenaries and ex-cons into a force that has an ideological goal rather than just a mercenary one.
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Jun 26, 2023 23:16
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Chalks posted:I feel like Putin may be underestimating what Wagner could do if he moves against Prigozhin at this point. Obviously, nothing as bad as marching on Moscow, but I bet they could seriously gently caress some poo poo up in Russia. I assume the answer is 'not much' but if it came to it how much ability does Wagner and Prigozhin have at this point to cause further ruckus for Putin? They've lost the element of surprise and momentum they had at the start of all this of course, but can we assume they've been essentially nullified by the state as a potential threat in the last couple of days? khwarezm fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jun 26, 2023 |
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Jun 26, 2023 23:31
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I mean the people in Russia/Ukraine can at least be physically accounted for, but there has to be elements in Africa that sees their counterparts getting liquidated and thinking of going full independent warlord right?
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Jun 26, 2023 23:59
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PittTheElder posted:What's the main small arm being used by each side? AK-74s? Are the Russians fielding meaningful numbers of AK-12s yet? Lots of 74s on both sides. Cheaper than water and just as common. I've seen pictures of AK-12s more towards the beginning of the war, but I gather they were issued in blocs to units that got beat up pretty badly. Plenty of PKMs and RPKs, Dragunovs, etc. The Ukrainians have received a lot of Canadian C7s and C8s from Canada herself and the Baltics. They also produce ARs themselves. I don't know if production is ongoing or not. The domestic 5.56 bullpup rifles are in use with border guards and internal troops as their issued weapon. FN FNCs have been issued out to foreign volunteers. The MG3, various flavors of FN Minimis, and M2 .50 (mostly vehicle mounted) are all used on the front line. Sniper rifles/DMRs are all over the place. I can't point at any specific system there, but they've been getting small batches of poo poo from everyone.
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Jun 27, 2023 00:00
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khwarezm posted:I assume the answer is 'not much' but if it came to it how much ability does Wagner and Prigozhin have at this point to cause further ruckus for Putin? They've lost the element of surprise and momentum they had at the start of all this of course, but can we assume they've been essentially nullified by the state as a potential threat in the last couple of days? They still have their guns, vehicles and tanks. Unless the russian military organize a mass strike that takes them out at their camps, they are still dangerous.
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Jun 27, 2023 00:02
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WarpedLichen posted:I mean the people in Russia/Ukraine can at least be physically accounted for, but there has to be elements in Africa that sees their counterparts getting liquidated and thinking of going full independent warlord right? Sure but that would be more an inconvenience for Russia than an existential threat. The calculus is thus easier on both sides, Wagner outside of Europe know they're not much threat to Russia, so they also know Russia probably won't bother to do anything to them. But only time will tell what happens to Wagner in Europe, at least their unenviable position couldn't be better deserved for all they've inflicted upon Ukraine and other countries.
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Jun 27, 2023 00:05
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This whole thing indeed shows that internally there's basically 0 protecting Moscow. So now where " we need force of a PMC to subdue moscow" I now wonder if it's implied that the situation has become more like "which oligarchy is going to bribe police force (as that's all there is in Moscow)!and take over"?
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Jun 27, 2023 00:08
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khwarezm posted:I assume the answer is 'not much' but if it came to it how much ability does Wagner and Prigozhin have at this point to cause further ruckus for Putin? They've lost the element of surprise and momentum they had at the start of all this of course, but can we assume they've been essentially nullified by the state as a potential threat in the last couple of days? I think that Prigozhin realized that he needs public support and, given the reaction's among the Rostov civilians and in the Voronezh recruiting offices, his easiest way is get that public support was to set himself up as a "benevolent dictator" alternative to Putin. That schtick was so Roman that it's up there with "Julius rejecting the crown three times before accepting Caesar" and you know the Russians eat that Roman narrative poo poo up. That way he doesn't need the element of surprise, he can make an appeal to the people and have them, defecting army units, and Wagner march together on Moscow. The negotiations could probably be seen both Putin and Prigozhin putting a pause on things, save face, and give them time to build up a response. And the first one to break the deal would be the one to look untrustworthy to everyone.
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Jun 27, 2023 00:10
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What defenses were between Wagner and Moscow when Prig pumped the breaks? I keep reading accounts of it being just a bunch of riot police vs serious MOD defense positions. Were there MOD troops in place in defensive positions on the path the Wagnerites were taking? If Prig didn't stop, would they have really rolled straight into the Kremlin with no organized armed resistance?
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Jun 27, 2023 00:25
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https://twitter.com/kromark/status/1673289746104082432 Shoigu proof of life video has blurred watches. 
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Jun 27, 2023 00:33
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Sethik posted:What defenses were between Wagner and Moscow when Prig pumped the breaks? I keep reading accounts of it being just a bunch of riot police vs serious MOD defense positions. Were there MOD troops in place in defensive positions on the path the Wagnerites were taking? If Prig didn't stop, would they have really rolled straight into the Kremlin with no organized armed resistance? the Oka river on M4 with a longish bridge and a bunch of special forces on the Moscow side. Also the column was very spread over 100km so it would have taken them time to mount a crossing. Btw doesn't surprise me at all the units on the side let them pass, it's easier to deal with a spread out column if need be. Also to quote some TV station, did anybody see this column? Brain65 fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Jun 27, 2023 |
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Jun 27, 2023 00:35
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I guess Shoigu is staying if he gets invited to big boy meetings: https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1673425334669115394?cxt=HHwWhIC88bjembkuAAAA
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Jun 27, 2023 00:36
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Arglebargle III posted:https://twitter.com/kromark/status/1673289746104082432 Don't want everyone to see the rolexes.
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Jun 27, 2023 00:37
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WarpedLichen posted:I guess Shoigu is staying if he gets invited to big boy meetings: Medvedev is probably not important enough to attend.
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Jun 27, 2023 00:43
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