Speculating without all the facts or proper insight is pretty stupid, especially about important issues. Still, people do it all the time. Why do they do it? Well, because it’s fun and a good exercise in inductive and deductive reasoning. This is the sort of activity people engage in when drinking beer with friends. It’s also a compulsion of many people, including mine. I can’t stop thinking about certain problems, and the more unclear they are, the more interested I become. It’s a character flaw, or a character virtue. I’m not sure.
This brings me to the recent events in Russia with Prigozhin’s Wagner PMC coup/mutiny. What a delicious buffet of mystery meats that is. Facts are unclear, rumors abound and nothing makes sense. It’s absolutely irresistible and therefore, against better judgment, I’m going to engage in some speculation – just for fun of course. It’s not like I know anything about what really happened.
Many theories have already been put forward about the Prigozhin coup attempt. This was a real attempt but Prigo acted alone out of desperation. This was a real attempt but it was engineered from abroad. This was a fake operation carried out by Russia to mess with the West and perhaps to move troops. Perhaps it was a real attempt which the Russians knew about and used to their advantage.
In the spirit of irresponsible speculation let’s take a look at a few facts, rumors and speculations – and then speculate further on what they might mean. Let’s start with these seemingly unrelated facts and rumors from the past:
Prigo’s ammo feud: The origin of Prigo’s feud with the Russian MoD was ammo shortage. Prigo even posed with a number of dead Wagner soldiers while screaming at Defense Minister Shoigu, blaming him and the ammo shortage for their deaths. From that point on, Prigo used every opportunity to escalate the feud and to blame Shoigu and the MoD for both incompetence and malice toward Wagner PMC.
The ammo shortage accusation was obviously bogus. The MoD had assigned certain supplies of ammunition to Wagner and was not willing to increase them because it needed to send a lot to the south to prepare for the Ukrainian offensive. Remember that Wagner PMC controlled the operational tempo in the battle of Bakhmut and was supposed to limit it in accordance with available ammunition. Instead, Prigo increased the tempo far beyond what the ammo supplies allowed, resulting in a lot of unnecessary casualties. In other words, Prigo purposefully drove a large number of Wagner soldiers to their unnecessary deaths and then blamed the MoD for it. Perhaps he even did it specifically to be able to blame the MoD for it. It’s not surprising that Shoigu and Gerasimov weren’t pleased with Prigo.
The brainwashing of Wagner troops: As Prigo’s crusade against the Russian MoD progressed, he increasingly circulated rumors that the MoD and the Russian Army were out to get Wagner. The ammo shortages were on purpose because they hate and envy Wagner; Russian soldiers have orders to shoot Wagner troops on sight; Wagner is superior and therefore the Russian Army hates us. This culminated in the fake missile strike carried out by the Russian Army on Wagner positions right before the start of the coup attempt. In other words, Prigo did everything he could to turn Wagner troops against the Russian Army and the MoD. Wagner was a victim of corrupt, malicious and envious forces in Moscow and the only solution was direct action against all this corruption – for Russia of course.
Victory through paralysis: Remember the reasoning behind the expected success of the Ukrainian offensive? The Russian command structure would be paralyzed and the Ukrainians with their brand new, high tech, invincible, 40 year old Leopard tanks would steamroll their defense lines. This was a talking point all over the West and in Ukraine. It seems clear that NATO and the Ukrainians were counting on this paralysis to happen. All kinds of analysts thought this was ridiculous because Russians are stoic people and not prone to paralysis through panic. Well, unless something specific would be engineered to elicit that paralysis of course, like an armed coup inside Russia.
Big plans in June: There was a rumor in Ukraine that something big would happen in late June, probably between June 20 and June 30. I heard this rumor some weeks ago and it was apparently widespread in Ukrainian circles. The rumor was true; something big indeed happened.
Counterterrorist operation in Moscow: At the absolute beginning of the Prigo coup – back when Wagner and Prigo were releasing the fake missile strike video and heading for Rostov on Don, a major antiterrorist operation was initiated in Moscow. This was apparently before Wagner troops started driving to Moscow. Perhaps this was just a standard contingency being activated, but there was news that the FSB had captured a Ukrainian intelligence operative in Moscow. The news said that he had rolled on a network of Ukrainian or Ukrainian-aligned terrorists in Moscow who were about to initiate a major terror campaign in the city. There was little subsequent news about this and I don’t know if this is true – but something clearly happened.
Color revolution branding: All Western-engineered color revolutions and destabilization plans include branding. In fact, you can almost always spot Western fingerprints by looking for the branding they feel compelled to use. They use colors a lot, seasons of the year, and even smell like in Lebanon in 2015. Prigo also used branding to communicate his message. First it was corruption, but then he settled on “justice.” It was further refined and culminated in the “March for Justice” – which is what he called the drive up to Moscow from Rostov on Don. That is clear branding, just like “Black Lives Matter.”
Offensive rumors: During the night when the Rostov drama unfolded, there were rumors that a major offensive was about to take place in the south. The Ukrainian Army was, according to these rumors, ready to attack the Russian lines in greater force than ever before. There were also news that the Russian Air Force had carried out the biggest bombing offensive of the war on Ukrainian positions and assembly points. I don’t know if this is true, but this was the word on the street. If this was planned, it was obviously canceled, perhaps due to lack of Russian paralysis.
If we assume that the points and conclusions above are all true and valid, what do they tell us? As I said before, I don’t know what happened but I can see what this looks like based on events and it ain’t pretty. Let’s go completely off the reservation and construct a sequence of events based on the points above and other information we have. It is going to sound crazy but bear with me.
Prigo was bought and recruited by Western and Ukrainian intelligence during or before the battle of Bakhmut. During the battle he and/or his handlers decided to use Wagner PMC as a tool against the Russian State – to weaken it and to create command paralysis at the right moment.
The first step was to split Wagner from the Russian Army and create among the troops hatred against the MoD and the Russian General Staff. To do this, Prigo increased operational tempo in Bakhmut beyond ammunition resources and that way basically started killing his own troops in large numbers. He then turned their attention to the carnage he himself had engineered and started blaming the “corrupt Russian system” – apart from Putin who was too popular to go after. The goal was to alienate and anger Wagner troops and to turn them into willing tools for the plan.
After Bakhmut, Prigo followed the plan concocted by his handlers. He escalated the corruption accusations and created victimhood and persecution mentality among his troops. He also tried to create doubts among Russian troops in general by articulating Ukrainian talking points and outright lies about the situation on the battlefields and the origin of the conflict. According to him there was never any Ukrainian aggression toward Donbass and the Russian leadership was lying about battlefield progress. These talking points and their aims have clear Western and Ukrainian fingerprints.
While this was going on, the Ukrainian offensive wasn’t going well and Russian lines hadn’t been breached. It was, nevertheless, decided (perhaps a month ago) to carry the coup out between June 20 and June 30. Ukrainian forces would be assembled and prepared for the great paralysis offensive, in case the coup was successful. The constraining factor was the increased pressure on Prigo from the Russian MoD. They insisted he signed a contract which would essentially remove him from Wagner. Prigo stalled and basically went into hiding to prevent the Russian authorities from arresting him or simply killing him.
The coup started according to plan and, as Prigo and his Western handlers had expected, the Russian Government was hesitant to fight them all-out on Russian soil. Prigo went to Rostov on Don and talked love and justice like a sixties hippie – and demanded to have Shoigu and Konashenkov brought to him to give them a stern talking-to. The Wagner troops were polite and avoided any confrontation. They were there for justice, peace and love – unless the evil Russian Army attacked of course.
While this was going on, the Russian Army noticed significant movements of Ukrainian troops in the south during the night and started bombing them vigorously. The Ukrainians kept preparing and waited for coup success and Russian paralysis.
The color revolution branded “March for Justice” started when Prigo sent a significant number of his most brainwashed Wagner troops toward Moscow. These troops were expendable and were, if the plan succeeded, all going to be killed or captured. Their only purpose in (what remained of) their lives was to force the Russian Government to engage in battles in the Moscow area, simulating a civil war.
