Or maybe the Russian MoD is taking control of Wagner from prigozhin. By placing their own people into the PMC.
If I were prigozhin I would feel like they betrayed me by taking away my PR machine for political power.
The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
If I were prigozhin I would feel like they betrayed me by taking away my PR machine for political power.
Naaah. They'll make some cope excuse like this is likely some psyops to trick Ukraine into sending more troops to Bakhmut to get destroyed and all is good.
Any link for that?
Prigozhin is clearly a troll and a clown in it's own way... if it's not staged with the higher up, he's begging to receive an artillery round from both sides.
Russian military leadership have been a bunch of corrupt scratch my back to climb the ladder for quite a while... war in Ukraine will probably shuffle some cards in the long term.
The hulks of many Western vehicles in the Road of Life or the Road of Death depending on your viewpoint.
Shelter said to house Georgian and Polish mercenaries was targeted and hit by artillery.
FAB bomb attacks recorded in Avdiivka.
In the process of shooting down a Ukrainian Su-25. This was the one shot down over Bilozerka.
Shelter said to house Georgian and Polish mercenaries was targeted and hit by artillery.
FAB bomb attacks recorded in Avdiivka.
In the process of shooting down a Ukrainian Su-25. This was the one shot down over Bilozerka.
Last edited:
Prigozhin complains about lack of artillery shells, and then the night of the same day, the Russians hit all the remaining positions of the Ukrainians with magnesium rounds. He is either bullshitting or he has gone off the deep end at this point.
Not to mention all the FAB bombs being dropped on the Ukrainian controlled high rises, then Wagner capturing the highly contested post office and medical college which links to Khromove.
I would say he's just playing his role. and apparently successfull at that. To the point that people seems to think Wagner is the only Russian forces in the area.
Like i wonder why people quickly forgotten that Kadyrov did pretty much the same feat.
Yeah didn't they found like a massive weapon and ammo cache in Soledar salt mines enough to arm a million man army.
You assume that Putin is competent but Russian military is not. The opposite is true.
Russian military is dysfunctional and may have plenty of unresolved problems but they are very aware of their capabilities and limitations and understand the bureaucratic doublespeak which they use on daily basis very well. When they fake the numbers they know it's a fake check they can't cash.
Putin however lives in his isolated world of his own paranoid delusions and has lost contact with reality. When he ordered the Special Military Operation and the military stated that it's a bad idea he saw it as a challenge to his power, especially that this would come from GRU which is the hostile rival faction to Putin's own FSB. In reality it was the military stating the obvious which should be obvious if Putin wasn't as cretinously incompetent and useless as a leader. But Putin is very much like Stalin so he reacted much like Stalin did in 1941 - the same reasons, the same consequences. Human psychology decides the outcome of politics.
What you see here is Prigozhin calling out the cadre's passive resistance to Putin's Special Military Operation. Because SMO required the military to fight in breach with doctrine, which is like running backwards for any military, the cadres made a pragmatic decision to save their own skin. Thus they did only as much as was necessary to avoid accusations of dereliction of duty and complete collapse of the military but other then that they put their trust in the genius of the glorious leader. In Russia it's a well known dynamic that works because Russia is an authoritarian obedience-centered political culture. Russian culture is not about loyalty but obedience. You can't disobey the superior but remain loyal to him. Good results don't matter. Your disobedience that led to them does. So the generals are obedient but passive and all of the responsibility falls to Putin and his clique and no matter how bad the consequences are as long as the generals are obedient Putin can't do much to them because Putin plays the role of the tsar i.e. the guarantor of the rules of power.
In Russian political mythology the tsar is always good, always wise and always just. If something doesn't work out it's not because the tsar is bad, stupid and corrupt. That's an impossibility.because the tsar is bad, stupid and corrupt. That's an impossibility. It's because the entire world is against the good, wise and just tsar who is fighting an impossible battle for Russia and all of the boyars must lend him support. Which in Russian culture means obedience. As long as the underling is obedient he is doing all that is expected of him.
It's the same as wester democracies electing incompetent crooks who are nevertheless safe as long as they do what the electorate wants them to do no matter how stupid. It's a performance that is at the core of contemporary each culture's political spectacle. Whoever goes off script loses.
Putin and generals are engaged in a staring contest. The generals are telling Putin that he made the decision to cash the check that they told him not to cash so now they can remain dumb and obedient longer than he can remain solvent. They can fight the war to the last Russian if necessary. They will never betray him.
And Prigozhin is trying to change the script. The question is why.
It has two potential interpretations:
- either Prigozhin himself is in a very precarious position and seeks to paint himself as an obedient subordinate to Putin by shifting blame to the generals, because Putin is making him into a scapegoat to protect himself and he's playing the obedience card to force everyone to stick to the fundamental rules.
- or Prigozhin is acting as Putin's messenger and attempting to put pressure on the military cadre seeking for fractures (which absolutely exist, Russian military is far from a monolith - see role of VDV in SMO) so that the passive resistance is broken and the military joint Putin in sharing responsibility for SMO. Putin can't do it himself because he's good, wise and just. He will punish the evildoers but they have to be first revealed by a loyal servant of the tsar.
- In the first scenario it's Wagner's failure which will severely undercut Russia's ability to wage the war on the political cheap that is without mobilization. That will raise the political cost for Putin and will make him more dependent on the military's support because their chosen performance ultimately decides how much of the cost he will bear.
- In the second scenario it's Putin's growing weakness and fear that the military may perform a "gesture of good will" should Ukraine begin the counter-offensive to force Putin to the negotiating table and make him look bad, which may affect the elections in March next year. So he's using his proxy to pressure them to perform or accommodate some changes that are politically convenient.