Prigozhin has announced the end of his siege and that Wagner is leaving. 🇷🇺 🏴☠️ Prigozhin says it's over: "They were going to dismantle PMC Wagner. We came out on 23 June to the March of Justice. In a day, we walked to nearly 200km away from Moscow. In this time, we did not spill a single drop of blood of our fighters. Now, the moment has come when blood may spill. That’s why, understanding the responsibility for spilling Russian blood on one of the sides, we are turning back our convoys and going back to field camps according to the plan."
There's no real proof of this. Some double agents died this way. An oppositionist was thrown out of a window by a fanatical Putin supporter, but he survived. The idea that Putin murders his opposition isn't really true. You realize that there are 15-20 million Russians who are dead set against this war, right? Why are they not all flying out of windows? Why are they not all in prison?
I saw a BBC reporter in downtown Moscow a while ago interviewing Russians. All of them were against the war, and not a few openly supported Ukraine and hoped it would win. None of them hid their faces. Nothing happened to any of those people. There are too many people like that.
Moscow is the centre of Atlanticist activity. It is not hard at all to find anti-Russian sentiment there. BBC knows where to go for its propaganda pieces.
Your forgot to mention editing. How many people did the Beeb actually speak to in Moscow? They just cherry-picked and stitched up together comments from the few people who still think that New York City or London are great places to be (because they've never been able to visit).
Yes and Saint Petersburg is just as bad. I am an advocate for moving the capital to Omsk. A beautiful city and wonderful people. The future is in the East.
I like your idea ! Though I would prefer Novosibirsk so when the Globalist scum come graveling for mercy they will do so while freezing their asses off
Novosibirsk is not bad, but Krasnoyarsk is less dry (it's considered a humid climate), a tiny bit less crazy temperature differences and it's closer to continental economic center of gravity (which is shifting closer and closer to Southeast Asia). There were more reasons why it was better, but I picked the main ones.
Irkutsk was also very good, but it had one gargantuan flaw - the Baikal. While you may argue that a big drinking water reservoir is beneficial (and it is), it's a showstopper.
I am not an environmentalist in any way, but I'd still never want to damage that one piece of water by building up a huge human population around it. It's far too precious (worth a nuke war over).
I'll get to the killing in a minute but first take note that Russians love chess...
I've never and still do not think this was a plan to topple Putin. Initially, I thought this was Putin's plan. Then I was just confused. In itself, my confusion should've been evidence of this being a pys-ops or false flag operation. So shame on me.
It was misdirection as the Art of War. Belarusian and Russian insurrectionists exposed, troops quickly redeployed, USA with a Prigozhin-smelling egg on its face.
Prigozhin is either going to be treated as a prince in Belarus, or he will be killed. But if he is a prince, he holds a secret that could get him killed anyway. If not, Putin still has work for him in Africa.
Whereas both countries are going to make epic and sickly sweet patriotic movies about this war, Prigozhin's already a 'star'. This was just the first movie made about him. Hopefully a documentary will be next.
A 'star' only in the West. A traitor is a traitor, and that's what Prig is--Occam's Razor is a much more useful analytical framework in this case than 3d chess. And if the Western take on the Skripals is to be believed, Russians have a long memory.
Really? Because right at the end of this "Embarrassing" event, where the State ostentaciously "prevented" a supposed coup, extremely confusing events for all concerned apparently even many participants, the State then holds a magnificent Gala and the whole Public swoon - as planned.
Is Prigo the fall guy, or the Well-Intentioned Fool?
In EVERY country, an intentioned assault by military forces in a "coup" will NOT be handled in this light manner. Bear in mind the extreme measures used against Trump's "Jan Coup" - EVEN THOUGH the FBI agents were in full control from beginning to end, and did all the instigating themselves!
The people that Prigozhyn REALLY embarrased, and why its all gone quiet, was Western Intel, Western regimes, and Western corporate media.
Not Russia. Not Russia at all. And that's why he's happy, and with a very serious new assignment, and tons of new equipment.
Putin's restraint and ability to do hard and cold calculations when needed are well-documented. Perhaps he is looking to maximize Prig's and Wagner's utility to the SMO while it's ongoing only to introduce Prig to the consequences of producing very bad optics for a country at war--but all in good time.
The parallel with J6 doesn't hold. Even if FBI bungled the spectacle side of the thing (no real violence by protesters etc), they achieved their goals by other means. Just ask the guys rotting in DC jails.
" And if the Western take on the Skripals is to be believed". Good grief, only indoctrinated consumers of western legacy State Dept supervised media could still believe the Skripals were poisoned by Russia and not by the UK's deep state itself. Just like all the red & blue maga dupes who believe with Biden that China's off-course weather balloon was a spy balloon. Occam Razor ??? LMAO
Hence "if." But I'll agree that the Scripals story makes little sense on any reasonable level. In the absence of further evidence (hardly forthcoming), even your interpretation is subject to doubt. Occam's Razor is an analytical approach that dictates that the simplest, most obvious explanation is usually the right one. I maintain that Prig, at the very least, embarrassed his country on his own volition at a very sensitive time, no Kremlin involved. This amounts to treason.
No disagreement on Prig. As for "further evidence" as to what exactly? There is NO evidence Russia perped it period full stop. The Swiss lab determined it wasn't even novochuk that allegedly poisoned them anyway. The hospital physicians who first treated them said it was an overdose. And the British authorities destroyed the crime scene! Occam's Razor dictates that the simplest, most obvious explanation is that UK did it, destroyed the evidence and disappeared the victims. Come on, wake the hell up.
One theory I saw was that their symptoms were congruent to VX poisoning, rather than Novichok. And that by a remarkable coincidence, to some extent the earlier VX prevented the full Novichok load when(if) they were sprayed by that for the "Russians did it Zomgz!" cover story.
You know it was the British Army's leading "Nerve gas specialist Nurse" who FOUND them in Salisbury?
What an absolute stroke of luck! :o
Total British State psop from beginning to end. I feel greatly sorry for his daughter. He was a Player who knew the risks, but the bastards should have kept her out of their scheme.
Perhaps she also "Knew too much" about whatever the "Offer he could not refuse" was that he refused beforehand.
I think Prigozhin was following a script. The Pro-Ukrainian statements? How do reconcile that with his previous actions and statements? I.e, Not taking any Ukrainian prisoners alive, the taunting of Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials. He is a showman and actor. He can be anything you want him to be.
In fact you are right: there is a fourth hypothesis, which Simplicius has not omitted in his text, but in his poll. By the way, I remain on the first one.
The guy was a pimp and a gangster in St. Petersburg. He got caught and did eight years in a Russian prison. He's still basically a criminal. Just look at him and how he acts. He's gangsta as Hell.
Making someone a star, as Prigozhin and Wagner were, gives them celebrity and cache with the people. If Prigozhin had been level-headed, all would have been well. The people would have had a military hero to cheer which helps raise civilian morale.
