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"Maybe Putin will be taken out or he will declare victory in Ukraine and say it’s over."
"When you annex territory that you don't control isn't that pretty much the same?"
One such consequence is, in my thinking, the collapse of NATO.
Some people think that Putin actually colluded with the Wagner guy; the guy is critical of the Kremlin military bosses, and blamed them for the military adventure in Ukraine.
The theory is Putin is looking for a way out and he will blame the Kremlin guys for the debacle.
Does appear to be a double triple agent type switcheroo. Of course, Kulak's comments on using mercenaries means they are perpetually negotiating and switching sides for money. It's having a wolf by the ears that is happy to bite your direction as soon as you let go, or somebody pays them better than you do.
I think this is some sort of scam or setup. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Wagner was given this huge bribe, reported it, and instigated a fake coup attempt to carry out their end of the bargain.
She's an arrogant, stupid cunt who is entirely confident in her expertise.
richwicks says
She's an arrogant, stupid cunt who is entirely confident in her expertise.
I've been around these smug types who aspire to reach similar levels of their profession as Nuland (or Nut-land).
They are beyond repair or even salvage. They are fully compromised and their is no turning back like a come-to-Jesus-moment.
Well, it did advantage Israel.
Since the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, analysts & officials have claimed that Putin will never back down; that he needs a facing-saving win (i.e. Ukrainian territory) to end his war. Events yesterday completely undermined that assumption.
Putin talked tough in his national address. He sounded like someone preparing for a big fight. But when faced with the difficult decision of trying to stop Wagner mercenaries with major force, he backed down.
He didn't escalate. He didn't need a face-saving off-ramp to declare victory. When facing the possibility of really losing to Wagner mercenaries coming into Moscow, he just capitulated.
Instead of doubling down with more force to crush the mutiny, Putin accepted humiliation instead. He was the rat trapped in the corner that so many Putinologists have told us to fear. But he didn't lash out & go crazy. He negotiated with a traitor.
The lesson for the war in Ukraine is clear. Putin is more likely to negotiate and end his war if he is losing on the battlefield. Those who have argued that Ukraine must not attack Crimea for fear of triggering escalation must now reevaluate that hypothesis.
The sooner Putin fears he is losing the war, the faster he will negotiate.
Despite it lasting less than a day, the “Wagner uprising,” which grew out of this performance, is likely to deal a serious blow to Putin’s power. The mutiny has demonstrated the vulnerability at the core of Putin’s system of power. Prigozhin has just proven that it is possible to seize a city of millions in Russia without firing a single shot, and then move toward Moscow without meeting any resistance. This may suggest that many of Russia’s security officials and soldiers do not like their commanders, and will not risk their lives for them. The confrontation ending in stalemate has not changed anything in this respect.
For better or for worse, the rebellion didn’t last long enough to discover to what extent Prigozhin’s radical populist ideas are popular among Russia’s security services, which would have been evident from the number of military personnel defecting to the side of Wagner. In any case, Prigozhin has voiced his agenda, which will, in one form or another, circulate further in society.
Prigozhin’s insurrection is another link in a long process demonstrating the emperor has no clothes. Each such story almost literally “exposes” Putin: it strips him of one of his many “vestiges.”
The previous blow against Putin was in Russia’s Belgorod region, when relatively small military units crossed the border, seized populated areas, and then withdrew with impunity. This hurt Putin’s ability to say his “special operation” posed no threat to Russians.
The Russian army’s inability to solve large-scale combat tasks was demonstrated to the whole world, as the myth of the “world’s second army” and its leader collapsed with a bang. Putin’s reputation was first damaged in the early days of the war, when it became clear that he had been deceived about the state of affairs in Ukraine and that he was unable to filter out unreliable information — even as an experienced politician and a career intelligence officer.
Prigozhin, however, dealt the most crushing blow to Putin. It’s now clear that the president is unable to control “his” people, who at some point may become a threat to everyone else.
It’s clear that the Kremlin will try to get rid of the remnants of quasi-state structures like Wagner Group. However, the very existence of Prigozhin’s “march” on Moscow proved the inadequacy of Putin’s worldview, since he believed nothing of this sort was possible. Destroying private military companies, of course, will not fix that.
"Putin talked tough in his national address. He sounded like someone preparing for a big fight. But when faced with the difficult decision of trying to stop Wagner mercenaries with major force, he backed down."
Eric Holder says
"Putin talked tough in his national address. He sounded like someone preparing for a big fight. But when faced with the difficult decision of trying to stop Wagner mercenaries with major force, he backed down."
There is a lot of fantasy and wishful thinking in that analysis. Prigozhin did not have any military training and he was above his head in that position with Wagner. Finally Prigozhin had a treasonous meltdown. That is why he was allowed to leave Russia.
Ukraine is finished. The counteroffensive failed and Ukraine's losses are so high, they don't have an army anymore to keep fighting.
"if the guy who started an open insurrection doesn't really have any military might there is even less reason to simply let him go and not hang him by the balls from the Kremlin wall to discourage any potential challengers to Pukin's rule."
"Did you notice in the videos of Wagner in captured cities a lot of draft age guys all around?
