please post any subsequent updates here unless they’re huge happenings. i just woke up and half our news front page is updates which is nice but also A Lot and most of these don’t have to be their own thread
I think I read Wagner forces number about 25,000? Can anyone contextualize how big a headache this will be for Russia?
Add to that a brigade (2,000-8,000) of Russian special forces that defected. Those guys are probably worth 2-3 national guardsman.
Edit: allegedly
Question is, is it true?
Hard to tell. What is abundantly clear is that they are meeting little to no resistance. Otherwise they would have never gotten this far. Whether troops really are joining them I can’t confirm. It’s all coming in very rapidly from sources I have no experience with.
I’m going to update my previous comment to add “allegedly.”
Considering that they needed Wagner to take over many areas in Ukraine and their military couldn’t do it, it’ll be a huge headache.
It also destroys Putin’s reputation of being in full charge. Think about the impact on the public, Putin has total informational control over Russia and this fucks him over.
Remember, they used to say that Wagner’s head would be cut off quickly if they ever “think” of going against Putin and there you go, it’s all BS.
There have been a bunch of mixed reports, I think it’s tough to say exactly what’s true. I saw one person suggesting that given Wagner’s numbers in Africa it’s likely there’s really only half that number there. But there have also been reports of Russian military and intelligence personnel switched to support Wagner.
As someone else said, I think for most people it’s just a matter of wait and see what shakes out.
Interesting. So sounds like this could land anywhere from fizzling out to full-on coup, depending on still-unknown variables like the true state of Putin’s support within his own ranks.
@ConstableJelly @alyaza Well, considering how many tank(s?) were at Putin’s Victory Day parade, I think we have our answer. 😁
“CNN has tracked Wagner mercenaries in the Central African Republic, Sudan, Libya, Mozambique, Ukraine and Syria. Over the years they have developed a particularly gruesome reputation and have been linked to various human rights abuses.”
It sounds like Prigohzin could be a big headache for Putin.
If he deposes Putin he could be a big headache for us all. There are already reports of Wagner seizing nuclear weapons facilities in Russia.
Now hearing from Al Jazeera news and NYT that Prigozhin has agreed to order his Wagner troops back to their bases. What in the hell is going on?
Paywalled NYT article please post content.
See also BBC live updates https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-66006142
Kadyrov’s Chechens are being pulled out of Donbas to fortify Rostov.
source : https://twitter.com/Cen4infoRes/status/1672615799620612099
Whose side is Kadyrov on? Or is he his own side?
Might be a good time for Ukraine to lob a few care packages his way /s
They’re on their own side, they’re mercs and loyal to money, just like Wagner. Right now, they’re taking Putin’s money.
However, as soon as Putin’s down or out of money, they’ll switch sides easily.
Keep in mind that Chechens were at some point at war with Putin as well and Putin won that one. Kadyrov’s an ally of Putin at this point.
Wagnerians in Lipetsk, avout 300 km from Moscow
https://canada.unofficialbird.com/nexta_tv/status/1672602398915809282#m
Beau has three videos out on it already. He’s really good for context on military things.
Thanks for this, that was some pretty good insights.
Does he have a military background or something? Why is he more of an expert on this topic?
I’ve not done a deep dive into his background, since he’s clearly been in journalism for a long time with the choice of tangents he goes off on and presumed questions he addresses. I needed only one video to know he was becoming part of my daily news diet. If he does not have a military background in some way, I would be surprised.
I think he said he was a contractor for army but didn’t go into any more details. He was also in prison for smuggling immigrants across border if I recall correctly.
His real name is Justin King, and his background is… checkered at best. His politics on screen are solid but he also has prior convictions for human trafficking. These are things you can look up. So I take everything around him with a grain of salt.
An important distinction here is that he was convicted for the visa fraud kind of trafficking and not like sex trafficking or something. There’s a huge difference there but people hear trafficking and just assume it’s the worst kind imaginable.
I appreciate the background. I’ve worked with a lot of journalists with checkered pasts and am one myself, so that sort of thing doesn’t bother me so long as he’s good at predicting the things he can based on experience and data and is clear when he can’t. That his politics align somewhat closely with mine makes it easier to watch, but I’m there for the analysis.
So I googled around, and found this conviction: https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2008/February/08_crm_145.html
Justin Eric King, 27, of Chipley, Fla., has been sentenced to 41 months in prison followed by three years supervised release resulting from his conviction on charges of conspiracy to commit visa fraud, visa fraud and conspiracy to commit alien smuggling, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and United States Attorney Gregory R. Miller of the Northern District of Florida announced today. The defendant and his co-conspirators brought illegal aliens, mostly from Bulgaria and Romania, to work in the hotel industry in and around Destin, Fla. King was sentenced by Senior District Court Judge Lacey A. Collier of Pensacola, Fla.