That's what many in the West do not get about the Russian psyche. Prig only got absolution for prior sins and got his 'celebrity' status because of what his did on behalf of/for the nation. The moment he turns on his country, that's gone and he's as good as you know what.
He's a war hero because of Bakhmut. Wagner is a must in Africa. Prigoshin is a friend of Putin. Maybe It's not yet clear whether the West is involved or if it is just a delirium : treason or madness ?
Putin has wanted to dump Shoigu and Gerasimov for sometime now. Contrary to what the Western media thinks, Putin does not rule Russia like Tiberius Augustus.
Even in war times, to remove your Chief of the General Staff and Minister of Defense is no small thing. You have to have cause. Prigozhin's rabid attacks diminishes both of them.
How deserving Gerasimov is to be sacked is debatable. The Kharkov debacle is squarely on him. To not even lay any mines is criminal negligence. In his interactions with Kadyrov during the time that Liman was lost, he came across as someone out of touch with the realities on the ground. He was telling Kadyrov the situation was under control. Three days later, Russia withdrew from Liman.
This whole event smells like it came from the CIA's "let's pretend it's 1961 and Russia is Zaire" playbook. This "coup" played out like the one in Turkey, but even more ridiculous.
the CIA today is even dumber than when they tried to take down Erdogan.
The CDC warns: Trying to topple Putin may drastically reduce your life expectancy and is considered almost as hazardous as having dirt on the Bidens and/or the Clintons.
Don't expect much from Georgetown grads who spent four years being taught that there are 600 genders and carbon dioxide is the most toxic substance on the planet.
Being a gutter crawling street fighting TX politician/having a capability for "nuance" didn't USED to be mutually exclusive attributes.
Shit, I blow stuff up for a living, shoveled a truckload of cow manure for entertainment purposes recently- and am not above stealing quotes from Oscar Wilde myself.
You may be correct about that bitchy LBJ quote- It's everywhere, yet I can't find an original source or attribution to any particular conversation, interview, letter, article...
I've submitted the question of origin to a few "fact checking" sites now.
I don't know how many, if any, on this thread are US citizens but how do we (I am a citizen) stuff the genie back in the bottle (The CIA was conceived and created to provide actionable info for the POTUS. But not long after putting it in the bottle it popped out into operations many of which were funded by dark money obtained with dark methods.
From what I've read the Ukrainians haven't been able to shoot down any Russian helicopters in many days. And yet Wagner shoots down 6, including a Ka-52, in less than 24 hours? I know that Wagner is good but not that good. Something isn't quite right.
All we've really seen is a lot of vehicles driving around and posing for photos. It reminds me of the brigades going to the rescue by racing around the moscow ring road.
On one hand, Wagner's AD is quite a lot better than the old Soviet gear and utter junk of NATO gear that rarely works that the AFU is stuck with, but on the other, the lack of video or photographic evidence is very suspicious.
The most in-the-know source in Russian Telegram about aviation is FB dude, who worked as combat helicopter pilot very recently and still have direct contacts. Also, he apparently now works as instructor or something
"FB dude" is a retired Su-34 fighter-bomber pilot. I don't know about the instructor, but since the war in Ukraine, he sends tons of useful stuff to the Russian Air Force, such as intsruments, first aid kits, fireproof jumpsuits and God knows what else, bought with a donation.
Yeah, I mixed him with another author, because he was writing a lot about helicopters lately, I rechecked, yeah he is fighter pilot (hence the nickname)
I saw Putin's speech a little differently. First off IIRC it was only broadcast on RT, not TASS or even RIA Novosti and Interfax. That implies a foreign audience was the target. Again, that's what I read somewhere so it might not be true. But if it is, I wasn't buying into the "mean Putin" or "mad Putin" act. Don't know quite why, but it seemed VERY uncharacteristic of him. And if he WAS really that mad (of course if everything we've been told so far is true he'd have every reason to be) how in the heck could Prigozhin be allowed to walk free and with a cool $47M US in his offshore bank accounts? (also raises the question on the sanctions he's under - would Switzerland facilitate this? I can't think of any banking centers not under the control of the US via SWIFT.)
And yeah like you said about the aircraft AND pilots/crew. No punishment at all for anyone? Or did they announce charges against some? I thought they had dropped any criminal proceedings.
All in all I agree /w you that this was a very fuckin' bizarre 24 hours! I'm not ruling out maskirovka yet either given the status of the war and the stakes in the game at this juncture!
What if this was all theater. What if Russia had just placed Prigozhin and his seasoned and successful army in Belarus with 50K previously placed Russian troops with tactical nukes within spitting distance of Kyiv? What if the USA/UK/EU decided to admit Ukraine into NATO and Russia (Putin) attacked Kyiv thereby saying "you can't. It's ours"? Kudos to Simlicius for his timely, accurate reporting and analysis. He has proven to be the go to place for accurate news.
I watched a video yesterday on YT by The Enforcer channel which showed a series of videos of the shoot-downs. I don't vouch for it but, here it is anyway...
Primary to the Samurai code: Do not attack your Master (Financier). He should perform Seppuku. Prig was Putin's chef and his advancement was Putin's choice. But there are others behind Prig, and its and international organization, and it has been infiltrated. Prig is a dead man walking.
Outstanding stuff, Simplicius. Thank you. If, as you speculate, Prigozhin was acting as an agent for the Western powers and seeking to overthrow Putin, then I do wonder how Putin can just leave him be? Perhaps, in Belarus, he will kept under tight control by Lukashenko? But, even then, he's still a loose cannon and, more significantly, a rallying point.
If he has sold out, then he can never be trusted again. Time to break out the polonium?
Either way, I can't imagine this was completely real despite some rather committed acting. I wonder what - assuming this was NOT a NATO sponsored coup attempt - NATO and the USkraine would stand to gain. Again if it's NOT such a thing and Russian and Wagner staged it, what would be the war implications for the Ukros? It's not like they took "advantage" of the situation and made inroads into Russian held territories. Man this is just insane.
Well, if Progozhin was NATO's guy, then the benefit of getting him or someone chosen by him into the top job is obvious. At that point, NATO wins without firing a shot. As for the Ukrainians, they may have been as taken aback as we were. Maybe they were all standing around, looking at each other and saying 'WTF?'
BUT. If Prig *was* NATO's guy, it's like "no harm no foul, we'll match any offer!" and that's it?! Everything Prig has said since the start of the SMO (prior to the translated statement I read earlier today where he supposedly questioned the SMO's righteousness in total) would lead me to believe that he's the exact opposite of a NATO asset and wants to let loose on Ukraine in order to level it. I really dunno, man. But I can't see Prigozhin succeeding in a coup like this and then suddenly turning over the reins to FUKUSNATO - or even opening talks with them.
I suppose at this point we're all speculating wildly. Maybe that's what they wanted.
