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President Vladimir Putin calls armed rebellion by mercenary chief a betrayal, and promises to defend Russia
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- Title
- Russian mercenary chief who called for rebellion confirms he and his troops reached city in Russia
- Published
- Jun 24 2023
- Word count
- 114 words
Not sure what else he could have said, I suppose. Other than to resign, which I don't think was/is likely.
Checking the news in the morning is going to be interesting. So much could happen in the next few hours.
When I first heard of it after waking up, 2 hours ago, I kind of expected Prigozhin to replace Shoigu, becoming Putin's second-in-command. Based mostly on two pieces of info: Prigo was supposedly groomed by Putin as a possible successor; and Prigozhin's fight was mostly with the MoD, not with Putin himself. How you sell that to the people, I don't know, but Russian media has told bolder lies than what you need to justify this move. Additionally, Putin could've potentially used this as an off ramp. Have Prigozhin paint Shoigu and the higher-ups in the MoD as traitors who withheld crucial info from Putin, thus leading into this war. Basically, if an honest person had been in charge of the MoD, Putin would've had the intel to know this would go badly, but Shoigu and his warmongers lied to Putin; Putin is now doing what is necessary to protect his solders, and orders an immediate retreat from Ukraine. It's out there, but not completely impossible.
Now that seems impossible, with Putin clarifying what he thinks of Prigozhin.
Wagner hadn't criticized Putin, which gave him an out in the coup, and gave him the ability to end the issue by giving Wagner some concessions and publicly announcing that the army had overstepped. Putin's comment puts him soundly against Wagner, which undermines their legitimacy (and their odds of succeeding in this coup) and incentivizes them to overthrow him outright.
If Wagner had solid odds of success, then Putin would be potentially signing his own death warrant with this statement, and the best thing Putin could do would be to stay silent and loudly support the winner once a winner became clear.
Its not unheard of for rebels to say that they are loyal to the King, and are just rebelling against evil ministers, only to kill the King as soon as they get the chance.
Well they had no choice. The king had been corrupted by the ministers and also this random cousin had a better claim anyway.
It's not unheard of, but it doesn't always happen.
From what I understand, Wagner is moving towards Moscow. I have a flight in an hour, by the time I land Russia could be under new leadership. And I don’t know if I want this other guy in charge. Who is the lesser evil, Putin or Prigozhin? Crazy.
Realisticly, could this be a potential outcome? And even if so, would it necessarily be a good thing? I don't know enough about soviet politics to begin making a prediction about how this will turn out, but it seems chaotic, in the truest sense of the word.
As an aside, this event has also illustrated for me just how far Twitter has fallen. I mean, it was never the BBC or anything, but usually a pretty good bulletin board of moment to moment / on-the-ground updates. Now it's just a sluice of the most deranged shit imaginable. Completely unusable.
I learned about this on Lemmy, and users posted enough links to get me up to speed. I don't recall any tweets being posted. If that tells you anything.
Re the situation itself, in the short run Russian forces and Wagner fighting benefits Ukraine. In the medium run, I'm reading that it might turn out to be a civil war. I'm no Kremlinologist but it looks like Wagner might end the war with Ukraine based on what Prigozhin has reportedly said about Ukraine.
ETA: I just read this in the NYT: "Mr. Prigozhin, a St. Petersburg restaurateur who leveraged his personal connections with Mr. Putin into lucrative government contracts, gained international prominence after his online “troll factory” interfered in the 2016 American presidential election — and after his Wagner fighters were deployed in Syria and across Africa as a shadow force believed to be fighting for Kremlin interests."
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/23/world/europe/russia-prigozhin-putin-war-ukraine.html
So he's not a friend of the US (as far as we know, things can change).
At the moment people don't really care who is lesser evil among them. People outside of Russia just hope infighting starts for good so both sides will bleed each other which would be the most beneficial for Ukraine, Europe and the world.
