After thinking it over, I'm persuaded by the users who argued that this story is intellectually and historically interesting and therefore deserves a thread on HN – as long as it can stay out of flamewar. If you're going to comment, please make sure you're posting in the intended spirit of intellectual curiosity, and please avoid the shallow, tropey, flamebaity style.
This sequence of events left a strange aftertaste: first striking observation was that there was no enough information about what’s going on and there is still not enough. Everything could be narrowed down to a few sources in Telegram giving very brief updates. The reporting by traditional media had a lot of „not independently confirmed“ details. This was very strange, given that everything was happening in a densely populated area - Rostov, Voronezh, Lipetsk and Tula are big cities, M4 is an important highway with a lot of traffic. I would expect minute-by-minute coverage with a lot of pictures, maps, estimates of how much time they need to reach Moscow etc.
Second observation was that the regime did not exist in the moment: with few notable exceptions, we have not even seen faces of anyone from national security council. Some local actions of the governors, fortification of Moscow, pathetic speech of Putin in the morning and that’s it. The weakness of it in the face of a violent force was exposed.
Third observation was unexpectedly high visible support of Wagner by people. Many laughing at situation or agreeing with Prigozhin‘s demands, some bringing food and water to mercenaries in Rostov. All despite that PMC Wagner is a criminal organization famous for extra-judicial executions, war crimes etc. An organization led by an open nazi (Utkin) and assembled from prisoners, many of which were convicted for violent crimes. It is crazy how people can even think of collaborating with them.
And the outcome, a deal that says Putin is no longer in control without saying it. Could it be some conspiracy to purge elites while keeping the supreme leader in power? It does not look so. It looks like he for the first time in history was forced to eat the pill. Yet he is still a president and business is as usual. It is a very dangerous moment if we remember that Russia still has nuclear weapons and it is big enough that even without using them by falling apart it can destabilize the entire world.
>first striking observation was that there was no enough information about what’s going on and there is still not enough.
I "ran" a bot/crawler hobby project that takes a russian-speaking telegram channel as an input and outputs the messages in a translated form, including text, images and video. During this situation I realized this became really relevant so I improved during the coup it to support multiple input channels and to keep a queue as post processing takes long for videos, and to provide audio transcriptions (Prigozhin himself likes to post audio clips)
I don't think its true that there was not much information. There actually was minute-by-minute updates by citizens, Wagner itself, establishment-oriented channels etc. You can read the backlog if you want:
https://t.me/translatedrussianpropaganda
At the peak there was some real queue and I had to switch from running it on an ARM VM to my 12-core local system just to keep up. Whisper takes the longest to run, and given it translates spoken russian really well, I claim it was the first source of information in several occasions for people that don't speak Russian, for the few people that actually joined the channel (I didn't advertise it but on a small forum because I knew it might become a maintenance/fixing burden).
// This sequence of events left a strange aftertaste: first striking observation was that there was no enough information
I find this to be a universal fact of the war in Ukraine.
I speak Russian natively and most of my family (dad and both in-laws) grew up in Ukraine.
So you'd think that compared to an average Westerner I could be well I formed about what's happening.
Yet I find it completely impossible. An amalgam of Russian sources will present a totally different tactical and historical picture than that of Western and Ukrainian sources.
I can chose to believe the later based on emotion and prevalent sentiment of where I live but objectively I don't feel confident going in either direction.
It's crazy to me that someone can feel certainty here with access to only one of the sides' information.
Perhaps and even likely this has been the case in every war but it's the first one where I am so accutely aware of it.
It's not a new phenomenon. During the Chechenia war, On European TV, the poor Chechenia was invaded and civilians dying. My Russian friend was telling me on Russian TV it was all murderous Chechen terrorists attempting a coup.
On the verge of the second Iraq invasion, on European TV, there was doubt about claims of WMD but a hint of oil and USA agenda. American TV at my friends house was rallying that Saddam and his regime must be ended immediately.
It's really hard for russians to believe anything but official russian party line. There is a real russian nazi bias of believing in "great russia" and "lesser" Ukrainians. Then all the news are filtered through that confirmation bias.
If you really want to stay objective, ground yourself in hard facts like
1. russia invaded Ukraine
2. russia bombed various cities to the ground
3. russia lost its originally invaded territories around Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson regions which amounts about half since 2022 invasion
4. russian military losses as reported by Ukraine are close enough to media confirmed by OSINT like oryx etc.
5. maps are hard truth which is mostly converge to the same from both sides
That said, nobody can convince anyone who wants to stay delusional. And ru propaganda machine (including online bots) is largely directed at constantly generating multiple conflicting lies to muddy the waters.
I found this true in the early days, but I think there has been some settlement on basic facts.
The Russians have not conquered Kyiv, their invasion has stalled but they have caused enormous damage. Ukraine has not managed to expel the invading army, though they seem determined to do so.
It seems like Russian sources have largely taken the mask off. They are there to weaken the West and strengthen themselves and are fine with that coming at the expense of Ukraine. They continue to call Ukrainians bad names, but it feels less like a serious critique of Ukrainian nationhood and more of a rallying cry for their own benefit.
The two sides do disagree on specific issues like who dropped which bomb where and who controls a given village but we seem to have moved on from the days when Russia was claiming total victory. Some of Ukraine's messages about the future are very optimistic, but it's always important to take forward looking statements with a grain of salt.
> Second observation was that the regime did not exist in the moment: with few notable exceptions, we have not even seen faces of anyone from national security council. Some local actions of the governors, fortification of Moscow, pathetic speech of Putin in the morning and that’s it. The weakness of it in the face of a violent force was exposed.
This is, in my experience, actually a good indication that the event was truly a surprise to the Russian government. Their media apparatus is very good at having a cohesive narrative and lots of talking points in place before planned information operations, and they're not typically great at responding to events on the ground as they unfold, usually needing a couple of days to assemble a media campaign in response to unexpected events. The lack of any coordinated information response is a tell that the Russian government didn't anticipate this whole shebang.
Literally none of these points were apparent here. It shows a weak Russian state, was covered only as so far as necessary and what the message would be was completely unclear. Don't hire mercenaries?
> At @abc we had foreign bureaus in Beijing, Beirut, Berlin, Cairo, Frankfort, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Tel Aviv and Tokyo.
My dad was in newspapers. He worked at all types, everywhere from medium sized cities in the south and Midwest to big cities on the east coast (up to and including the New York Times).
During that era (last quarter of the 20th century), every one of those papers (not just the NYT) had a significant foreign presence. That list above of ABC bureaus - the foreign bureaus for a national broadcast network - is not that much more longer than the list of foreign bureaus for an average newspaper with a circulation of 300k-500k. I recall one of my dad’s papers in the ‘80s having bureaus in Moscow, Bombay, Karachi, London, Jerusalem… surely also places like Rome, Paris and Tokyo. I think those are all gone now.
No, not because of this. I’m not from the Default Country and work with Russian sources directly. It would not be unusual to see this in any Western media (e.g.German or British) reporting on a subject in a foreign country. It was unusual to see it in local news.
> Third observation was unexpectedly high visible support of Wagner by people. Many laughing at situation or agreeing with Prigozhin‘s demands, some bringing food and water to mercenaries in Rostov.
During Soviet times, many Russians learned to be _incredibly_ supportive of large gangs of people with guns and tanks standing in their front yard. There can be a horde of Romulans invading and they’ll be lining the road with water bottles and flower garlands.
People there still remember family members being carted away in box trucks for asking when they can expect the next food shipment. Russia is, and mostly has always been, ruled by violent thugs that believe their monopoly on violence should be exercised swiftly, frequently, and harshly.
Look how any kind of perceived criticism (or perceived lack of jubilant support) has been treated at any time in their past. Any public display of loyalty, any vox-pop interview - completely meaningless.
Re: [The] first striking observation was that there was no[t] enough information...
I'd long ago realised that this was a significant indicator of a crisis situation in many contexts. These range from military attack to natural disaster to political or business unrest.
The first indications of the atom bomb attack on Hiroshima were a) scattered reports of a "large explosion" and b) instant loss of all telegraph communications from a point some distance from the city centre inwards. Though the bomb struck early in day, it wasn't until that afternoon that an Imperial Japanese Army observation plane was able to fly over the city and surveil the damage, and the next day that the cause was known, after the United States informed Japan through diplomatic channels.
Similarly, when the HMS Sheffield was struck by Argentinian Exocet missiles during the Falklands War, the immediate effects were a loss of communications with the ship, and the first accurate information arrived, via heliocopter, along with the first casualties transported off the Sheffield.
In widespread natural disasters, particularly earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes, there is often some communications from major urban centres, but even those are limited and often outlying regions are entirely cut off. I recall when following a major Chilean earthquake, the US immediately offered satellite telephones, which could be used to report on conditions from remote communities.
In business or personal relationship usually characterised by open channels, "no news is bad news" is a useful heuristic.
For start-ups and business, there's an almost ridiculously predictable progression of blog (and more recently: social media) updates, initially exuberant, enthusiastic, and often technical, shifting to highly-managed public relations releases focusing on business and social factors, to ... silence. The latter often ends with a "next stage in our story" post, i.e., "we're shutting down".
And in political and military situations, what used to be a fat channel of communications (though not necessarily useful or accurate) is cut off as chains of command become unclear, leadership and spokespersons scramble for safety, and rumour and gossip spew forth. That last is its own interesting mix: the genuinely confused or misinformed, often, but also those trying to influence or exploit circumstances.
That "official channels" bit has been the case, and a major failing of news organisations for over a century. Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz pointed this out in a 1920 New Republic article, "A Test of the News", commenting in large part on the New York Times's coverage (and failings) of the Russian Revolution. In particular was the issue of ideologically-tinged coverage, here anti-Communist principally. (Later the bias would run the other direction, particularly in the 1930s during the Holodomor.)