Remember that crazy video he released saying that the Ukrainians had penetrated deep into Russian lines and Russia was on the verge of losing?
Sure it was crazy, but...Think about this! That video was probably pre-recorded for his coup-masters a couple of weeks before it was released, and he never bothered to change it. Then he told lies about the reasons for the war and said the Ukrainians had never fired on civilians one time in the Donbass.
Obviously those lines sound like they are scripted right out of the NATO narrative, right? I believe he may written those lines for his paymasters! I figure it was also basically a DOCUMENT OF SURRENDER to NATO.
He planned this out weeks in advance. He really thought the Ukrainians were going to push deep into Russian lines, and Russia would be on the ropes when this video was released. Then he could pull off his coup, and he thought he'd get enough support to literally become the new president. So it looks like this may have been a CIA/NATO coup plot all along.
Did you not notice, Novichok doesn't work very well, it only kills un-intended victims... or maybe it's just Porton Down's Novichok in the hands of MI5/6.
When the russian state wants someone dead, they will perish without much media attention. Like the oligarch family and other oligarchs shortly after the war started.
Everyone knows who killed the oligarchs, yet those deaths seemed to be flying under the media radar.
Every time some media attention comes up it's for some nobody who got poisoned "soap opera" style with "evident" russian connections. Russians dont need to send a message like that, it's ridiculous. Their "removals" are without some weird extra attention for the general public because everyone watching it knows anyway.
Btw, basically every government kills more or less overtly though many mechanisms, Russia isn't really outstanding in that regard.
Or somehow they grabbed a vial of BZ instead of novichok. Because organic damages from novichok class of agents are irreversible very quickly. Yet the Skripals "got better" somehow?
Skripal was an asset and assets are things to spend.
Just thought I would point out that Putin never poisoned anyone with polonium.
The former head of French intelligence said MI6 poisoned him with polonium to blame it on Russia. The Brits didn't like him either. Double agents have no friends!
Nobody ever got poisoned with Novichok. Nobody's ever been poisoned with it in a chemical warfare attack, and a chemical warfare dose kills anyone in contact with it or in the near proximity.
Those Skirpals would have been dead several times over if that was the real deal. Remember how the story kept changing every time you turned around? That's how you know you are dealing with a false flag or a fake story - it's always changing. Real stories don't change all the time like that.
The MI6 dosed the Skirpals (both double agents again) with BZ, a hallucinogen. Their initial symptoms resembled BZ poisoning. Their blood samples were shipped off for analysis, but the MI6 screwed up and sent it to a non-corrupt lab in Switzerland. They reported the presence of BZ in the blood.
Because they got the wrong answer (see how the story is changing?) the MI6 decided to ship off a new sample of blood. This time Porton Down put some Novichok in it (yes they have the stuff). It came back positive. However, the Novichok was completely "pure," lab-grade stuff, and the blood sample was three weeks old. The Novichok would have deteriorated and a chemical warfare dose of Novichok would have other things in it like all chemical war agents do.
The guy who invented Novichok said the Skirpals never got dosed. He said they'd be dead if they were.
The British then vanished the Skirpals, both very much alive, to an undisclosed location. The Skirpals had been yelling that they wanted to go back to Russia but the British refused to let them go. They were alive when last seen. They've since vanished off the face of the Earth. No one knows where they are or if they are alive or dead.
Navalny. No one quite knows what happened here. Remember how this story changed every time you turned around? First the Novichok was in his tea, then in his soft drink in the hotel room, then in his damned underwear! The doctors who saw him found no toxins in his blood. He raised a big fuss and demanded to be treated out of country for no good reason.
The Germans sent a plane and shipped him to Germany. He ended up at a hospital that is pretty much run by German intelligence. The doctors there claimed they found Novichok in his blood.
The Russians demanded the Germans send them the blood sample so they could look at it themselves. The Germans refused! Video was released of Navalny in the hospital, and the inventor of the drug said he could not be under the influence of Novichok. Even that long after the supposed dosing, he would still have pinpoint pupils even if he had only been given 1/300th of a lethal dose.
Then there's a leaked phone call hacked by Belarus where a member of the German government is telling his Estonian colleague that the whole thing was a fake. There never was any Novichok in his blood. You can even go listen to that tape.
He had a case of ongoing pancreatitis and is a known drinker. He was on meds, which was not disclosed to the doctors in hospital by his own doctor who was there personally.
The guys in Omsk hospital correctly diagnosed him anyway (and actually probably saved his life).
Doctors in Germany who treated him after he got there, revealed that Omsk sent them their results even before Navalny got to Germany and their own tests confirmed it.
They were gag ordered soon after and we never heard anything from them afterwards.
Navalny wasn't poisoned and the entire thing was not intentional. He is just completely crazy when it comes to taking care of himself. And that almost killed him.
Wow! And that was just a couple of days. Now I understand why Russian novels are so long and convoluted! Russian family life is like this too. Tolstoy documented this very well.
Meantime, thanks for the updates! And a heads-up to US & others - whoever Vladimir Putin is, he is not who you think of him as. So you'll keep misreading him. Not good.
Question, have you ever read the book “In Search of Enemies” (1978) by John Stockwell? He was a career CIA officer who got disillusioned in the aftermath of Vietnam and the Angolan Civil War and resigned.
He wrote the book as a tell-all expose. It’s a great read and a great insight into the CIA of yesterday, and I assume, today.
infighting is never good! hard to know what was going on here.. fog of war... i think prigozhin shares some characteristics with donald trump... thanks so much for this update!
Andrei Martyanov chimes in, after speaking with his contacts in Russia. He warns AGAINST relying on Telegram channels for info. He also advises that a large sum of money was found when the Wagner headquarters was raided. His video here: https://youtu.be/0rpi3ibN0o4
I don't see it that way personally, Andrei is a great source of information just be aware of his biases and adjust accordingly. Another great source of info is, say, CNN, if you are able to apply a conceptual filter to the content. Chomsky wrote many great books using this principle, though of course he has his own biases too.
You might write 'better at' than 'is'. And you could be more careful judging informants (and not just any informant) out of hand: you're in the position of having to demonstrate the full set of accusations you're making in one sentence, just to be credible.
I don't have to demonstrate anything it's just my opinion. But anyone who follows his pods should be now realize his predictions are crap, though I think as Russia irons-out their inefficiency his technical knowledge will become more accurate.
I know no one who's predictions are accurate! Even when I make one I dont trust myself the minute after! My opinion is that Martyanov is one of the (numerous) really deep geopolitical commentators. You can just reveal weakness of people, no problem, but you generalize an insult as if it was a valid argument, and I tell it to you. By the way, you did it once again by writing 'anyone' instead of 'some'!
We can move to examples if generalizations aren't your thing, Martyanov often paints the NATO countries with a too broad brush and gets caught up in military-industrial inefficiency. True there is plenty of wasted dollars, but there is more where that came from. Expensive results are still results and Ukraine has gotten results.