I just hope whoever wins, isn’t willing to use nukes, even if it’s on Russian territory for some false flag operation. I also hope some nukes don’t go missing. I doubt the integrity of the Russian military and I wonder if NATO or the UN would get involved. Chaos and nuclear weapons do not mix well.
I'm going to guess that Prigozhin won't continue the invasion of Ukraine. So, at least there's that.
They absolutely will resume the campaign. It's a matter of honor. The necessary condition for Russia leaving Ukraine alone (for a while) is a civil war that will take them some time and energy.
A matter of honor for Putin sure, since he personally gave the order and can't back out, but I'm not sure the same applies to him.
No, sadly it is a matter of honour for anyone ruling Russia to maintain the land gains. As soon as the country starts shrinking (e.g. losing eastern Ukraine or Crimea), it will be considered a sign of weakness and will undermine their position at home.
There might be a brief pause if Prigozhin wins, while he consolidates his power, but then they'll be back.
Russia is not a western country. Do not try to analyze it as such.
If the Russians leave Ukraine for even a small amount of time then Ukraine can consolidate it's territory, establish new defensive positions near the border, and potentially even sign a mutual defense pact with the United States.
Obviously Hungary and Turkey would stop them from getting into NATO, but the US alone can more than deter Russia.
It was a matter of honour for Putin. He is the one who wanted to leave behind him the legacy of having restored Mother Russia to its former glory.
But Prigozhin and his army are literally mercenaries. They're just in it for the money.
Sorry, but in reality Prigozhin is a militant nationalist and definitely not in it just for the money.
Prigozhin explicitly said the military operation wasn't worth it. Interpret it however you will.
I think that's maybe a little too ambitious or optimistic at the moment, but we'll see.
This is probably the most nerve-racking day news-wise since January 6th 2022.
(1) The Jan 6th thing was 2021. Unless they tried again on the anniversary, idk.
(2) IMO you're forgetting when the Ukraine war started on 2022-02-24. At least from my personal European view, that was significantly more nerve-racking than either Jan 6th or today.
But yes. It's one of those few days where news is hectic, chaotic but also impactful. To think the most widespread news event of the week thus far is a 5-person submersible missing ... it seems so irrelevant now.
Dwarfing the hundreds of migrants drowned off the coast of Greece...
Lotsa people dying these days.
Ah! Of course it was 2021, misremembering dates after the 2020 election.
The Ukraine war started in 2014 in Crimea. In February last year, there'd been news regarding the coming attack for months. With the build-up of soldiers for an "exercise", but clear imagery of supplies for way, way longer than that, the upcoming invasion had been spoken about in detail for several weeks.
Then, knowing the history of Putin attacking during Olympics (Georgia in 2008, Crimea 2014 etc.) the timing close to the Beijing Games in 2022 was expected.
Ukraine had dug in for years since 2014. The only expectation was a protracted conflict for months at least.
Today and on the 6th of January, who knew what would happen. To me that's much more scary.
Personally, I experienced the invasion in February as much more volatile than Jan 6th. Jan 6th, I kinda didn't give that one any serious chances. That was never going to fly, was it?
Feb 24 though... well, it was telegraphed for months. But while I didn't give it much chances of actually succeeding with the 3-day attempt... the range of outcomes included "successful decapitation strike, taking over complete country, and a occupation regime that is more contested than Iraq and Afghanistan combined." Particularly in the first 3 days or so, the situation was extremely volatile. Nevermind that we weren't sure the day before whether any fighting at all would happen, or whether Putin would just use the threat to squeeze concessions out of Ukraine. Particularly the first day was filled with a lot of confusion as to whether Ukraine would mount an effective defense at all.
This one, on the other hand... Russia isn't going to become a democracy. We're maybe exchanging one dictator for another. The range of outcomes here isn't tooooooo wide. Best case, Prigozhin ends the war in Ukraine, but I kinda think that's merely a remote possiblity.
Again, might be a stark difference in US vs EU perception of events.
