Get ready for the flood of kompromat
As Vladimir Putin sits thinking in his bomb-proof office, he may come to regret the fact that the entire world is sure that he ordered the death of the mutinous mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. The Kremlin is a Camorra, a mafia style parliament, running a gangster operation to fill Putin’s pockets and those of his oligarchs and elites. But as the Japanese found in Burma in 1944, if you prosecute a war with terror you will likely come unstuck against a well led, motivated and moral organisation like General ‘Bill’ Slim’s ‘Forgotten Army’.
Putin may in fact have signed his own death warrant. His fingerprints may not have been on the firing button when Prigozhin’s jet was brought down, and may not have been on the Polonium or Novichok which killed some of his other opponents, but his DNA is all over the orders. He now has two very powerful groups to worry about – quite apart from the International Criminal Court, which no doubt has so much evidence that if he ever gets to the Hague he will never leave.
Firstly, Putin must worry about his oligarchs who have now been holed up in their dachas in Moscow for over 18 months, unable to use their superyachts or villas in the Mediterranean. As their leader is further vilified around the globe over this latest murder, the oligarchs may come to see that their only chance to break out of Russia, now so diminished economically and socially, is to dispose of Putin.
Secondly, the Wagner Group might have lost their ‘cowboy’ leader and his deputy, but they remain a large force of thugs and murderers. Prigozhin was no military commander, but the Wagner Group is the most successful military outfit that Russia has managed to put into the field, no matter that they are paid mercenaries, many of them recruited out of Russian jails. To control such a rabble, you need some very hard ‘lieutenants’ running the show and these men will now be considering the future in Belarus and Africa. How ironic it would be if somebody showered them with riches to go and create mayhem within Russia. My experience of mercenaries is that they are not too picky about whose money they take.
archive link: https://archive.is/mMry3
Prighozin’s death is international news, but noone gives a single fuck outside the spectacle of it. The man was loved by noone outside Russia, Putin has transparently murdered dozens of people far more important to the West without being toppled.
Russia’s newly displayed military impotence shifts the calculus, but Prighozin isn’t the guy to cause an international uproar.
I feel bad for the three crew members in that plane.
This time they didn’t even blow up a plane full of people from the Nederlands.
I didn’t like the guy but he was well liked in Syria and certain parts of Africa.
I’m happy to take you at your word on that, but don’t think angered parts of Africa and Syria are going to pose a meaningful threat to Putin.
I think the bigger point is that now Wagner may very well decide that he’s the enemy.
Given the fact that all they needed to do is wander over in the general direction of Moscow and it causes absolute chaos, if they actually had a mind to invade I think they’d win in 10 minutes.
I don’t know what is worse, a sociopath with nukes or the Wagner lunatics with nukes…
Putting our hopes on those monsters to help bring down Putin will end badly. It smells of the US propping up Bin Laden to kick the Russians out of Afghanistan.
Short-term gain, with massive long-term consequences.
The difference in this case is that no one’s helping Wagner. It’s one set of monsters taking down another set of monsters. Entirely on their own because they’re utterly disorganised.
But one of those situations is slightly better than the other. At the very least it will weaken Russia and force them to pull military forces out of Ukraine.
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If Wagner forces the Kremlin to defend itself in Russia, it might give Ukraine a window of opportunity during its offensive.
Wagner with nukes because they’re an unknown element when it comes to nukes. We at least know that Putin is reluctant to use them.
Putin has transparently murdered dozens of people far more important to the West without being toppled.
Russia’s newly displayed military impotence shifts the calculus, but Prighozin isn’t the guy to cause an international uproar.
That isn’t however the argument the article is making (noting I’m rather dubious on it).
They’re not arguing that NATO will suddenly invade because Pringles got SAM’d.
They’re arguing that a) the Wagner lieutenants are competent and experienced which makes it likely that they are not only capable but likely to be effective at seeking vengeance; and b) that Putin has systematically culled all the competent generals and hence there’s a reduced capability.
Now I’m dubious on the likelihood of the first, and while the second is true I’m not as convinced it will be a game changer.
My experience of mercenaries is that they are not too picky about whose money they take.
Who’s going to pay them to kill Putin? Most likely not the EU, nor China, but maybe maybe maybe the US. However that wouldn’t go over well with their war industry as a longer war in Ukraine means more money. It would have to be some private billionaire who’s hurt so much by the war that he (and maybe his friends) decide that Putin is costing them more money than it would cost to dispose of him.