He also has a weird habit of looking at people's college education and then dismissing them off hand. You could get an art history degree and still be an effective manager and delegate the correct people to tasks. It's not necessary for everyone to have mathematics degrees, just the right people in the right positions. And yes, I would say that anyone can understand this
I appreciate your examples, which may seem relevant to me because you don't make them affective (a constructive judgment of fact rather than a destructive pejoration of value). This is precisely because generalization, even universalization, is my thing! So I'll read Martyanov with your interesting remarks in mind. I'll have grown up reading you rather than getting pissed off. And your credibility will be enhanced.
Money doesn't mean anything. When the KGB wants to discredit someone, the first thing they find is some money. A lot of money. In boxes, crates, cars...
KGB split up at the end of the Soviet Union. Domestically it is now the FSB. But the point is that one can use your determination of anything that you don’t wish to believe. Did the FBI put all those files on Hunter’s laptop? Did the cops plant drugs when they find some? Who knows? Sometimes the find is legitimate, and sometimes not. However, this entire scenario with Prigozhin smells of him being bought by MI6 etc. ???
It was 5 billion rubles ($60 million USD), packed in boxes in a truck parked in Wagner's HQ in St. Petersburg. Prighozin said later that this was for paying Wagner salaries.
If you compare them to Chechens + L/DPR in Mariupol for example, Wagner did incredibly badly as a unit.
And that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Many wagnerites are convicts who are not trained properly (but were conscripts, so they are not completely bad) and many of them are career criminals who avoided conscription (so they're utter crap). Very much like Prigozhin himself. He wasn't conscripted because he was in jail.
The entire wagner organization is just cannon fodder. You don't storm cities with your best troops and losing convicts is easier to sell politically than sending in regular troops.
But inevitably, these stormtroopers suffer greater losses.
I’ll be interested to see how this finally shakes out in the coming days. If things are to be taken at face value Putin must make some sort of action in his time. I doubt he forgets.
I must applaud the scriptwriters for this unexpected twist. Now that would be an idea for a comments gimmick - reviewing real-life events as new films or series episode.
Prigozhin's Gambit is the latest installment of the Ukraine-Russia drama that has been near the top of the ratings since February 2022. Involving a sudden apparent betrayal by the fiery Wagner leader, the writers may have taken this liberty both to heighten the climax of the counteroffensive and provide a window into the enigmatic Russia for worldbuilding purposes. English-subtitled watchers without the same level of language immersion and social context that comes with living from the area will be pleased to have this segue into the interior, in order to help demystify the nation. To do this, it falls back on classic tropes - a charismatic leader challenging the embattled and controversial war leaders of his nation, perhaps in a bid for power over not only the military, but also the nation. This familiar story skeleton will certainly help bring in foreign eyes, a simple story arc that allows the writers to both show the interior of a side that normally gets little coverage and get around the limitations of subtites.
The arc itself promises to be quite entertaining, particularly in dealing with the fallout. We eagerly await the next installment.
And this is one reason I stopped reading fiction and watching the idiot box 30 years ago; real life geopolitics is way more intriguing. And it helps one escape the matrix (as much as is possible) as an added bonus.
I am skeptical. Nuland is already a well-used character with an obvious angle, and cross-dressing is already played-out. The SMO Show's central conceit runs on a sort of will they or won't they - an eternal push and pull that keeps the viewers hooked. Perhaps we shall find a US/UK contact among Lukashenko's people, or there will be a tearing out root and branch on the home front.
Analysis and projection are fine, but true projection is pointless - we should just watch the show as it unfolds, in my opinion.
I agree. Nothing he did or said helped Russia, exactly the opposite. And he is clearly lying.
Your speed is amazing !
Putin's opponents have usually taken flight .... like, through 6th story windows.
We all get soft in our old age I guess.
Nah, now they just taken flight to next friendliest ally, reside in UK.
There's no real proof of this. Some double agents died this way. An oppositionist was thrown out of a window by a fanatical Putin supporter, but he survived. The idea that Putin murders his opposition isn't really true. You realize that there are 15-20 million Russians who are dead set against this war, right? Why are they not all flying out of windows? Why are they not all in prison?
I saw a BBC reporter in downtown Moscow a while ago interviewing Russians. All of them were against the war, and not a few openly supported Ukraine and hoped it would win. None of them hid their faces. Nothing happened to any of those people. There are too many people like that.
Moscow is the centre of Atlanticist activity. It is not hard at all to find anti-Russian sentiment there. BBC knows where to go for its propaganda pieces.
Your forgot to mention editing. How many people did the Beeb actually speak to in Moscow? They just cherry-picked and stitched up together comments from the few people who still think that New York City or London are great places to be (because they've never been able to visit).
I'm willing to acknowledge that. However, I've heard from others that downtown Moscow is a hotbed of liberalism. Downtown St. Petersburg is similar.
Yes and Saint Petersburg is just as bad. I am an advocate for moving the capital to Omsk. A beautiful city and wonderful people. The future is in the East.
Krasnoyarsk is geographically the best alternative
I like your idea ! Though I would prefer Novosibirsk so when the Globalist scum come graveling for mercy they will do so while freezing their asses off
I once did a short study on the subject.
Novosibirsk is not bad, but Krasnoyarsk is less dry (it's considered a humid climate), a tiny bit less crazy temperature differences and it's closer to continental economic center of gravity (which is shifting closer and closer to Southeast Asia). There were more reasons why it was better, but I picked the main ones.
Irkutsk was also very good, but it had one gargantuan flaw - the Baikal. While you may argue that a big drinking water reservoir is beneficial (and it is), it's a showstopper.
I am not an environmentalist in any way, but I'd still never want to damage that one piece of water by building up a huge human population around it. It's far too precious (worth a nuke war over).
Yekaterinburg is the libtard atlanticist center in Russia. It's worse than St Petersburg or Moscow.
If Putin was Mao Zedong or Stalin they would have all either starved to death or committed suicide by shooting themselves in the back of their head.
I'll get to the killing in a minute but first take note that Russians love chess...
I've never and still do not think this was a plan to topple Putin. Initially, I thought this was Putin's plan. Then I was just confused. In itself, my confusion should've been evidence of this being a pys-ops or false flag operation. So shame on me.
It was misdirection as the Art of War. Belarusian and Russian insurrectionists exposed, troops quickly redeployed, USA with a Prigozhin-smelling egg on its face.
Prigozhin is either going to be treated as a prince in Belarus, or he will be killed. But if he is a prince, he holds a secret that could get him killed anyway. If not, Putin still has work for him in Africa.
Whereas both countries are going to make epic and sickly sweet patriotic movies about this war, Prigozhin's already a 'star'. This was just the first movie made about him. Hopefully a documentary will be next.