Lippmann and Merz note:
The analysis shows how seriously misled was the Times by its reliance upon the official purveyors of information. It indicates that statements of fact emanating from governments and the circles around governments as well as from the leaders of political movements cannot be taken as judgements of fact by an independent press. They indicate opinion, they are controlled by special purpose, and they are not trustworthy news. If, for example, the Russian Minister of War says that the armies of Russia were never stronger, that cannot be accepted by a newspaper as news that the armies of Russia are stronger than ever. The only news in the statement is that the Minister says they are stronger.
They continue to note the especially insidious nature of the anonymous source. The whole article is interesting reading, and bears strong parallels to events occurring today.
As do the practices Lippmann and criticise. Over a century later, news organisations still rely overwhelmingly on official (and unofficial) government spokespersons, and in the majority of cases treat such pronouncements as statements of fact, even where severe credibility issues are well known. Much of this is a result of availability heuristics (government mouthpieces are easy to find, and generally want to talk), reputation, and relationships established between journalists and sources. It is much more work to find truly independent, credible, and unmotivated witnesses.
And so, when things go pear-shaped, the official sources tend to become scarce.
Related to the disaster / comms failure dynamic I mentioned above: one rough proxy for determining how bad a widespread disaster in fact is is to look at where casualty reports have not yet been received. Again: capital and major cities typically preserve some communications capacity. Outlying regions are far more likely to be cut off, and by looking at the relative size and significance of locations that are making reports, as well as patterns of communications cessation, it's possible to make some inferences about total magnitude. Note that offical tallies of morbidity and mortality are based on received, credible, verified reports, which is to say, official statistics will almost always understate actual impacts, possibly for hours, days, or weeks, depending on overall severity. The 2004 Boxing Day Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami comes to mind, with full official counts taking months or years to finally settle.
Prisoners provided a decent chunk of recruitment for Ukrainian forces at the beginning of the war as well. Regardless of country, prison population represents a group, already familiar with weapons, violence, and audacity to use them, which can be reliably sourced for fighting or advancing other interests that require extreme measures. Even if Wagner is dissolved, its remnants will control the criminal underworld of Russia and will be a punitive instrument for any dissent.
> The reporting by traditional media had a lot of „not independently confirmed“ details. This was very strange, given that everything was happening in a densely populated area - Rostov, Voronezh, Lipetsk and Tula are big cities, M4 is an important highway with a lot of traffic.
Think about how many videos exist of generic Russian troops and tanks moving on the M4 and around the Ministry of Defense building in Rostov just on Twitter alone. Most of the time the only way to differentiate Wagner from regular troops is a little patch on their arms.
It’s very hard to verify the date a video was taken, even when there’s several of them online. Deception is always a concern and it takes time to gather enough experts to cross verify facts and find trustworthy sources on the ground.
This whole incident was actually quite accessible this time around - a lot less fog of war than usual. Google Maps showed blockages on the M4 and Prigozhin sent out audio messages via official channels.
Well, that’s the thing: there’s not that many evidence from specific points. Imagine having relatives in Efremov or Novocherkassk, knowing that sometimes there’s fighting between Wagner and army or FSB, and not being able to tell if there’s any risk for your family. Tracking such a big force on your own turf should have been an easy task for MVD or FSB. Maybe even for some big newspapers. Visual ID, plates etc. At least some Wagner vehicles were easily recognizable.
I would expect minute-by-minute coverage with a lot of pictures, maps, estimates of how much time they need to reach Moscow etc.
This existed, it just didn't exist in the traditional media. Look in the right discord servers and there were new videos being posted every 5 minutes as the convoy was moving around.
I do work with many types of sources - a habit developed in times when I was doing this professionally for some state actors. The coverage in social media made the impression of continuous data stream, but information density was really low if you filter it.
Starting about a year ago, western news sources markedly reduced coverage. There coverage wasn't that great anyway - mostly people hanging around Moscow, Berlin, or Kiev and reporting what they heard. The few outlets that continued a higher pace of coverage mostly stopped around January of this year. And what coverage they have is mostly from them looking at Telegram and other social media.
On the face of it, you might say "pick your poison" when choosing between Russian and Ukrainian social media sources, but the pro-Russian sources hae been consistently counter factual, stating things like the number of Patriot systems destroyed as much higher than the number of systems in theater. There are some quality pro-Ukraine sources that I've found provide consistently good info.
Why would people not support Wagner over the regular army, and specifically over Shoigu and Gerasimov that he alleges to target? I can explain. None of the reasoning below is meant to excuse or praise Wagner or the rest of Russian actors in the region, but nevertheless, it's valuable to understand people's perspective.
This stuff about Utkin's Nazism, with Prigozhin himself son of a Jewish man, is completely peripheral and not in any way more salient than fringe National Socialist elements and Azov symbolic on the Ukrainian side that Russians make much hay of (in spite of Zelensky, too, being Jewish). The accusation just doesn't bite when there's a Slav on Slav war going on, it's only good for propaganda and twitter point-scoring, neither side there is seriously making decisions with relation to WWII political compass.
War crimes? This whole – unrecognized – war is a crime if we're serious about it, and regular Russian military is neck deep in war crimes, and it wasn't (far as anyone knows) Wagner that had terrorized Bucha, obliterated Mariupol or blew up the Kahovka dam, to name just three high-profile atrocities.
Executions? The most recent case was them executing a defector (and a repeat criminal offender, from Ukraine, who had been serving a term for aggravated murder prior to his recruitment and defection). I don't think it's surprising when people in a rather harsh society shrug about such things (not to whatabout, but how many Americans would approve or at least not object to Snowden's execution?).
On the other hand, there are very salient reasons Russians support Wagner.
1. They just have a compelling, powerful image. It is known that they've succeeded in a few areas where regular forces have failed; Prigozhin is somewhat good at moving speeches; and they've been effective at exaggerating the difference and appropriating credit. Reminder that Prigozhin is a man of many talents and careers, one among those being management of the so-called Internet Research Agency [1]; catering business, paramilitary operations and illustration of children's books [2] aside, he's been in charge of propaganda for a long time now.
2. Adding to that, they just have an outsized presence in people's minds, there are catchy edgy music videos [3] and decently made movies [4] of their production (with military history buffs praising that movie), many affiliated Telegram channels, they're just very online, including Prigozhin personally – unlike Russian Ministry of Defense that's infamously behind the times, secretive, prone to embarrassing transparent lies, "boomer-like". It's another Russian self-own, in a sense, because the MoD grasped at Wagnerite meme magic to rescue the perception of the campaign, and became overshadowed as a result.
3. The war is not genuinely popular, especially now that it's clearly close to being lost. Surveys to the effect that 70% of Russians support the war omit details that this support is often in the form "we'll be exterminated if we surrender" [5], it's not driven by some positive expectation of Imperial greatness but by fear, very much like 1945 Germany but exacerbated by connectivity [6]; there was an awful lot of chauvinistic smugness early on, but not now. Prigozhin articulates criticism of the status quo (Ukraine never planned to attack, the operation was a mistake, it needlessly made Ukraine into a real threat, eroded Russian prestige, brought NATO closer to the heart of Russia than it'd have been otherwise etc.) [7] that resonates with people vastly more than coping output of the official organs.
4. People really, truly hate and look down on Shoigu, even people in the regular army. Thus they did not open fire at Wagner forces, and there's such a volatile situation that soldiers at the frontline are often not given arms, due to fear of mutiny. It is known at this point, in large part thanks to Wagner propaganda, that Shoigu is a corrupt bureaucratic oaf not qualified for his job, who appopriates vast sums and even diverts military resources for his pampered daughter, who only became a Minister due to his ties within Russian elite (he's one of the most powerful members of the gang, jumping between top-level posts for three decades). He's a lightning rod for all aspects of dissatisfaction with the way the war has gone for Russia (which might be part of why Putin keeps him around). And he's specifically hated by the unorganized but powerful undercurrent of ethnic Russian nationalism, due to being perceived as a strongly identifying Tuvan Buddhist [8] feudal lord with a private army [9] who is completely beyond any reproach and glibly sends tens of thousands of Russians (plus of course other peoples) to the meatgrinder, in meat waves, for zero benefit. Shoigu is understood as "noviop" [10], a member of semi-artificial Soviet post-ethnic people, and the deeper one's ethno-nationalism, the less support he gets, with people really concerned about Slavic race and so on charging him with slaughter of Slavs on both sides. In contrast, Prigozhin plays up his Russophilic and Slavophilic attitude, has his son serving in Wagner, cries crocodile tears about the loss of lives, and very pointedly, repeatedly drives the connection, in very simple language: "the "Tuvan degenerate" Shoigu denies us materiel – thousands of our Russian boys are getting killed by the enemy". With Ukrainians apparently unbeatable and, frankly, acting in their right, the conclusion about ways to stop boys from being killed becomes obvious enough. Like Kadyrov, his fellow warlord, he conspicuously does not accuse the Supreme Leader of any wrongdoing, but the implication about actions he believes are legitimate for Putin to take are clear.
In short, it's best to understand the situation not so much as Wagner group being popular with Russians on its own merits, but as Russia having arrived at the metastable condition where any cohesive military unit that seems competent and starts a mutiny against the Ministry of Defense can expect nontrivial cooperation from the masses and other forces. This is, I believe, is exactly why Prigozhin is acting in such a bizarre manner: he is making clear to Putin that he could easily move around and destabilize the war effort, all to secure his own survival – in the way that popular field commanders of "Novorossiya" failed to do, and got eliminated on Kremlin orders as potential competitors for control.
Wagner is theoretically easy to destroy, but has enough momentum to topple the Army and potentially send the whole regime into tailspin, with how unpopular Shoigu is; yet Putin is too invested in his little mafia family to throw Shoigu to the dogs; and if he keeps covering for Shoigu, the whole "good Czar, bad boyars" scheme implodes. So the equilibrium is letting Prigozhin go, with his force. At least for now.
I wonder when Prigozhin has started working on this.
This is mostly romantic western propaganda. We (the NATO) are the good ones, which is not part of your essay, and the bad ones are the Russians. This is reflected in the sources as well, which are exclusively pro-west ones as far as I can see.
