What's going on in Russia?
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Am sure there will be others to follow:
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It’s getting even murkier…
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The Wagner 'Coup' Was Staged by Putin
By now, everyone has heard about the narrowly avoided coup in Russia: Last Friday night, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, one of Putin's most trusted allies and the commander of the notorious Russian mercinary Wagner Group, marched on Moscow in an apparent coup d'etat, only to come to a swift agreement with Vladimir Putin and decamp for Belarus. While most commentators acknowledged that things didn't quite add up, the "expert" class happily concluded that at least it had weakened Putin in his war against Ukraine.
None seemed to realize the obvious truth: The coup was staged, and completely faked false flag operation.
Think about it: An army invades Russia, race right up to Moscow, and no one gets hurt? With just a few thousand men, it achieved what Hitler with almost a million men wasn't able to? And Putin holds his military back? And then, with Moscow supposedly within his grasp, Prigozhin decides, "Oh well, never mind" and heads to Belarus?
Prigozhin would have had to be an idiot or suicidal to think that with 8,000 men he could invade Moscow. Yet Prigozhin is very smart man, a juvenile delinquent turned convict, then hot dog salesman, then CEO of a multi-million dollar catering business serving the Kremlin, to finally commander of the world's most formidable mercenary force. It is utterly implausible that Prigozhin thought that he could take on Rosgvardia, Russia's National Guard, a 340,000-strong domestic security force reporting directly Putin.
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Last weekend, given the bizarreness of the events that unfolded and were magically resolved, the idea that the mutiny might have been staged did occur to me. However by mid week last, I abandoned that notion. Putin and his inner circle reman firmly in control and Prigozhin is essentially paid off and put away safely in the fridge - at least for the time being. His personal military fiefdom is being broken up and redeployed as deemed necessary. Putin will now work to take some tarnish off his up until now, carefully cultivated domestic image.
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At best, there might have been some passive support but it was tempered by lukewarm curiosity:
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Lukashenko says Prigozhin is not in Belarus but in Russia. Where in Russia is still unknown.
The process of dismantling Prigozhin’s domestic image though has begun:
“Little by little I am learning the art of being quite content by doing very little slowly” ~ Lionel Hardcastle
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@George-K said in What's going on in Russia?:
@Renauda said in What's going on in Russia?:
Prigozhin is not in Belarus but in Russia. Where in Russia is still unknown.
Outside of a 14th story window?
I was thinking the tallest building in Moscow, The Lyubanka. As the Muscovites say, “from its basement you can see all the way to Siberia”.
“Little by little I am learning the art of being quite content by doing very little slowly” ~ Lionel Hardcastle
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I find his analysis to be rather naive, but an interesting read.
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Retired Gen. Robert Abrams, an ABC News contributor who previously served as the commander of US Forces Korea, shared his thoughts on Prigozhin’s uncertain fate in the aftermath of the Wagner Group’s short-lived armed insurrection last month.
“My personal assessment is that I doubt we’ll see Prigozhin ever again publicly,” Abramstold ABC News. “I think he’ll either be put in hiding, or sent to prison, or dealt with some other way, but I doubt we’ll ever see him again.”
Asked if he thought the billionaire businessman was alive after posing the most significant challenge to Putin’s regime since he came to power in 1999, Abrams said: “I personally don’t think he is, and if he is, he’s in a prison somewhere.”
The retired four-star general also raised doubts about a meeting that, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Putin held with Prigozhin and all his senior Wagner commanders on June 29, five days after the aborted mutiny.
I’d be surprised if we actually see proof of life that Putin met with Prigozhin, and I think it’s highly staged,” Abrams said.
Peskov told reporters Monday that Putin had invited 35 people to the meeting, among them Prigozhin, and that it had lasted three hours.
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently said Prigozhin’s failed coup attempt put a target on the Russian’s back.
“I wouldn’t insure his life … Prigozhin clearly took a chance. If you’re going to take on the king, don’t do it with a Nerf bat. He did. It failed,” Pompeo said on WABC 770 AM radio’s “Cats Roundtable” show with host John Catsimatidis.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@George-K He must have known what would happen. I wonder why he stopped "short" and kind of gave up?