I was working at the Pentagon on the day on Jan 6th. The absolute look of horror, confusion, and fear I saw in the senior officers faces as it was going down is something I'll never forget.
For a short moment, they had no idea which way this thing was going to blow, and that terrified me because they were the ones that were in charge. Jan 6th was a complete shock to the upper brass in the military, and no one knew how to handle it as it was the President inciting the potential coup.
In the moment, and being so close to it, Jan 6th was absolutely frightening for what could have happened to my country and the world.
It's definitely a US vs EU thing I think. Jan 6 was extremely nerve-wracking while it was happening -- there weren't much chances of them succeeding at making Trump president imo, but there was absolutely a chance of them finding and shooting Democrat congresspeople and/or Pence. There was a lot of waiting to see if everyone would get out okay. By comparison, the war beginning felt very sudden to me -- a shock, but I wasn't constantly checking for real-time updates in the same way.
Well, from my perspective the buildup was pretty slow. Though tbf, the same can be said about Trump's election fraud claim. But on the morning on the 24th after I first read the news, it was basically nonstop refreshing every source I could find.
I think it depends on how loyal Wagner Group's fighters are to Prigozhin. They're mercenaries, so I wouldn't expect much at all, but also from what I've read, Wagner Group is more or less an "independent" front for the GRU (Russia's CIA), a military force to give Russia's military plausible deniability that they weren't involved, so I would also expect them to ultimately be loyal to the government.
While I'm hopeful this stirs up chaos behind Russia's lines and gives Ukraine enough of an edge to help, something tells me this ultimately won't end up being more than a distraction. I don't know that Wagner Group is going to make it all the way to Moscow before Prigozhin gets taken out, either by one of his own or by Russia. Potentially, with all of Russia's forces focused on Ukraine, there's an opening he can take advantage of with his 25,000 troops, but are they really willing to go up against their own in a potential civil war?
There's no doubt Wagner doesn't have a chance against the Russian military. But Prigozhin would know that too.
So he's either desperate — e.g. he got word that he was about to be arrested or fall out a window — or there's a larger, GRU-backed play here against Putin and the FSB and we'll see military units joining Prigozhin.
They seem to actually be making some headway towards Moscow, currently only a few hours away, depending on how much resistance they actually face. There's been reports of civilian forces just standing aside and letting them pass or whole military units actually defecting. Apparently Chechen forces are approaching Wagner near Rostov, presumably to launch a counter-attack. Putin and the leadership have left Moscow for St. Petersburg, which isn't a good look.
Regardless of who wins, Prigozhin or Putin, it could still provide a moment for Ukraine to capitalize on and help with their counter-offensive. I doubt the war would just end overnight, but I'd love to be proven wrong. It's going to be an interesting day apparently.
Apparently Putin's plane tracker turned off near Tver.
The really interesting angle here is that the air force isn't bombing Wagner. Prigozhin seems to have secured more support than I'd initially thought.
Part of me almost thinks that this whole coup thing was just for show, that there was some other reason behind this whole thing that there was an understanding between Putin and Prigozhin, but that still doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me because of how weak it made Putin and Russia look. The whole thing just seems super weird and I hope I live to see an explanation of what really happened today.
Is there any fighting at all? Prigozhin said it's just a march and I don't believe a single word he says about anything, but both sides could just be playing it safe for now.
There's been a few firefights, several helicopters shot down, and several (but nowhere near the number you'd expect) airstrikes on Wagner columns and the cities they occupy.
Also the Chechens are right outside Rostov and intend to retake the city for Russia, but as of yet I don't think they've started shooting.
Also the Wagner troops are ~2 hours outside of Moscow, so presumably they're going to run into some resistance soon. Or who knows maybe they'll just walk into the city unopposed, they took Rostov like that.
Allegedly the helicopter crews initially refused so the downed helicopters were flown by senior officers.
If true, I don’t think that bodes well for Putin’s level of support, which you’d think would be highest in the VKD.