A 'star' only in the West. A traitor is a traitor, and that's what Prig is--Occam's Razor is a much more useful analytical framework in this case than 3d chess. And if the Western take on the Skripals is to be believed, Russians have a long memory.
It took one day to make him a villain, and a week to re-edjust that he was "Following Orders on a Vital Exercise".
Prig embarrassed his country, period, and at a very sensitive time, no less. The announcements that followed were damage control.
Really? Because right at the end of this "Embarrassing" event, where the State ostentaciously "prevented" a supposed coup, extremely confusing events for all concerned apparently even many participants, the State then holds a magnificent Gala and the whole Public swoon - as planned.
Is Prigo the fall guy, or the Well-Intentioned Fool?
In EVERY country, an intentioned assault by military forces in a "coup" will NOT be handled in this light manner. Bear in mind the extreme measures used against Trump's "Jan Coup" - EVEN THOUGH the FBI agents were in full control from beginning to end, and did all the instigating themselves!
The people that Prigozhyn REALLY embarrased, and why its all gone quiet, was Western Intel, Western regimes, and Western corporate media.
Not Russia. Not Russia at all. And that's why he's happy, and with a very serious new assignment, and tons of new equipment.
Putin's restraint and ability to do hard and cold calculations when needed are well-documented. Perhaps he is looking to maximize Prig's and Wagner's utility to the SMO while it's ongoing only to introduce Prig to the consequences of producing very bad optics for a country at war--but all in good time.
The parallel with J6 doesn't hold. Even if FBI bungled the spectacle side of the thing (no real violence by protesters etc), they achieved their goals by other means. Just ask the guys rotting in DC jails.
" And if the Western take on the Skripals is to be believed". Good grief, only indoctrinated consumers of western legacy State Dept supervised media could still believe the Skripals were poisoned by Russia and not by the UK's deep state itself. Just like all the red & blue maga dupes who believe with Biden that China's off-course weather balloon was a spy balloon. Occam Razor ??? LMAO
Hence "if." But I'll agree that the Scripals story makes little sense on any reasonable level. In the absence of further evidence (hardly forthcoming), even your interpretation is subject to doubt. Occam's Razor is an analytical approach that dictates that the simplest, most obvious explanation is usually the right one. I maintain that Prig, at the very least, embarrassed his country on his own volition at a very sensitive time, no Kremlin involved. This amounts to treason.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/03/pure-ten-points-i-just-cant-believe-about-the-official-skripal-narrative/
https://anti-empire.com/buying-the-official-skripal-poisoning-story-requires-believing-40-absurd-or-implausible-claims-at-the-same-time/
No disagreement on Prig. As for "further evidence" as to what exactly? There is NO evidence Russia perped it period full stop. The Swiss lab determined it wasn't even novochuk that allegedly poisoned them anyway. The hospital physicians who first treated them said it was an overdose. And the British authorities destroyed the crime scene! Occam's Razor dictates that the simplest, most obvious explanation is that UK did it, destroyed the evidence and disappeared the victims. Come on, wake the hell up.
One theory I saw was that their symptoms were congruent to VX poisoning, rather than Novichok. And that by a remarkable coincidence, to some extent the earlier VX prevented the full Novichok load when(if) they were sprayed by that for the "Russians did it Zomgz!" cover story.
You know it was the British Army's leading "Nerve gas specialist Nurse" who FOUND them in Salisbury?
What an absolute stroke of luck! :o
Total British State psop from beginning to end. I feel greatly sorry for his daughter. He was a Player who knew the risks, but the bastards should have kept her out of their scheme.
Perhaps she also "Knew too much" about whatever the "Offer he could not refuse" was that he refused beforehand.
I think Prigozhin was following a script. The Pro-Ukrainian statements? How do reconcile that with his previous actions and statements? I.e, Not taking any Ukrainian prisoners alive, the taunting of Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials. He is a showman and actor. He can be anything you want him to be.
In fact you are right: there is a fourth hypothesis, which Simplicius has not omitted in his text, but in his poll. By the way, I remain on the first one.
They're playing chess = we're still playing TicTacToe.....
My problem with Prigozhin from the beginning is his neglect of the first rule of command: you never complain to lower ranks. You only complain upward.
Another such behavior was don't the enemy quarter by publicly quarreling with your comrades in arms.
My question is, while I am not on the Kremlin's email list, why did Putin put up with him for thos long?
Necessity?
Prigozhin was the marketer, not the military commander as I understand it...
The guy was a pimp and a gangster in St. Petersburg. He got caught and did eight years in a Russian prison. He's still basically a criminal. Just look at him and how he acts. He's gangsta as Hell.
it would explain why Benjamine Fulford's intel contacts say Wagner is doing child trafficking for profit at Bakmut.
Making someone a star, as Prigozhin and Wagner were, gives them celebrity and cache with the people. If Prigozhin had been level-headed, all would have been well. The people would have had a military hero to cheer which helps raise civilian morale.
That's what many in the West do not get about the Russian psyche. Prig only got absolution for prior sins and got his 'celebrity' status because of what his did on behalf of/for the nation. The moment he turns on his country, that's gone and he's as good as you know what.
He's a war hero because of Bakhmut. Wagner is a must in Africa. Prigoshin is a friend of Putin. Maybe It's not yet clear whether the West is involved or if it is just a delirium : treason or madness ?
Putin has wanted to dump Shoigu and Gerasimov for sometime now. Contrary to what the Western media thinks, Putin does not rule Russia like Tiberius Augustus.
Even in war times, to remove your Chief of the General Staff and Minister of Defense is no small thing. You have to have cause. Prigozhin's rabid attacks diminishes both of them.
How deserving Gerasimov is to be sacked is debatable. The Kharkov debacle is squarely on him. To not even lay any mines is criminal negligence. In his interactions with Kadyrov during the time that Liman was lost, he came across as someone out of touch with the realities on the ground. He was telling Kadyrov the situation was under control. Three days later, Russia withdrew from Liman.
Thanks for your comment.
2 things come to mind.
Never change a horse in mid stream.
Never judge the field from afar.
Interesting.
"Permit me to be immodest, but I did something for this country"
- Alexander Lukashenko
Luka is a real giga chad.
He is da man...but Putin's giving him tactical nukes, which isn't nothing...
It inflates his chadness even bigger....hhhh
This whole event smells like it came from the CIA's "let's pretend it's 1961 and Russia is Zaire" playbook. This "coup" played out like the one in Turkey, but even more ridiculous.
the CIA today is even dumber than when they tried to take down Erdogan.
I fear that you are exactly right...and now Putin really knows who his friends are....
If that is in fact the case, letting Prigozhin go into exile and giving him any kind of official function in Byelorus is risky in the extreme.
Maybe but without the Wagner group he's nobody
He's now a lightning rod for all kinds of discontent with the war and the government.
That's probably why Prigozhin was allowed to shoot his mouth off so much in the first place.