Just as an example: Currently in our media Russians blew up the Kahovka dam. At no time anyone asks why they'd do that. It is detrimental to Russias strategy in the same way Russia does not profit from blowing up Nord Stream. The only reason for blowing up the dam would be to stop Ukraine forces at that flank, however the Russians were in control of the dam and they could have just opened it. Again this is similar to Nord Stream.
Could Russians have done it still? Sure, not all actions need to make sense, but it wouldn't be my first guess.
> With Ukrainians apparently unbeatable [...]
Not sure as meant as quote or not, but this does not hold water at all. Even Ukrainian officials say that the offensive isn't up to par currently. And by now we saw enough broken Leopards to say that the deliveries didn't have their desired effect either. Why are we in this war again?
> It is crazy how people can even think of collaborating with them.
It is not crazy, if you take into account that the genocidal war is very popular among Russians, and the only complain they have is that it is not going according to their expectations. They blame the top military officials for that and think that wagner will be more efficient in killing Ukrainians.
Another option (which I'm partial to) is something like "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
Not everyone is on top of who's part of the mercenary company and some people could just see this as "a change", so they would offer some support.
Not making a statement of "how things really are" here, just saying that sometimes an explanation might be "jeez, finally there's some change, maybe something will happen out of this" and not "let me go support these genocidal mercenaries".
>Third observation was unexpectedly high visible support of Wagner by people. Many laughing at situation or agreeing with Prigozhin‘s demands, some bringing food and water to mercenaries in Rostov. All despite that PMC Wagner is a criminal organization famous for extra-judicial executions, war crimes etc. An organization led by an open nazi (Utkin) and assembled from prisoners, many of which were convicted for violent crimes. It is crazy how people can even think of collaborating with them.
This raises an interesting question for me.
The invasion of Ukraine enjoys popular support inside Russia - around 70%.
The justification continuously put forward regarding why such a large proportion of the Russian population supports the invasion is that they've been brain-washed by state media into believing that Ukraine requires "de-Nazification".
That the Wagner group enjoys such popular support, while their Nazi sympathies are also common knowledge^ makes this justification questionable.
My best, admittedly totally speculative, guess right now is that the Russian populace has a far better/non-brainwashed understanding of the geopolitical situation than what is commonly suggested, and that while everyone is happy to go along with the de-Nazification pretence, in reality the populace harbours the same ambitions for a return of Russian imperial power that the Russian leadership does, and also holds similar moralistic perspective.
^I believe this to be the case, but I'm not certain. At the very least there doesn't seem a state sponsored campaign to hide it
> That the Wagner group enjoys such popular support, while their Nazi sympathies are also common knowledge^ makes this justification questionable.
I remember reading somewhere, that "Nazism" means something rather different in Russian culture than in Western culture. In the West, you say "Nazi" and the first thing most people think of is the Nazi mass murder of Jews, the Holocaust–that's what the school curriculum focuses on. But in Russia, you say "Nazi" and the first thing most people think of is the Nazi mass murder of Russians–that's what the Russian school curriculum focuses on. In the West, "Nazi=homicidal anti-semitism"; in Russia, "Nazi=homicidal Russophobia".
But, given that, what sense do they make of a group of Russian "Nazis" who support the Kremlin and fight its wars? It is a bit like if you met a group of neo-Nazis, and discovered they were all openly and proudly Jewish. If something doesn't make sense, people often just choose to pay no attention to it.
Similarly, the Russian accusations that Ukraine is a "neo-Nazi regime" seem ludicrous to Western ears – "Zelenskyy is of Jewish descent, his great grandparents died in the Holocaust, how can he be a Nazi?" But to most Russians, for whom the primary meaning of "Nazi" is not "antisemite" but "Russophobe", the idea that "Ukrainian nationalism=Nazism" makes more sense, and Zelenskyy's Jewishness appears irrelevant.
> in reality the populace harbours the same ambitions for a return of Russian imperial power that the Russian leadership does, and also holds similar moralistic perspective
Or people are terrified that if they appear to not be supporting the war they would end up in the gulags or, ironically, get sent to the frontlines with a gun pointed at their back.
> The invasion of Ukraine enjoys popular support inside Russia - around 70%.
You should not take this number seriously. It has been greatly exaggerated by russian propaganda. At the same time there is no independent reliable polling in russia at this time. Also, Russians are reluctant to share their real views due to harsh criminal+administrative penalties for "spreading fakes about the army". The war vividly exposed all the corruption, grift, lawlessness, inefficiencies in russia on a huge scale. But people are anemic and resined to their fate. 20 years of putin took the wind out of their sails.
> the Russian populace has a far better/non-brainwashed understanding of the geopolitical situation than what is commonly suggested
I think this is probably true in a very limited, bone-deep way. They sense the power dynamics, feel the desire to be on top. What's needed is a rationalization for the conscious mind, to ease the path for it to come to the same conclusion, to endorse the actions you already wanted to take. Propaganda does just fine with that.
With that said, I think there are pretty large areas of detailed fact re: the state of the invasion, the economy, etc, where they are in fact deceived. All we can say about that is that it's extremely difficult to stand up under a constant barrage of one perspective when that one comes to your door and the other is restricted enough that you at least have to go out of your way for it. Especially if it's been that way your whole life.
"The invasion of Ukraine enjoys popular support inside Russia - around 70%"
How can you get this number? Today in Russia any question by a pollster sounds like "Do you support the war or do you want to get fined for "discreditation of the army"?".
I remember quite different reaction to the Western polls in Crimea showing that huge majority support reunification with Russia -- "No, no, you can't believe any polls conducted in a non-free country, people there are just afraid to say they hate Russia and want back to the Ukraine".
"while their Nazi sympathies are also common knowledge"
I don't know anyone who knows that and supports Wagner.
> The reporting by traditional media had a lot of „not independently confirmed“ details. This was very strange, given that everything was happening in a densely populated area - Rostov, Voronezh, Lipetsk and Tula are big cities, M4 is an important highway with a lot of traffic. I would expect minute-by-minute coverage with a lot of pictures, maps, estimates of how much time they need to reach Moscow etc.
1. Russia does not have journalists.
2. When people see a military putsch, they don't normally stop to film it. They run for their lives instead.
> with few notable exceptions, we have not even seen faces of anyone from national security council. Some local actions of the governors, fortification of Moscow, pathetic speech of Putin in the morning and that’s it.
3. Everybody was waiting to see who will win, and join the winning side
> All despite that PMC Wagner is a criminal organization famous for extra-judicial executions, war crimes etc. An organization led by an open nazi (Utkin) and assembled from prisoners, many of which were convicted for violent crimes. It is crazy how people can even think of collaborating with them.
4. I'm surprised this coming as a surprise to anybody. They would've gotten the same treatment in much of the world.
> Russia still has nuclear weapons and it is big enough that even without using them by falling apart it can destabilize the entire world.
Russia will be 100 times less of a treat to the world, if it crashes, and breaks apart.
This is factually incorrect and probably ideologically charged statement. Freedom of press in Russia is significantly restricted but good journalism is far from being dead. Sometimes you have to read between the lines or understand the affiliations to filter the content, but it still can provide you a lot of valuable information.
Are any of your observations based on reporting from MSM - the same propaganda machine that spread the Ghost of Kiev fable and other ludicrous Ukraine fables? If this was in fact a treasonous act by Prigozhin then a gruesome death is awaiting him. He, and his co-conspirators, will be made examples of. Secondly, their families will also be targeted to instill additional fear into anyone else thinking about it.
I'm inclined to believe that this entire drama was manufactured by the MSM working with US Intelligence to spread the fallacy that there is chaos on the Russian side. Prigozhin may have been upset that he wasn't getting the support his men needed and may have retreated in protest. And even that is pure speculation.
Prigozhin isn't an idiot and if he purportedly did what the MSM is parroting then he failed spectacularly and sending Putin a j/k, bff? SMS isn't going to cut it. If Prigozhin is alive a week from now, then this was just more manufactured bullshit from the MSM.
I worked in the media analysis field before and know very well how to handle my sources of information. For me the term MSM does not make sense: everyone has affiliations and agenda, whether it is NYT, RT or some random guy in Telegram or Discord. Working with NYT or RT or Bild is easier, because you know how their distortion bubble looks and where extra fact checking is necessary. Publications in anonymous social media accounts are worse - there must be zero trust by default.
The most likely answer for what is going on here is the one right on the surface. Prigozhin realized that he could try to take Moscow, but he'd ultimately be defeated, Putin was already gone. He acted without any political support and without having a bunch of aces up your sleeve an attempted coup is destined to fail. It would also drag units away from Ukraine to deal with him and undermine Russian efforts in the face of the Ukrainian offensive. Prigozhin is still fighting against Ukraine and probably recognized that he would go down in Russian history as a traitor. It was very likely just a rash miscalculation by Prigozhin. He's hoping to use this as political leverage now, but my guess would be that he winds up dead pretty soon. I doubt there's any 4 dimensional chess going on.
If this is the case, then this isn't going to be the Russian Civil War/Coup that people had hoped to end the war. Russia is certainly a mess though, and this might cause other political forces in Russia to act.
The logic is good but implies you MUST go for it. I can’t imagine he’s so stupid as to not see that. Crossing the rubicon means you can’t go back.
I am reminded of the story:
Chen Sheng was an officer serving the Qin Dynasty, famous for their draconian punishments. He was supposed to lead his army to a rendezvous point, but he got delayed by heavy rains and it became clear he was going to arrive late.
Chen turns to his friend Wu Guang and asks “What’s the penalty for being late?”
“Death,” says Wu.
“And what’s the penalty for rebellion?”
“Death,” says Wu.
“Well then…” says Chen Sheng.
And thus began the famous Dazexiang Uprising, which caused thousands of deaths and helped usher in a period of instability and chaos that resulted in the fall of the Qin Dynasty three years later.
