Cold war 2.0

[Virtual ghost]

Kazakhstan supposedly refuses to help Russia with "internal problems".

Leadership is being evacuated from Moscow to safer location.

 

[The Cat]

 

[Virtual ghost]

Live blog: Putin warns of civil war amid Russia mutiny

As I said to Herring. This is simply getting too serious that it is some kind of a game.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Supposedly even more of regular forces are joining the rebellion.

 

[Virtual ghost]

This means that things could snowball pretty quickly.

 

[Red Herring]

It could be.
However I am not 100% sure that this is the case, so I am not really posting anything about that. It is too early.


The thing is that there seems to be some really bad blood that is going on for months now. Therefore I am not sure this is all just staged. The things is that Russians are starting to face reality that the whole "special military operation" has failed. So in such situations tough guys often turn on each other if they can't get their hands on someone else. The war should have lasted for a week or two and now we are in something like "week 70". Therefore people are starting to realize that the big plan has failed and that they are all cannon fodder. Especially since the initiative is slowly turning to Ukrainian side. Plus economy for most people is probably pretty bad and thus sitting in trenches while the family is starving at home isn't exactly a stimulating environment. So some will snap for sure.


It is too early to tell but there is a chance that all of this is genuine.
Just remember what happened in 1917 and why it happened. The current cards on the table aren't that different.

I could be wrong and huge events seldom announce themselves.

However, the previous conflicts between Prigoshin and the Kremlin (or rather Shoigu) have always struck me as weird, feeling staged. He is just too convenient as a fall guy. I remember him threatening to throw in the towel in the next 24 hours of his demands weren't met and then nothing happened. Maybe it's just the sociopathic gopnik vibe or cultural differences but when he curses about his dead men something feels off in that video as well. Body language, facial expression, voice, etc. It's just intuition on my side though.

Prigoshin himself apart, if you want to organize a succeful coup you need to have the population and/or the army on your side, prefereably both. So far Prigoshin and his troops have neither. The population is used to keeping their head down and value stability. Putin seems to still have a lot of support. It would take large parts of the Russian army to join Wagner for this to be successful.

This could be 1917, like you say, but it reminds me more of the failed coup in Turkey in 2016.

 

[Virtual ghost]

I could be wrong and huge events seldom announce themselves.

However, the previous conflicts between Prigoshin and the Kremlin (or rather Shoigu) have always struck me as weird, feeling staged. He is just too convenient as a fall guy. I remember him threatening to throw in the towel in the next 24 hours of his demands weren't met and then nothing happened. Maybe it's just the sociopathic gopnik vibe or cultural differences but when he curses about his dead men something feels off in that video as well. Body language, facial expression, voice, etc. It's just intuition on my side though.

Prigoshin himself apart, if you want to organize a succeful coup you need to have the population and/or the army on your side, prefereably both. So far Prigoshin and his troops have neither. The population is used to keeping their head down and value stability. Putin seems to still have a lot of support. It would take large parts of the Russian army to join Wagner for this to be successful.

This could be 1917, like you say, but it reminds me more of the failed coup in Turkey in 2016.

Of course that it could end as in Turkey. However the situation at the field is pretty similar to where Russia was in 1917.

But as I said a few post back, the chain of events seems to be way too big that this is some sort of a game. This is all huge hit on the image of Russia and they don't like to put that into any question. So all of this is probably genuine, they are turning one on another since they know that that they lost. The special military operation didn't achieve it's goal and now people should die and suffer in order to keep some kind of a status quo. People can live like that for a while but in the end they will rebel, since everyone has it's limits.

 

[SD45T-2]

My head is kind of spinning right now. What if Prigozhin gets ahold of some nukes? Could there be a nuclear exchange between him and Putin?

I could be wrong and huge events seldom announce themselves.

However, the previous conflicts between Prigoshin and the Kremlin (or rather Shoigu) have always struck me as weird, feeling staged. He is just too convenient as a fall guy. I remember him threatening to throw in the towel in the next 24 hours of his demands weren't met and then nothing happened. Maybe it's just the sociopathic gopnik vibe or cultural differences but when he curses about his dead men something feels off in that video as well. Body language, facial expression, voice, etc. It's just intuition on my side though.

Perhaps his shtick in recent months has been part of a calculated scheme to stage a revolt all along.

 

[The Cat]

 

[Virtual ghost]

My head is kind of spinning right now. What if Prigozhin gets ahold of some nukes? Could there be a nuclear exchange between him and Putin?

Probably not, however supposedly there are some nukes near Rostov where is Wagner's center of operations.
I mean if there is about 10 000 of them around the country then it is quite hard to keep an eye on all of them. Especially in the climate where troops are changing sides. So the real problem are "rogue" elements.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Fighting breaks out inside Russia as Prigozhin’s rebellion menaces Moscow

 

[Red Herring]

Prigozhin Turns His Forces Back from Moscow, Avoids Showdown

Supposedly Lukashenko brokered a deal. I'm still calling bullshit on the entire operation.


This is basically an internal conflict between mafia bosses, fought with mafia methods.

 

[Red Herring]

Also, naturally my perpective is based on German media reporting, but it has always been my impression that the Russian population is for the most part either happy with Putin or doesn't give a damn either way as long as they are left to live ther private lifes in peace. There is no democratic tradition to build on and most people value a full stomach more than freedom and democracy anyway.
The strongest critics of Putin are war hawks to his right who think he should nuke the West. If he is overthrown it will likely be by some hardcore nationalist extremist alliance within the army. Nothing good will follow him, it would only get worse.... as it usually does after violent coups and revolutions.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Yeah it seems that someone from within the system has pulled the brake.
Because if this exploded fully Russia would have fallen part completely. While thousands of nukes would lay around and therefore even to the west this is problematic outcome,

But at this rate who knows what will happen tomorrow.

 

[Red Herring]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth

 

[Virtual ghost]

It seems that Wagner boss will be moving to Belarus after all this.

 

[SensEye]

I can't figure out exactly what is going on myself. However, I am pretty sure this is not all some sort of staged 'fake' rebellion. It makes Putin look very weak and some of the things Prigozhin has said directly undermine longstanding Kremlin propaganda.

I just can't see any upside for the Kremlin from all of this.

 

[Virtual ghost]

The story is probably pretty simple:

Prigozhin for months was very angry at high command since they are doing pretty sloppy job regarding logistics (and most other things for that matter). What in the end killed tens of thousands of his troops. So all of this was probably some sort of a warning shoot "If I decide that way I can fuck over all of you as well as this entire country". However he backed off when things were starting to get very serious. Since this was intimidation, not the real confrontation.

 

[The Cat]

 

[The Cat]