As the Wagner suicide columns approached Moscow, the Ukrainian terrorist cells in the city would be activated. They would carry out a number of attacks all over the city to engineer massive confusion and the impression that the Government had lost control. Chaos in the city and battles in the outskirts would create disbelief and shock among the Russian people and Russian soldiers, and hopefully total chaos in the command structure, resulting in paralysis. At that point the big Ukrainian attack would start.
Then things went bad. The chaos in Moscow didn’t materialize and the Russian government avoided all out attacks on the columns. Perhaps they knew what the plan was and acted accordingly, who knows. Chaos and uncertainty in both Russian society and the Army also failed to materialize as Russians decided not to panic, and instead supported their Government. Seeing this disaster unfold, with no paralysis visible, the Ukrainian NATO army cancelled their big offensive.
At that point Prigo realized he had failed and a theater production starring Lukashenko was arranged to wind things down. Prigo went into exile in Belarus and the Wagner suicide troops went back to their barracks. I don’t see a bright future for Prigo, unless he can bust out of Belarus and get to the West.
So, in conclusion, this wasn’t necessarily a coup. Maybe there were traitors waiting in the wings to seize power, but it is more likely that the objectives were simply to weaken the Russian State through chaos, and to enable command paralysis so that the Ukrainians could break through the Russian defense lines – thereby weakening the Russian State further.
I have no idea if this is the correct interpretation of events or not. It’s just idle speculation, but who knows…
Hmmm.. i didn’t think of that. “March for Justice” is rather suspicious. It sounds like Western psyops stuff
This thesis by Larry is compelling and ties all the pieces together except for one…if Prigozhin turned, and FSB know it, why is he alive?
I’ll attempt to answer my own question. Probably because killing him would have created a martyr and a further wedge for Ukrainian intelligence to split Russian popular support for the war.
If this thesis is true, the FSB/Russian govt have played a blinder! Ukrainian troops rallied and were annihilated waiting for marching orders, Prigozhin has lightened the US treasury of millions (billions?) of dollars, the FSB may have identified 5th columnists, the problem of Wagner has been resolved, and now Putin’s approval rating is at 90%. It’s like the sanctions boomerang all over again 🙂
I’ve zig-zagged on this, but finally i believe this may be the closest interpretation fitting all the facts. Bravo Larry.
A corollary….if Larry’s thesis is correct, Prighozhin’s days are numbered. Justice may not be swift, but it is inexorable.
Ah, a guest post, not Larry! Sorry Gaius
OR … Everything the same except Prigozhin was playing for both sides waiting to be sure to end up on the winning team while both sides hoped he would go with their plan. Right now he’s bargaining for his life in exchange for every scrap of info the FSB can get out of him. Like when you try to empty a toothpaste tube. This would be an unenviable situation for Mr. P, since the information he provides cannot be trusted until they are sure his psychological will has been broken (not fun for him).
I’m guessing he’ll have lost a fair bit of weight and will look a tad older by the next time he’s in public.
Perhaps. Will we ever know for sure? God, I hope so. Historic happenings are afoot.
I agree with everything you have written. Except the killing part. If we assume Michael Jackson can be turned from a hero to a villain (which he is not). Then I can assume after shooting Progozin would not turn him into a martyr. The Russian press could do a hatchet job on him as good as any western press. So no, I think if this was a real coup any of the former Gru commanders at Wagner could have shot him on the spot given orders from Moscow. To me Larry assessment in the first two blogs are highly accurate.
The Russian press and PR machine could not hatchet their way out of a paper bag. Their military industrial machine does not suffer from the same shortcomings.
It does not make sense at all. Prigo is extremely rich, the Western can give him nothing he does not already have. Plus, he must know that the West would use and kill him in time. My take is that this one is a spoiled prock who chose to run a calculated risk to get rid of people damaging both his ego and his finances.
Of course, speculation is all most of us can do. Many interesting theories and possibilities. My gut tells me we haven’t seen or heard the last of Prigozhin, for better or worse.
Kind of like Gollum in TLOTR.
It depends on what perspective you have what better or worse means. If Larry is correct, Prigozhin is a traitor and death is perhaps not so far in his future. I have a feeling this will be the next context Prigozhin is presented in…or ,if signals are not desired, a disappearance…and if handled subtly, not even a confirmed disappearance, just a drop from consciousness
I have done a bit of front porch beer drinking bull shitting myself Larry. On this one? I’m going with dumbass with huge ego and mental problems. I don’t believe there was a big convulated plot etc. Just a loon that had a meltdown whose own people probably started asking “WTF”.
💯
Why the lies about the false attack on Wagner at the start of his ‘justice march’, the branding, the repudiation of Donbass’s suffering, and the lies about ammunition shortages starting in January then? How do you reconcile that ?
“How do you reconcile that ?”
Simple:
1. Prigozhin’s political ambitions have been clear for a while. The only question is what those ambitions were. Apparently they included a position in the government at some point, not necessarily now, but certainly in the future. As it became clear that Wagner was incredibly popular in Russia Prigozhin decided it was the right time to stake his claim, so began attacking Shoigu (with Gerasimov as necessary collateral damage). The coup was launched when it became clear that
[a] Wagner would never be more famous than now, with the Russian army finally strong enough to carry out its own battles with Wagner reduced to an assisting position (which was precisely the opposite of the situation at Soledar and Artëmovsk).
[b] The MoD was pushing Prigozhin hard to force Wagner into the regular military so the coup window was even narrower.
[c] The West needed to support the coup for any chance of success – Prigozhin needed their recognition of his planned new position – so he began talking their points. Every aspiring colour revolution stooge does this to project himself as a candidate. In India the useless and unelectable Congress Party Gandhi dynasty heir Rahul Gandhi is doing so right now in regular trips to Brutain and the Imperialist States.
2. Wagner is itself a massive branding operation, complete with violin playing and videos that outdo ISIS (minus the headchopping, of course). It’s asinine to talk as though the West have a monopoly on branding.
Yeah but the convoluted nature of it combined with the pithy motto screams “Langley” in a very loud voice.
I have heard some say “its a plan that could only be hatched by idiots or the US State Department, I rest my case.
Well Larry, your scenario seems pretty convoluted to me. There were so many things that had to happen simultaneously for a plan like like that to succeed. It is however, as you say, fun to speculate.
Prigozhin was trash talking months before this situation culminated in his going to Belarus. Whatever else he did, he and Wagner, served a useful purpose and did a very good job in Bakhmut. They fought hard. It took months, was slow going and deadly. Prigo is a non-military person and I’m sure the frustration was very high.
In this case, I think Occam’s Razor applies. The explanation for this incident is much more straight forward. He was lashing out and had the support of the troops he took into battle. His over the top rants regarding ammunition, etc. really did convey frustration, bitterness and resentment.
The coup thing is ridiculous. Whatever else Prigo is, I believe he is a Russian first. Having said that I’m surprised he is still alive. If he was involved, as you say, in a plot then there is no way he would be given a pass; or maybe there is more to this curious situation yet to come…
This was a guest post and not Larry, Curt.
Apologies, and thank you!
But why shting on the regular ru army performance ? Or lying about the reality of the pre war situation on Donbass ? I am with Larry on this but i see rather this op as a planned coup de grace that was launched in suboptimal conditions because the required condition of a successful ua offensive never materialised . The gamblers did it anyways .Typical
Larry, hats off like your people say)
From among all the good sources (o. Scott – ins. Martyanov, and everything in between) and from understanding how VVP works since the start of this (2014) I’d say your “salad” is the closest!, please note how Putin works to solve systemic problems by using whatever bad stuff is thrown their way..?
Ofc all will be better seen with time, but one should never underestimate Russian capabilities in using your weaknesses after you decided to declare war on them)))
Cheers from LV, FREE GONZALO LIRA and JULIAN ASSANGE!!!
…Z
interesting but another kind of analysis would ask a different question about the various hypotheses.