But this provides interesting signal: under certain circumstances, Putin is willing to flee via private aircraft for safety. Whether intentional or not, stimulus and response has been observed.
To be clear, that is the established protocol for the commander and chief of most militaries. That’s why such a big deal was made when Zelensky didn’t leave Kyiv despite advancing Russian forces. If there was a credible threat to President Biden he would be on Air Force One immediately.
Another signal - a sparsely equipped army of a few thousand can march in from Ukraine and take Moscow in a matter of hours, facing minimal resistance. Regardless of the outcome I’m sure NATO has been taking detailed notes.
Why, did people expect him to be an idiot or go Avengers style and fight himself, perhaps with bare hands? Of course he'll go somewhere safe and work from there. That's what leaders all over the world too in such crisis moments, if an attack is suspected.
A demonstration of strength by that oddball player who was never really respected by his peers because he didn't go to the right school but who somehow got along very well with the big boss.Except on those days they fall out. His co-underlings were envious of that, likely plotted a little, therefore the outsider had to posture to reassert his position. Posture he did, now the big boss says I forgive you if you come back at my side. To the "from the right school" underlings this is a clear message that they have to accept the outsider. Prigoshin won, not what he claimed to strive for (though he would have taken that in a pinch I guess) but what he actually wanted.
It's an incredibly weird situation. Putin can't kill Prigozhin without compromising his ability to ever make future deals with his underlings, but he also cannot allow him to live and maintain his image of being in control of Russia.
I read the defense minister resigned in a deal negotiated by Lukashenko, and charges dropped against Prigozhin
That’s an absolute win, for Prigozhin, since that was the original goal
this internal issue has nothing to do with anyone outside of that region
thats a pretty big shakeup. “I dont like this guy and there is no political process to remove him so I brought in my private army, the President fleed and he resigned in 10 hours”
Seems like a terrible outcome for Putin. He looks really weak and presumably just lost most if not all of Wagner, who were his most effective troops. He might have Prigozhin poisoned, but that would probably cause further instability internally as it causes more of his leadership to realize he'll clearly betray anybody and his word isn't worth anything.
> Prigozhin realized that he could try to take Moscow, but he'd ultimately be defeated, Putin was already gone.
Cannot be - on this level it's basic/simple strategy, if he's as good as he says he is then he would have forseen such situation => I don't believe in a "sudden realization/enlightenment" by Prigozhin.
Yes, I don't think Prigozhin had any sudden realization that there was a gap in his plan. My guess is that he was in some way out maneuvered. I don't mean that purely in a military sense of maneuvering troops/resources etc. From the long history of brutal internal struggles and backstabbing, my shot in the dark guess is that he was counting on support from key individuals in power and it either never materialized or was withdrawn.
I think it's also possible that it was never a legitimate attempt on his part. He may never have expected it to succeed, but it would cause enough problems that it forced Russian leadership to back away and be willing to cut a deal that lets Prigozhin keep his life (for now) in exile. He'd been incrementally pushing things for months for a variety of reasons (real anger over lack of material support? Pure power play? Who knows). But unlike critical journalists, oligarchs and political enemies that have been assassinated over the years, Prigozhin had an army to use as leverage. Though I still won't be surprised if he's the next person to fall out a window or die from a novel poisoning method.
I'm not sure. Surovikin was generally regarded as a friend of Prigozhin, and so I was surprised when he publicly appealed for Wagner to stop. Now I'm wondering if it was part of the plan all along? Prigozhin exposes Putin as a paper tiger, now sits back (surrounded by tens of thousands of troops to protect him) and waits for Ukraine to win, without him being blamed for it. Then he steps into the Kremlin. Maybe?
> It would also drag units away from Ukraine to deal with him and undermine Russian efforts in the face of the Ukrainian offensive.
Prigozhin has been repeatedly casting doubt on the decision of attacking Ukraine for the past couple of weeks. He went as far as rejecting Russian propaganda on how Ukraine provoked it and stating that Ukraine only reacted to Russian's military presence. He even proceeded to pin the blame of this Russian quagmire on Putin and the Russian MoD.
Before starting the military coup, Prigozhin laid the groundwork to pin Russia's invasion of Ukraine as betraying Russia by weakening it. Keeping Russia's armed forces in Ukraine was also critical for the success of his military coup.
I don't think your scenario is plausible. There's something else in play.
> The most likely answer for what is going on here is the one right on the surface. Prigozhin realized that he could try to take Moscow, but he'd ultimately be defeated
I think this coupled with the military didn’t seem to come over to his side in large enough numbers quickly enough indicated it was going to be a real fight, and not a one or two day affair. Otherwise, yes, Progozhin is a dead man walking.
It was a huge miscalculation. Even Russians that hate Putin are not going to be comfortable with support for a coup from a private military.
Peter Zeihan stated the obvious in a video on this that Wagner would have been decimated from the air on their way to Moscow too. I don't think you need to attend an Army war college to figure that out.
Ultimately, someone crazy enough to build a giant private army is going to do crazy things.
None of this seems good to me unless one is cheering for the doomsday clock to strike midnight.
Yeah it seems like he smartly sold at the top here. He wasn’t going to have any more advantageous of a position and he cashed it in at the perfect time.
Yeah he got no support, everyone sided with Putin. I think he knows the end is near. He’ll hide in Belarus for as long as he can but I bet he knows he crossed the line.
Well, there is one more likely answer.
he was complaining about who will control businesses in the territories that were occupied by his gangs. Might that be that he got what he wanted and viola?
IMO the friendly fire on his camp was a cover/false flag to begin the "march for justice". The coordination/speed his coup attempt had couldn't be set up in such a short amount of time (since the "friendly fire" incident), so it was planned for at least a few weeks.
I've been following this on Twitter, and so far as I can tell it's a bar fight between a couple of crazy old guys who both happen to have an army.
Prigozhin's rationale for this episode seems to be intense annoyance that he wasn't getting respect.
And now - as he believes - he's got that after a show of strength, everyone can go home and pretend it never happened.
It's insanity. Just bonkers. All of it.
Some Ukrainians I know tell me there's local suspicion that was a feint or a ruse to see where Ukraine would attack. It's an interesting idea, but that seems a lot of effort and drama for a very small reward.
We like to think that international politics is a group of intelligent and suave individuals working things out, but it is much more predictive and instructive to consider it as toddlers brawling in a preschool whilst their parents are brawling at the local tavern.
We like to think that ‘the government’ is in any way any combination of sane, shrewd, or smart. As if it’s this entity that has its own mind.
I’ve worked with various Australian federal government agencies for ten years now. Three years ago we moved to the capital, Canberra.
It turns out ‘the government’ is just a bunch of people who happen to live in this one city. They’re as average as the rest of us. They were born here because their parents live here and these are the jobs here so that’s what they do.
In fact few outsiders come here because the city is famously boring. [0]
The mystery is why we would think that this group of people were any different from the rest of us.
[0]: Actually it’s a charming little town. Don’t tell anybody.
"Do you not know, my son, with how very little wisdom the world is governed?" (in a letter to his son Johan written in 1648; in the original Latin it reads: An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia mundus regatur?).
>Prigozhin's rationale for this episode seems to be intense annoyance that he wasn't getting respect.
i think his intense annoyance might be result of some assassination attempt. he claimed yesterday that wagner bases were bombed. on one of the yesterdays videos he has rather deep and long fresh looking cut on his face
>Some Ukrainians I know tell me there's local suspicion that was a feint or a ruse to see where Ukraine would attack.
I'm credulous of this. It's a lot of effort and drama but the stakes are extremely high too. If it lured Ukraine into a death trap it would pay for itself.
The fact that very little fighting occurred and nobody even went to prison is suspicious.
The fact that Prigozhin demonstrated extreme personal loyalty to Putin in the past and vice versa on a level few others have matched is also suggestive. Who else would you ask to run a fake coup?
Also haven't something like 20 pilots been killed when their planes/helicopters were shot down? If something is for show you probably don't want to kill some of your more highly trained people for no reason while also damaging their surviving peer's moral.
It's only Prigozhin going to Belaruse, not Wagner. He's effectively lost his army and is now in exile. Though I'm guessing he'd only agree to the deal if he was able to bring along an escort of some amount of Wagner troops loyal to him and/or some other reliable guarantee of his safety.
Whatever you want to call it, coup, rebellion, whatever, it seems clear that this event will provide a Dolchstoß explanation for the loss of the Ukraine war that will be used to keep revanchist militarism alive.
There is a TASS article from yesterday where the FSB, in english translation, literally said "stab in the back". Unfortunately swapping languages from an article doesn't get the original, so I have no idea what the idiom may be in russian.
There is an enormous pule of Dolchstoß explanations already collected to be used on as per needed basis. The events of today are adding to it but far from dwarfing it.
That being said stab in the back doesn't involve antisemitism in Slavic languages. I have the same idiom in Polish, and it's just an idiom for betrayal.
It's also a common idiom in the German language, but in a different form: The Dolchstoß is associated with WWI and antisemitic ideas, while in den Rücken fallen (literally to fall into someone's back) is the linguistic backstab figure.
This seems absurd to turn around after commiting this -- an armed rebellion.
I've just read a Russian telegram channel post (https://t.me/volyamedia/703) theorizing and referring to anonymous sources in higher ranks, that this was a push from the president administration and FSB against MoD, with Prigozhin being just the public side. This is of course based on anonymous sources and must be taken with caution, but it is a good explanation of what could have happened.
If we assume just 2 sides, Kremlin+MoD vs Wagner, this agreement looks impossible or a fake move.
From Kremlin position, leaving Prigozhin go away peacefully means this kind of uprisings with big demands are going to repeat. From Prigozhin's position, this means to step back after becoming an existential threat and try to co-live peacefully. Very implausible.
So I had only 2 explanations: 1) he lied and was preparing more offensive, or 2) he actually got some undeclineable offer: get some money, go abroad, or to say Afrika with another mission. But still, for Kremlin, (2) looks a very short-sighted decision and undermining of own position.
