MEGATHREAD: whatever the hell is going on in Russia right now

I wonder how many russians are actually happy with this outcome. Kremlin loyalist must be depressed, since their leader basically turned into a puppet. And the extreme wagner supporters wanted it to go all the way. So both sides hardcode supporters are now depressed. Some wagner members probably just wanted putin to concede even after his speech so they may be happy. Civilians that support none may be happy that their society didn't collapse and cities turned to war zones.

Ukrainians are disappointed that the distraction didn't last a little longer, but none the less content with a weakened Russia.

Just had a thought, what if Putin has taken Prigozhin's family hostage and pretending to take the deal is just a play for time while they rescue them? It would be a great movie plot.

What if the Ukrainians paid Wagner to do this to cause a distraction? That would be pretty crazy too!

Do you really think Ukraine has an interest on following them into Russia? If I was them I would just want to take back Ukraine and secure the borders.

It would be weird to shoot down friendly helicopters and launch cruise missiles at friendly formations just to make a big feint.

Ukraine just needs to take the land bridge to Crimea, I don't see they have any incentive to go inwards towards Russia.

I think you watch to many movies real life isn't that well planned most likely he got mad launched an ill planned invasion then made a deal with putin when both realized they could lose everything fighting each other

I imagine they would take over the city, and completely destabilize Russia.

It doesn't matter if nobody wants to listen to you if you become the local law enforcement.

And soon Russia will face the same problem as Iraq and Afghanistan did

Probably just re-enact Jan 6 but Russian for the propaganda points, then skedaddling before the hammer comes down.

Actually Prigozhin is arguably waaayyyy worse. Putin is a ruthless warlord just like Prigozhin, yes. They have equally virulent ideologies, yep.

But Putin is a politician first and Prigozhin is 100% not. Say what you want of Putin but deep down he still gives a shit about projecting certain images of control, law, etc -- he still values the opinion of certain international communities. He is still the leader of a government, not just a battalion or an army.

Prigozhin doesn't give a shit about any of that, he is a simple and ruthless warlord without any pretense of governance at all, who only understands force and who has no qualms about being open in his toxic ideologies.

I think it's extraordinarily unlikely Prigozhin actually accomplishes any of his own goals towards Russia because he isn't a politician and he's just a thug, but I also think it's equally unlikely Putin's Russia recovers from this. Wagner was Putin's pitbull. They were virtually the entirety of professional real soldiers Russia had under its command. No more pit bull changes things dramatically. We can easily expect a social "downgrade" of Russia's status as superpower in the eyes of other nations. That leaves some big doors open for China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and of course, the United States.

We may be on the cusp of a second break up of the USSR, further breaking Russia down into disparate nationstates. That possibility offers a lot of problems on its own. It's no longer a question of "rogue warlord gains control of russian nukes", now its "russian nukes don't exist, now those nukes belong to 15 new whatever-istan nations, each without any pre-existing relationships or treaties". That's scarier. Doubly so because in that big muck of former Russian states, Wagner could still be around in the middle of it with the biggest dick on the block. He'd predictably go Atilla, march through every one of them and conscript every dude over 16 to fight. And history tells us over and over just how those situations end: global-scale wars. Conqueror types never stop, they just keep conquering until they get stopped.

I have such mixed feelings. Happy that there is visible weakness in Putin's power, which could maybe lead to his eventual removal from power which would be amazing. Very frightening though that the ones replacing him might have the same goals as Putin, except this time, actually be competent at their jobs. That's a horrible outlook for Ukraine. Oh man......

Yeah, I fear you are right. Democratization hardly ever happens from within the system.

Yeaaaaaah unlikely in that culture.

Nice theory but it doesn’t hold up very well. Both Canada and Australia are enormous countries that are both well functioning democracies.

There are a number of great sources that describe the conditions for good democracies - and intolerance of corruption is a vital condition. That’s something that has never really been taken seriously in Russia, so in some ways it’s no surprise it’s come to this.

How about a republic or collective of smaller democracies? Similar to the EU, but with borscht, saunas and separate regional currencies, and one major shared currency, e.g. Ethereum, for cross country business exchange of goods.

Depends on whether they'll manage to get control of the nukes. They're likely stashed all around the nation, but the question is how difficult it would be to gain launch capability, since the existing infrastructure would likely not be usable by local militaries.

