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Weekly megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - June 22
This thread is posted weekly on Thursday - please try to post relevant content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Especially significant updates may warrant a separate topic, but most should be posted here.
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This morning, a video from Prigozhin, the founder and leader of the Russian PMC Wagner, was published and has been translated in parts here: 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Essentially, he’s blaming the start of the war on both ‘officials within the administration’ who were seeking to continue to plunder Ukraine, as they had since 2014, and on Shoigu (the Russian Minister of Defense), who he accuses of seeking glory. While Prigozhin’s beef with the MoD has been rumbling for a half year or longer at this point, I think this is the most openly anti-Putin he’s been. He’s trying to establish some distance of his criticism of the war’s initial goals (by blaming unnamed officials and oligarchs) with that of Putin, but I’m not sure he’ll be successful. This definitely breaks the mold from the previous criticisms which were mostly aimed at the Ministry of Defense but spared Putin directly, exemplifying the 'Good Tsar, Bad Boyars' attitude popular in Russia.
Now, there are reports about the MoD preparing to detain Wagner soldiers and Prigozhin is claiming a Russian missile strike was carried out on a Wagner camp.
More from Prigozhin: "This is not a military coup, it's a march of justice."
It'll be interesting to see if this is all manufactured (for what goal?) or if it's an actual culmination of the PMC-MoD conflict. If you have to add a 'not a coup' disclaimer...
One of my extreme edge case scenario explanations is that this is all theater and will establish an excuse for Russia to pull out of Ukraine without admitting defeat.
Yea it’s somewhat plausible, even if Prigozhin were to succeed, that this is the what they go with. I don’t think, that this is Putin manufacturing a way to withdraw from the war — there are far better options that don’t involve making him look weak and out of control.
Risky move staging a fake coup when the grievances mentioned are all too real.
Fake coups have been staged before though in other dictatorships. Leadership can 'crush' an uprising, deter others that were thinking of taking power, and even remove / jail individuals that are problematic to their regime.
I can't see it being fake in this case because there are only a few ways this ends for the Prigozhin:
failed coup, get killed in the coup or put on trial
Successful coup, installs himself as leader
Successful coup, installs a crony as leader but gets killed later on because the guy who leads coups is dangerous and you don't keep them around
Prigozhin now saying he’s crossed back into Russia with a bunch of armoured vehicles
US intelligence thinks Wagner may be heading to Moscow. Armoured vehicles have been deployed in the streets of Moscow.
Worth noting there is no footage of a mobilized Wagner column yet, despite claims. It’s uncertain how much, if any, support Prigozhin has.
I don't see how Prigozhin gets out of this one, but he does have 25k competent mercenaries, and most of the Russian army is in Ukraine. I legitimately don't know where this goes.
It appears he’s all-in at this point. He’s either dead or in jail in a week, or in charge. I think we’ll know which is more likely in the next 24 hours. They’ve brought out the previously Wagner-sympathetic generals to make statements disavowing him already, so it’s hard to say what level of support he has outside Wagner.
It seems he's in control of Rostov. I'm not actually sure what to think. This isn't a small thing.
Yea it's wild how quickly it has progressed in just one night.
Here's a translated version of the meeting between Prigozhin and Deputy Defense Minister Yevkurov. Fascinating stuff. I'm not sure why they'd agree to meet him on camera like this when he's basically just humiliating them.
Also, I'm wondering if there's still an offramp for Prigozhin if they're willing to negotiate like this. You don't usually put out an arrest warrant for armed insurrection and then have a nice little sit down, so who knows what's going on.
He might've forced it. This makes it look like he's in full control of the city.
Can there be an off ramp after something like this? I guess if Putin has to decide between civil war or a coup, and giving him an off ramp, he'd go for the latter. But Prigozhin must know that if he compromises and at any point loses control of Wagner, he's a dead man.
RIA Novosti on Telegram:
And here:
Wagner is apparently surrounding the Southern Military District HW in Rostov.
The Institute for the Study of War has very comprehensive coverage on the state of the conflict, and interactive maps.
https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1671773945698107393
Bridge connecting the shortest route from Crimea to Melitopol hit.
More coverage:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65982817
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/22/russia-accuses-ukraine-uk-missiles-strike-bridge-to-crimea
A lot of politicians are going the route of "I just want people to stop dying" instead of picking a side. How could that be possible? What agreement would both sides agree to? What would be the middle ground here? Unless Russia decides to take the extreme loss here, I don't see an agreement reached.