Does any hypothesis actually make a difference?
I think only one does – that of a Russian based conspiracy with the hardliners. And since this now appears very unlikely I think we can all relax, the question is a 64c question not a $64 billion one.
The CIA/MI6 plot only has one interesting implication to me. It was very desperate. Therefore if true it means that CIA/MI6 is desperate to keep Biden/Sunak/military interested at a time that they are probably looking for an exit. Mind you we probably knew that already.
Prigozhin should stay away from windows – he may fall from one.
“Defenestration” is the word of the day
In fact, there is no real need for specific details, because for me the whole thing bears the trademark of all western elites cynical but idiotic schemes, reeling desperation, confusion, chaos, improvisation, hubris and profound idiocy, all mixed into a soup that is supposed to be elegantly puzzling to the “by-the-book” Russians. But now it’s over, the majority of this planet’s population know better: they see that Nulland and co planned stupidly, forgot the most crucial elements, failed miserably and then managed the info with arrogance, creating even more confusion. Strange that such a childish and deranged behavior stayed in operation for so many decades.
The horror of the NEOCONS (incl. Nuland) schemes is their psychopathic disregard for the lives of those people they use for their own selfish purposes.
They are willing to kill millions in their war schemes.
How is it that psychopaths run our foreign policy?
And the courageous whistleblowers who tell us the truth are captured and thrown into dungeons.
Is this a criminal enterprise or what….just saying…
As Randy Newman sings in “A few words in defense of my country”
All empires come to an end….this one is ending like all the rest….
Hope we have a soft landing courtesy of BRICS & SCO deflating the Petro$$$ before they trigger WWIII
Thanks
Excellent analysis! How Putin stoped this, what they told to Prigo and how come Prigo is free to hide in this moment? Is beyond my imagination. Hope we will know more in next days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LIYWeLpCes
My understanding is that Prigozhin is/was not the military commander of Wagner, but Lotus, and that the whole organization was built by Russian intel and security services. Could Prigozhin have hoarded ammunition, for example, without his commanders knowing? Could he really have kicked up the tempo in any battle? It’s not obvious to me.
Big Serge has a convincing article. It wasn’t exactly a coup, but more of a show-of-force, really a mutiny. He was trying to make a point and didn’t know when to stop. To some degree, that explains Prigozhin’s value; he would push visibly, while all the other adults in the room were doing the slow methodical work. Not exactly good-cop/bad-cop, but close.
That is essentially what I said I believe happened in my post in the comments on the other article. I think it is probably pretty close.
The biggest reason I believe something like that happened is because it fits with how our state department and intelligence agencies have operated over and over. Further, I don’t expect them to just roll over. They have/had something big up their sleeves. I was afraid of escalation, but this well could have been it.
Like i said in my other post, western intelligence agencies and elites believe Russia is fragile despite all evidence to the contrary. Russia is in some ways, the most stable and resilient place on earth. Much happens, little ever actually changes, the Russian people endure, and Russia remains a great power.
For me, the hardest thing to explain is the slap on the wrist that Prigozhin allegedly got. His days may be numbered and he’ll have an “accident” soon Or he is a brilliant double agent who kept Putin informed of everything and happily took a large amount of money from western intelligence agencies regardless.
Wagner may still have a surprise for Kiev coming from the north. Unsure how many musicians went to Belorussia.
I noticed the name of the guest author is the name of the traitor in the TV show Battlestar Galactica. I got a good chuckle out of that.
Truly stranger than fiction! Would definitely make for a great spy movie or novel.
As col. Douglas Macgregor commented in Judge Nap’s channel: “this was not a coup d’etat”. I believe so. It had a 0% chance of success and even a perhaps deranged Prigo would have known that. So what was it then?
For me either Prigo lost his mind and decided to roll up to Rostov and blackmail Putin with the expulsion of his arch nemesis Shoigu or… a deep psy ops??
Lets remember that Putin (the legalistic person that he is – he studied law) is somewhat constrained by what Russian law permits under the SMO. However a Counter Terrorist Operation (CTO) would him him a much freer hand e.g. further mobilization, greater arrest powers, etc.
So Prigo’s antics could have been the necessary ticket.
I think the situation will become more clear in the next few weeks/months depending on what Putin does and what happens with Prigo and Shoigu.
Wagner was first created to allow Russian actions with ‘plausible deniability’; that is, to avoid ‘censure’ by the West. Russians still seemed to care what the West saw or thought.
No more; they could care less about Western opinions, thus need for ‘plausible deniability’ and thus private military groups is gone. Prigo was loosing his $$$ source, thus the desperate gamble.
What makes you think that was his only source of $$$?
The value of a medical intervention rests in its effectiveness to treat a problem not in the small print. It is better to abstain from speculation and judgments when developing a profile. If we use this approach regarding the Wagner incident what do we get?
1. Putin and his government tested and found positive support and unity nationally and internationally, except from the West of course.
2. Many of the insurgents that already existed in Russia were discovered as they showed up to support the “mutiny”. I would call this a good rat trap.
3. The arm forces clearly united around the government and consolidated their efforts. They moved troops around and nobody knows exactly what kind of troop movements occurred. Great distraction.
4. The Russian army continued to strike and destroy Ukrainian forces without pause.
5. The West looks like a fool after the whole thing fizzled away rapidly. Belarus averted a “color revolution”.
In sum , intentionally or by Divine Providence it is huge win for Russia. A man’s wisdom is tested in the crucible of humiliation and Putin and his team look more humane and credible to the rest of the world and myself. In other words, a well played chess game move.
Yes
We play tiddlywinks
Russians are grand masters at chess
Hope we learn more about what went on…..
I think that there is a high probability that Prigozhin informed the Russian government about the Ukrainian/NATO plans as Larry has suggested. This would explain why he was not reigned in or arrested earlier when he railed against Shoigu and the Russian MoD. Overall a very strange set of circumstances.
Assuming the revolt was genuine, wouldn’t Putin be forced to at least try and punish some of the leaders? In the Decembrist Revolt of 1825, “The Decembrists were taken to the Winter Palace to be interrogated, tried, and convicted. Kakhovsky was executed by hanging, together with four other leading Decembrists…” (WIkipedia)
Nothing like that has occurred, meaning this revolt was tacitly approved by Putin.
Why do this? It seems preparation for an upcoming offensive. Putin can use this to scare his leadership into unity and weed out nay-sayers. Anyone advocating for a defensive strategy should watch their back.
Because unlike during the Decembrist revolt, the whole world is now watching. Prig will get his comeuppance one way or another. Russians, unlike western arrogant, petulant simpletons who pass for statesmen these days, have been around the geopolitical block a few times. They’ll make a move when needed and not simply to monopolize the news cycle for a few days.
Trouble with the Theory Larry is that it is too logical and Priggy is acting just as it is expected based on his past performances . I am more likely to think he is a “Double Agent ” and in the Classical sense trusted by neither side . This makes him very expendable as none wants the story lingering after his demise. That part is next and soon.
Has it occurred to anybody that Putin was lenient to Prigozhin and the Wagners who were involved in the “Drang Nacht Soigu” out of a sense of respect for the great valor shown by Wagner in Bakhmut
These people won a battle that will go down in Russian history. They mauled some 38 Ukrainian brigades at almost zero cost to young Russian draftees. At most, maybe 3000 Regular Russians Army were either KIA or crippled, as opposed to as many 50K Ukrainians. The rest of the Russian casualties were Wagner mercenary proffessionals who chose a path that would inevitably lead to being a casualties. The other 10K were people who had been scorned for being the dregs of society who then regained a measure of honor by dying for Rodina.
Thats a serious mitigating factor!
And Russians still consider honor an important aspect of life! So yes, I can see Putin acting purely in deference to the honor of the Wagner troops who where so valiant for the rodina.
Very interesting.
It sounds a lot what retired Indian diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar proposed on his website about a day ago. You can read it at:
https://www.indianpunchline.com/fsb-spooked-the-cia-on-prigozhin-coup/
Highly recommended.I can easily see the desperate and degenerate clown show in Washington, Kiev (and probably also London) ending up putting on such a circus act.
