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mlmp08 posted:That never happened. FWIW, Prigozhin claimed they did set up artillery (he is quoted as such in e.g. https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/26/europe/prigozhin-speaks-moscow-march-intl/index.html), but I am not aware of any independent confirmation. Also: https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1673867772026146817 ... I don't think Putin read the New York Times, folks.
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Jun 28, 2023 04:16
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Prigozhin has restored the lost art of kremlinology
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Jun 28, 2023 04:20
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OddObserver posted:FWIW, Prigozhin claimed they did set up artillery (he is quoted as such in e.g. https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/26/europe/prigozhin-speaks-moscow-march-intl/index.html), but I am not aware of any independent confirmation. Every bit of verifiable evidence we have is that Wagner forces never came within 100 miles of Moscow, much less set up artillery at the "gates" of Moscow (not sure what that means) to lay siege to the city.
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Jun 28, 2023 04:21
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OddObserver posted:FWIW, Prigozhin claimed they did set up artillery (he is quoted as such in e.g. https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/26/europe/prigozhin-speaks-moscow-march-intl/index.html), but I am not aware of any independent confirmation. I had the absolute worst location to drop that, glad you popped it at the top of the page. Edit: If anyone has problems reading it, incognito got me in just fine.
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Jun 28, 2023 04:24
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mlmp08 posted:Every bit of verifiable evidence we have is that Wagner forces never came within 100 miles of Moscow, much less set up artillery at the "gates" of Moscow (not sure what that means) to lay siege to the city. When you say "You're outside the gates of" it's a colloquialism for you're very close. But you're correct, I am merely taking Prigozhin's word for it. If another source can verify it's a complete lie I'm happy to stand corrected.
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Jun 28, 2023 04:30
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mlmp08 posted:Every bit of verifiable evidence we have is that Wagner forces never came within 100 miles of Moscow, much less set up artillery at the "gates" of Moscow (not sure what that means) to lay siege to the city. 100 Russia miles is like 50 American miles and that’s only like 20 Western Europe miles They may as well have been in the suburbs
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Jun 28, 2023 04:31
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mlmp08 posted:Every bit of verifiable evidence we have is that Wagner forces never came within 100 miles of Moscow, much less set up artillery at the "gates" of Moscow (not sure what that means) to lay siege to the city. The defense line at the Oka, maybe? (And obviously, he didn't have the number to seige the city. Punch through, and act like the QAnon shaman in the Kremlin? Maybe...)
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Jun 28, 2023 04:32
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I mean I know what the phrase means. But usually you don't use it to refer to being over 100 miles away and turning around, unless you're talking about a mission on an astronomical scale.
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Jun 28, 2023 04:32
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Maera Sior posted:https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/27/us/politics/russian-general-prigozhin-rebellion.html It always made sense that Prigozhin had some degree of backing or collaborators, and Surovikin is certainly one of the more plausible ones, so not too surprising.
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Jun 28, 2023 04:35
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Tomn posted:Probably best to cool it with cross-forums post-mining. I completely agree but was compelled to hypocritical action regardless because the post is an astronomical event level hot take hit and people must absolutely see it
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Jun 28, 2023 05:07
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Discendo Vox posted:It always made sense that Prigozhin had some degree of backing or collaborators, and Surovikin is certainly one of the more plausible ones, so not too surprising. The more that comes out, the more I think that both sides misjudged who would support them (for a number of potential reasons) and neither of them had contingency plans. Hence the comedy of backpedaling.