If you ask me, "I just want people to stop dying" basically just means "I want Ukraine to surrender". It's a position that is either (a) morally completely reprehensible or (b) completely divorced from reality. I can only imagine that many of those advancing this position fall into the latter category, refusing to entertain reason, because of a dogmatic rejection of violence.
At the risk of repeating the obvious, here's the problem, boiled down to (mostly) first principles:
So either these people haven't realized that option one will only happen by forcing Russia, or they demand something that is in my book completely unacceptable. There is no informed stance of "not picking a side" here; for people to "just stop dying", one side has to stop fighting. Either Ukraine needs to surrender to total violence, or a warmonger that we have no control over needs to cease his ambitions. The former is unconscionable, the latter is wishful thinking.
So Ukraine isn't willing to cede territory. Russia isn't either, unless Putin is forced to seriously reprioritize survival over ambition, or Putin is deposed. So neither side is willing to cede territory in order to restore peace. Which means, the only option for a middle ground would be to cease hostilities without moving the current de-facto border. But this is again unacceptable to both sides: Ukraine, because it effectively legitimizes Russian territorial control. And Russia, because it undermines their claimed annexation of Oblasts they don't fully control, and because Putin's ambitions get in the way. This war could probably end tomorrow, if Putin changed his mind.
ETA: As the war goes on, both sides' expectations of a peace agreement could diminish, because they're just less interested in further bloodshed. In such a case, there could be enough common ground for a peace agreement. However, waiting until both sides are sufficiently beaten up to be willing to call it quits hardly qualifies as "people just stop dying".
Also it is certain that if Ukraine would cede its territories, in few years this will repeat. Russia absolutely needs Ukraine for its plans to rebuild USSR and become a superpower once again.
Exactly. Russia taking over Ukraine will end with mass genocide. They are fighting for their lives.
I 100% agree with what you mentioned. I get not wanting people to die, but in this war it's not realistic. It's like, are you actually just asking Ukraine to surrender their territory back to Russia? Sorry to say but that is impossible. The only actual outcome I see from this is Ukraine takes back their territory no matter the cost. I believe Ukraine will eventually go on the offensive in the country of Russia in order to gain back their territory of Ukraine. Unfortunately, I think Russia is going to lose the war, and hurt for years to come.
I believe Brazil is one of those countries. Historically, the violence in their past has primed their population to despise armed conflict in any form. If I remember correctly, they see all armed conflict as the greatest tragedy, the greatest failure of diplomacy. Where the logical thing would be to support Ukraine to protect its people from unnecessary aggression, there would be a massive amount of backlash, and the current Brazil administration is doing all it can to keep someone like Bolsonaro from winning the next election by seeming like warmongers to a highly war-averse population. They are weighing the future cost of helping Ukraine if it causes Brazil to fall further into corruption, fascism, and hardship come the next election cycle. Lula's enemies want any opportunity to paint him as a bloodthirsty puppet of the west, and his hands are tied.
At least this is how my Brazilian friend explained it to me.
A recent interesting video on this from a Danish military analyst and retired Lt. Cmdr (I think). He makes a couple points, but essentially after the annexation Russia considers the four Ukrainian Oblasts part of Russia, so any negotiation would see them requiring full control of that area. With today's lines that would mean Ukraine giving up more territory to Russia which is absurd.
My guess is that the most likely scenario for peace is that all offensive operations fail and both sides decide it's not worth trying yet again, so they agree to a cease-fire. Sort of like Korea.
I don't know how many failures there will have to be before that happens, though.
For there to be a real peace treaty (instead of just a cease-fire), I think Russia would have to accept Ukraine joining NATO as part of the deal. They don't have any actual power to stop it, and Ukraine wouldn't expect the peace to last otherwise. So, removing any roadblocks to Ukraine joining NATO seems like part of the road to peace?
"I just want people to stop dying" could mean all sorts of things depending on context. It might be purely an expression of frustration, a generic anti-war statement, a way to avoid saying anything, or someone advocating that their country should remain neutral.
Here's a charitable way to interpret it: are there any ways to keep more people from dying while the war continues? I don't mean attempting to kill people on the other side deliberately. It's often the case that people die for stupid and avoidable reasons, with no strategic result.
Unfortunately it's also a talking point of pro-Russia trolls who then point to Russian propaganda sources as evidence that tye aggression is basically the fault of Ukraine.