Gringo in Mexico
Whether Piggy was acting on western interests or not the best outcome for Russia is for him to “get to the west.” He would then be seen by the Russian population as a NATO stooge, even if he was actually just a ‘lone gunman.’
It reminds me of Lincoln’s treatment of the Copperhead Vallandigham. He was convicted by court martial but rather than imprisonment Lincoln simply had him conducted over the border to the Confederacy. That finished him politically.
Great historical analogy.
Vallandigham did not kill anyone or took part in any armed action against these uSA. Vallandigham simply exercised his freedom of speech and privilege as a USA Representative to criticise Lincoln’s war.
I do see the analogy, other than exile.
Also factor in there were a half dozen major news outlet ready with scores of articles already prepared and released at very the outset..
Another typical tactic used by the masters of deception
Immediately starting up their media lies; Russia in the midst of civil uprising Putin to be replaced.
You are right. The Applebaum article looked like a color revolution billboard.
The media tee up is an infallible tell for Western involvement in the coup.
I don’t think Prig was working with Ukraine or NATO. As soon as the MoD made clear their intentions to cut his various contracts and assimilate Wagner troops into the Russian Army proper, he devised an ill-advised plan to trash the MoD and turn Wagner against them. Simple motive, Prig was about to lose both his private army and all his other contracts with the MoD. This was a last ditch attempt by a crazy guy with nothing to lose. If he’d done nothing, he would’ve lost everything anyway.
So it’s like Putin said, greed and selfishness turned him traitor.
Humans greatest inventions and achievements all started with speculation.
I have not seen one single piece of evidence that supports P was involved in a real coup. If P had been turned I would have expected to see failure in Bakhmut, obvious failure but this was not the case.
The W’s greatest wet dream is CW etc. in R so R made them believe it was happening when it was not. I am sure that R had a number of objectives to be gained by such events and these seem to have been achieved.
Assuming he didn’t completely lose his mind, Prigo must have collected a percentage of the latest Pentagon accounting error to finance the March for Justice (only with FSB permission, of course). Perhaps the report I’ve heard of a transport plane leaving Moscow for Washington is returning the pallets of $$–so sorry, no need for these back home, have you got any yuan?
Yep. It’s hard to believe that the country that finds $6B in the couch cushions wasn’t involved in Prigo’s folly. I expect to hear of Prigozhin’s fatal heart attack in the coming months. Bury him in an unmarked grave in a swamp in Belarus.
Since I studied ballet as a kid and my worst fear was being a warrior my comment should probably be ignored.
That said, if we add what Ray McGovern pointed out – that intelligence services all over the world, including Ukraine and the U.S., recognize megalomania as a tool to be used – then if Prig fits that predisposition, then perhaps he wanted to be recognized and pushed up the ranks and was disappointed if that ambition was ignored – if that’s so then it seems the shoe fits.
Thanks to Mr Johnson and M Baltar for interesting analysis along with the necessary inferences to try to fill in the blanks
Someone should investigate how a an26 in flames video was used as proof for the Il22m shotdown . I guess the need of shocking images warrants the risk of the fake being debunked
> I have done a bit of front porch beer drinking bull shitting myself Larry. On this one?
> Well Larry, your scenario seems pretty convoluted to me.
My speculation – this article is not written by Larry.
Observation leads to belief there is bad blood between Wagner and Russia military leadership. Observation leads to belief that leader of Wagner is unstable personality.
Power chips: St Petersburg VS Moscow, US non accounted monies, powerful mercenary army VS RU military leadership…. all the dark arts players by all sides pulling like a taffy machine at the state fair… RU military leaders see Wagners as getting too big, hard to manage without negotiations.
What is the end results? Wagners are weakened as a group, easier to control by RU military. There is always the funding leash. ~25k Wagners going to Belarus, where there are already RU mobile nukes. ~10k Wagners roll into regular RU military. Prisons are emptied..and the front lines are filled.
You have an instant two front war against UKR and a new one front force against Poland.
UKR can easily be crushed in a pincer movement of the two fronts.
Simply Ingenious, Fake Coup and 6 Billion Dollars Earned
How the Kremlin and the Wagner chief tricked the USA and thus NATO! Reward: 6 billion dollars!
Ist auf deutsch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgnIt_lZ3jk
To see the world around us and understand reality requires thought. Thought requires memory, categorization/classification, analysis and conclusion. We all have different abilities of thought depending on many factors.
To not try make sense of events, for people with a degree of intelligence, got to be near impossible.
Even with limited knowledge, admitting that degree of ignorance, it is an exercise in how well we see the world and our ability to analyse and predict future events nor to admit when in error.
Thoughtful people are not afraid to be put to the test of time.
Being good at it, “it is a blessing … and a curse.” ( Adrian Monk, tv series)
Very interesting, Larry. It fits, and follows Russian history with the Bolshevik revolution. They used similar tactics whereby a very small group was able to kick off a chain of events leading to the fall of the Czar. The key to success is the “chaos” part. And that didn’t happen, so it fell apart.
I believe that “somebody” was behind this, but not sure as to who. If Putin wasn’t in on it, he sure knew in advance and played his hand well. They managed to root out some moles, etc., I think, and came out better.
As to Prigozhin, if your thesis is true, his days are numbered. I would guess that first the Wagner forces will be absorbed, re-assigned and re-educated before Prigozhin has his unfortunate accident. Your analysis makes sense, and your expertise puts a good degree of credibility to it.
Dunno…sounds like a Tom Clancy novel.
However, with the all the delusional clowns running around in DC/London & media-land, really dumb plots go unnoticed due to their banality.
This brings Larry’s hypothesis closer to smoothie and MoA. I want to add just 1 point – even if Prigozhin was a true turncoat, Putin would still hold off capital punishment to avoid making a martyr out of Prig and Wagner followers. They get the Navalny treatment – kept on short leash and quietly fading out.
It would be crazier if the double agent play is true though – Wagner now has a forward base in Belarus (or several) from which they directly threaten Kiev and the rest of Russophobia poodles.
A few points on the article:
It was written on Sunday morning – basically as a first impression piece. It would be different if I were to write it now. However, since I wrote it there have been some developments which seem to support it rather than refute – including Putin’s second speech and western foreknowledge. There are some speculative elements there (to say the least), particularly about how Prigo may have manipulated Wagner troops to turn them into a weapon against the Russian state. This is completely circumstantial of course but two things are clear: Wagner WAS used as a tool against the state and in order to use a tool you need to create one. The methods I suggest are valid and common for psychological manipulation, particularly in “cult environments” and nowadays in western society in general.
If this was indeed the plan I must say that it’s an impressive one. I don’t think it was stupid at all. Crazy and irresponsible sure, but not stupid. In fact I’m quite impressed by the people who put it together. The inventiveness of the plan is actually the single biggest issue that creates doubt in my mind that I may be right.
Gaius Baltar,
I haven’t finished your article, yet the first two paragraphs describe my Dumbosity or Virtue to a tee LOL. And that will be the same tomorrow as it was yesterday no matter what happens in the smo or anywhere else I imagine LOL.
So for the first two paragraphs, kudo’s. You described me to a tee. I was up so late last night trying to piece some random happenings together that would not make a difference in anything no matter what their portents turned out to be pointing too, that I woke up after noon today LOL.
Now back to reading your article while I listen to a video on the smo by Dima and continue to think on how close or far my own retarded rambling musings on Biblical subjects may be to the reality of those writings meanings.
Character flaw or character virtue indeed. And I also have no clue which one it is heh heh heh.
OK I finished it.
Great article. well thought out and massively coherent and easy to understand.
You are a good writer.
In the spirit of dumbosity and possibly unintentional mean-ness, I would like to add yet another angle to keep us both up at night with wheels spinning endlessly in meaningless contemplation and wondering.
