Somehow Prigozhin was able to waltz into the Rostov military headquarters (which is in charge of Ukraine operations) without a shot being fired.
He may be forced to, because Prigozhin is pretty popular among the Russian people. I suspect that has a lot to do with why he is still alive. Perhaps the plan is to assassinate him in exile while in Belarus and that way, it can't be pinned directly on Putin, as far the people are know. Wagner is much needed in Ukraine, as is Prigozhin, so it'll be interesting to see how it all unfolds. A lot of conflicting information coming out as well.
Lukashenko would probably kill his own mother if Putin instructed him to do so. I would've expected Prig to be exiled to Africa where he's protected by his own private army instead of by Putin's stooge.
If it was a coordinated move between the two, Putin would have stayed in Moscow and bravely faced down the "impending threat". He wouldn't have risked looking like a coward and fleeing to St. Pete. Putin knows how to put on good theater, and he wouldn't miss such a clear opportunity to do so.
Putin will need to use something more sophisticated and subtle than the balcony toss method of quieting his old friend. He may need to use ricin or some other poison in an umbrella tip or mini-dart.
Prigozhin knows this. Feels staged. We’ll only know for sure once some other pieces of the puzzle fall into place.
Poland's president says that Russia is like "a wild beast that devours a man". I'm sure he meant it as a compliment. Duda compares Russia to a wild animal that needs to be shot Interesting diplomatic approach. It may have been a little too subtle for Putin, however.
It was odd how the Wagner forces faced *ZERO* resistance. Some haphazard roadblocks and that was it. I think Putin was probably scared to launch airstrikes against the convoy *inside* Russia, something like that could not be hidden from the Russian people, so he fled to buy time to negotiate. I agree, if they were both in on it - this was a very odd way to go about such a charade, making the dictator look weak is the opposite of what such a regime needs to project. That leads me to think it was probably “serious”, it’s just that these guys are no longer rational actors, so Priz probably just acted impulsivity and then thought better of it once Moscow itself was in striking distance. Unfortunately for Ukraine it probably means a quick end to the war isn’t at hand, for now.
Washington Post: US intelligence knew Wagner was planning insurrection Oof, gotta be careful. If Putin is able to spin this into "the West was trying to lead a coup in Moscow", it gives what would have been an otherwise apathetic Russian population a reason to support the war effort now. Still a lot of deep-seated resentment towards Americans in Russia. The optics of this are easily translated into a western-back coup that Putin was brave enough to stare down --- now it's time to fight for the fatherland! The administration should have just stayed quiet about it.
The administration did stay out of it. There is nothing stopping Russia from putting out whatever propaganda they can concoct.
Rag-tag insurrection … John Helmer writes: "The rebellion, according to sources speaking on Saturday evening, involved advance planning by Prigozhin and several hundred of the lowest ranks of his military group. There was no support among the Wagner officers. After they had moved on Rostov, then took the road to Voronezh and on towards Moscow, the road columns numbered several hundred, with a total across the southwest of no more than four thousand."
Not necessarily. What sealed the deal was Lukashenko's promise to put Prigozhin up in a luxurious penthouse in a tall building far above the uncouth common herd.
As more information trickles in, it does not seem to be the case right now either that Wagner faced no resistance in its brief march north or that Putin was reluctant to use airpower to stop them. But Wagner did apparently hand Russian aviation some of its worst losses of the war. And one can’t help but wonder if that did not play into Putin’s very, very generous settlement with Wagner’s grievances. Vladimir Putin breaks his silence in 'pre-recorded' interview about 'stepping up efforts' in Ukraine | Daily Mail Online
I had heard about some downed aircraft, it still seems unfathomable to me the Russian Air Force couldn’t hit a convoy on a highway if they really wanted to hit them. I truly think Putin feared what would happen from that spectacle. If Wagner forces actually did all that it would make Prigozhin‘s claims about “zero bloodshed” more bs (unless they just have some crazy barbaric mindset where only hand to hand combat counts as bloodshed). Of course what supposedly triggered the whole thing initially was a military strike on Wagner’s forces in the camps near the front, which as described was a whole lot of bloodshed. That was the supposed trigger. But the reality is nothing any of these lunatics say can be taken at face value.