Interesting that they dodged Putin's draft to go in the army to die in Ukraine."
“At exactly the point of the AFU’s weakest moment and near-collapse on the battlefield he chose to strike Russia in the back as if obviously driven by a hidden hand.”— Simplicius on Substack
You’d think that the hapless DC neocons, Antony Blinken and his boss, Victoria Nuland, plus the gang at Spook Central, would have learned a lesson about the diminishing returns of color revolutions: namely, that these bold pranks blow back… and not in a good way.
The New York Times informs us that US Intel was well aware weeks beforehand of the developing coup attempt by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his personal army, the Wagner Group. Congressional leaders were briefed a day prior to its roll-out. Well, golly, can you suppose for a New York minute that Russia’s intel agency didn’t know all about it, too?
A vast array of explanations for this bizarre wartime vaudeville can be found in every corner of the Internet. I’ll go with this one: Prigozhin came to bethink himself a Napoleonic figure. Just as Bonaparte wowed revolution-weary France with his military exploits against her enemies, and seized leadership of the nation, Prigozhin’s mercenary army carried the brunt of the action in Ukraine this year, culminating in the heroic victory at Bakhmut. Priggy regarded the Russian Ministry of Defense as oafish, and by extension, his long-time friend and mentor, Vlad Putin, indecisive about it. The moment was ripe to seize power! As a recent US president might have said: he misoverestimated.
It looks like the neocons, the CIA, and Britain’s MI6 did, too, if they helped nudge the event to fruition with assurances and cash — say, some of that $6.2 billion the Pentagon happened to find recently via an “accounting error.” What better time to destabilize Russia than during Ukraine’s vaunted spring offensive (which, let’s face it, was not going too well)? In fact, Ukraine’s whole NATO-assisted project from the get-go looked like a bust. The Bakhmut “meat-grinder” was just the latest fiasco. But then, the irascible, disgruntled, and grandiose field marshal Priggy seemed like the perfect instrument to jazz things up for the demoralized West.
Pretty darn quick, on the road from Rostov-on-Don to Moscow, Priggy learned the hard way that he had no support in the government, the military, or among the Russian public. The coup fizzled before sundown the very day it started. Some say, any way you cut it, the result is Vlad Putin left looking weak and vulnerable. I don’t think so. His speech to the Russian people that day appeared, if anything, resolute. And the way he seemed to spit out the words “a stab in the back,” you couldn’t think he was play-acting. By evening, with the whole psychodrama concluded, the people of St. Petersburg crowded the quay along the Neva River and busted into patriotic song.
Let’s address one nagging question: why did Mr. Putin allow the Wagner Group private army to play the leading role countering the Ukraine offensive? Answer: because he was saving and building-up the regular Russian army to strength in the further event that NATO might finally jump into Ukraine with all its multi-national feet when all else fails. ...
From his latest photographs, it looks like Mr. Zelensky is in the terminal throes of a cocaine rapture, and his actions are consistent with that state of mind. He must know that he’s not long for this world. And our country, the USA, must know that this Ukraine gambit is another lost cause on our long march of military misadventures. And if the government of our country doesn’t know, the people surely do. Have you noticed, the yellow-and-blue flags are not flying anymore? Even the most hardcore anti-Trump Democrats seem to understand what pounding sand down a rat-hole means when it comes to the many billions of dollars squandered on this stupid project while our cities rot and a whole lot more goes south in our own ailing homeland.
Not to mention the parlous position of the American president himself, the spectral “Joe Biden,” skulking in his demon-haunted White House as evidence of his treasonous turpitudes mounts and mounts. Which leaves us to wonder whether our Intel Community may have stirred up the Russia coup as just another distraction from its own Biden-linked crimes against this nation.
I need to issue a formal apology to RWSGFY Eric Holder and Bd6r. You guys were way more accurate about Russia's military state than I was.
So for the link I provided above, this guys starts giving a play-by-play of what happened around 30 minutes. I need to issue a formal apology to RWSGFY Eric Holder and Bd6r. You guys were way more accurate about Russia's military state than I was.
For those who like even more conspiracy theories:
Rolo Slavskiy? Like 'Rollo Tomasi' in 'LA Confidential'?
This is either US/NATO fighting Russia and Ukraine, or ethnic Russians in Ukraine being supported by Russia fighting US/NATO forces posing as Ukraine.
Finally, enjoy this clip of revolting disgrace John Kerry twisting in the wind after a French reporter pressed him to explain how Bush invading Iraq was any different than Putin invading Ukraine. The reporter insisted that the US invaded Iraq on a false premise — just like how Russia allegedly invaded Ukraine.
Kerry, face tragically frozen in a botox-induced Halloween mask, angrily stammered out that it was totally different when we did it! Because we were too stupid to realize we were invading Iraq over false pretenses. Somebody tricked us.
It’s a little hard to hear Kerry under the French translator’s voice over, but still. It is very satisfying.
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1673359887005253638
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https://twitter.com/HinchaPenta/status/1496700652084473857?s=20&t=T1inEM5Hv6ahmrL4nzNirQ&source=patrick.net