Seems to me, if Russia can convince the world that Prigozhin is a loose cannon who does what he thinks is best for “his men”, while also being in “exile” from Russia that he would make an excellent new candidate for “President” or “High Ranking Official” for whatever Ukraine becomes after this is all over. If there is anything left that is.
So many possibilities.
Good thing I already know one goal of what most of the worlds shenanigans lead too, and counter that by actually spending massive amounts of time thinking on those things which the world takes our attentions off of.
So I post my own retardation for all the world to gaze upon if they so choose, in various rambling thoughts on the only thing that really matters.
another point of view on the internal strife in russia
https://roloslavskiy.substack.com/p/the-kremlin-is-reneging-on-the-wagner
why we are literally a sick society. when you eat crap ; yu end up looking like crap.
https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/most-americans-have-metabolic-syndrome
regards,
ralph
I had been moving away from crediting the psyop hypothesis, but Larry makes a persuasive case.
The main questions for me that this gives rise to:
1. Was letting this go forward to the March a good gamble?
2. Based on how it has turned out (so far), can it be considered a net success, which is to say, outweighing the costs (pilots, multipolar-world confidence in Russia winning this thing for them, military cohesion, domestic turbulence at a moment when Russia was running the table).
A few more general considerations:
At the very least I find myself at least half persuaded of Larry’s case insofar as–in its absence–I find both the craziness of the non-response to Prigozhin’s antics pre-mutiny, & the pardoned Prigozhin’s exit post-mutiny to Belarus, hard to reconcile with my basic sense of Moscow’s competence and steady nerve.
On the face of it, the Prigozhin double-agent gambit is a very bold (i.e., high-risk) venture on Moscow’s part to let this develop in war time. In the incident’s aftermath we can see some costs–working backwards from the lost pilots. Not everyone can be part of the script so there might well have been exchanges of fire at the lower levels–and this was always a risk that Moscow will have willingly incurred. Those lives will be on the planners’ conscience, but it is war time.
Did this operation work as well as hoped, and was this operation worth it? The staging–from the Wagner camp “missile strike” to the March on Moscow–was not as believable as it needed to be and thus not likely as effective as it might have been for smoking out fifth columnists. Certainly no one seems to have outed himself publicly. Though the operation may still have been successful at identifying traitors *prior to* the March for Justice.
Support demonstrated for Putin was impressive–though if one were fully confident of that support there would have been no need to stage a demonstration. It’s plausible that at least some influential fifth columnists were too clever or cautious to be caught up in this; though if Moscow has at least some evidence of treason within Russia it may give a new impetus to house-cleaning among the Atlanticists. Glazyev for Central Bank head would be a major tell (kidding).
It’s hard to know what other benefits Moscow derived–internationally, among the multipolar aspirants this will have given rise to doubts about how much to gamble on Russia’s success. So if the operation–that is letting it go forward to the “March”–is to be considered a success, it will have to outweigh this international turbulence. (If it was an op, I have to think Xi at least was informed beforehand.)
Let’s say it strengthened Putin’s hand (which seemed strong enough already, and might at least conceivably have come out of this weaker). How will this “consolidation” be played? Either Prigozhin’s rantings will be used to discredit the full-scale war advocates or indeed can be used to accelerate the tempo.
Certainly, as many have suggested, the Wagner operetta has made it less likely that Kiev/NATO cancels the Offensive and goes into a defensive shell. The op may also have put the “scorched earth” suicide option–e.g., poisoning the Dniepr watershed by damaging the ZNPP–back on the shelf for a while. A good thing, clearly. The March may also mean that the Vilnius summit produces more of the same feckless arming and training strategy–we’ve got Russia on the ropes–rather than an escalation to the Coalition of the Willing.
To my mind, that may make a continuation of the RF’s slow grind of NATO *more* likely. But there will be many voices in Russia saying that the kamikaze nation threat is too great and more must be done–if there is a good counter for this, that is. Not sure what “more” would mean in this case. A decapitation strike maybe, but that might be the very thing to get the survivors to blow the NPP near Odessa, which is already under their control. More scorched earth–if Kiev can’t have it, no one can.
That said, it is also just possible that Moscow is moving towards a decision to make Washington pay directly–Lavrov & Putin’s statements about the US hiding behind its proxies do make one wonder. If that’s the case, we might expect the ‘investigations’ of the Wagner mutiny to reveal evidence of CIA/MI6 involvement and something like the decision to shoot down, say, an E3 surveillance aircraft running up to Russian airspace, as just happened yesterday. Or a publicly announced duel-at-noon punishment strike (like Iran’s after Soleimani assassination) on a US military or intelligence target.
I think more than any of the earlier provocations–which from a Cold War perspective may be seen as on a comparable scale–evidence of Western involvement (senior Western approval) for the “March” may mean Russia and the US are at war.
Though in its failure the mutiny may seem more ludicrous than dangerous, imagine how it might have looked (in the galaxy brains of the West) if:
1. The Offensive were even half as effective as promised–artillery distance from Melitopol, Tokmak, even Mariupol.
2. The ZNPP was under attack or even taken–as a permanent nuclear-meltdown gun to the temple of the Donbass.
3. A parallel Polish destabilization of Minsk were launched.
4. A Coalition of the Willing launches into West Ukraine and / or towards Odessa across Moldova.
5. The Air Defender 2023 exercise, on its final day, shifts into attack mode.
6. The Wagner revolt is real, far better executed, & Rostov is plunged into real combat.
7. The Atlanticist fifth column in Russia is emboldened, steps out of the shadows.
8. An air base with nukes is seized.
Civil war. Existential threat to Russia’s existence, conditions for nuclear retaliation met.
In this context, Moscow may have decided it is at war and will not turn away from or may even initiate a kinetic engagement w/ US forces, ideally in a manner calculated to offer a last-chance wake-up call.
It is very unlikely that Prigozhin didn’t know that russian intelligence was aware of the plan and that almost no-one would have joined the insurrection. Therefore there are only 2 possibilities:
1) Prigozhin went rogue and knowingly did a kamikaze-move.
2) Prigozhin along with russian intelligence staged this whole thing.
Obviously number 2 is the correct answer.
That Russian intelligence directed the whole thing is a foregone conclusion for two reasons:
1) The Wagner Officer corps was not allowed to participate in the mutiny. They are too valuable to the MoD in restructuring the private army as regular units. Their record had to be clean. But how would you tell the 1000+ men there was going to be a mutiny and they would not go and this somehow did not get to be known to the army spies? I can’t figure that one out.
2) Shoigu’s deputy, Yevkurov, and GRU Kostyukov’s deputy, Alexeyev flew to Rostov to meet Prigozhin. Why would the MoD risk two very high ranking officers in the military being taken hostages, if they were dealing with a mutineer on the loose?
Wouldn’t a Stavka major gopher be good enough to send if the only purpose was to receive Prigozhin’s order that Shoigu and Gerasimov report to him at the Southern Military District HQ?
The media has a lot of stories, and they didn’t all seem to be issued by the US or nato. There was some diversity that we haven’t seen in the press for a couple years. Does it show those counting on it were broadcasting their policy expectations?
It would seem appropriate that Russia would be watching Prigo regardless of the trust level, he was making a cult following of too many of his troops.
Ego, money, power, weapons.
What a lousy mix in a war time environment near us.
This was an old fashioned strike for better pay and conditions, and doubtless profit for Prigo.
It’s typical of a Union heist, when a government is engaged in serious matters of state, make your move. The Miners did the same thing in the UK in the 1980’s against Margaret Thatcher. She had just beaten Argentina over the battle for the Falklands and less than two years later Arthur Scargill decided the time was right to cause the largest civil unrest event in the UK since before WW2.
Thatcher was riding the crest of a popular, jingoistic wave when Scargill decided the time was right to wreak havoc in the country.
He lost, just like Prigo.
Thinking should be the main reason for human existence and all blogs. And don’t buy shit. The slavery to which many humans are reduced today. How can thinking be a character flaw? And it’s perfectly normal that we don’t all think the same way. Fortunately. We are all influenced by the environment where we grow up and live!