The CDC warns: Trying to topple Putin may drastically reduce your life expectancy and is considered almost as hazardous as having dirt on the Bidens and/or the Clintons.
Don't expect much from Georgetown grads who spent four years being taught that there are 600 genders and carbon dioxide is the most toxic substance on the planet.
@Watchingtheweasels
LBJ quote:
"The CIA is made up of boys whose families sent them to Princeton but wouldn't let them into the family brokerage business"
That is a funny quote. I question whether LBJ said it though. It is so nuanced and he was such a thug.
Being a gutter crawling street fighting TX politician/having a capability for "nuance" didn't USED to be mutually exclusive attributes.
Shit, I blow stuff up for a living, shoveled a truckload of cow manure for entertainment purposes recently- and am not above stealing quotes from Oscar Wilde myself.
.
@ JWG Primary
You may be correct about that bitchy LBJ quote- It's everywhere, yet I can't find an original source or attribution to any particular conversation, interview, letter, article...
I've submitted the question of origin to a few "fact checking" sites now.
I don't know how many, if any, on this thread are US citizens but how do we (I am a citizen) stuff the genie back in the bottle (The CIA was conceived and created to provide actionable info for the POTUS. But not long after putting it in the bottle it popped out into operations many of which were funded by dark money obtained with dark methods.
cia works for the 4th reich. Operation paperclip ss nazis took over USSA and killed JFK, and suppressed Eisenhower. Why he warned about MIC.
Forgive? Chance zero.
Forgive after death, that's it, no enemy after death, as Orthodox says.
old Afghan saying "...there are no good men among the living, no bad among the dead."
idea for a future post: a basic primer on intra-Kremlin politics for normies.
Who are in each faction? Who are "frenemies" of Putin? Who are sympathetic to oligarchs? Are there still any Atlanticists left? etc.
What a totally BIZARRE 24 hrs.
I can't believe Priggy is just going to go free? No repercussions. I don't think Putin is that stupid
He looked pretty angry in his address to Russia earlier today.
I see US/UK fingerprints all over this.
I suppose when the dust settles the truth might emerge.
The most grievous part to me is the reports of 7 aircraft and crews lost.
Andrei Martyanov in his patron video only mentioned one helicopter.
Thank you for your great reporting and analysis.
What a day!!
And, if I may, 3 were the high tech ew version ones.. A bad damage in a really crazy day.
There is something not adding up about these aircraft. Again Martyanov only stipulated one helicopter.
He has been in contact w friends and colleagues in Russia all day. He did several Russian language videos as well.
Exactly. Where's the video of even 3 aircraft being shot down? Simplicius only got his hand on the one where the helicopter managed to dodge the SAMs.
From what I've read the Ukrainians haven't been able to shoot down any Russian helicopters in many days. And yet Wagner shoots down 6, including a Ka-52, in less than 24 hours? I know that Wagner is good but not that good. Something isn't quite right.
All we've really seen is a lot of vehicles driving around and posing for photos. It reminds me of the brigades going to the rescue by racing around the moscow ring road.
Yep photo ops.
On one hand, Wagner's AD is quite a lot better than the old Soviet gear and utter junk of NATO gear that rarely works that the AFU is stuck with, but on the other, the lack of video or photographic evidence is very suspicious.
The most in-the-know source in Russian Telegram about aviation is FB dude, who worked as combat helicopter pilot very recently and still have direct contacts. Also, he apparently now works as instructor or something
His data at 19:23 (7 aircrafts)
https://t.me/fighter_bomber/12898
Casualties (13 pilots)
https://t.me/fighter_bomber/12903
"FB dude" is a retired Su-34 fighter-bomber pilot. I don't know about the instructor, but since the war in Ukraine, he sends tons of useful stuff to the Russian Air Force, such as intsruments, first aid kits, fireproof jumpsuits and God knows what else, bought with a donation.
Yeah, I mixed him with another author, because he was writing a lot about helicopters lately, I rechecked, yeah he is fighter pilot (hence the nickname)
I saw Putin's speech a little differently. First off IIRC it was only broadcast on RT, not TASS or even RIA Novosti and Interfax. That implies a foreign audience was the target. Again, that's what I read somewhere so it might not be true. But if it is, I wasn't buying into the "mean Putin" or "mad Putin" act. Don't know quite why, but it seemed VERY uncharacteristic of him. And if he WAS really that mad (of course if everything we've been told so far is true he'd have every reason to be) how in the heck could Prigozhin be allowed to walk free and with a cool $47M US in his offshore bank accounts? (also raises the question on the sanctions he's under - would Switzerland facilitate this? I can't think of any banking centers not under the control of the US via SWIFT.)
And yeah like you said about the aircraft AND pilots/crew. No punishment at all for anyone? Or did they announce charges against some? I thought they had dropped any criminal proceedings.
All in all I agree /w you that this was a very fuckin' bizarre 24 hours! I'm not ruling out maskirovka yet either given the status of the war and the stakes in the game at this juncture!
What if this was all theater. What if Russia had just placed Prigozhin and his seasoned and successful army in Belarus with 50K previously placed Russian troops with tactical nukes within spitting distance of Kyiv? What if the USA/UK/EU decided to admit Ukraine into NATO and Russia (Putin) attacked Kyiv thereby saying "you can't. It's ours"? Kudos to Simlicius for his timely, accurate reporting and analysis. He has proven to be the go to place for accurate news.
For children of the west perhaps these lines from [Bridge to Truckin' by the Greatful Dead] may be more approachable than Tyutchev.
"Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me
Other times I can barely see
Lately it occurs to me
What a long, strange trip it's been"
or to borrow a line from the character Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz: "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."
Hah! Precisely.
I watched a video yesterday on YT by The Enforcer channel which showed a series of videos of the shoot-downs. I don't vouch for it but, here it is anyway...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Bygt6CPAU
Wow.
I read on telegram 12 dead... And for what? Such a shame😠
None of this makes Russia look good. When casting about for allies, you don't want to look as though your government could be couped any day.
Primary to the Samurai code: Do not attack your Master (Financier). He should perform Seppuku. Prig was Putin's chef and his advancement was Putin's choice. But there are others behind Prig, and its and international organization, and it has been infiltrated. Prig is a dead man walking.
Outstanding stuff, Simplicius. Thank you. If, as you speculate, Prigozhin was acting as an agent for the Western powers and seeking to overthrow Putin, then I do wonder how Putin can just leave him be? Perhaps, in Belarus, he will kept under tight control by Lukashenko? But, even then, he's still a loose cannon and, more significantly, a rallying point.
If he has sold out, then he can never be trusted again. Time to break out the polonium?
Or novichok?
Either way, I can't imagine this was completely real despite some rather committed acting. I wonder what - assuming this was NOT a NATO sponsored coup attempt - NATO and the USkraine would stand to gain. Again if it's NOT such a thing and Russian and Wagner staged it, what would be the war implications for the Ukros? It's not like they took "advantage" of the situation and made inroads into Russian held territories. Man this is just insane.