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Jun 28, 2023 05:22
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Charliegrs posted:Everyone's always talking about how bad Russia has performed in this war but honestly are they really doing that bad? Sure the blitzkrieg into Kyiv was a total failure but they seem to be holding their own against a military that has gotten a ton of high end western hardware and training. You've had some other replies so I don't want to seem like I'm dogpiling you, but to give a bit more explanation, remember Clausewitz's maxim that "War is the continuation of politics by other means". Even in a situation of massive interstate conflict there are many considerations beyond raw military might. Let's pretend that Russia finds a way to win, even quite decisively at this point - they have still done immense damage to their own reputation. Not in the sense of aggression and warmongering as they had clearly accepted that as the price of doing business and were relying on how beholden Europe has historically been to Russian fuel exports to avoid any reaction too punitive*. Rather, in the sense of their actual ability to enforce their will upon their enemies. Remember that this was absolutely a war of choice for Russia, and that in turn means they had more or less total control over many of the critical factors that can dictate the course of a war. They got to choose when it started, down to the second. They got to choose every strategic objective and every plan to achieve them. They had as long as they needed to shore up supplies, ship men and materiel, and get their guys ready for zero hour. They had the opportunity to make any attempts at infiltration for the purposes of sabotage and assassination as they saw fit. All of which was backed up by the general perception that the Russian armed forces were extremely serious, hardened, and competent, built in a century where the Soviets crushed the Nazis and spend the next 45 years developing technology and doctrine to create a force so widely assumed to be a powerhouse that the NATO strategy in the event of WW3 was "We'll use tactical nukes on Soviet armies in Germany because we know we can't stop them conventionally". In military terms even one of those things is a big advantage and when it becomes likely that armed conflict will result, the job of the politicians and diplomats is to buy time and obfuscate while the military tries to gain and preserve those conditions. And they have lost almost every single part of that reputation. They went from 'Weakened by the fall of the USSR but still an incredibly formidable force that even the US would take huge losses beating' to 'An absolute circus that can't overrun a mid-rank Eastern European country despite starting with every advantage.' So even if they now achieve full victory - take all of Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, and enforce regime change in Kyiv, everyone on Earth now knows that Russia can absolutely be stood up to and defied militarily. Whoever feared being next in line - the Baltic states for instance - would be able to rally enormous domestic and international support to prepare, possibly enough that they would succeed in holding back an already badly mauled Russian army. It would be the very definition of a pyrrhic victory. And even that is a forlorn hope by any reasonable metric at this point; even before the Wagner mutiny it seemed almost impossible that Russia would get anything better than a negotiated peace where they, perhaps, got a recognition of gains in Crimea and Donbas and maybe a strip of land connecting the two. After the mutiny, nobody in Kyiv or western capitals is even likely to countenance that much, because the universal assumption is that the Russian state is on the brink of collapsing like a billionaire's submersible, and Ukraine has little reason to settle when tomorrow could bring another revolt that leads to a new government, a civil war, etc.. * Although Ukraine's performance being way above what anyone anticipated definitely allowed this to blossom into a far larger problem for Moscow than it would have been if they had taken their objectives in a timely manner.
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Jun 28, 2023 05:23
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One of the "are they really doing that bad" indicators we get to have a laugh over this week alone is china sorta reading the room and being like mmmm yeah I mean sure Ukraine going back to its old borders with crimea ayyy sure why not you know? The other being that after whatever that loving mexiclown standoff between wagner and whatever panicked riot cops they were assembling in moscow even was, a whole lot of governments spontaneously assembled to say "oh hey we kinda need to have a plan in place for if the russian federation straight up shits itself"
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Jun 28, 2023 05:32
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Didn't Putin also go to the CSTO for help only to be told "this sounds like a YOU problem"?
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Jun 28, 2023 05:35
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Knightsoul posted:So if you really want to know the real situation of the war, stay far away from here (like I usually do) Please spare us all of your presence here in the future, bye.