Commander of the pro-Russian Vostok Battalion, Aleksander Khodakovsky:
I spoke with Yevgeny Prigozhin only once by phone – communication did not give an exhaustive idea of \u200b\u200bhim as a person. But later, when the prisoner recruitment campaign started, I learned a little more about him as a person. It is said that, at a meeting, Prigozhin began demanding that a thousand prisoners be commissioned a day, and the PMC manager in charge of the project objected that three hundred people was the ceiling. The manager reasoned soberly, based on a real assessment of the possibilities, but the almighty owner did not like the answer, and Prigogine’s people immediately twisted the guy and beat him to death. For three days we thought that they would kill him, but a miracle happened: Utkin took his former comrade from the chief and soon he, coming to his senses, moved to fight in the forty-fifth airborne brigade.
This incident told me everything: I made an approximate psycho-portrait of Prigozhin, and in all offices I began to warn of a growing threat. It was clear to me that a person with such manners only serves his own interests. I remember a few months ago, in a conversation with Dima Steshin, I shared my opinion on the situation with Wagner and the likely consequences, by the way, the PMC himself did not worry me – Prigozhin and how he could use the PMC caused fear. I treated the Wagnerites themselves as Russian soldiers who, for obvious reasons, chose not to fight in the Ministry of Defense and fought excellently.
I always cringed when I saw how Prigozhin’s figure was raised on a pedestal. Either he builds a church and is praised for it, then he is against corruption and mediocrity … At the same time, it was completely clear that he does not support the company himself and receives everything he needs. They describe one case: the deputy commander of the Airborne Forces, long before the start of the conflict between Prigozhin and the Moscow region, stood like a schoolboy at his desk with approved orders for the supply of weapons and waited for Prigozhin to get acquainted. Releasing the general, Prigozhin handed him a mocking chevron with the inscription “Pig troops” and said: here, give it to your boss … This episode was also part of my understanding of Prigozhin’s personality and the nature of his conflict with the military, where arrogance, as a character trait, also played its part.
Acquainted with my own demons, which the Church and my heavenly patrons help me to cope with, I understood what kind of hell is inside this person, and I understood what awaits us in the end. Even realizing that few people listen to me, I began to write about the fact that power should not be in the hands of private individuals, that it will eventually obey the one who owns it … Someone listened to me, someone did not, but yesterday I received more than one message of how right I was. What I was waiting for happened. Only the Lord avoided troubles from us – earthly forces were not capable.
Larry, I have the same syndrome as you do. And like you, I haven’t figured out whether it is a virtue or a vice. This is a first-class mystery the star of which is a first-class troll. Brilliant setup for a plot. But it is not clear yet whether it is a tragedy or a comedy. So far, we have been flashed by the spectacle.
My view at this point is somewhat different from yours since I take a more structured approach to problem-solving that involves systemic analysis. I don’t think enough of the pieces of the puzzle are on the table to come to a judgment that doesn’t involve some adventurous guessing. I have my share of guesses but haven’t settled on any firm narrative at this point that puts them all together into a coherent system of causal explanation that figures in all the relevant factors.
We (the public) will probably never know the whole story about this. Paying attention to Daniel Ellsberg’s advice to Henry Kissinger, I conclude we’ll never know the entire story of anything of significance. The problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know.
But we may learn things that shed more light on P’s motive and other causal factors that have not yet come to light, in particular the role that other parties played in this drama. It seems that we have passed the climax with the withdrawal of Wagner from the field and are now in the denouement where the plot is resolved.
I still have lots of questions, like what about Utkin? Prigozhin is a colorful figure but there were clearly other players involved, both within Wagner, the Russian government, and intel services both foreign and Russian. So far, it seems to me that Prigozhin is getting too much attention and there’s more to it than that.
It might be worth it to go further back than the SMO in getting a clear picture of the Wagner dynamic. Before 22 the existence of such an organization at all was an open question — the common Western perception was that it was merely an extension of GU or the Russian military. The official Russian position was that any such organization was a figment of Western imagination. The only figure whose name was prominently associated with Wagner was Dmitry Utkin — which is the Russian equivalent to being named Mr. Red Herring — the supposed founder of the org. As far as I know, there are no statements made by Mr. Herring, nor do we know what he looks like, articles to the contrary.
A year or two before the SMO, iirc, Prigozhin filed lawsuits against liberal newspapers for trying to associate him with Wagner, though I’d leave open the possibility that he both funded the newspapers himself and also started the rumors. Once the SMO got under way, he announced his affiliation with the Wagner organization as its media and finance manager. The publicly available aspect of his initial involvement revolved around addressing questions from journalists, international and domestic, gradually evolving into front-line war correspondence. By the end of this journey, the public perception varies in assigning him every possible role in the org, from founder to battlefield commander to spiritual leader.
So, in two short years the perception of Wagner has gone from a fake front-organization for Russian military black-ops to a self-sustaining organization, with its own recognizable representatives, acting independently and even in contravention to official Russian structures.
‘Follow the money’, does Prigozhin gain or lose money by losing his Russian based assets vs getting his western based assets unfrozen? Did he recently transfer money out of Russia??
This will be hard to track, but where is Prigozhin’s money?
Prigozhin now in Belarus
🇧🇾🪖 Lukashenko confirms Prigozhin’s arrival in Belarus.
“The security guarantees he (Russian President Vladimir Putin) promised yesterday have been given. I see that Prigozhin is already on his way on this plane. Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today. I promised him, We will help you if you want to stay with us for some time and so on. At their expense, of course (the Wagners’ expense).
“But as Khrenin (the Belarusian defense minister) said:
‘I could use such a unit in the army.’
Well, I agree with that. Talk to them,” Lukashenko echoed.
A new bait for NATO intelligence services???
https://t.me/russlandsdeutsche/18432
Larry is right on the money here. This is a classic Trojan horse operation, with certain someone’s sticky fingers all over it. Agencies prey on people’s and societal pressure points. On this one narrative was created and it was combined with military action. Lenin was sent from Germany back to Russia with rail cars full of money to create a revolution. Aurora cruiser anyone? Again, pressure points, narrative, promises, while the tsar was tied up with WWI. He paid back his masters with Romanov’s gold, and cleaned his tracks by killing Romanov’s whole family. Did not spare the kids. Prigoz, is the classic sixth column. Russians know their history and they are paying attention. Putin was asked once to do a revolution in Russian justice system, he said “You want great upheavals, I want great Russia.” Looks like message was received.
Scott Ritter has said that Wagner could not legally operate within Russian territory. Ever since the Donbas was annexed, their activities there were technically illegal. I do not know how accurate this is.
Yes this is true.
PMC’s are not allowed to operate within the Russian Federation.
As for Donbass I am not sure if those laws apply to the whole of the Donbass oblasts or just to the parts under Russian control.
But even if fighting the enemy in western Donetsk oblast it is still technically within the RF even though Russia doesn’t control all the region.
They let it slide ’till the Bakhmut battle ended. Then they said that everyone has to sign contract with MoD before July 1.
Clever and entertaining writing, Gaius Baltar.
And I have to say, it makes perfect sense to me!
Please give my regards to Number Six.
He didn’t want to be subordinate to his hated rivals and loss autonomy and freedom of maneuver while taking a pay cut?
Does he love the Benjamins more than the Motherland?
Mercenaries are for sale to the highest bidder but they are extremely valuable in preserving your own troops and being able to do things that regular army cannot do.
If the ammo is in short supply how did they take Bahkmut?
All the Kabuki is part of the slow burn to WWIII and there won’t be any vote on it.
Great Reset Leap Forward uber alles.
I believe we don’t know much about what happened in the Battle of Bakhmut but Prigozhin is not a military strategist. In fact, it’s not even a military one. At most, a corrupt entrepreneur. So I don’t see how Prigozhin could have interfered with the rhythm of Bakhmut’s battle! Which throws to the ground the whole theory exposed here. And that the Council of Commanders also came together to boycott the Russian war effort is also hard to believe. Commanders who did not even support Prigozhin on the 24th. And the majority of Wagner soldiers are not mercenaries but professional Russian troops. I continue to think that Prigozhin simply could not tolerate losing many mullions from Wagner. And eventually it may have been corrupted. Which goes well with his tortuous past.