But to my understanding of the situation, isn't him and his troops between Moscow and most of the Russian military? If they're strung out along the border of Ukraine, who's standing in his way? Rosgvardia may be "military" but they're more like peacekeeping cops than soldiers and unlikely to be able to stop what was reported to be as high as 25k Wagner troops. Once he has Moscow, all the dynamics change.
Video of Prigozhin in the Kremlin would definitely change everything. And the Russian military doesn't know how to assault a city without destroying it.
The really interesting thing is that the road to Moscow remains open and his advance isn't being bombed — unless the air force is sitting on the sidelines waiting to see how this plays out.
Prigozhin doesn't need to fight his way through the Russian military if the Russian troops he runs into decide to either stand aside or join the cause.
There's been no large scale fighting between Prigozhin and MoD forces so far, with the possible exception of something happening in Rostov as I type this, just a few firefights, airstrikes, and AA batteries shooting down aircraft. Whenever the main strength of Wagner and rebelling MoD forces run into opposition, until now that opposition has folded without a fight.
Also keep in mind that Wagner troops are 2 hours from Moscow according to Igor Girkin, are possibly in the process of trying to seize nuclear weapons outside of Voronezh (I can't find a good source for this), and are potentially minutes away from contact with the Chechens outside of Rostov.
Things could go pretty much anywhere from here depending on how things play out in those 3 locations over the next few hours. If the Wagnerites fail to get nukes, and repulsed around Moscow, and the Chechens storm Rostov then the rebellion is done. On the other hand, if the Chechens refuse to fight/defect/are defeated, nuclear weapons are seized near Voronezh, and the troops around Moscow fail to resist in the same way that the troops in Rostov did, then its Putin's government that is finished.
And... it was pretty anticlimactic. I wish I could've been a fly on the wall for that phone call that ended the whole thing. Something almost historic happened today, within the span of something like 24 hours, a group of mercenaries very nearly took the capital of a world power. What's been told to the public, that Prigozhin will just move out to Belarus and all charges will be dropped against Wagnerites, I feel like there's something that's not been said in the whole thing. Somebody had a bargaining chip or somebody wanted something or it was just supposed to be a message being sent or there was some kind of ulterior motive to the whole thing, I feel like we didn't get the whole story here. I'm still scratching my head like, "WTF happened today?"
Bold to assume that mercenary force that largely consists of criminals care about "their own".
Interestingly though for those convicts the Kremlin's promise of freedom-if-you-fight was probably always a little doubtful but here's an opportunity to make sure it happens.
I see people cheering etc and I fully understand, if anything is is probably the hope that we all need and will undoubtedly stall Russia's campaign in Ukraine if it is even remotely successful. The widespread belief that Russias army is incompetent and disloyal is definitely going to be tested now because on paper putting down Wagner and their 25k conscripted convicts should be a simple task.
Looking forward though I can't see good things since I doubt Russia is going to come out of this a better place, the best hope is that it is disabled to the point of not being able to cause so much strife outside of its borders.
Tim Mak just dropped a news flash update and for those wanting to get up to speed after waking up, his substack is great: https://open.substack.com/pub/counteroffensive/p/newsflash-russia-wracked-by-rebellion?r=2cxesn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Has anyone found reports on what Ukraine’s military is doing while this is happening? I’ve seen some jokes about military leaders eating popcorn while excitedly reading the news, but I’m assuming they’re also taking advantage of the distraction. Make hay while the sun is shining, right?
I'm going to say we're probably not going to be able to suss that out for a few days. Ukraine has been relatively good about OpSec, holding footage back at least a fair bit, until it is no news to Russia either. This seems especially important now, considering the confusion in Russian forces is probably off the charts right about now.
And then there's the issue that the usual channels for these news are thoroughly flooded with the coup. So not only is there low signal, there's high noise.
But I think it's safe to say that hay is probably being made right now. Letting this opportunity pass you by as a commander should be criminal negligence.
Yeah, I've just seen this clip on Twitter.