Thus, the version of an internal fight seems plausible. If we assume that the PA & FSB were ready to let the state lose this much reputation, or put their frontlines at risk of collapse during the counteroffensive, then things seem to agree with each other. (And collapsing front lines are a liability of MoD, not FSB anyway.)
3. Prigozhin lashed out and got in over his head, realized he committed to a suicide mission with no political support and is trying to back out of it any way that he can.
> From Kremlin position, leaving Prigozhin go away peacefully means this kind of uprisings with big demands are going to repeat. From Prigozhin's position, this means to step back after becoming an existential threat and try to co-live peacefully. Very implausible.
Yes, he's probably a dead man walking, that doesn't mean that the Kremlin can't agree to allow him to walk away peacefully while they come up with a way to assassinate him. The Kremlin will better understand that trope about diplomacy being the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.
Well, this is plausible too, because 1) I've not seen signs of him being a suicidal fanatic, and 2) there were witnesses that he didn't amass enough support from the military.
How is the current situation better than establishing Moscow beachhead and announcing in TV you are the new temporary president? Lets not kid ourselves, Moscow wouldnt hold, all they had was light infantry with few armored cars and garbage/dump trucks filled with sand to block the streets. Most likely military would just let them pass like in Rostov.
I'm thinking along similar lines - he must have been supported by some powerful people from the shadows. Not sure if it's the FSB and president though, they both came out against Wagner. Maybe a faction within FSB though? Maybe some oligarchs?
As for why he withdraw, I don't think it was because he got a sweet deal, but rather that his backers wavered in their support and giving him an offer of exile was the only favor they were capable of granting him.
Prigozhin agreed to a fake stand-down; his troops have been in action for 18 hours, this allows them to regroup and rest for a night and commence again in the morning, with some drummed up excuse.
Prigozhin didn't get the support he expected from the military, so he was was motivated to settle, but had enough support to threaten Moscow, so Putin was motivated to settle. Outcomes - a hardliner in charge of the Russian military, Putin quietly retires in a year or two, hands over reigns without the violence.
Prigozhin was threatened with a tactical nuke, decided it wasn't worth it.
One of Prigozhin's desired outcomes - a change of the guard in Russia's MoD was inevitable given the incompetence shown in the defense of this mutiny. Even if things got truly violent and Wagner was destroyed by force, Shoigu and Gerasimov were out.
Prigozhin's communications are a mix of brutal honesty and subtle manipulation. His allies are a mix of the competent and the fanatical. Overall, the whole thing is bizarre. I'm not convinced it's over.
There's another versin of what happened. Here's a post in telegram theorizing and referring to anonymous sources in the governmnet, suggesting it's a big fight between president administration management and FSB against MoD Shoigu+Gerasimov and Rostech corporation over the assets and state contracts of the latter. (post: https://t.me/volyamedia/703)
Apart from that it's entirely built on anonymous sources, this gives some plausible explanation, because if we consider just 2 sides (Prigozhin/Wagner vs Government), a genuine stand-down seems impossible. Leaving Prigozhin go away undermines the authority of Putin among those in top power.
But with 3 or 4 sides (Wagner, MoD & Rostech, PA & FSB, Putin & closest people) this explains their moves much better.
Although, if PA & FSB really did this, it's very reckless, putting the entire campaign at risk -- like quick frontline collapse.
So I admit the case with inner fight possible, though prorably the fake stand-down is more probable.
> Prigozhin was threatened with a tactical nuke, decided it wasn't worth it.
I have trouble believing there was a credible threat of nukes. Nuking your own territory is an unambiguous way to signal you've completely lost control of everything.
Wasn't that one of the extra headlines in Robocop? Something about South Africa—still under the apartheid regime at time of premier—were “forced” to nuke one of their own cities because of unrest.
"Prigozhin didn't get the support he expected from the military, so he was was motivated to settle, but had enough support to threaten Moscow, so Putin was motivated to settle. Outcomes - a hardliner in charge of the Russian military, Putin quietly retires in a year or two, hands over reigns without the violence"
Mostly agree, except to the conclusion. I do not think Putin is ready to hand over the power and he rather rules till he dies (one way or the other).
And of course it is far from over, because whoever wins, it ain't people who have much respect for human rights or lifes.
I like your first thought. That seems realistically possible.
I'm not sure your second is realistic. I don't think there's any scenario where at least one of Putin and Prigozhin don't die. If Prigozhin "settles", he will be shortly assassinated. (Watch out for windows!) Putin might be able to quietly retire, but I think the odds are against that one, too.
I would think death would be preferable to retirement for Putin. To give up his current position would simply be making him a really tempting bargaining chip for the next generation at the top, to live in unimaginable anxiety that you will be offered up to any of the thousands of enemies you've created over the past 20 years of strongman rule.
What could he possibly trade to the next ruler to maintain leverage over them and indefinitely guarantee his safety? From the West, the ICC, the Islamists, the Chechens, the Ukrainians, the Syrians? All the mafia bosses and oligarchs that he's subjugated inside of Russia? He literally has to stay in power simply to be able to sleep at night.
And it's not just him: his family, his friends, his legacy is all at risk. To give up power is to give up all his leverage to ever control the safety of anyone or anything he has ever cared about. There's no safe retirement plan for a person who has lived the life he has.
Prigozhin's going to get poisoned / assassinated within 3 months. Maybe within 2 weeks. He's crazy if he think's he'll survive to see 2024 without a successful rebellion. He's a dead man walking, and I don't understand what could possibly be in the deal that could convince him otherwise
Prigozhin's going to get poisoned / assassinated within 3 months.
I think that depends on how we got here. One theory could be that another country or set of countries paid him to turn against Russia and promised he could live wherever he wants with a nice stash of cash should he accomplish some specific tasks. The reason I think this could be the case is that mercs are generally only faithful to money and anything that gives them more power. I'm sure he realized he did not have a future of money or power in Russia so it might not have taken that much to turn him.
Readit News
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: I know that (as of this moment) the story may have passed its sensational peak - if so, that's a good thing on HN. We're trying for reflective, not reflexive, conversation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor....
Dead Comment
Second observation was that the regime did not exist in the moment: with few notable exceptions, we have not even seen faces of anyone from national security council. Some local actions of the governors, fortification of Moscow, pathetic speech of Putin in the morning and that’s it. The weakness of it in the face of a violent force was exposed.
Third observation was unexpectedly high visible support of Wagner by people. Many laughing at situation or agreeing with Prigozhin‘s demands, some bringing food and water to mercenaries in Rostov. All despite that PMC Wagner is a criminal organization famous for extra-judicial executions, war crimes etc. An organization led by an open nazi (Utkin) and assembled from prisoners, many of which were convicted for violent crimes. It is crazy how people can even think of collaborating with them.
And the outcome, a deal that says Putin is no longer in control without saying it. Could it be some conspiracy to purge elites while keeping the supreme leader in power? It does not look so. It looks like he for the first time in history was forced to eat the pill. Yet he is still a president and business is as usual. It is a very dangerous moment if we remember that Russia still has nuclear weapons and it is big enough that even without using them by falling apart it can destabilize the entire world.
I "ran" a bot/crawler hobby project that takes a russian-speaking telegram channel as an input and outputs the messages in a translated form, including text, images and video. During this situation I realized this became really relevant so I improved during the coup it to support multiple input channels and to keep a queue as post processing takes long for videos, and to provide audio transcriptions (Prigozhin himself likes to post audio clips)
I don't think its true that there was not much information. There actually was minute-by-minute updates by citizens, Wagner itself, establishment-oriented channels etc. You can read the backlog if you want: https://t.me/translatedrussianpropaganda
At the peak there was some real queue and I had to switch from running it on an ARM VM to my 12-core local system just to keep up. Whisper takes the longest to run, and given it translates spoken russian really well, I claim it was the first source of information in several occasions for people that don't speak Russian, for the few people that actually joined the channel (I didn't advertise it but on a small forum because I knew it might become a maintenance/fixing burden).
I find this to be a universal fact of the war in Ukraine.
I speak Russian natively and most of my family (dad and both in-laws) grew up in Ukraine.
So you'd think that compared to an average Westerner I could be well I formed about what's happening.
Yet I find it completely impossible. An amalgam of Russian sources will present a totally different tactical and historical picture than that of Western and Ukrainian sources.
I can chose to believe the later based on emotion and prevalent sentiment of where I live but objectively I don't feel confident going in either direction.
It's crazy to me that someone can feel certainty here with access to only one of the sides' information.
Perhaps and even likely this has been the case in every war but it's the first one where I am so accutely aware of it.
On the verge of the second Iraq invasion, on European TV, there was doubt about claims of WMD but a hint of oil and USA agenda. American TV at my friends house was rallying that Saddam and his regime must be ended immediately.
If you really want to stay objective, ground yourself in hard facts like
1. russia invaded Ukraine
2. russia bombed various cities to the ground
3. russia lost its originally invaded territories around Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson regions which amounts about half since 2022 invasion
4. russian military losses as reported by Ukraine are close enough to media confirmed by OSINT like oryx etc.
5. maps are hard truth which is mostly converge to the same from both sides
That said, nobody can convince anyone who wants to stay delusional. And ru propaganda machine (including online bots) is largely directed at constantly generating multiple conflicting lies to muddy the waters.
The Russians have not conquered Kyiv, their invasion has stalled but they have caused enormous damage. Ukraine has not managed to expel the invading army, though they seem determined to do so.
It seems like Russian sources have largely taken the mask off. They are there to weaken the West and strengthen themselves and are fine with that coming at the expense of Ukraine. They continue to call Ukrainians bad names, but it feels less like a serious critique of Ukrainian nationhood and more of a rallying cry for their own benefit.
The two sides do disagree on specific issues like who dropped which bomb where and who controls a given village but we seem to have moved on from the days when Russia was claiming total victory. Some of Ukraine's messages about the future are very optimistic, but it's always important to take forward looking statements with a grain of salt.
