Ukraine Invasion 2: no more Black Sea fleet for you

Politics & News
8592

Sure, it would be different for Blackwater since the US government/military is in a much different position (as you point out in the US Prigozen would have already been court martialed).

Prigozen’s public antics did largely put himself in this situation, but once he was there he could either just back down and look weak (and still have a good shot at being killed) or go all-in and hope somehow a show of strength would impress Putin. It was obviously a long shot, but I’m not sure he had better alternatives - the longer he waited the weaker his position was going to get as his forces continued to be expended.

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8593

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1673345844148314112?s=20

Summary of Prigozhin’s 26 June address to clarify the situation: it was to demonstrate protest against the “destruction of PMC Wagner, not toppling the Russian authorities”:

What were the prerequisites for the March for Justice?
-PMC Wagner carries out tasks around the world. It was meant to stop existing on 1 July 2023. “Employees” all refused to sign the contract with MoD, only 1-2% decided to join the Russian army.

-The original plan was to go to Rostov on 30 July and transfer all vehicles to MoD, which were ready for transport.

-Despite any aggression, Wagner suffered a missile attack, followed by helicopter attack. Around 30 PMC Wagner fighters died. This triggered an immediate decision to move out early and respond militarily.

-Throughout the 24-hour march, one column went to Moscow, another to Rostov. They made 780 km of progress in one day. They regret being forced to attack the army aircraft but the bombs were dropped which caused the response. During the march, all military objects on the way were blocked and disarmed. None of the military have died on the ground.

-The objective was to not allow destruction of Wagner and take to responsiblity those who with their unprofessional actions made a huge number of mistakes during the SMO. All the military met along the way supported this.

-Wagner stopped when the advanced storm unit deployed artillery, conducted reconnaissance and realised a lot of blood will be shed in an upcoming battle. They decided that demonstration of the protest was enough, and turned around.

-Factors that made Wagner turn around: first, they didn’t want to shed Russian blood. Secondly, they wanted to demonstrate their portest, not overtake the authority in Russia.

-Lukashenko offered to find solutions for further legal operation of Wagner legally. Columns turned aroound and went back to field camps.

-The march showed many things demonstrated before. Serious secruity concerns around the country. All military bases and airfields were blocked.

-If actions on 24 Feb 2022 were done by forces as trained as Wagner, the special operation could have ended in 1 day. This shows the level of organisation that the Russian army should be following.

In a follow-up comment:

The guy’s backtracking on his origian goals real bad here, also says Wagner didn’t kill any Russian military “on the ground”, which is false, according to reports.

Also, what sort of “legal framework” can Luka provide?

8594

If you imagine Trump as permanent president of the US then the US analogies make a lot more sense.

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8595

Well that’s my point: none of this Prigozen stuff makes any sense to me going back months. Not only would Prigozen have been court martialed/arrested/something in the US, he would have been arrested or executed in Russia or the Soviet Union. Why wasn’t he? No one seems to know. I just assumed that as long as he wasn’t dead it was some sort of psyop/kayfabe routine executed for reasons that were unclear to me. I guess that’s still possible as long as he’s not dead or in prison but man seems like they took that pretty far if that’s what was happening.

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8596

As always, anticlimactic from Putin:

- Any attempts to start a mutiny will fail.

- An armed mutiny would have been suppressed anyway. Perpetrators must've known about this.

- By betraying their country, they also lied and forced others to kill their own soldiers.

- All the enemies abroad and national traitors wanted us to fight each other. They failed.

  • The majority of Wagner commanders and fighters are patriots. They were used covertly against their brothers-in-arms.

  • I made steps to avoid large bloodshed. This needed time including letting those who made a mistake change their mind and see the consequences this will lead to.

  • Stability was possible thanks to the enormous support of civil society who united during the difficult time.

  • Putin will keep his word regarding PMC employees (possibly regarding no prosecution. Some can go to Belarus, rest can sign contracts with MoD. The choice is theirs.

    — Dmitri (@wartranslated) June 26, 2023

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8597

Maybe he just preferred getting shot instead of continue fighting WWI verdun style battles of attrition.

8598

He’s wasn’t fighting. He’s never been a soldier.

8599

Its still his company and his employees are committed there forever if Russia doesnt figure something out. There could be more money made in Africa than fighting trench warfare in Ukraine.

I read a lot of his people dont want to join the Russian army. So what happens to them? Do they have to run and hide?

8600

Prigozhin is just another oligarch: staying alive and accumulatig wealth by demonstrating usefulness to Putin and accumulating power to fend off the other oligarchs, in this case Shoigu. as well as enough personal security to avoid a window. Prigozhin got more slack than most oligarchs because he has more power and did a better job of demonstrating loyalty to Putin.

8601

That was what I thought until he started to make execution-worthy public statements every few weeks calling out Putin’s military apparatus. Odd way to demonstrate loyalty.

8602

But if Mr. Putin finds evidence General Surovikin more directly helped Mr. Prigozhin, he will have little choice but to remove him from his command, officials and analysts say.

“remove”

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8603

Terminate…with extreme prejudice.

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8604

Speaking of Surovikin…

https://twitter.com/jimmysecuk/status/1674148071888887808?s=21

8605

Yeah. Only thing is over the course of the war a lot of people have been disappearing and reappearing, rumored dead or injured but then seemingly fine, flown the coop but show up home again, so who knows.

It’s blowing up on twitter… must be true.

8606

Needless to say this is a hoax. I’m choosing to believe it anyway.

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8607

This is pretty much par for the course for the current version of Newsweek™. Bums me out when I see a headline I like on Reddit with a link to a Newsweek article because I know it’s basically BS.

Personal anecdote, I subscribed to old, “respectable” Newsweek in college because it was like $10/yr. However, I stopped reading it because it was basically news for dumb people.

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8608

Yeah my parents had a Newsweek subscription for a while when I was young. The quality was never impressive but at least they tried do basic journalism instead being a clickbait outlet. It was just the thing for waiting in a doctor’s office.

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8609

To be fair, Seagal has had a distinguished career in the military services. He single-handedly stopped at least two major terrorist attacks: one by a guy who hijacked a US warship, and another by a guy who hijacked a train so he could hijack a targetting satellite. Plus he was a no nonsense cop for all those years. I don’t know how he was able to find time to also be a movie star, but that’s a work ethic Putin may appreciate. Plus Seagal is probably immortal, having died during a dangerous air to air boarding of a hijacked pasanger jet in 1997. I think Putin is making a good “executive decision” here, the only risk is if he ever wants to get rid of Seagal, he will be “hard to kill”.

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8610

Obviously a patriotic American hero like Segal would never associate with someone like Putin, you can’t trust what you read in Newsweek.

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8611

@bestof