It's surreal and kinda scary at the same time.
I've seen a few reports about offensives in the South and around Bakhmut, which should surprise nobody since they've been launching offensives in those areas every day for the past couple weeks.
However I haven't seen any news about the Russian line collapsing, they're undoubtedly losing territory its just a question of how much.
While normally I perceive anything from Russia as “in bad faith”, the lack of loud commentary from the UK, US and Ukraine speak volumes.
“When the enemy is committing a mistake, do not interrupt them.” comes to mind.
With my conspiracy theory hat on, momentarily, what are the chances the west can fund these guys to depose Putin?
It’s literally the playbook for South American disruption to stage coups etc. after all, and the west have readily aided Ukraine, could they funnel some of that to an offensive coup?
This would be f*ing terrifyingly dangerous. Backed into a corner, I have few doubts that Putin would order the Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility destroyed as a warning to the West if there was direct interference with his regime. Nevermind the blowback to Russian territory, Putin's willingness to see others' blood spilled has shown little limit.
Nukes just change the risk picture incalculably, and it's got my neurotic End-of-the-World worry itch going.
I would really hope we don't do that. This is a group that has been committing crimes against humanity at best--potentially actual genocide-- around the world. Putin could theoretically be the "good guy" here (even if he's an unstable megalomaniac who presents a danger to the world.
Or at least the lesser-of-two-evils guy.
Yes, that is why I used the quotes and made sure to mention how awful he is even if I didn't actually explicitly use the word "evil" (which he is).
Those chances are very high. I even thought that there is a plane waiting for the glorious rebel to be carried to the US if things got sour for him.
Armchair analysis here: I think it's an overstatement to call Prigozhin's objective Putin's downfall. Putin has always maintained power over those who could oppose him by setting them against each other. He miscalculated by allowing this infighting to continue during a war that's straining Russia's capacity.
With the Ministry of Defense competing with Wagner Group for resources, it was inevitable that the infighting would turn violent, with "accidental" shelling of Wagner troops and diversion of resources. Putin may also have desired to clip Prigozhin's wings to maintain the balance of power among his subordinates. Ramzan Kadyrov, Sergei Shoigu, and Gen. Gerasimov are up, Prigozhin and Gen. Surovikin (a former Prigozhin ally) are down. Prigozhin acts under the auspices of the GRU (CIA equivalent), but the FSB (FBI equivalent) is Putin's personal defense, and there's a traditional rivalry there as well. Other private mercenary forces were being organized, including by Gazprom, another prominent arm of Russian state power.
Prigozhin was backed into an impossible corner - unable to supply and pay his mercenary force, unable to ensure their defense. I suspect he's fighting mainly for survival and conspicuous gangster-style revenge against the MoD, without a longer term strategy to join forces with other military groups and anti-government rebels.
Edit: I may have underestimated how much passive rebellion there is in Russia's armed forces, if none of them are acting to stop Prigozhin's march on Moscow. Kinda anxious here, I don't see any great outcomes from this mess, other than gains to the Ukrainians.
Anyone know the situation with Wagner forces in other theatres? Don't they have personnel in various places in Africa among others?
At this pace, by 2030 and with Russia already a member of NATO, the next shadow war will be China invading the fully NATO supported Mongolia.
Full text:
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday vowed to defend the country from an armed rebellion declared by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, which Putin called a “stab in the back” to Russia.
“All those who prepared the rebellion will suffer inevitable punishment. The armed forces and other government agencies have received the necessary orders,” Putin said in televised address to the nation.
Prigozhin, owner of the Wagner private military contractor, confirmed Saturday morning that he and his troops reached a key Russian city after crossing the border from Ukraine.
Prigozhin posted a video of himself in Rostov-on-Don at the Russian military headquarters that oversees the fighting in Ukraine. He claimed that his forces had military facilities in the city under their control, including the air field. Other videos posted on social media showed military vehicles, including tanks, on the streets outside.