Who’s going to pay them to kill Putin? Most likely not the EU, nor China, but maybe maybe maybe the US. However that wouldn’t go over well with their war industry as a longer war in Ukraine means more money. It would have to be some private billionaire who’s hurt so much by the war that he (and maybe his friends) decide that Putin is costing them more money than it would cost to dispose of him.
Exactly. This is pure speculation on the part of the author, and not backed up by anything.
Wagner has always been funded by the Kremlin. The money was laundered by passing through Prigozhin’s hands.
Noone in the West want Putin dead because his replacement will be even more hardcore. Every potential replacement candidate, people with real power, are bigger hawks than Putin. We might see Russia do a full conversion to war economy or some nukes flying.
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This is one of those “we want another news story but we don’t actually have new info so let’s just do a weird take on old news” articles.
Wagner was never a “pure” independent mercenary corporation. They were created, funded, and indirectly controlled by the Russian government to interfere in foreign conflicts to advance Russia’s goals while maintaining plausible deniability for the Kremlin. We can be sure that the Kemlin’s appountees are now stepping into leadership roles of Wagner. The question is whether Wagner will be disbanded or rebranded (salvaged and reconstituted) by Putin.
Prighozin was funding much of Wagner himself, for example.
So, who is going to pay now that he’s dead?
And that Russia’s young men are not coming home in boxes because they are just not coming home (Russia doesn’t want the bodies so as to avoid paying death benefits to families)
I imagine these families will be happier and happier each day that goes by without having any information about their loved ones.
But honestly, the biggest head scratcher here is the plain fact that mercenaries “to dispose of Putin” have been available forever
But if Prigozhin was paying their fees and keeping them in check with his control structure how could they have been available to change their masters?
I see your reply to the article as you see the article itself: full of speculations and assumptions but the main difference between the OP post and yours is that you are a nobody giving his opinion on the internet while the author of OP post was assistant director intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance for the HQ Land Command.
Given the status I’m more inclined to listen to his speculations rather than yours, respectfully
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You seem to equate a family not having a body with not having news of that soldier. But Ukraine has been collecting and identifying Russian bodies since the start of the war, and notifying families wherever possible. Many of the soldiers also have their own phones, and those phones have told the west a great deal about what is really going on behind Russian lines. Yet you seem sure that none of those soldiers would use their phones to speak of deaths within the unit. Interesting take.
You seem to forget that, following the bombing caused by a massive presence of phone signals in a single spot, Russia has been much more careful in letting its trooper use their cellphones. Beside that I imagine a family not having any news from his relatives at the front would be anxious for their loved ones and would start asking questions, even if it meant facing criminal charges. Ukraine can identify a portion of the bodies from the battlefield I imagine, and they would be able to reach the families of an even small percentage I reckon.
LOL. Think that over a bit and get back to me. Seriously.
I’ve thought about it and I really can’t see who can pay Wagner’s operators salaries, let alone arming them according to their standards (much better than the Russian army ones, can we agree on that?).
As far as I know Russia pays its soldiers 300-400€ a month and Wagner mercenaries are paid circa 2k (those who are not serving instead of being in a cell). Prigozhin was capable of providing for Wagner through his affairs in Africa and through the money he got from the Kremlin, will Putin be able to substitute such an income? What will happen if not? I’ve got my answers but they are just hypotheticals, who will live will see.
True enough. But that does not make either of us an expert on Russian affairs. His article does make one of us a fantasy writer, though.
He certainly knows Wagner better than you since he probably met them on the battlefield.
Works for me, lol. It’s just an opinion, and everyone’s got one.
But it helps, when forming an opinion, to acquaint oneself with all available fact first. And to be completely honest, you didn’t even spot the most questionable opinion in my post. (Hint: Who is Sergei Shoigu?) But keep working on it, because as far as I’m concerned the more people that are interested in the subject as whole, whether right or wrong, the better.
Thank you for taking the time to state your disagreement.
No problems, it’s a pleasure to have a conversation about these thematics since there is always to learn about any subject. In this sense, who is Sergei Shoigu? What I know about him is that he is a Putin sycophant only good as a yes man and coming from a political career scarcely linked to any military activity. Am I missing any information about the man?
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I don’t know. I think he made the right move from a personal life extension standpoint. I wouldn’t kill the head of the world’s 2nd or 3rd biggest mercenary group but I just like hiking and cooking and reading at home. If someone came for me, I’d probably be like, “Ok, well, let’s get better at throwing kitchen knives in case this is serious.”