Well, if Progozhin was NATO's guy, then the benefit of getting him or someone chosen by him into the top job is obvious. At that point, NATO wins without firing a shot. As for the Ukrainians, they may have been as taken aback as we were. Maybe they were all standing around, looking at each other and saying 'WTF?'
BUT. If Prig *was* NATO's guy, it's like "no harm no foul, we'll match any offer!" and that's it?! Everything Prig has said since the start of the SMO (prior to the translated statement I read earlier today where he supposedly questioned the SMO's righteousness in total) would lead me to believe that he's the exact opposite of a NATO asset and wants to let loose on Ukraine in order to level it. I really dunno, man. But I can't see Prigozhin succeeding in a coup like this and then suddenly turning over the reins to FUKUSNATO - or even opening talks with them.
I suppose at this point we're all speculating wildly. Maybe that's what they wanted.
Remember that crazy video he released saying that the Ukrainians had penetrated deep into Russian lines and Russia was on the verge of losing?
Sure it was crazy, but...Think about this! That video was probably pre-recorded for his coup-masters a couple of weeks before it was released, and he never bothered to change it. Then he told lies about the reasons for the war and said the Ukrainians had never fired on civilians one time in the Donbass.
Obviously those lines sound like they are scripted right out of the NATO narrative, right? I believe he may written those lines for his paymasters! I figure it was also basically a DOCUMENT OF SURRENDER to NATO.
He planned this out weeks in advance. He really thought the Ukrainians were going to push deep into Russian lines, and Russia would be on the ropes when this video was released. Then he could pull off his coup, and he thought he'd get enough support to literally become the new president. So it looks like this may have been a CIA/NATO coup plot all along.
Did you not notice, Novichok doesn't work very well, it only kills un-intended victims... or maybe it's just Porton Down's Novichok in the hands of MI5/6.
LOL, yes. Pooty-Poot is absolutely terrible at poisoning people, isn't he?
When the russian state wants someone dead, they will perish without much media attention. Like the oligarch family and other oligarchs shortly after the war started.
Everyone knows who killed the oligarchs, yet those deaths seemed to be flying under the media radar.
Every time some media attention comes up it's for some nobody who got poisoned "soap opera" style with "evident" russian connections. Russians dont need to send a message like that, it's ridiculous. Their "removals" are without some weird extra attention for the general public because everyone watching it knows anyway.
Btw, basically every government kills more or less overtly though many mechanisms, Russia isn't really outstanding in that regard.
You really think those oligarchs got killed by the Russian state? I'd like to see some evidence for that.
I don't have any, but they were leaving Russia shortly before.
Obviously circumstantial, but who did it then?
They seemingly felt safer outside russia and then got all shot, maybe before spilling some beans?
All conjuncture obviously and impossible to go through any court - almost as if it was done by a smart actor.
Or somehow they grabbed a vial of BZ instead of novichok. Because organic damages from novichok class of agents are irreversible very quickly. Yet the Skripals "got better" somehow?
Skripal was an asset and assets are things to spend.
Just thought I would point out that Putin never poisoned anyone with polonium.
The former head of French intelligence said MI6 poisoned him with polonium to blame it on Russia. The Brits didn't like him either. Double agents have no friends!
Nobody ever got poisoned with Novichok. Nobody's ever been poisoned with it in a chemical warfare attack, and a chemical warfare dose kills anyone in contact with it or in the near proximity.
Those Skirpals would have been dead several times over if that was the real deal. Remember how the story kept changing every time you turned around? That's how you know you are dealing with a false flag or a fake story - it's always changing. Real stories don't change all the time like that.
The MI6 dosed the Skirpals (both double agents again) with BZ, a hallucinogen. Their initial symptoms resembled BZ poisoning. Their blood samples were shipped off for analysis, but the MI6 screwed up and sent it to a non-corrupt lab in Switzerland. They reported the presence of BZ in the blood.
Because they got the wrong answer (see how the story is changing?) the MI6 decided to ship off a new sample of blood. This time Porton Down put some Novichok in it (yes they have the stuff). It came back positive. However, the Novichok was completely "pure," lab-grade stuff, and the blood sample was three weeks old. The Novichok would have deteriorated and a chemical warfare dose of Novichok would have other things in it like all chemical war agents do.
The guy who invented Novichok said the Skirpals never got dosed. He said they'd be dead if they were.
The British then vanished the Skirpals, both very much alive, to an undisclosed location. The Skirpals had been yelling that they wanted to go back to Russia but the British refused to let them go. They were alive when last seen. They've since vanished off the face of the Earth. No one knows where they are or if they are alive or dead.
Navalny. No one quite knows what happened here. Remember how this story changed every time you turned around? First the Novichok was in his tea, then in his soft drink in the hotel room, then in his damned underwear! The doctors who saw him found no toxins in his blood. He raised a big fuss and demanded to be treated out of country for no good reason.
The Germans sent a plane and shipped him to Germany. He ended up at a hospital that is pretty much run by German intelligence. The doctors there claimed they found Novichok in his blood.
The Russians demanded the Germans send them the blood sample so they could look at it themselves. The Germans refused! Video was released of Navalny in the hospital, and the inventor of the drug said he could not be under the influence of Novichok. Even that long after the supposed dosing, he would still have pinpoint pupils even if he had only been given 1/300th of a lethal dose.
Then there's a leaked phone call hacked by Belarus where a member of the German government is telling his Estonian colleague that the whole thing was a fake. There never was any Novichok in his blood. You can even go listen to that tape.
BTW, Navalny poisoning.
He had a case of ongoing pancreatitis and is a known drinker. He was on meds, which was not disclosed to the doctors in hospital by his own doctor who was there personally.
The guys in Omsk hospital correctly diagnosed him anyway (and actually probably saved his life).
Doctors in Germany who treated him after he got there, revealed that Omsk sent them their results even before Navalny got to Germany and their own tests confirmed it.
They were gag ordered soon after and we never heard anything from them afterwards.
Navalny wasn't poisoned and the entire thing was not intentional. He is just completely crazy when it comes to taking care of himself. And that almost killed him.
Wow! And that was just a couple of days. Now I understand why Russian novels are so long and convoluted! Russian family life is like this too. Tolstoy documented this very well.
Meantime, thanks for the updates! And a heads-up to US & others - whoever Vladimir Putin is, he is not who you think of him as. So you'll keep misreading him. Not good.
Great article, Simplicius.
Question, have you ever read the book “In Search of Enemies” (1978) by John Stockwell? He was a career CIA officer who got disillusioned in the aftermath of Vietnam and the Angolan Civil War and resigned.
He wrote the book as a tell-all expose. It’s a great read and a great insight into the CIA of yesterday, and I assume, today.