This isn’t usually what we think of as “human trafficking.” It seems that the people he smuggled understood what they were doing, and not being forced or coerced it. If that were the case, additional charges of exploitation would have been filed.
This is what like 99.9% of human trafficking is. They’ve successfully propagandized anyone who conflates sex trafficking with normal undocumented human movement.
This is what I was referring to, thank you for finding it.
He is intentionally vague in his videos, but he has worked with the military in some capacity as a civilian before, and he still has a lot of contacts in the military. Mostly though, I personally trust him more than most because I’ve been watching him for years and he usually turns out to be correct. He’s also pretty level headed and willing to admit what he doesn’t know.
Second this. His channel is great for short yet accurate/level-headed views on topics like this. He will always get a shout-out from me.
He’s been almost as fast as social media on this one, and I trust his sources.
Beau the human trafficking CIA asset? Nah thanks.
Trying to constantly remind myself that none of us are immune to propaganda, and that it would be really easy for this scenario to be misrepresented as a clean-sweep against the Russian military. Wagner’s def gonna cause serious problems but I’d frankly be shocked if this ended with a successful coup or any meaningful change (tho I hope I’m wrong)
Even if they win, this dude is a literal war monger fascist. Not better or worse than Putin.
Actually Prigozhin is arguably waaayyyy worse. Putin is a ruthless warlord just like Prigozhin, yes. They have equally virulent ideologies, yep.
But Putin is a politician first and Prigozhin is 100% not. Say what you want of Putin but deep down he still gives a shit about projecting certain images of control, law, etc – he still values the opinion of certain international communities. He is still the leader of a government, not just a battalion or an army.
Prigozhin doesn’t give a shit about any of that, he is a simple and ruthless warlord without any pretense of governance at all, who only understands force and who has no qualms about being open in his toxic ideologies.
I think it’s extraordinarily unlikely Prigozhin actually accomplishes any of his own goals towards Russia because he isn’t a politician and he’s just a thug, but I also think it’s equally unlikely Putin’s Russia recovers from this. Wagner was Putin’s pitbull. They were virtually the entirety of professional real soldiers Russia had under its command. No more pit bull changes things dramatically. We can easily expect a social “downgrade” of Russia’s status as superpower in the eyes of other nations. That leaves some big doors open for China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and of course, the United States.
We may be on the cusp of a second break up of the USSR, further breaking Russia down into disparate nationstates. That possibility offers a lot of problems on its own. It’s no longer a question of “rogue warlord gains control of russian nukes”, now its “russian nukes don’t exist, now those nukes belong to 15 new whatever-istan nations, each without any pre-existing relationships or treaties”. That’s scarier. Doubly so because in that big muck of former Russian states, Wagner could still be around in the middle of it with the biggest dick on the block. He’d predictably go Atilla, march through every one of them and conscript every dude over 16 to fight. And history tells us over and over just how those situations end: global-scale wars. Conqueror types never stop, they just keep conquering until they get stopped.
How do you know all this about him? I’ve never heard of this guy until 5 minutes ago and am very curious.
Edit: 2022 corrupt person of the year… Great.
Have you been following the war in Ukraine at all in the last 16mo? If not, that’s surprising, but understandable.
Anyway, Prigozhin and his Wagner PMC group of mercenaries have been talked about consistently since the beginning. In the last ~6mo or so, he’s been constantly in the eyes of the (Western) media as his rhetoric against the Russian military leadership—not against Putin, though—has steadily been increasing all the way to this sudden outbreak of internecine violence.
Aside from Putin, he’s basically been the #2 face of this war from the Russian side, at least in Western media, over even Russia MoD head Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, who’s the Chief of Staff of the Russian military, who are supposedly in charge of prosecuting this war.
Oh dear god the war has been going for 16 months now?
I stopped following it after the first month.
Thanks for the information that’s very helpful.
I think you’re mistaken, it is Putin who is the warmongering conqueror here, not Prigozhin.
If you think Prigozhin isn’t a warmongering conqueror, you don’t know much about him.
They both are. I’m late to this thread now, but the best case scenario for Ukraine would have been Prigozhin not backing down, Wagner getting wiped out, but the Russian military facing heavy losses, which would significantly hinder their ability to wage war.
And then maybe some other less warmongering oligarchs assassinating Putin
Just to add to this, a Prigozhin government would likely be far worse for Ukraine. While Putin had few qualms brutalizing civilians and committing war crimes Prigozhin has none. He’s a ruthless, murderous thug. The best outcome would be that he is defeated by the Russian military but that they have to withdraw troops from Ukraine, allowing the Ukrainians to seize the initiative with their offensive. The worst outcomes don’t bear thinking about.