Putin has a way different life than me but I try to be empathetic. Being in charge of a whole mafia seems tough. Maybe we should cut him a little slack.
Have you ever run a kleptocratic regime? If so, sound off in the comments.
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Sim: Russian Kleptocracy
What a shit opinion piece. Every other word is just some attempt at making the piece more inflammatory. The whole article doesn’t say a single useful thing the entire time.
ChatGPT is that you? Actually ChatGPT could have done this better
“chimera”?
As their leader is further vilified around the globe over this latest murder
What a weird thing to say. Killing some high-level war criminals was a public service. It’s all the many thousands of other people tortured and killed because of Putin that I’m upset about.
Putin may in fact have signed his own death warrant.
Narrator: He hadn’t.
What if it is truly was an accident?
The plane accidentally crashed into an antiaircraft missile. What are the odds?!?
50/50 at best!
Then still everyone thinks that Putin did it. There is no way to know. I think even the US said that it was an accident
The US only said it didn’t have any evidence it was caused by a missile… which should be read as we don’t want to acknowledge our information gathering network has info about this incident so we saw nothing 😉
We do know that the civilian radar in the area was jammed 30 seconds before the plane started pinwheeling. And that the plane was pinwheeling, which is most commonly seen in missile strikes.
Latest info suggests it was a bomb set up before the plan took off.
Then Occam’s Razor has grown dull.
Doesn’t really matter if it was or wasn’t. I’m sure no one in Wagner is believing that and their beliefs are what matter here.
It changes nothing because nobody would believe it.
Same thing that happened that time there really was a wolf
Magic 8 Ball says “Very Doubtful”
then Putin shouldn’t have been committing political assassinations for decades
What if my Aunty had balls? Would she be my uncle?
Could just be propaganda, but this claims that they’re marching towards Russia again:
Kyiv independent. Sure sounds unbiased 🤔
I’m sure it’s very stilted; I’m not trying to present it as objective, I just like the idea of a Putin-backed plan to assassinate the leader of the Wagner Group, resulting in the Wagner Group marching on Russia - for the second time - to give Putin a piece of their minds
Putin probably should’ve waited until the end of the war to kill this dude.
Putin will be dead before this war ends
Hopefully!
That would be fantastic, but I’m so worn out after the last decade or so it seems way way more likely to me that he lives until 98 with no consequences.
Nah, he won’t be.
What the fuck? Is this what journalism is reduced to nowadays? Just posting some ramblings of a person whose knowledge on the subject is limited to reading only the headlines from some cherry-picked sources? At this point, they’d be better of just publishing completely random tweets, as they would have more useful info than this.
It’s an editorial, not worth reading.
I wonder what the authors experience with mercenaries is.
His experience is that they are not too picky about whose money they take.
If you make a claim like that you need to back it up with evidence. If it was that simple, the west could simply have covered Wagner’s costs and removed them from the engagement. That’s not how the real world works, at all.
His Wikipedia shows no evidence of extraordinary experiences with mercenaries. It’s some basic on the ground service during the Gulf war as a captain and later being an officer in charge of hazmat management. In metaphor, working in a hospital doesn’t mean you are qualified to comment on aspects of open heart surgery, even if your job is also important.
My dude! Did you really answered seriously to my joke? My apologies!
They will go on suicide missions for money ig.
From what i understand of the mercenary industry, is that mercenaries who accept suicide missions dont generally last.
It’s clear you don’t understand the industry.
You know, I thought the same thing, but:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamish_de_Bretton-Gordon
There’s probably not two of them, right?
I mean I read it. It seems like his highest ranking role was in chemical and biological hazard containment and management. He did see some action in the first gulf war, but it’s not clear to me his experiences with mercenaries then.
He alluding to and projecting the knowledge of what a group of mercenaries will do in this situation. I think it’s highly speculative.
You should probably pay a bit closer attention to his title and responsibilities during the invasion and occupation of Iraq, a war that used quite a lot of Wagner-style mercenaries
So many, in fact, we don’t actually know how many died, because using disposable and desperate troops makes for cleaner official casualty reports.
It’s okay to admit you made a bad assumption, fam, it’s definitely an understandable one.
It’s enough for me to know that he has a long and distinguished career in the military, combat zones, and weapons design to allow him to make a casual comment like “in my experience, mercenaries will take anyone’s money.”
This is not some bold claim that requires extraordinary evidence.
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