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Jun 28, 2023 05:35
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Didn't Putin also go to the CSTO for help only to be told "this sounds like a YOU problem"? Magnificent if true
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Jun 28, 2023 06:14
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Charliegrs posted:Everyone's always talking about how bad Russia has performed in this war but honestly are they really doing that bad? Sure the blitzkrieg into Kyiv was a total failure but they seem to be holding their own against a military that has gotten a ton of high end western hardware and training. Even a lot of the most celebrated, impactful stuff like stingers and javelins aren't exactly cutting edge, even if it's still current in some sense. Most of the Leopards are 2A4's IIRC, which are a fairly old model. I guess it does look advanced compared to much of what Russia is fielding, but that's kind of the point: their equipment is way less advanced that was often bragged about or believed. For example, my understanding is that every front life infantryman in the US Army has been outfitted with night vision goggles for a number of years now -- like, multiple decades -- but for Russian infantry, hardly any of those to be seen. Cicero fucked around with this message at 06:27 on Jun 28, 2023 |
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Jun 28, 2023 06:22
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Didn't Putin also go to the CSTO for help only to be told "this sounds like a YOU problem"? Definitely the presidents of Kazakhstan and Armenia told him that, we all know what Belarus did, not sure what Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan did during the mutiny but I'm sure it was hilarious
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Jun 28, 2023 06:41
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DarklyDreaming posted:Definitely the presidents of Kazakhstan and Armenia told him that, we all know what Belarus did, not sure what Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan did during the mutiny but I'm sure it was hilarious Imagining the scenario where Wagner sweeps into Moscow and kicks the defenders in the balls, only for some Armenians to rock up and crush the rebellion. Might be a worse scenario for Putin that straight getting couped.
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Jun 28, 2023 07:12
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Talking about whether Prigozhin had 'enough men' to take Moscow seems a bit besides the point. He didn't have 'enough men' on paper to take over Rostov or advance hundreds of miles into Russia, but that was irrelevant because less than a dozen men total (RIP to those helicopter pilots) made any attempt whatsoever to stop him.
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Jun 28, 2023 08:14
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Irony Be My Shield posted:Talking about whether Prigozhin had 'enough men' to take Moscow seems a bit besides the point. He didn't have 'enough men' on paper to take over Rostov or advance hundreds of miles into Russia, but that was irrelevant because less than a dozen men total (RIP to those helicopter pilots) made any attempt whatsoever to stop him. I mean, I've got little doubt even 5000 troops with tanks, IFVs, artillery, etc. would have brushed aside the few cops willing to die for the cause along with the handful of BTRs and armored cars they managed to scape up in and around Moscow. The Russian airforce is incompetent. But then what? Putin fled immediately, probably along with everyone else of consequence. There was no mass uprising among the general population or regular military to suggest he could simply take power. The military response from the MoD would take time but it'd come eventually.
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Jun 28, 2023 08:43
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Warbadger posted:I mean, I've got little doubt even 5000 troops with tanks, IFVs, artillery, etc. would have brushed aside the few cops willing to die for the cause along with the handful of BTRs and armored cars they managed to scape up in and around Moscow. The Russian airforce is incompetent. But the damage would have been done by that point. Sitting in Putin’s office taking J6-style photos would have been absolutely devastating to Putin’s strongman image. Whether or not the coup succeeded long-term, it may well have signaled the end of Putin’s rule.
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Jun 28, 2023 08:47
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Warbadger posted:But then what? Yeah, this was the relevant question. He could maybe have occupied the Kremlin but then what? He's an rear end in a top hat with an empty building. All the powerful people had fled and support failed to materialize.
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Jun 28, 2023 08:48
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We're going deep into Clancy-chat, but if Prigozin took Kremlin he could easily call other important people and simply reshape the order. It's not like he would be absolutely required to be a head of new administration. He could very easily just auction off the seat of power and then chill in his palace-sized dacha combined with Wagner boot camp. Then he could overlook the "pillage of Africa's wealth" operation slowly climbing to the position of top 5 wealthiest individuals on the planet.