He is a common criminal that somehow got into the big league. For him Battle of Bakhmut was a cosplay session, and PR exercise. Criminals creating private armies is not a new thing. All of the west like calling everyone warlord, except an actual warlord.
Dear Larry,
Wow ! Yours it is the correct interpretation of events !
Big Thanks for a brilliant, intelligent and detailed analysis !!
i) Victory through paralysis:
of course, paralysis through panic…
ii) Big plans in June:
something big indeed happened…
Then, Prigo is only a -haute cuisine chef- and of course a ‘musician’ and he plays classic solo piano pieces with both hands…
And furthermore, it is impossible to understand Russia without reading Dostoevsky’s “Kamarasov Brothers”, Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”, or at least Pasternak’s “Doctor Zhivago”…
Yes, the Concert started according to plan, in Moscow the – Main Hall – was packed and the ‘Conductor’, baton in hand directing…
It is difficult to know exactly what is real in ‘Wagner’s life’, his music give controversy and many of them contradict each other…
… Yes, this wasn’t necessarily a Coup !
…still It’s more like Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard”
This article is not by Larry Johnson, apart from the fact that its interpretation of events is fuller of holes than a tea strainer is.
In addition to bringing Wagner under full MOD control, maybe the MOD should not renew any of Prigozhin’s supply contracts. He can retire more than comfortably with what he has, but should not benefit or be able to hold the MOD hostage to his whims or frustrations, no matter how justified he believes his actions to have been. There is no question that Wagner did perform admirably, but it was a part of a greater military strategy and order of battle, and Prigozhin’s conduct while was intended to assert negotiating leverage against the MOD to ensure the renewal of Wagner’s and his contracts, in the process he did damage to the MOD’s directives, and compromised the lives of Russian soldiers and the success of the SMO. If he was operating in concert with Russia’s enemies, he should be tried for treason.
And if he avoids proecution, but continues to throw fits, then IMHO he should be sent somewhere he cannot do damage.. He is a megalomanic and a swindler.
This interpretation of events make a lot more sense than the whole thing being a cooperative plan starring Prigozhin and Putin cooking up such a loony scheme as a form if maskirovka.
At any rate, Prigozhin and his cohorts should suffer the two-bullet fate so righteously proposed by a member of the Duma.
Prigozhin likely had contact with NATO and TOLD the RF MOD!
Anyway the kids just on that fateful day found a Matryoska doll in the basement I had forgotten about from pre-1990. Talk about synchronicity -endless fun unwrapping A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma — Churchill.
@Larry – it is heart-warming to see that Spieltrieb is alive and well!!!
Regardless of all that’s happened so far, there is only 2 main scenarios left (IMO):
1) Priggy and Wagner re-form in the next few months in Belarus to keep the heat on Kiev, with the Russian and/or Belarusan gov’ts full knowledge and backing and direction.
2) Priggy and some of his own get arrested and/or killed by the Russian Gov’t within the next few months, whether he goes to the West or not. Perhaps Belarus and Lukashenko would cooperate in this case, to make the Wagnerites who went with Priggy sitting ducks.
IMO, (1) is the most plausible. Why ? Because if it was a real “insurrection”, a TRULY existential threat to the Russian state, the Russians would have stomped on that convoy immediately. But they did not. And not one Wagnerite, from Priggy on down, got charged with anything. Truly, I believe Priggy and Putin are best buddies from St. Petersburg, with full knowledge of what the other was going to do the whole time.
And no, I don’t buy any of the aircraft being shot down, b/c it came from a single news source (besides Priggy) with other news sources merely pointing to that one source (that I can tell). Plus, no dead bodies identified or seen at the “crash” sites or mentioned in any Russian newspapers. Plus, no one uses a large aircraft carrying 10 people to attack a convoy.
Regardless, time will tell what comes of all this palace intrigue…
Man, it does make sense!
Red flags that preclude the goon from being part of a Kremlin operation – Putin and the military don’t play that kind of games; too many loose ends and too much risk and too little need; their faints and masking are done in a solid military manner (look at WWII).
~ Prigozhin lied brazenly about being deliberately attacked by the MOD, just before his mutiny was set off.
~ The man’s accusations regarding ammo (as this writer elucidates) must be exaggerations or outright lies also.
~ His outrageous accusation that the operation was started based on lies from the MOD -since the Ukrainians HAD NOT bombed the Donbas previously, and there was no danger of a military attack from the Ukrainian Army at that time – is a copy-paste piece of disgusting propaganda issued by nazi Ukraine since the Maidan.
You are to be congratulated for setting out an account that has the strongest ring of truth.
“Follow the money.” Prigozhin is wealthy so his actions weren’t motivated by money. Delusions of grandeur caused by watching the Patton movie over and over and over? No gas for Patton, no ammo for Prigozhin. Why is he still alive, “revenge is a dish best served cold?” More will be revealed.
Thanks for the great insight Larry, but how do we really know this was not a fake because they say 23 pilots died?this whole production took place within Russia should make it easier to fake, I think it could be like when Patton was put into exile for slapping a solider”I guess we will find out if he attacks Odesa from the north and the chetnians attack Odessa in the south, and the rest of the Russian army pushes from the east
All of theories are interesting. My theory is that Jake Sullivan is the Antichrist.
“All of theories are interesting. My theory is that Jake Sullivan is the Antichrist.”
Nah, it is V. Zelensky and he gave the Pope an Orthodox icon of the Virgin minus Child to prove it.
Thomas
C’mon, guys.
Larry pointed this out –
“The two-week NATO exercise concludes on June 23”
– and I do not understand why so many of you do not connect the dots of the dates here and see that a trap was set for NATO, some dupes were duped, lambs sacrificed, mistakes made, but NATO did not fall for it.
Maybe . . . .
Putin: “Between May 2022 and May 2023, Russia allocated 86.26 billion rubles (US$1.04 billion) for wages and incentive payments for the Wagner fighters.”
Larry, there is no deductive reasoning here. And no inductive either. What is going on with all these “theories” is just a matter of postulating explanatory hypotheses regarding an event that otherwise remains mysterious. This is “Inference to the Best Explanation,” which is neither deductive nor inductive. The famous American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce called it: “Abduction” or “Abductive Reasoning”!
What we have here is commonly known as throwing shit on the wall hoping that some of it will stick.
I like your style. Your analysis could be partially or even completely correct. My take on the whole kerfluffle was that the Russian state was going nationalize Prigo’s main private asset -the Wagner mercs incorporated. He didn’t like the deal he was offered, so he flew off the handle.
He saw his main privately held asset being taken from him, so he used the coup threat strategy to either get a better deal, or to allow him some continued control over his company. He was going to lose a lot of economic power and social influence. Usually, CEOs don’t like to slide so far down the status ladder.
This is the major problem with using mercs; the CEOs are basically dictators over a lethal organization. If their organization begins gaining renown during an important war, they can start to believe they should have more input into overall wartime tactics and strategies. And since they have become a newsworthy item, they can start to broadcast their dissatisfaction to the nation’s general population.
I do think he may find his future prospects rather limited. He probably wanted to hold on to the enormous profits his company generated for him; now, he’ll have to wonder if he’ll be alive in the near future.
Being myself an armchair general/spymaster, I will add this: From what I have read, Prigozhin was/is a criminal/mafia type and so I think there are likely all the character flaws associated with that lifestyle coming into play – narcissism, greed, panc, etc.. I think the fingerprints of Western Intel is all over this and I think FSB knew from the get-go and decided to use it to further Russia’s position and ID all Prigozhin’s contacts/supporters. I don’t think they necessarily had a master plan about it or steered it but probably had multiple contingency actions/orders prepared for however it unfolded – moving troops, bombing Ukie assembly points, dealing with all the likely Wagner movements/actions, etc. Maybe in a few years there will be a full expose on what happened – it will be fascinating.