Keep up the good work!
Overthrow by Strephan Kinzer is good too, similar theme
infighting is never good! hard to know what was going on here.. fog of war... i think prigozhin shares some characteristics with donald trump... thanks so much for this update!
Andrei Martyanov chimes in, after speaking with his contacts in Russia. He warns AGAINST relying on Telegram channels for info. He also advises that a large sum of money was found when the Wagner headquarters was raided. His video here: https://youtu.be/0rpi3ibN0o4
Money, fake passports and a big pile of cocaine, apparently. Who knows?
MI666 ??
Andrei is only good at technical details of weapons systems, whatever his contacts feed him it's just propaganda.
So just WHERE do you get actual facts? Would be interested to find ‘better sources’.
I don't see it that way personally, Andrei is a great source of information just be aware of his biases and adjust accordingly. Another great source of info is, say, CNN, if you are able to apply a conceptual filter to the content. Chomsky wrote many great books using this principle, though of course he has his own biases too.
LOL….I don’t think it is humanly possible to apply that ‘conceptual filter’ to CNN.
You might write 'better at' than 'is'. And you could be more careful judging informants (and not just any informant) out of hand: you're in the position of having to demonstrate the full set of accusations you're making in one sentence, just to be credible.
I don't have to demonstrate anything it's just my opinion. But anyone who follows his pods should be now realize his predictions are crap, though I think as Russia irons-out their inefficiency his technical knowledge will become more accurate.
I know no one who's predictions are accurate! Even when I make one I dont trust myself the minute after! My opinion is that Martyanov is one of the (numerous) really deep geopolitical commentators. You can just reveal weakness of people, no problem, but you generalize an insult as if it was a valid argument, and I tell it to you. By the way, you did it once again by writing 'anyone' instead of 'some'!
We can move to examples if generalizations aren't your thing, Martyanov often paints the NATO countries with a too broad brush and gets caught up in military-industrial inefficiency. True there is plenty of wasted dollars, but there is more where that came from. Expensive results are still results and Ukraine has gotten results.
He also has a weird habit of looking at people's college education and then dismissing them off hand. You could get an art history degree and still be an effective manager and delegate the correct people to tasks. It's not necessary for everyone to have mathematics degrees, just the right people in the right positions. And yes, I would say that anyone can understand this
I appreciate your examples, which may seem relevant to me because you don't make them affective (a constructive judgment of fact rather than a destructive pejoration of value). This is precisely because generalization, even universalization, is my thing! So I'll read Martyanov with your interesting remarks in mind. I'll have grown up reading you rather than getting pissed off. And your credibility will be enhanced.
Money doesn't mean anything. When the KGB wants to discredit someone, the first thing they find is some money. A lot of money. In boxes, crates, cars...
KGB split up at the end of the Soviet Union. Domestically it is now the FSB. But the point is that one can use your determination of anything that you don’t wish to believe. Did the FBI put all those files on Hunter’s laptop? Did the cops plant drugs when they find some? Who knows? Sometimes the find is legitimate, and sometimes not. However, this entire scenario with Prigozhin smells of him being bought by MI6 etc. ???
It was 5 billion rubles ($60 million USD), packed in boxes in a truck parked in Wagner's HQ in St. Petersburg. Prighozin said later that this was for paying Wagner salaries.
Perhaps so. I suspect, however, that he wouldn’t advise that this was a payoff from MI6, if, indeed, that is the case.
A bribe in rubles wouldn't be of as much value if the goal of said bribe was to destabilize the government whose central bank issues that money.
Interesting that Martyanov says Wagner didn't do very well in Bakhmut....
Because they in fact didn't.
If you compare them to Chechens + L/DPR in Mariupol for example, Wagner did incredibly badly as a unit.
And that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Many wagnerites are convicts who are not trained properly (but were conscripts, so they are not completely bad) and many of them are career criminals who avoided conscription (so they're utter crap). Very much like Prigozhin himself. He wasn't conscripted because he was in jail.
The entire wagner organization is just cannon fodder. You don't storm cities with your best troops and losing convicts is easier to sell politically than sending in regular troops.
But inevitably, these stormtroopers suffer greater losses.
Difference of opinion. Someone else replying to this article said the Chechens were rubbish, just Tik-Tok soldiers he said.
You can argue that Chechens were rubbish and it might be true, but wagnerites were objectively worse.
One does not rule out the other.
Oh dear.
I’ll be interested to see how this finally shakes out in the coming days. If things are to be taken at face value Putin must make some sort of action in his time. I doubt he forgets.
As usual, the response is always Asymmetrical.
If things are taken at face value Prig would have missiles raining down on him by now.
Maybe. We'll see how things develop. I would doubt he's going to need to worry about making reservations in a senior living center.
I must applaud the scriptwriters for this unexpected twist. Now that would be an idea for a comments gimmick - reviewing real-life events as new films or series episode.
Prigozhin's Gambit is the latest installment of the Ukraine-Russia drama that has been near the top of the ratings since February 2022. Involving a sudden apparent betrayal by the fiery Wagner leader, the writers may have taken this liberty both to heighten the climax of the counteroffensive and provide a window into the enigmatic Russia for worldbuilding purposes. English-subtitled watchers without the same level of language immersion and social context that comes with living from the area will be pleased to have this segue into the interior, in order to help demystify the nation. To do this, it falls back on classic tropes - a charismatic leader challenging the embattled and controversial war leaders of his nation, perhaps in a bid for power over not only the military, but also the nation. This familiar story skeleton will certainly help bring in foreign eyes, a simple story arc that allows the writers to both show the interior of a side that normally gets little coverage and get around the limitations of subtites.
The arc itself promises to be quite entertaining, particularly in dealing with the fallout. We eagerly await the next installment.
Insert Putin popcorn meme here
Yeah, this needs to become a thing.
I can't wait to try to translate the SITREPs. That'll be interesting.
And this is one reason I stopped reading fiction and watching the idiot box 30 years ago; real life geopolitics is way more intriguing. And it helps one escape the matrix (as much as is possible) as an added bonus.
I'm hoping for a more robust fanfiction community in the historical space. We need our historical figure crack pairings!
You are FAR closer to reality than most, perhaps ironically.
Perhaps not.
Either way, well done.
Meanwhile, in the next episode : Prigozhin is caught by Russian media mid-tryst, leaving his not-so-"secret" compound with Victoria Nuland in drag...
I am skeptical. Nuland is already a well-used character with an obvious angle, and cross-dressing is already played-out. The SMO Show's central conceit runs on a sort of will they or won't they - an eternal push and pull that keeps the viewers hooked. Perhaps we shall find a US/UK contact among Lukashenko's people, or there will be a tearing out root and branch on the home front.
Analysis and projection are fine, but true projection is pointless - we should just watch the show as it unfolds, in my opinion.
That would require a truly Oscar-worthy performance.