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Jun 28, 2023 08:55
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Frank Frank posted:But the damage would have been done by that point. Sitting in Putin’s office taking J6-style photos would have been absolutely devastating to Putin’s strongman image. Whether or not the coup succeeded long-term, it may well have signaled the end of Putin’s rule. That makes sense if his objective was to gently caress over Putin at any cost. I think his objective was simply to look out for himself. That's a goal incompatible with fighting what would (without significant support) turn into a losing war. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Jun 28, 2023 |
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Jun 28, 2023 09:02
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alex314 posted:We're going deep into Clancy-chat, but if Prigozin took Kremlin he could easily call other important people and simply reshape the order. It's not like he would be absolutely required to be a head of new administration. He could very easily just auction off the seat of power and then chill in his palace-sized dacha combined with Wagner boot camp. Then he could overlook the "pillage of Africa's wealth" operation slowly climbing to the position of top 5 wealthiest individuals on the planet. How? Do you think that in this scenario Putin resigns and gives away the nuclear codes? Would the security council or Duma or Mishustin or anyone of consequence just have gone to bend their knees to him just because he's in Kremlin? That would have been very unlikely. It would only have caused maximal chaos and the only benefactor would have been Ukraine. No, I suspect that the plan was to put Surovikin or some other Prigozhin's friend in charge of the MoD and the war and let him continue playing a warlord.
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Jun 28, 2023 09:25
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Warbadger posted:That makes sense if his objective was to gently caress over Putin at any cost. "March on the dictator's palace, stop when the dictator tells you to, then wait for the dictator to do something horrible to you 'cause otherwise it'll embolden anyone else who feels like marching on the dictator's palace" is not a healthy action either Gort fucked around with this message at 09:33 on Jun 28, 2023 |
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Jun 28, 2023 09:30
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Look he got Lukashenko's word, would Putin ever break that?
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Jun 28, 2023 09:32
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I wonder if Prigozhin just doesn't have full control of his forces. He wanted to effectively go on strike from the war in Ukraine to prevent him losing his forces to the regular army, but some of his subordinates decided to take over Rostov and before he knew it he was leading a coup. Eventually he was able to get them to stop. The situation just doesn't make any sense from a "Putin is in 100% control of his organisations and Prigozhin is in 100% control of Wagner" standpoint
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Jun 28, 2023 09:33
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I think the idea that Prigozhin was expecting a confrontation somewhere around Rostov which he would then start negotiations from makes sense. He just wasn't expecting morale/support for Putin to be so low that he would find himself in a position to credibly threaten his premiership.
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Jun 28, 2023 09:59
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Irony Be My Shield posted:I think the idea that Prigozhin was expecting a confrontation somewhere around Rostov which he would then start negotiations from makes sense. He just wasn't expecting morale/support for Putin to be so low that he would find himself in a position to credibly threaten his premiership. The proverbial dog that's caught the car. This does seem most likely. He wanted to cause a fuss to force his agenda but stumbled rear end-backward into a coup when it turned out there was almost nothing to oppose him.
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Jun 28, 2023 10:24
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Irony Be My Shield posted:I think the idea that Prigozhin was expecting a confrontation somewhere around Rostov which he would then start negotiations from makes sense. He just wasn't expecting morale/support for Putin to be so low that he would find himself in a position to credibly threaten his premiership. This is Michael Kofman's view. Prigozhin asked his group of loyalists to advance until they met resistance, and they then found themselves outside of Moscow. There was a fair amount of fighting along the way, and the Russian Air Force was bombing both roads and Wagner (there are videos of this). However Wagner had a (relatively) clear run into Moscow. At which point, as another poster pointed out, they would be standing standing in a bunch of very grand, but empty, buildings while some angry reinforcements bear down on them. I think Michael Kofman also mentioned the number of Wagner fighters involved was upwards of 1500, so not necessarily the full 10,000 being thrown around. Prigozhin seems to have been hanging around in Rostov all day. It makes sense for both sides to find a deal at that point. Prigozhin doesn't want to occupy Moscow, and Putin may have been full of paranoia about who he could rely on given how far Wagner had advanced. It's impossible to tell whether Wagner being let through by all the various police/army in their path was complicity or simply lack of initiative (in what is a very top down system). In terms of the various stories from "US government officials" coming out since, it's worth bearing in mind that (my understanding) is that the US establishment would not want Russia to collapse. The ideal situation would be a exceptionally weak Russia with good internal cohesion and policing, that was just just strong enough to stop its neighbours encroaching into its territory (China). So the stories going around speculating about which Russian military officials might be involved should be taken with a grain of salt. There are likely a lot of knives being sharpened by a lot of people, both inside and outside the Russian establishment, and it's probably a good chance to get rid of that guy who never refills the coffee pot at work.