I have such mixed feelings. Happy that there is visible weakness in Putin’s power, which could maybe lead to his eventual removal from power which would be amazing. Very frightening though that the ones replacing him might have the same goals as Putin, except this time, actually be competent at their jobs. That’s a horrible outlook for Ukraine. Oh man…
The guy has gone on the record stating that he thinks the war in Ukraine was not justified and was done simply to please the defense ministry. Who knows what he would get into as a leader, but at least with him in charge Ukraine should be less worried.
Likely to see de-escalation of the war in Ukraine if he succeedes. But I don’t have hope for a whole sale withdrawal.
My guess is at a minimum he trys to hold Crimea
Wouldn’t that be the best case for Russia? Take out military leadership, get someone else to be president, defend Crimea, try to get soldiers out of the rest of Ukraine, and get support for peace from the international community?
Essentially just a change in leadership for a, fortunately, abysmal failure.
Right now it looks as if he wants to maintain status quo, walk up there, and have this done with in a few days.
Yup.
With rumors the defense minister has been detained coupled with Wagner blaming the defense minister for the lies justifying the invasion… MAYBE this is some weird way for Putin to save face/stay alive while pulling out of eastern Ukraine?
But that sounds like bullshit, this whole thing is getting weirder by the moment right now. Smells like a lot of misinformation flowing from all sides right now.
Suppose Putin is in an information vacuum, like I’ve seen reported a few few times, then it doesn’t seem as as crazy. Still batshit insane but not as crazy. Cool to think about though.
deleted by creator
Civil war broke out, some dude close to Putin offended Putin and Putin bombed his friend, friend didn’t like and started a coupe, civil joined in and thus making it a civil war. Putin friends is a military dude that still want to invade Ukraina after the civil war.
This is what my understanding is, someone please correct me.
We need a remind me bot. I’ve no clue other than Putin fled Moscow and they guy controlling a bunch of mercenaries is coming for him. I’ll look back at this post later to see what the consensus is and if they supply links.
Well that was… weird.
I saw several alleged videos of russian frontline units pledging their support for Prigozhin. Combine that with how little resistance wagner faced and Putin might have realized how weak his position is and given in to replacing MOD staff. Not a good look the same day he declared Prigozhin a traitor and promised punishment.
Trading the long-term stability for the short-term. Because now every aspiring russian warlord know that if you don’t like something about the state, all you need is just a big enough private army to bully the kremlin, lol.
I mean, what would Wagner do once they reach Moscow? Sit at Putins desk and start giving orders? No one would listen, they’d all still take orders from Putin sitting in St Petersburg or just quit an go home and wait it out.
Probably just re-enact Jan 6 but Russian for the propaganda points, then skedaddling before the hammer comes down.
I imagine they would take over the city, and completely destabilize Russia.
It doesn’t matter if nobody wants to listen to you if you become the local law enforcement.
And soon Russia will face the same problem as Iraq and Afghanistan did
I don’t know why anyone is taking any of this seriously. For all we know, this was done to lure Ukraine into following them into Russia to fall into a set trap, or theater or withdraw and resupply without looking weak. It is odd that it looks like Putin had weakness, but they can always say that’s what it was later and the propaganda will work like it always does.
I think you watch to many movies real life isn’t that well planned most likely he got mad launched an ill planned invasion then made a deal with putin when both realized they could lose everything fighting each other
It would be weird to shoot down friendly helicopters and launch cruise missiles at friendly formations just to make a big feint.
Ukraine just needs to take the land bridge to Crimea, I don’t see they have any incentive to go inwards towards Russia.
Do we know for certain that any of that happened though? Because I haven’t seen any video of actual engagement between Wagner and Russia.
Well, here’s some footage with a shot down C&C plane. I mean it still could be not Wagner, but it would be an awful coincidence.
I mean we still don’t know shit beyond the fact that Ukraine is holding strong and slowly reclaiming territory. The thing about this story is that it shows that the Russians are divided, and that’s not a picture you want to show in a war, especially to your people. These events are costing the Russians dearly in one way or another.
Well, it would certainly be a massive moral blow to Russia if Ukraine just up and freed Crimea. The bigger challenge would be installing a leader that isn’t going to turn around and give the country back to Putin.
Do you really think Ukraine has an interest in following them into Russia? If I was them I would just want to take back Ukraine and secure the borders.
They currently have an operation attacking into Russia’s boarder…
Only if you accept Russia’s description of where the border is. The border as defined by every other country in the entire world says Ukraine is still in their own territory.
