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Joe Biden has been briefed on the chaotic situation in Russia with US officials describing it as “serious”.
The president was being kept informed as Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was accused by Moscow of launching an armed rebellion.
A White House National Security Council spokesman said: “We are monitoring the situation and will be consulting with allies and partners on these developments.”
A US official told CNN this crisis was “real” but the Pentagon and White House were waiting to see how it developed.
Steve Hall, former CIA chief of Russia operations, said it was in a “different league” to Prigozhin’s previous complaints against the Russian military hierarchy.
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This is gonna get so fucked up.
This is either going to fizzle out in the next few days or get really ugly.
No matter what happens it’s at least 25k troops removed from the front line so that’s a big deal.
Russia II: Romanov Resurrection
This summer. Putin, a man with no hair. On a quest to find his long lost twin. And bring Society Russia back to glory. But, There’s only one thing stopping him… [Prigozhin enters screen left with arm elbow deep up his own ass] “Vaaaladimir?” [Putin throws oligarch out window] “THIS IS SUCH BORSCHIT”
RUSSIA 2: ROMANOV RESURRECTION, COMING TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU.
Wagner Group chief says his mercenaries will halt their march on Moscow
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/24/1184166949/wagner-group-moscow-halting-march-russia
This sounds so bizarre. Assuming the attack wasn’t some stupidly convoluted false flag, Wagner can’t actually be stupid enough to think Putin won’t retaliate, can they?
Hmm
It’s a masquerade. Wagner is controlled by GRU, and Poutine control GRU with an iron glove. This is just to kick choigou and guerassimov.
Kinda stupid way to do that, I mean they shot down multiple attack helicopters, sent cruise missiles against their own troops, and moved a lot of troops off the front during the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
It’s infighting and shows Putin’s weakness no matter how many layers of bullshit is under this.
Their plan is to make themselves look weak and incompetent?
I very much doubt it.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer dictator.
Except the new guy will be worse than the last
Russian forces have had to retreat from territories they’d gained, and Prigozhin says army bosses are weak because they are unwilling to use tactical nuclear weapons.
Yep. Might actually be the case that Putin is the lesser evil here.
The downside… its like a horrible dictator overthrowing another horrible dictator
castro, overthrowing putin.(The comparison of who is the worst human, wasn’t the piece up for debate here…)On the upside though, might give ukraine a really good opportunity.
Prigozhin is nothing like Castro. He’s far worse.
I considered using hitler instead in my example- But, I don’t think ANYONE can compare to him.
You seem to not be familiar with Stalin and Mao. Both were worse than Hitler, despite being on our side.
I know OF them- But, I’ll admit- I should know a lot more regarding their history. I am not very fresh in that area.
I’m sorry, that’s an awful comparison. Castro can’t be compated to Putin as he was way more progressive. I don’t know their leaders but if I had to guess would probably be more fascist. Which yeah, it isn’t better than having Putin in power.
Edit: Okay, I did a bit of research and I am extremely more concerned
I edited the original post.
This could be a chance for the Ukraine to push its counter offensive, especially if Putin or Wagner withdraw troops to deal with the coup. If not, the Russian troops in the Ukraine may get jittery hearing of a coup at home.
I know it’s good seeing the snake eat its own tale, but what happens if Wagner group takes over Russia? My understanding is that both the group and the guy in charge of the group are no better than Putin. Do they take out Putin, then step aside for a democratically elected president?
Do they take out Putin, then step aside for a democratically elected president?
Genuinely curious—is there any reason to believe they’d actually do this?
Absolutely zero percent chance that happens. The only outcome of this is undisguised dictatorship. The only thing we don’t know yet is whether it’s Wagner succeeding and installing a military junta or Putin surviving and using this as an excuse to dissolve whatever semblance of a democracy they pretended to have.
I don’t see any chance for democracy anytime soon. Best case, Russian army and Wagner troops will decimate each other severely, and whoever ends up in power is struggling too much with domestic problems to effectively fight any other countries.
Worst case, one of the military leaders dies early, all troops end up intact in one hand, and whoever ends up the dictator is less inhibited to use nukes in Ukraine, thinking it might assert their dominance.
I doubt things in Russia will get better but I’d expect the country would come out weaker so hopefully they wouldn’t be able to continue their wars since they’ll be more concerned with consolidating power.