We're also talking about the potential suffering of millions of people.

The problem in my mind is that the big cities and the remote areas would likely become separate countries, so there'll be about a 100x difference in GDP per capita between the richest and poorest post-Russian nations.

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/24/1184166949/wagner-group-moscow-halting-march-russia

Screenshot

CNN also confirming: https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-06-24-23/h_fe043dd7a8f8d7b605cf6c9e2c27b2d7

See also BBC live updates https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-66006142

He is intentionally vague in his videos, but he has worked with the military in some capacity as a civilian before, and he still has a lot of contacts in the military. Mostly though, I personally trust him more than most because I've been watching him for years and he usually turns out to be correct. He's also pretty level headed and willing to admit what he doesn't know.

I've not done a deep dive into his background, since he's clearly been in journalism for a long time with the choice of tangents he goes off on and presumed questions he addresses. I needed only one video to know he was becoming part of my daily news diet. If he does not have a military background in some way, I would be surprised.

Putin hasn't done anything yet except flee to safety yet, he doesn't personally hold a gun in moscow to hold it as his own. A surrender would mean a civil war in wagner's favor. Currently not at that point of desperation but we are getting there. An interesting situatiuon nevertheless.

I haven't been able to figure out from any of the arti Lea I've seen.. What is it that Putin ended up giving to Prigozhin? What was Prigozhin asking for?

This feels like wrestling "Kayfabe." Like, was this just some weird feint by Russia? Try to bait Ukraine into doing something? This would be a new level of gaslighting if so...

So strange.

This has been months in the making. From what I can tell it's a mix of Russian incompitence in the war effort and the Kremlins attempts to control more of Wagner. I have no idea where this is going or what either side has in mind but it's definetly motivated by Wagner seeing the Kremlin itself as being the thing holding the war effort back.

Also didnt Lulashenko just jet over to Turkey?

Except that with the USSR falling the transition of power for Russia was a bit more peaceful than this seems like it could go since in 1991 Russia didn't have a complete power vacuum due to Boris Yeltsin was accepted as the legitimate leader of the succeeding Russian Federation. It's looking like the shit going on in Russia now makes the August coup attempt look like a peaceful misunderstanding

This ones different because we don't have a "smooth" transition of power to another government. This is the total collapse of Putin's autocratic government which he set up over 20 years of ruling. We had randos on twitter talk about how Wagner forces were talking over nukes. During the soviet collapse, Russia's military had complete control of it's nuclear arsenal. We get front row seats to the collapse, an analogy would be the train wreak in East Palestine whereas the World is the town and the train is Russia.

I see reports of them arriving at Lipetsk (430km from Moscow) just now, after conquering Voronezj (500km from Moscow) about 6 hours ago.

They've already taken Voronezh as well, some 500km from Moscow and have been reported to be advancing through the Lipetsk province, 350km south of Moscow.

Without opposition, that’s a day of travel.

Putin has already fled Moscow to another province and some top leadership have fled to Turkey. They are moving FAST into Moscow.

Nobody in their way to stop them, Russian's army is in Ukraine. If they continue like this Moscow will be put under siege by tomorrow.

There are reports of gunfire at half-way between Rostov and Moscow already. But yeah, I don't think they will manage to reach close to Moscow within a day https://nitter.net/igorsushko/status/1672434377425551361#m

They're already moving fast toward Moscow. They're saying they're in Voronezh already but fog of war means we don't know for sure for a while.

They're taking over Rustov because of a huge military supply there.

People attempting coups have historically called them noncoups.

It's down to branding. Prigozhin is framing this as a fight against the military leaders who have deceived Putin and caused him to make mistakes, but he does not blame Putin himself and is leaving room for Putin to change sides.

That framing aside, this is still a coup with the goal of overthrowing gov't leadership by force.

It's all word play, total information control and fog of war; by not attacking Putin directly, they avoid upsetting the Russians that still have total confidence in Putin and maintain that possibility that Wagner could still end up in alliance with Putin anyway, like with Chechens.

Attacking the military talking-heads however, doesn't risk anything, most Russians don't really trust the entire regime anyway, just Putin.

Once Wagner have more and more control of Russia, they can just go after Putin.

This is all speculation on my part tho.