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Jun 28, 2023 10:29
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Cicero posted:Most of it isn't that high end though. A lot of the stuff transferred has been because Western countries are in the middle of replacing them. Humvees and Maxxpros being (partially) replaced by JLTV's, F-16's being replaced by F-35's, M16's having gotten replaced by M4's and soon my M5's. And even stuff that isn't being replaced yet, like Bradley's and Abrams, are usually older reserve stock. Yeah, I used a PVS-14 monocle NVD way back in 2003 through 2013. Every single soldier used that. In 2013, we had a thermal optic to go along with it. In the reserves now and we are still using the 14s. I'm sure my active duty counterparts have better stuff now Same with with Javelins. We carried one per squad and one AT-4 per fire team. Maxpros, Bradleys, humvees, M113s, M16s - Seeing everything from the last 20 years being used in an real shooting war is a Who's Who of my career.
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Jun 28, 2023 10:50
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The whole situation is reminiscent of some of the airplane hijackings/escapes of the 1970s, like that at the Munich Olympics. Everyone knew then that terrorists could theoretically take hostages and demand a plane to leave on, or board a plane and take it hostage in flight, but few precautions were actually taken to deal with such a situation. The terrorist groups that tried it often had no idea what they were trying to do other than making a splash, getting on a plane with hostages, and then getting it to fly to some friendly neutral country. Both the hijackers and law enforcement kind of improvised and muddled through those situations for years, which led to the now bizarre scenarios in which hostage takers could get transported to airports with hostages, get on planes with them, and then be allowed to fly to Libya or Syria or wherever to release the hostages and live out their days unscathed. By contrast, an actual carefully-orchestrated coup, like that carried out in Myanmar in 2021, is more akin to the 9/11 hijackings in that it was well prepared and carried out with a clear purpose.
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Jun 28, 2023 10:51
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Yeah I don't think the public proclamations that other generals were involved are likely to be true. But if this is how far a disorganised protest got you have to wonder what would happen if/when a more organised coup attempt happens.
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Jun 28, 2023 11:08
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My read is that Priggo’s mutiny simultaneously got more and less support than he expected. It seems like he didn’t expect rank and file MoD to completely lay down for him and make the march to Moscow so easy. Equally, it seems he was expecting more support from higher up folks who balked. Of course the reverse is true for Putin. Wagner getting ANY outside support was seemingly a surprise to him. So both sides were caught flat-footed by their expectations not being met, which would explain the “dog caught the car” confusion. Of course I’m a complete outsider with no special expertise or knowledge, but that’s how it reads to me. An episode of Veep but it’s the Russian military.
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Jun 28, 2023 12:59
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https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1674038100568227840 ... What an odd response if true..
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Jun 28, 2023 14:35
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Gort posted:I wonder if Prigozhin just doesn't have full control of his forces. He wanted to effectively go on strike from the war in Ukraine to prevent him losing his forces to the regular army, but some of his subordinates decided to take over Rostov and before he knew it he was leading a coup. Eventually he was able to get them to stop. I'm certain that prigozhin has more cache with his troops than putin has with MoD troops, because putin is an aloof elitist, not literally on the ground holding a gun like priggy. But priggy missed his one shot, there's zero chance he's marching on moscow again after this. Also all his men are probably getting put in prison to keep any future uprisings from happening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmgi7DqURvg 
LifeSunDeath fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Jun 28, 2023 |
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Jun 28, 2023 14:51
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LifeSunDeath posted:Also all his men are probably getting put in prison to keep any future uprisings from happening Well, there's zero chance of them getting out of there until they've served their term. Like, say get recruited to join a PMC or something.
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Jun 28, 2023 15:14
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Cicero posted:
I remember a Marine general giving a speech in the late 2000s, talking about how circa 2001 each Marine carried about $500 worth of equipment, but a few years later that had climbed to $10000 worth of equipment.
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Jun 28, 2023 15:45
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