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I think looking at coups historically would be beneficial. I don’t imagine Russia as a state (either way) will have much energy for foreign invasion while it’s dealing with an internal one. I would imagine there will be much they need to rebuild in an institutional sense…
I doubt anyone involved is going to step aside and risk falling out of a window for democracy in Russia.
The plausible worst-case scenario is Prigozhin blames the war’s failures on Putin and the MoD, then calls for total mobilization and total war against Ukraine to win this. That wouldn’t bode well for Ukraine at all.
Russia has already instituted conscription and civilian terror tactics and done everything they really could do to win the war - there’s no further escalation available to them except into the realm of chemical weapons or similar, which would trigger further escalation from the west. And in the long run, NATO can outspend them - Russia’s only real source of aid is China, who will be demanding greater and greater concessions in return. On a strategic and geopolitical level, Russia lost a long time ago, and the only reason they haven’t withdrawn already is that it wouldn’t be survivable for Putin personally - he’d get couped the moment he showed weakness.
Don’t get me wrong, Prigozhin is an irredeemable monster who’s been at the head of some of the worst atrocities in Ukraine and who has based a lot of his appeal on his pyrrhic victory at Bakhmut (while also attacking Shoigu’s failures). But if the coup succeeds, he’s a monster with the political wiggle room to withdraw Russia’s dick from the Ukrainian beehive by blaming all failures on Shoigu and Putin destroying the great and powerful Russian military through their corruption and incompetence and blah blah blah stab in the back blah blah western decadence blah blah blah. And he will have significant political incentive to do so, since it will clear the way for the oligarchs to start making money again as sanctions lift.
Except currently prigozhin is saying the was in Ukraine is an illegal one (to throw shade at Putin he didn’t care before) but still he is now trying to play down Ukraine not up
He’s hoping Ukraine will attack and they’ll help him topple Putin?
And Prigozhin and his lawless band of ex-prisoners and other violent misfits gain control of Russian nuclear weapons. There are already reports of them seizing a nuclear weapons depot. This is not a turn for the better, except insofar as it could weaken the Russians’ position in Ukraine. But if Prigozhin seizes power things could get worse again for Ukraine. Prigozhin’s whole schtick is that the Russian military leadership has been incompetent in managing the war. It remains to be seen whether he’d go back at it harder or back out of the whole misadventure, blaming it on Putin’s military leaders.
Heard that Putin has fled Moscow. How long until they find putin hiding in a hole in the ground in Belarus like saddam in Iraq?
We are monitoring the situation and consulting with allies and partners on these developments.
Macron, Schulz, Biden are having a movie night tonight, except it’s real-time live-action.
Watch party?
https://twitter.com/vayhan49/status/1672540610882859012
Ukraine has the popcorn ready.
Wouldn’t surprise me if it was just a ruse by the Kremlin to start pulling out of Ukraine under the guise of having to deal with a crisis in Russia’s own borders. I honestly suspect they’re trying to figure out the best way to bail without losing face.
On the other hand, maybe it’s exactly as it seems and the wheels are starting to come off as there is unrest within the Russian ranks at a lack of purpose and huge loss of life for no gain. Or maybe it’s just mercenaries being mercenaries and having no loyalty to anyone.
Hard to know what to believe with anything that involves the Kremlin.
Putin’s now fled Moscow to Tver. He’s made himself look weak and scared, which is incredibly personally dangerous for any strongman dictator and IMO completely rules out a trick. He might well have sanctioned Prigozhin’s earlier outbursts - he certainly kept to the rule of pretending that Putin himself was infallible, and only being given bad advice by Shoigu - but the only way this ends now is with either Putin or Prigozhin dead.
Yeah, but if it is a ruse, how does Prigozhin wind up? Can’t imagine him going back to… whatever he was doing… after faking like he’s starting a civil war. I’d imagine a high cost for going along with it. Also Putin seems too proud to make up a scenario like this where he looks like he’s running away.
But also I should admit I don’t know anything about any of this.
I also don’t know anything and I agree. There’s a lot of smoke in mirrors from Russian command, but I don’t see how faking an internal coup would be helpful for Putin. They’ve seemingly already made their way through multiple towns and are fighting into Moscow. They’ve been the sledgehammer this whole conflict and they turned around on a dime, who knows how this is going to turn out.
As the fall guy.
I don’t think this holds water, Putin was never that brilliant but I doubt he’s dumb enough for this kind of 4-D face eating leopard chess.
It makes him look so weak and just about the only thing he has been good at is projecting strength.
