The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
This is Russia, so it could really mean anything and everything. From a genuine attempt at a military coup, to a psyop, to a covert attempt at defending Rostov against an invasion by cloaked aliens.
I have a question to ask though. If the coup/rebellion talk were real, wouldn't that make Prigozhin the first soldier of fortune in the history of mercenary work to want more peace and less war? Seriously, have you ever heard of a mercenary going "This war is unnecessary"?
And if Prigozhin is serious, wouldn't it be reasonable for him to just... Pull out of whatever his contract with Moscow is? Why the whining and bellyaching? Just say "Sorry, you're using us as meatshields and we're taking too many losses, we're suspending our services with you and going back to doing merc work in Syria and Africa".
I have a question to ask though. If the coup/rebellion talk were real, wouldn't that make Prigozhin the first soldier of fortune in the history of mercenary work to want more peace and less war? Seriously, have you ever heard of a mercenary going "This war is unnecessary"?
And if Prigozhin is serious, wouldn't it be reasonable for him to just... Pull out of whatever his contract with Moscow is? Why the whining and bellyaching? Just say "Sorry, you're using us as meatshields and we're taking too many losses, we're suspending our services with you and going back to doing merc work in Syria and Africa".
Whatever it is
This incident has the potential to undue every progress the Russians has made since the beginning of Special Military Operation
Hopefully any of the top brass, especially Putin, could handle this situation fast, efficiently and without serious repercussions because this is truly a bad time in doing a coup
This incident has the potential to undue every progress the Russians has made since the beginning of Special Military Operation
Hopefully any of the top brass, especially Putin, could handle this situation fast, efficiently and without serious repercussions because this is truly a bad time in doing a coup
It is just an attempt at a power grab. There have been other instances of mercenaries attempting to subvert the power structure which initially hired them in the first place in several instances in history. This is why relying on mercenaries is so much of a problem.
In Russia's case at least the mercenaries are actual Russians so there is a bigger chance the situation can be defused and these forces reintegrated into the regular army unlike in other instances in history.
Prigozhin's position is not peace, Prigozhin's position is best summed up as "why are we calling this a SMO instead of declaring this as a proper war, mobilize a million men and march until we're at the Polish border?"
This is why people joke that the more time passes the more he's becoming like Igor Girkin.
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Worst time for SMO, best time for Wagner, too early and they'll be seen as traitors to the nation right at time of counter offensive , at this moment Ukrainian forces are on operational pause/low tempo and thus whatever shinanigans Wagner pull at the rear won't be immediately disruptive. Front line troops can just follow the last order of hold the lines and be fine for a short time.
I can't think of any other time where Wagner can have such an outsized impact on the fate of the SMO without drawing major ire from the entire nation, I think Prigozhin picked exactly this time to apply maximum pressure.
It's been a while now but suddenly Wagner is starting to face an enemy it didn't expect and that's the specter of irrelevance. Prigozhin has been painting the MoD and the rest of the Russian military as incompetent and incapable, then the offensive in Zaporzhyzhia happened, and the defense units there, performed so much better than expected. You can feel Prigozhin's ice when he gave his congratulatory message to the defenders.
After being in the sun after the fall of Bakhmut, the honeymoon lasted too short. The tactical victories in Zaporzhyzhia gave the MoD new confidence and leverage, and told Wagner to sign the same contracts that every other volunteer group did---some who fought in the Zaporhyzhia region like the Russian Far East Volunteers and obtf Kaskad. Feels that Prigozhin was in the prime ballerina position forced to be relegated into supporting cast once more. I think he understands that once Wagner is placed into supporting cast again, or worst yet, not given any contract, they lose relevancy and with that their reason of existence. He isn't prepared to take that lying down. Understand that a Wagner employee signs up for a six month contract. So every month, contracts will expire and soldier employees will move on to other groups. If you lose your volunteer stream, the organization will wither. These are warriors, and if they cannot do what their nature calls for with this organization, there are others.
On the other hand if you were Russian MoD and you know just as everyone in this thread does that having a powerful PMC in your country is a bad idea long term, sooner or later you will have to make a move to disperse/absorbed Wagner. This sort of thing has happened many times in Chinese history and it's always quite a risky thing, sometimes it works sometimes the person in question refuses to give up his private army and an uprising is kicked off.
Thus MoD might calculate that doing this after the war is even more dangerous than now. AFU counteroffensive is on something of a pause at the moment. Wagner is not manning any front line position and is still in the process of recovering from Bakhmut. Prigozhin's dooming in the face of solid defence of Russian Army is making him unpopular, so why not now?
They gave Prigozhin a pretty good opportunity. If he fades from history now he'll be forever remembered as hero who took Bakhmut. Shoigu was doing that thing making all contractors sign up with army. Prigozhin could have played along and just slowly let Wagner be absorbed back into the army and then fade from limelight. It's unfortunate that Prigozhin decided to resist, yet it doesn't seem like he thought this thing the whole way through and his coup is so far shaping out to be a farce. Now at best he's looking at some serious jail time if not the death penalty.
One wonders how Kadyrov is feeling on this day looking at all this.
MoD open letter to Wagner:
Basically:
- you have been fooled into following Prigozhin's criminal venture and are taking part in armed uprising
- many of your peer units have realized the errors of their way and have contacted us for help, so that they may peacefully return to base
- we have offered assistance for all soldiers and offers who have reached out to us
- please proceed with caution and contact MoD
- we guarantee safety of all involved
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