Dead Comment
This is, in my experience, actually a good indication that the event was truly a surprise to the Russian government. Their media apparatus is very good at having a cohesive narrative and lots of talking points in place before planned information operations, and they're not typically great at responding to events on the ground as they unfold, usually needing a couple of days to assemble a media campaign in response to unexpected events. The lack of any coordinated information response is a tell that the Russian government didn't anticipate this whole shebang.
1. Bad production quality and a clear message
2. Intense media coverage in Russia
3. Positive message about the Russian state
Literally none of these points were apparent here. It shows a weak Russian state, was covered only as so far as necessary and what the message would be was completely unclear. Don't hire mercenaries?
Because (US) foreign correspondence is a hollow shell of itself.
https://twitter.com/ChrisBuryNews/status/1672410476364300288...
> At @abc we had foreign bureaus in Beijing, Beirut, Berlin, Cairo, Frankfort, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Tel Aviv and Tokyo.
> Only London is left.
During that era (last quarter of the 20th century), every one of those papers (not just the NYT) had a significant foreign presence. That list above of ABC bureaus - the foreign bureaus for a national broadcast network - is not that much more longer than the list of foreign bureaus for an average newspaper with a circulation of 300k-500k. I recall one of my dad’s papers in the ‘80s having bureaus in Moscow, Bombay, Karachi, London, Jerusalem… surely also places like Rome, Paris and Tokyo. I think those are all gone now.
That’s a lot of news gathering that’s just gone.
During Soviet times, many Russians learned to be _incredibly_ supportive of large gangs of people with guns and tanks standing in their front yard. There can be a horde of Romulans invading and they’ll be lining the road with water bottles and flower garlands.
People there still remember family members being carted away in box trucks for asking when they can expect the next food shipment. Russia is, and mostly has always been, ruled by violent thugs that believe their monopoly on violence should be exercised swiftly, frequently, and harshly.
Look how any kind of perceived criticism (or perceived lack of jubilant support) has been treated at any time in their past. Any public display of loyalty, any vox-pop interview - completely meaningless.
I'd long ago realised that this was a significant indicator of a crisis situation in many contexts. These range from military attack to natural disaster to political or business unrest.
The first indications of the atom bomb attack on Hiroshima were a) scattered reports of a "large explosion" and b) instant loss of all telegraph communications from a point some distance from the city centre inwards. Though the bomb struck early in day, it wasn't until that afternoon that an Imperial Japanese Army observation plane was able to fly over the city and surveil the damage, and the next day that the cause was known, after the United States informed Japan through diplomatic channels.
Similarly, when the HMS Sheffield was struck by Argentinian Exocet missiles during the Falklands War, the immediate effects were a loss of communications with the ship, and the first accurate information arrived, via heliocopter, along with the first casualties transported off the Sheffield.
In widespread natural disasters, particularly earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes, there is often some communications from major urban centres, but even those are limited and often outlying regions are entirely cut off. I recall when following a major Chilean earthquake, the US immediately offered satellite telephones, which could be used to report on conditions from remote communities.
In business or personal relationship usually characterised by open channels, "no news is bad news" is a useful heuristic.
For start-ups and business, there's an almost ridiculously predictable progression of blog (and more recently: social media) updates, initially exuberant, enthusiastic, and often technical, shifting to highly-managed public relations releases focusing on business and social factors, to ... silence. The latter often ends with a "next stage in our story" post, i.e., "we're shutting down".
And in political and military situations, what used to be a fat channel of communications (though not necessarily useful or accurate) is cut off as chains of command become unclear, leadership and spokespersons scramble for safety, and rumour and gossip spew forth. That last is its own interesting mix: the genuinely confused or misinformed, often, but also those trying to influence or exploit circumstances.
That "official channels" bit has been the case, and a major failing of news organisations for over a century. Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz pointed this out in a 1920 New Republic article, "A Test of the News", commenting in large part on the New York Times's coverage (and failings) of the Russian Revolution. In particular was the issue of ideologically-tinged coverage, here anti-Communist principally. (Later the bias would run the other direction, particularly in the 1930s during the Holodomor.)
Lippmann and Merz note:
The analysis shows how seriously misled was the Times by its reliance upon the official purveyors of information. It indicates that statements of fact emanating from governments and the circles around governments as well as from the leaders of political movements cannot be taken as judgements of fact by an independent press. They indicate opinion, they are controlled by special purpose, and they are not trustworthy news. If, for example, the Russian Minister of War says that the armies of Russia were never stronger, that cannot be accepted by a newspaper as news that the armies of Russia are stronger than ever. The only news in the statement is that the Minister says they are stronger.
<https://archive.org/details/LippmannMerzATestoftheNews/page/...>
They continue to note the especially insidious nature of the anonymous source. The whole article is interesting reading, and bears strong parallels to events occurring today.
As do the practices Lippmann and criticise. Over a century later, news organisations still rely overwhelmingly on official (and unofficial) government spokespersons, and in the majority of cases treat such pronouncements as statements of fact, even where severe credibility issues are well known. Much of this is a result of availability heuristics (government mouthpieces are easy to find, and generally want to talk), reputation, and relationships established between journalists and sources. It is much more work to find truly independent, credible, and unmotivated witnesses.
And so, when things go pear-shaped, the official sources tend to become scarce.
Related to the disaster / comms failure dynamic I mentioned above: one rough proxy for determining how bad a widespread disaster in fact is is to look at where casualty reports have not yet been received. Again: capital and major cities typically preserve some communications capacity. Outlying regions are far more likely to be cut off, and by looking at the relative size and significance of locations that are making reports, as well as patterns of communications cessation, it's possible to make some inferences about total magnitude. Note that offical tallies of morbidity and mortality are based on received, credible, verified reports, which is to say, official statistics will almost always understate actual impacts, possibly for hours, days, or weeks, depending on overall severity. The 2004 Boxing Day Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami comes to mind, with full official counts taking months or years to finally settle.
Deleted Comment
Think about how many videos exist of generic Russian troops and tanks moving on the M4 and around the Ministry of Defense building in Rostov just on Twitter alone. Most of the time the only way to differentiate Wagner from regular troops is a little patch on their arms.
It’s very hard to verify the date a video was taken, even when there’s several of them online. Deception is always a concern and it takes time to gather enough experts to cross verify facts and find trustworthy sources on the ground.
This whole incident was actually quite accessible this time around - a lot less fog of war than usual. Google Maps showed blockages on the M4 and Prigozhin sent out audio messages via official channels.
This existed, it just didn't exist in the traditional media. Look in the right discord servers and there were new videos being posted every 5 minutes as the convoy was moving around.
https://t.me/milinfolive
On the face of it, you might say "pick your poison" when choosing between Russian and Ukrainian social media sources, but the pro-Russian sources hae been consistently counter factual, stating things like the number of Patriot systems destroyed as much higher than the number of systems in theater. There are some quality pro-Ukraine sources that I've found provide consistently good info.
If you want neutral, the Austrian MOD comes out with an english language analysis once in a while which is good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvJgRrpkaaU
Why would people not support Wagner over the regular army, and specifically over Shoigu and Gerasimov that he alleges to target? I can explain. None of the reasoning below is meant to excuse or praise Wagner or the rest of Russian actors in the region, but nevertheless, it's valuable to understand people's perspective.
This stuff about Utkin's Nazism, with Prigozhin himself son of a Jewish man, is completely peripheral and not in any way more salient than fringe National Socialist elements and Azov symbolic on the Ukrainian side that Russians make much hay of (in spite of Zelensky, too, being Jewish). The accusation just doesn't bite when there's a Slav on Slav war going on, it's only good for propaganda and twitter point-scoring, neither side there is seriously making decisions with relation to WWII political compass.
War crimes? This whole – unrecognized – war is a crime if we're serious about it, and regular Russian military is neck deep in war crimes, and it wasn't (far as anyone knows) Wagner that had terrorized Bucha, obliterated Mariupol or blew up the Kahovka dam, to name just three high-profile atrocities. Executions? The most recent case was them executing a defector (and a repeat criminal offender, from Ukraine, who had been serving a term for aggravated murder prior to his recruitment and defection). I don't think it's surprising when people in a rather harsh society shrug about such things (not to whatabout, but how many Americans would approve or at least not object to Snowden's execution?).
On the other hand, there are very salient reasons Russians support Wagner.
1. They just have a compelling, powerful image. It is known that they've succeeded in a few areas where regular forces have failed; Prigozhin is somewhat good at moving speeches; and they've been effective at exaggerating the difference and appropriating credit. Reminder that Prigozhin is a man of many talents and careers, one among those being management of the so-called Internet Research Agency [1]; catering business, paramilitary operations and illustration of children's books [2] aside, he's been in charge of propaganda for a long time now.
2. Adding to that, they just have an outsized presence in people's minds, there are catchy edgy music videos [3] and decently made movies [4] of their production (with military history buffs praising that movie), many affiliated Telegram channels, they're just very online, including Prigozhin personally – unlike Russian Ministry of Defense that's infamously behind the times, secretive, prone to embarrassing transparent lies, "boomer-like". It's another Russian self-own, in a sense, because the MoD grasped at Wagnerite meme magic to rescue the perception of the campaign, and became overshadowed as a result.
3. The war is not genuinely popular, especially now that it's clearly close to being lost. Surveys to the effect that 70% of Russians support the war omit details that this support is often in the form "we'll be exterminated if we surrender" [5], it's not driven by some positive expectation of Imperial greatness but by fear, very much like 1945 Germany but exacerbated by connectivity [6]; there was an awful lot of chauvinistic smugness early on, but not now. Prigozhin articulates criticism of the status quo (Ukraine never planned to attack, the operation was a mistake, it needlessly made Ukraine into a real threat, eroded Russian prestige, brought NATO closer to the heart of Russia than it'd have been otherwise etc.) [7] that resonates with people vastly more than coping output of the official organs.