That, too. Context is everything.
To be fair, I don't think NATO membership is essential to Ukraine. Russia has a much weaker position to contest EU membership, and EU membership too comes with security guarantees. Uncle Sam would be sorely missed in the fight, but I always wanted to test whether Lithuania coming to Ukraine's aid in an EU intervention, and getting pushed back onto their own territory would trigger NATO's Article 5. From NATO's perspective, if you ignore that Ukriane exists, you could argue that Lithuania is the aggressor. However, Lithuania would also be also in a war of collective self-defense. I don't think the US are going to sit idly by. Regardless of that -and I'd be very interested in the international law angle of this-, the deterrence effect of having Ukraine be a part of the EU should be sufficient.
NATO membership could thus IMO be useful in negotiations. It's a realistic maximum demand that Ukraine can enter negotiations with, and then drop it in exchange for something they want.
A solution that I don't believe I've heard yet is to make Crimea into an independent nation that's owned by neither Ukraine or Russia, though probably already been suggested. It's not really fair to Ukraine though and Russia would surely take advantage of that independence to just try to take it over through "democratic" electioneering. There would likely need to be some sort of stipulations that it would never join with Russia, somehow restrict trade with Russia, and probably also require that Russia disarm along its entire border with Ukraine. However, I doubt any of that would be palatable to either Russia or Ukraine, so here we are.
Putin addressing the nation now
Livestream if you speak Russian
Wow. So far he's Called Prigozhin a liar, Wagner a criminal enterprise, and described the situation as a mortal threat to Russian statehood.
Edit: Speech is over, I'm going to bed but I'm sure a subtitled version is forthcoming. This is a real coup attempt.
Looks like the Wagnerites are halfway towards Moscow. https://liveuamap.com/
Uncomfirmed reports of them moving without much resistance.
I would worry how this plays out in the medium-long term, but immediately this has only got to be good for Ukraine, right? "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity" after all.
Prigo has been giving mixed signals. On one hand, the justification for the invasion was a lie and on the other hand saying operations within Ukraine wont be affected while the coup is happening.
Considering Putin's statements above I don't think it's looking like Prigozhin will kick out Shoigu and make himself MoD under Putin.
If Prigozhin takes over completely, I think we have a non-zero chance that this war could actually end. He's been somewhat outspoken against it, afaict, so him ordering a retreat from Ukraine, he could actually survive this one. Putin wouldn't, as he's responsible, but Prigozhin could -with some propaganda help- conceivably pull it off. Sure there's be a lot of angry soldiers and their moms, but that anger could be deflected at Putin. After all, everything Prigozhin did by ordering the retreat is save the remaining soldiers. He just has to make sure he appears as sufficiently strong, I guess. Maybe squeeze some concessions out of Kyiv. No reparations; normalization of trade with the west; keeping crimea, or at least a base in Sewastopol. He's gotta get something to show for all the dead; or at least it'd help greatly.
Then again, Wagner is a bloodthirsty group, and it might well be that Prigozhin will continue the war.
There's also the problem of Prigozhin's that he might have to fortify his rule first, before he can make any kind of sweeping changes at all. Possible avenues: Leave the solders at the front and continue the fight, because angry soldiers are an unpredictable element. Best to keep them far away. OR: Get the soldiers home and convince them to join your side. Not unreasonable either; he's saved them from the front line, and purging loyalists of the old regime that doomed your comrades seems like a more pleasant and more gratifying prospect than getting shelled in a trench. Obligatory reference to the rules for rulers. A coup is a complex operation. I wonder whether Prigozhin is acting here from a position of preparedness, knowing where all the important people and institutions are; or whether he's had to move fast without fully preparing.
I’m a little torn on this. Yea, Prigozhin has somewhat indicated he’d scale back or call off the invasion. But his main gripe that has earned him his support is that the invasion is being poorly run and Russia isn’t doing enough to pursue victory. If Prigozhin succeeds, to what level will he need the support of the hardliners who want mass mobilization and use of tactical nuclear weapons?
I’m kinda 50/50 if his actions would lean towards flipping Russia into a state of total war, or ending the invasion
Fully agreed, though I'd give it worse odds I think.
‘Traitors must be shot’: Vladimir Putin’s truce with Wagner teeters on edge
Perhaps we haven't seen the end of this saga.
Denmark to start the training of Ukrainian pilots on F-16s
AP – 26th June 2023