There have been some Ukrainian sympathisers setting off bombs/shooting down aircraft/etc inside Russian territory - but those aren’t Ukranian soldiers and they’re pretty generally just a few random/nonconsequential attacks and don’t show any signs of being linked to any “Operation”. The front line of the battlefield is nowhere near the border.
No, it’s documented and reported by Ukraine and US as they counterattacked on Russian soil and it was an issue because of the US supplying weapons to them: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/05/29/an-increasing-number-of-ukrainian-attacks-on-russian-soil-are-upsetting-the-united-states-and-kyiv-s-allies_6028312_4.html
They don’t. But Putin in his own disinformation bubble may think so.
What a weird outcome. Putin now looks weak and Prigozhin looks stupid for trusting any deal that Putin could make.
I wonder how many russians are actually happy with this outcome. Kremlin loyalist must be depressed, since their leader basically turned into a puppet. And the extreme wagner supporters wanted it to go all the way. So both sides hardcode supporters are now depressed. Some wagner members probably just wanted putin to concede even after his speech so they may be happy. Civilians that support none may be happy that their society didn’t collapse and cities turned to war zones.
Ukrainians are disappointed that the distraction didn’t last a little longer, but none the less content with a weakened Russia.
This is nothing new. Politics has long involved compromise. Hardliners rarely get what they want.
“Opportunity to return to Africa.”
Yeah, I suppose massacring badly equipped CAR “rebels” (while also guarding their diamond mines) and civilians is a lot more fun than having to fight someone being equipped by the military-industrial complex of the combined West.
Edit: oh and related to how many Russians are happy with this, this Mastodon post had some numbers from a Russian political blogger:
A popular Russian political blogger Tatiana Stanovaya ran a poll on her Telegram earlier today, asking: “how do you feel about the current situation”
Votes:
- 12% supporting Prigozhin
- 48% “let them fight, there are no heroes here”
- 29% “this is a catastrophe, I’m scared”
- 8% against the coup
- 3% “give power to the people”
The numbers will be skewed due to the audience, but still interesting>
Those figures can’t be at all reassuring to Putin.
Just had a thought, what if Putin has taken Prigozhin’s family hostage and pretending to take the deal is just a play for time while they rescue them? It would be a great movie plot.
What if the Ukrainians paid Wagner to do this to cause a distraction? That would be pretty crazy too!
https://twitter.com/novayagazeta_en/status/1672613447673032704?t=31GbI-jXa6-6oC0Lve85YQ&s=19
Source: PMC Wagner leadership ordered mercenaries stationed in Moscow region to ‘be ready to move towards the incoming units’ yesterday.
Two fighters of PMC Wagner who are currently on leave in the Moscow region told Novaya-Europe that back yesterday they had been contacted by representatives of the PMC leadership and ordered to “be prepared to move towards the incoming units of the PMC”.
In practice, Prigozhin declared mobilisation among his former employees: there could be at least 30,000 of them in addition to the fighters that are already in service, military expert Georgy Aleksandrov tells Novaya-Europe. 1/
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-66006142
The mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, has just put out a statement on Telegram announcing that “a counter-terrorist operation regime has been declared in Moscow” and that Monday will be a “non-working day” to “minimise risks”.
So reading twitter…
It seems much of the “Ammunition shortage” Prigozhin was loudly complaining about was stock pilling. Similarly much of Wagnar was pulled out of Ukraine to rebuild.
There have been suggestions Prigozhin was planning to launch an attack on Sunday but the Russian MoD attacked a Wagner site forcing him to launch a day early.
One tweet suggested Wagner soliders had been calling family all day (e.g. before a big operation).
Seizing Rostok Von Don was a clever initial play, since its a major logistics hub. This allowed him to arm his troops and provides a base if the coup fails.
It seems the South Military District gave up without a fight, with soliders surrendering.
Prigozhin has sent a shock force to Moscow, its bypassing major cities and trying to get there ASAP. There is a belief senior Kremlin officials will abandon ship.
Various helicopters are attacking the shock force but it seems Wagner are using air defence. Various MI-8, KA-52 and a ll-s2 have been shown destroyed.
The Tik Tok bigrade are trying to attack Rostok, considering they aren’t “true Russians” and were used as barrier troops, this doesn’t seem to be going down well. They are also stripping Donetsk of defenders to do this.
Seizing Rostok Von Don was a clever initial play, since its a major logistics hub.
This also means if the coup lasts for more than a few days, the Russian Army’s going to start running out of ammunition in significant portions of the front in Ukraine.
Webcam in Russia
https://www.geocam.ru/en/in/russia/traffic/Is lemmy capable of a hug of death? The site is not loading to me :/
Pulls up for me