4. People really, truly hate and look down on Shoigu, even people in the regular army. Thus they did not open fire at Wagner forces, and there's such a volatile situation that soldiers at the frontline are often not given arms, due to fear of mutiny. It is known at this point, in large part thanks to Wagner propaganda, that Shoigu is a corrupt bureaucratic oaf not qualified for his job, who appopriates vast sums and even diverts military resources for his pampered daughter, who only became a Minister due to his ties within Russian elite (he's one of the most powerful members of the gang, jumping between top-level posts for three decades). He's a lightning rod for all aspects of dissatisfaction with the way the war has gone for Russia (which might be part of why Putin keeps him around). And he's specifically hated by the unorganized but powerful undercurrent of ethnic Russian nationalism, due to being perceived as a strongly identifying Tuvan Buddhist [8] feudal lord with a private army [9] who is completely beyond any reproach and glibly sends tens of thousands of Russians (plus of course other peoples) to the meatgrinder, in meat waves, for zero benefit. Shoigu is understood as "noviop" [10], a member of semi-artificial Soviet post-ethnic people, and the deeper one's ethno-nationalism, the less support he gets, with people really concerned about Slavic race and so on charging him with slaughter of Slavs on both sides. In contrast, Prigozhin plays up his Russophilic and Slavophilic attitude, has his son serving in Wagner, cries crocodile tears about the loss of lives, and very pointedly, repeatedly drives the connection, in very simple language: "the "Tuvan degenerate" Shoigu denies us materiel – thousands of our Russian boys are getting killed by the enemy". With Ukrainians apparently unbeatable and, frankly, acting in their right, the conclusion about ways to stop boys from being killed becomes obvious enough. Like Kadyrov, his fellow warlord, he conspicuously does not accuse the Supreme Leader of any wrongdoing, but the implication about actions he believes are legitimate for Putin to take are clear.
In short, it's best to understand the situation not so much as Wagner group being popular with Russians on its own merits, but as Russia having arrived at the metastable condition where any cohesive military unit that seems competent and starts a mutiny against the Ministry of Defense can expect nontrivial cooperation from the masses and other forces. This is, I believe, is exactly why Prigozhin is acting in such a bizarre manner: he is making clear to Putin that he could easily move around and destabilize the war effort, all to secure his own survival – in the way that popular field commanders of "Novorossiya" failed to do, and got eliminated on Kremlin orders as potential competitors for control.
Wagner is theoretically easy to destroy, but has enough momentum to topple the Army and potentially send the whole regime into tailspin, with how unpopular Shoigu is; yet Putin is too invested in his little mafia family to throw Shoigu to the dogs; and if he keeps covering for Shoigu, the whole "good Czar, bad boyars" scheme implodes. So the equilibrium is letting Prigozhin go, with his force. At least for now.
I wonder when Prigozhin has started working on this.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency
2. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/06/01/wagner-head-prigoz...
3. https://www.reddit.com/r/N_N_N/comments/xn4ky5/mc_wagner_rel...
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1EXVrACxnk
5. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/06/03/the-only-thing-worse...
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#Wartime_conseq...
7. https://t.me/Prigozhin_hat/3790
8. https://nationalpost.com/news/world/the-pounds-12m-polite-pa...
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_(company)
10. https://twitter.com/devarbol/status/1534020945660321792
Just as an example: Currently in our media Russians blew up the Kahovka dam. At no time anyone asks why they'd do that. It is detrimental to Russias strategy in the same way Russia does not profit from blowing up Nord Stream. The only reason for blowing up the dam would be to stop Ukraine forces at that flank, however the Russians were in control of the dam and they could have just opened it. Again this is similar to Nord Stream.
Could Russians have done it still? Sure, not all actions need to make sense, but it wouldn't be my first guess.
> With Ukrainians apparently unbeatable [...]
Not sure as meant as quote or not, but this does not hold water at all. Even Ukrainian officials say that the offensive isn't up to par currently. And by now we saw enough broken Leopards to say that the deliveries didn't have their desired effect either. Why are we in this war again?
He's letting him go but not with his force. They will try to take advantage and integrate Utkin's PMC into the MoD forces where this is possible.
Maybe because Prigoshin was saying that the war was started for no real reason and people liked to listen to truth for a change [0]?
[0] https://t.me/concordgroup_official/1279
It is not crazy, if you take into account that the genocidal war is very popular among Russians, and the only complain they have is that it is not going according to their expectations. They blame the top military officials for that and think that wagner will be more efficient in killing Ukrainians.
Not everyone is on top of who's part of the mercenary company and some people could just see this as "a change", so they would offer some support.
Not making a statement of "how things really are" here, just saying that sometimes an explanation might be "jeez, finally there's some change, maybe something will happen out of this" and not "let me go support these genocidal mercenaries".
This raises an interesting question for me.
The invasion of Ukraine enjoys popular support inside Russia - around 70%. The justification continuously put forward regarding why such a large proportion of the Russian population supports the invasion is that they've been brain-washed by state media into believing that Ukraine requires "de-Nazification".
That the Wagner group enjoys such popular support, while their Nazi sympathies are also common knowledge^ makes this justification questionable.
My best, admittedly totally speculative, guess right now is that the Russian populace has a far better/non-brainwashed understanding of the geopolitical situation than what is commonly suggested, and that while everyone is happy to go along with the de-Nazification pretence, in reality the populace harbours the same ambitions for a return of Russian imperial power that the Russian leadership does, and also holds similar moralistic perspective.
^I believe this to be the case, but I'm not certain. At the very least there doesn't seem a state sponsored campaign to hide it
I remember reading somewhere, that "Nazism" means something rather different in Russian culture than in Western culture. In the West, you say "Nazi" and the first thing most people think of is the Nazi mass murder of Jews, the Holocaust–that's what the school curriculum focuses on. But in Russia, you say "Nazi" and the first thing most people think of is the Nazi mass murder of Russians–that's what the Russian school curriculum focuses on. In the West, "Nazi=homicidal anti-semitism"; in Russia, "Nazi=homicidal Russophobia".
But, given that, what sense do they make of a group of Russian "Nazis" who support the Kremlin and fight its wars? It is a bit like if you met a group of neo-Nazis, and discovered they were all openly and proudly Jewish. If something doesn't make sense, people often just choose to pay no attention to it.
Similarly, the Russian accusations that Ukraine is a "neo-Nazi regime" seem ludicrous to Western ears – "Zelenskyy is of Jewish descent, his great grandparents died in the Holocaust, how can he be a Nazi?" But to most Russians, for whom the primary meaning of "Nazi" is not "antisemite" but "Russophobe", the idea that "Ukrainian nationalism=Nazism" makes more sense, and Zelenskyy's Jewishness appears irrelevant.
I am deeply suspicious of these kinds of numbers. I just don't see any practical way of getting an honest sample.
Or people are terrified that if they appear to not be supporting the war they would end up in the gulags or, ironically, get sent to the frontlines with a gun pointed at their back.
You should not take this number seriously. It has been greatly exaggerated by russian propaganda. At the same time there is no independent reliable polling in russia at this time. Also, Russians are reluctant to share their real views due to harsh criminal+administrative penalties for "spreading fakes about the army". The war vividly exposed all the corruption, grift, lawlessness, inefficiencies in russia on a huge scale. But people are anemic and resined to their fate. 20 years of putin took the wind out of their sails.
I think this is probably true in a very limited, bone-deep way. They sense the power dynamics, feel the desire to be on top. What's needed is a rationalization for the conscious mind, to ease the path for it to come to the same conclusion, to endorse the actions you already wanted to take. Propaganda does just fine with that.
With that said, I think there are pretty large areas of detailed fact re: the state of the invasion, the economy, etc, where they are in fact deceived. All we can say about that is that it's extremely difficult to stand up under a constant barrage of one perspective when that one comes to your door and the other is restricted enough that you at least have to go out of your way for it. Especially if it's been that way your whole life.
How can you get this number? Today in Russia any question by a pollster sounds like "Do you support the war or do you want to get fined for "discreditation of the army"?". I remember quite different reaction to the Western polls in Crimea showing that huge majority support reunification with Russia -- "No, no, you can't believe any polls conducted in a non-free country, people there are just afraid to say they hate Russia and want back to the Ukraine".
"while their Nazi sympathies are also common knowledge"
I don't know anyone who knows that and supports Wagner.
1. Russia does not have journalists.
2. When people see a military putsch, they don't normally stop to film it. They run for their lives instead.
> with few notable exceptions, we have not even seen faces of anyone from national security council. Some local actions of the governors, fortification of Moscow, pathetic speech of Putin in the morning and that’s it.
3. Everybody was waiting to see who will win, and join the winning side
> All despite that PMC Wagner is a criminal organization famous for extra-judicial executions, war crimes etc. An organization led by an open nazi (Utkin) and assembled from prisoners, many of which were convicted for violent crimes. It is crazy how people can even think of collaborating with them.
4. I'm surprised this coming as a surprise to anybody. They would've gotten the same treatment in much of the world.
> Russia still has nuclear weapons and it is big enough that even without using them by falling apart it can destabilize the entire world.
Russia will be 100 times less of a treat to the world, if it crashes, and breaks apart.
This is factually incorrect and probably ideologically charged statement. Freedom of press in Russia is significantly restricted but good journalism is far from being dead. Sometimes you have to read between the lines or understand the affiliations to filter the content, but it still can provide you a lot of valuable information.
Why do you think it’s not this?
While I don’t know how truly “weakened” Putin has become, this seems like it could have easily been a trap to find any who would side with them.
I'm inclined to believe that this entire drama was manufactured by the MSM working with US Intelligence to spread the fallacy that there is chaos on the Russian side. Prigozhin may have been upset that he wasn't getting the support his men needed and may have retreated in protest. And even that is pure speculation.
Prigozhin isn't an idiot and if he purportedly did what the MSM is parroting then he failed spectacularly and sending Putin a j/k, bff? SMS isn't going to cut it. If Prigozhin is alive a week from now, then this was just more manufactured bullshit from the MSM.