"This is not a coup" is roughly akin to "I'm not a Nazi" ... you've brought up something outside daily norms to such an extent that you're engaging in framing.

If it's not a coup, it's going to get Prigizhin killed and Wagner disbanded. So I can't see it as much of anything else.

While that's true, those weapons are currently under the control of a fascist government and increasingly desperate despot, so I don't see how them being in the hands of mercs is any worse. At least you know what mercs are motivated by.

i'd honestly love to visit St. Petersburg if that happens

If he deposes Putin he could be a big headache for us all. There are already reports of Wagner seizing nuclear weapons facilities in Russia.

Interesting. So sounds like this could land anywhere from fizzling out to full-on coup, depending on still-unknown variables like the true state of Putin's support within his own ranks.

Question is, is it true?

Wagner opened fire on Russian forces. Shot down helicopters and apparently at least one transport plane. That's a lot for just playacting. No pretense would be needed to replace a general in wartime. It's a common occurrence throughout history, and Putin wouldn't need an excuse either way, since he answers to no one in the Russian government. As to the statement that neither Putin nor Prigozhin are stupid... Well this entire conflict has provided an enormous amount of evidence to the contrary.

It makes both Putin and Prigozhin look bad though. Would they go through this damage to their reputations and prospects just for that? And couldn't Putin just have fired those guys without going through some elaborate pantomime first?

I think this is legitimately the commander of the most elite force being fed up that his men are dying in a losing war and his recommendations falling on deaf ears. His "I need ammo" video from a few weeks ago certainly wasn't part of some grand masquerade either, the city's supply lines were just destroyed by Ukrainian artillery.

He's not demanding Putin out, he's demanding changes in military leadership to properly supply and command the war forces. He can't just leave the war at this point, so he had to do something drastic otherwise most of his forces will end up as casualties. It also gives him some setup to actually leave the war if his demands aren't met.

All of this "highly controlled" talk has gotten a little hyperbolic given recent events. I think there's serious reason to think Putin has an at least somewhat loose control of everything except the oligarchs and GRU. He absolutely has the wealth and kompromat that is claimed and there's no question he's had several oligarchs assassinated, but beyond that it appears his control and oversight is relatively weak. Probably because competent people are dangerous to give too much power to. Look at Prigozhin, he's far from being capable of knocking Putin down but he's still starting to make demands.

What happens when you give barely competent and corrupt people the majority of the military leadership roles? Ukraine - the best equipped troops were sent in first but the plan barely went beyond that and went completely tits up once those forces got wiped out. They keep outrunning the supply lines of what little they do have. Morale is in free fall.

I don't think Putin is close to getting ousted, but for the same reason Russia can't be more than a barely functional country. There just aren't enough competent people in powerful positions that he trusts/can control to run a country.

Russian vs Muscovy

yes

and then things got worse.

The same regime has been in power 24 years.

Russia pulled out of WW1 because the Bolsheviks successfully took power and didn’t want to fight. Let’s hope history repeats itself.

I don't think it would though - they have limited supplies and people, and if they take Russia they'll need all of that to keep it. Fighting a second war at the same time would be more costly than it's worth I think.

They're not used to running a country, either. That's a different skillset than their usual, so they may run into extra problems there.

It doesn't benefit them. They've lost tons of people and they're up against a determined adversary swimming in NATO firepower.

100% true. Putin will survive and will be forced to come to the negotiating table. The war in Ukraine will be over in a couple of months.

I guess I don't really care who wins as long as the war ends sooner, and no nukes are used.

Rushing can also do more damage than helping; it all depends on what is happening for sure.

However, it is a double-edge sword here. One is that they don't need to waste limited resources they have (ammo, humans, tanks, etc) on units that may be called back to Russia to help against the rebellion or join the rebellion.

Waiting for that means they'll fight against much smaller units and so on, which can protect Ukrainian's soldiers from getting killed as well. So, they should take this time to shore up their offensive, give them breaks, watch for new weaknesses to appear and so on.

Slow and steady can be much more effective than fast and fail.

Remember that many Ukrainians do not want to kill Russians, many of Russian soliders are still their brothers and sisters that were conscripted or forced into this.

Seems like a good time for them to be enquiring about Warner’s day-rates

Probably not quite yet - they'll want to give Russian units time to retreat from the frontline and intervene in Russia.

Pulls up for me