If this is the case, then this isn't going to be the Russian Civil War/Coup that people had hoped to end the war. Russia is certainly a mess though, and this might cause other political forces in Russia to act.
I am reminded of the story:
Chen Sheng was an officer serving the Qin Dynasty, famous for their draconian punishments. He was supposed to lead his army to a rendezvous point, but he got delayed by heavy rains and it became clear he was going to arrive late.
Chen turns to his friend Wu Guang and asks “What’s the penalty for being late?”
“Death,” says Wu.
“And what’s the penalty for rebellion?”
“Death,” says Wu.
“Well then…” says Chen Sheng.
And thus began the famous Dazexiang Uprising, which caused thousands of deaths and helped usher in a period of instability and chaos that resulted in the fall of the Qin Dynasty three years later.
To repeat myself from another comment: haven't we hadn't enough examples of smart people being stupid lately?
That’s an absolute win, for Prigozhin, since that was the original goal
this internal issue has nothing to do with anyone outside of that region
thats a pretty big shakeup. “I dont like this guy and there is no political process to remove him so I brought in my private army, the President fleed and he resigned in 10 hours”
Seems like a terrible outcome for Putin. He looks really weak and presumably just lost most if not all of Wagner, who were his most effective troops. He might have Prigozhin poisoned, but that would probably cause further instability internally as it causes more of his leadership to realize he'll clearly betray anybody and his word isn't worth anything.
Cannot be - on this level it's basic/simple strategy, if he's as good as he says he is then he would have forseen such situation => I don't believe in a "sudden realization/enlightenment" by Prigozhin.
I think it's also possible that it was never a legitimate attempt on his part. He may never have expected it to succeed, but it would cause enough problems that it forced Russian leadership to back away and be willing to cut a deal that lets Prigozhin keep his life (for now) in exile. He'd been incrementally pushing things for months for a variety of reasons (real anger over lack of material support? Pure power play? Who knows). But unlike critical journalists, oligarchs and political enemies that have been assassinated over the years, Prigozhin had an army to use as leverage. Though I still won't be surprised if he's the next person to fall out a window or die from a novel poisoning method.
Dead Comment
Prigozhin has been repeatedly casting doubt on the decision of attacking Ukraine for the past couple of weeks. He went as far as rejecting Russian propaganda on how Ukraine provoked it and stating that Ukraine only reacted to Russian's military presence. He even proceeded to pin the blame of this Russian quagmire on Putin and the Russian MoD.
Before starting the military coup, Prigozhin laid the groundwork to pin Russia's invasion of Ukraine as betraying Russia by weakening it. Keeping Russia's armed forces in Ukraine was also critical for the success of his military coup.
I don't think your scenario is plausible. There's something else in play.
I think this coupled with the military didn’t seem to come over to his side in large enough numbers quickly enough indicated it was going to be a real fight, and not a one or two day affair. Otherwise, yes, Progozhin is a dead man walking.
Peter Zeihan stated the obvious in a video on this that Wagner would have been decimated from the air on their way to Moscow too. I don't think you need to attend an Army war college to figure that out.
Ultimately, someone crazy enough to build a giant private army is going to do crazy things.
None of this seems good to me unless one is cheering for the doomsday clock to strike midnight.
Maybe he thought more parts of the army would back him?
Maybe trying to force flip some Aces - and when they didn’t come up he retreated
> It was very likely just a rash miscalculation by Prigozhin
Situation became untenable with MoD trying to enlist Private troops - reaction must have been anticipated
How are things in regular army that they have to ingest Wagner contractors ?
Prigozhin's rationale for this episode seems to be intense annoyance that he wasn't getting respect.
And now - as he believes - he's got that after a show of strength, everyone can go home and pretend it never happened.
It's insanity. Just bonkers. All of it.
Some Ukrainians I know tell me there's local suspicion that was a feint or a ruse to see where Ukraine would attack. It's an interesting idea, but that seems a lot of effort and drama for a very small reward.
I’ve worked with various Australian federal government agencies for ten years now. Three years ago we moved to the capital, Canberra.
It turns out ‘the government’ is just a bunch of people who happen to live in this one city. They’re as average as the rest of us. They were born here because their parents live here and these are the jobs here so that’s what they do.
In fact few outsiders come here because the city is famously boring. [0]
The mystery is why we would think that this group of people were any different from the rest of us.
[0]: Actually it’s a charming little town. Don’t tell anybody.
i think his intense annoyance might be result of some assassination attempt. he claimed yesterday that wagner bases were bombed. on one of the yesterdays videos he has rather deep and long fresh looking cut on his face
I'm credulous of this. It's a lot of effort and drama but the stakes are extremely high too. If it lured Ukraine into a death trap it would pay for itself.
The fact that very little fighting occurred and nobody even went to prison is suspicious.
The fact that Prigozhin demonstrated extreme personal loyalty to Putin in the past and vice versa on a level few others have matched is also suggestive. Who else would you ask to run a fake coup?
Deleted Comment
Deleted Comment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth
I've just read a Russian telegram channel post (https://t.me/volyamedia/703) theorizing and referring to anonymous sources in higher ranks, that this was a push from the president administration and FSB against MoD, with Prigozhin being just the public side. This is of course based on anonymous sources and must be taken with caution, but it is a good explanation of what could have happened.
If we assume just 2 sides, Kremlin+MoD vs Wagner, this agreement looks impossible or a fake move.
From Kremlin position, leaving Prigozhin go away peacefully means this kind of uprisings with big demands are going to repeat. From Prigozhin's position, this means to step back after becoming an existential threat and try to co-live peacefully. Very implausible.
So I had only 2 explanations: 1) he lied and was preparing more offensive, or 2) he actually got some undeclineable offer: get some money, go abroad, or to say Afrika with another mission. But still, for Kremlin, (2) looks a very short-sighted decision and undermining of own position.
Thus, the version of an internal fight seems plausible. If we assume that the PA & FSB were ready to let the state lose this much reputation, or put their frontlines at risk of collapse during the counteroffensive, then things seem to agree with each other. (And collapsing front lines are a liability of MoD, not FSB anyway.)
> From Kremlin position, leaving Prigozhin go away peacefully means this kind of uprisings with big demands are going to repeat. From Prigozhin's position, this means to step back after becoming an existential threat and try to co-live peacefully. Very implausible.
Yes, he's probably a dead man walking, that doesn't mean that the Kremlin can't agree to allow him to walk away peacefully while they come up with a way to assassinate him. The Kremlin will better understand that trope about diplomacy being the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.
As for why he withdraw, I don't think it was because he got a sweet deal, but rather that his backers wavered in their support and giving him an offer of exile was the only favor they were capable of granting him.
Prigozhin agreed to a fake stand-down; his troops have been in action for 18 hours, this allows them to regroup and rest for a night and commence again in the morning, with some drummed up excuse.
Prigozhin didn't get the support he expected from the military, so he was was motivated to settle, but had enough support to threaten Moscow, so Putin was motivated to settle. Outcomes - a hardliner in charge of the Russian military, Putin quietly retires in a year or two, hands over reigns without the violence.
Prigozhin was threatened with a tactical nuke, decided it wasn't worth it.
One of Prigozhin's desired outcomes - a change of the guard in Russia's MoD was inevitable given the incompetence shown in the defense of this mutiny. Even if things got truly violent and Wagner was destroyed by force, Shoigu and Gerasimov were out.
Prigozhin's communications are a mix of brutal honesty and subtle manipulation. His allies are a mix of the competent and the fanatical. Overall, the whole thing is bizarre. I'm not convinced it's over.
Apart from that it's entirely built on anonymous sources, this gives some plausible explanation, because if we consider just 2 sides (Prigozhin/Wagner vs Government), a genuine stand-down seems impossible. Leaving Prigozhin go away undermines the authority of Putin among those in top power.
But with 3 or 4 sides (Wagner, MoD & Rostech, PA & FSB, Putin & closest people) this explains their moves much better.
Although, if PA & FSB really did this, it's very reckless, putting the entire campaign at risk -- like quick frontline collapse.
So I admit the case with inner fight possible, though prorably the fake stand-down is more probable.
(I do not mean to dismiss your post, only the strangeness of the situation).
I have trouble believing there was a credible threat of nukes. Nuking your own territory is an unambiguous way to signal you've completely lost control of everything.
It should be a pretty clear signal that they've lost control, as the damage the dam causes is larger than that of a small tactical nuke.
Deleted Comment
Mostly agree, except to the conclusion. I do not think Putin is ready to hand over the power and he rather rules till he dies (one way or the other).
And of course it is far from over, because whoever wins, it ain't people who have much respect for human rights or lifes.
But I cannot imagine both being alive in russia.
I'm not sure your second is realistic. I don't think there's any scenario where at least one of Putin and Prigozhin don't die. If Prigozhin "settles", he will be shortly assassinated. (Watch out for windows!) Putin might be able to quietly retire, but I think the odds are against that one, too.
What could he possibly trade to the next ruler to maintain leverage over them and indefinitely guarantee his safety? From the West, the ICC, the Islamists, the Chechens, the Ukrainians, the Syrians? All the mafia bosses and oligarchs that he's subjugated inside of Russia? He literally has to stay in power simply to be able to sleep at night.
And it's not just him: his family, his friends, his legacy is all at risk. To give up power is to give up all his leverage to ever control the safety of anyone or anything he has ever cared about. There's no safe retirement plan for a person who has lived the life he has.
But the far cheaper and easier version is that he was threatened with the fates of his Russian wife and children.
I think that depends on how we got here. One theory could be that another country or set of countries paid him to turn against Russia and promised he could live wherever he wants with a nice stash of cash should he accomplish some specific tasks. The reason I think this could be the case is that mercs are generally only faithful to money and anything that gives them more power. I'm sure he realized he did not have a future of money or power in Russia so it might not have taken that much to turn him.
Deleted Comment
Woah there. This just doesn't parse.