It’s very likely that Putin understands the event more clearly than any of us. I think it helps to consider the words and phrases Putin used when he addressed the country on June 24 and June 26.
Putin’s words and phrases below are from the official English texts published by the Kremlin.
6/24/23 address to the citizens of Russia
“armed mutiny
betrayal
knife in the back
internal betrayal
treason
a revolt
internal revolt
the path of blackmail and terrorism”
6/26/23 address to the citizens of Russia
“blackmail
attempt to stage domestic turmoil
armed mutiny
mutiny plotters
mutineers”
I don’t know the Russian language, and I’m probably as tone deaf as any other westerner who tries to grasp a Putin speech.
“Internal betrayal” and “internal revolt” are interesting. The phrases could mean that Putin doesn’t believe the West was involved. The phrases could mean that Putin didn’t want to throw gasoline on the fire. The phrases could mean that Putin doesn’t want the West to know what he knows.
“Mutineers” (plural) suggests that Prigo was not the only cook in the treasonous kitchen.
It helps also to consider how Putin did not describe the event. He never characterized it as a protest of any sort.
It was treason, plain and simple. Putin’s initial gentle touch does not mean that Prigo and others with treasonous intent will be allowed to die peacefully at a ripe old age.
I think your scenario rings true. Something odd happened and the very sudden change in Prigozhins rhetoric seems to shout, “I’ve switched sides and am now an asset for the west”
The loss of Russian aircrews could simply be due to the confusion of battle. Rumors out there have suggested that the Russian Army had orders not to attack the columns but some commanders failed to understand and even told their crews that the column was an AFU intrusion. Part of the plot or just normal command snafu ?
So now what happens. As this picture emerges within the Kremlin and fills out with more evidence. What does that mean for Russian war plans ? What does it mean in light of all the chatter about a ZNPP false flag designed to bring in Nato ?
Do the Russians start thinking: we will never be able to end this, even if we completely defeat Ukraine, it will just go on and on with the enemy safe in their sanctuaries and now Finland is part of Nato, soon to be followed by Sweden.
or
Do the Russians think, this war only ends by seperating Europe from Nato which means confronting Nato with our willingness for a conventional fight and strong evidence that we are prepared and committed to win that fight.
The 2nd option seems to line up with their current strategy in Ukraine. For now Ukraine is a holding action to buy time and inflict losses on Nato. With the time being used to continue mobilization.
The question in my mind is how patient will the Russian people be ? Russia seems to be suffering 1000-2000 casualties per month. Perhaps sustainable, but increasingly painful for a nation of 140 million.
I think the Russians are painfully aware of the demographic challenges they lie ahead 30 or 40 years. I think they realize that today, they are at peak strength and even have technological advantages in a few key areas over the west. There must be some element of “it now or never” in their thinking – or at least in the thinking of Russian nationalists who are not interested in becoming part of the rainbow global village.
Hello Larry,
It’s understandable that you have put a part contrary opinion to your last two blogs (some of your friends like theduran, Ritter et al have corporate media view opposed to yours). However, Pepe Escobar and Kim Everson has given your original view concensus. A viewpoint I wholely support. But let me ask you this? How did FSB catch these terrorist without knowing in advance who they were , what they were planning to do and when they were planning to act? They must have been informed directly or indirectly by Yevgeny. Those suspected arrests and the location of those safe houses were known beforehand by the FSB. These terrorists were I presume well trained and well armed with explosives etc. You just don’t catch them in bed without prior warning, Planning. Moreover, if you are a Grumpy group planning. a sting of this scale then you start creating a legend over time like Prigozhin did starting in 2022. Good enough acting for the CIA to hand him billions. Obviously most of that money will be kept for black bag operations by the SVR GRU etc.
I will give my humble superficial opinion on the psychological motivation. I am absolutely convinced this is one of the greatest camouflage operations the Russians state has ever successfully engineered.
Hello Larry,
It’s understandable that you have put a part contrary opinion to your last two blogs (some of your friends like theduran, Ritter et al have corporate media view opposed to yours). However, Pepe Escobar and Kim Everson has given your original view concensus. A viewpoint I wholely support. But let me ask you this? How did FSB catch these terrorist without knowing in advance who they were , what they were planning to do and when they were planning to act? They must have been informed directly or indirectly by Yevgeny. Those suspected arrests and the location of those safe houses were known beforehand by the FSB. These terrorists were I presume well trained and well armed with explosives etc. You just don’t catch them in bed without prior warning, Planning. Moreover, if you are an Intel group planning. a sting of this scale then you start creating a legend over time like Prigozhin did starting in 2022. Good enough acting for the CIA to hand him billions. Obviously most of that money will be kept for black bag operations by the SVR GRU etc.
I will give my humble superficial opinion on the psychological motivation Yevgeny later. I am absolutely convinced this is one of the greatest camouflage operations the Russians state has ever successfully engineered.
This scenario is plausible.
What was absolutely puzzling right before all of this took place was Prigo’s messaging (Ukraine did nothing to start this war; the Russian government was weak and corrupt, Russia was losing to Ukraine and lying about casualties, etc.) which was absolutely the same as the MSM’s narrative in the West and that of the Ukraine government’s. This sounded like either Prigo had turned or was suffering PTSD, big time, to the point of having lost his mind.
The fact that all of this he was saying and had said prior (and some of his actions to that point before the coup) were perfectly matched with what people like Kirby were wishing out loud in Washington, but also the fact that Wagner had done so much to severely weaken Ukrainian forces at Bakhmut, caused me to believe Prigo had to be play acting. Not only this, but I could not imagine that Putin and the military command would have tolerated for one minute Prigo’s appalling and bombastic rhetoric which was overtly seditious, especially during wartime. “He must be playing a role for the Russian high command because that is the only way he’d get away with this,” was my conclusion.
But if Prigo had truly turned or had been bought off, or whatever, and the coup was real, then obviously something big in the plan had gone wrong and I believe it had to be more than the rounding up of terror cells inside Moscow by Russian authorities.
Larry wrote: “While this was going on, the Russian Army noticed significant movements of Ukrainian troops in the south during the night and started bombing them vigorously. The Ukrainians kept preparing and waited for coup success and Russian paralysis.”
They must have been waiting for something that didn’t happen. A large chunk of the action plan must not have taken place. And that would cause me to surmise that something inside Moscow itself either got jelly-knees or was thwarted before it could act. I won’t speculate as to what that might have been, but if Larry’s analysis is correct (which it could be) then I would only add that something big in the coup plan failed catastrophically.
I don’t understand how anyone can still have doubts about the West’s involvement in the coup attempt after Putin’s last speech?! The President of Russia clearly said that the West wanted to see a fratricidal bloodbath in Russia! And Putin never uses words in vain! And why did Biden rush to ensure that the US was NOT involved in the coup attempt? Because it needs Putin’s acquittal! And I very much doubt the channels of communication in the rear today. And because Biden most likely left the british poodles to carry out the operation. On the 24th, I was very doubtful of the late afternoon crowd in Rostov. Like on Euromaidan or Georgia. Most likely many NGO actors. Most likely one or two hundred NGO actors mixed with some local population looks like a crowd in a closed street. The US has been in the Color Revolution business for over 50 years! But this time they failed as much as the Ukrainian counter-offensive. Let’s wait for new developments in the theater of operations. As I already posted here, in Rostov saturday morning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M5mK7OCUnM
The guy’s a psychopath…
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2021/06/29/prigozhin-s-criminal-past-straight-from-the-source
…who the hell goes from convicted felon to hot dog vendor to minor oligarch in the space of 10 years? Yeah, no favours owed for that I’m sure.
I’m no expert, but it seems to me that intelligence operations often involve placing people in key positions who can execute orders when required to do so, the reward being personal advancement beyond anything otherwise possible for, say, a convicted felon.
The fly in that ointment is that being psychopaths, you have no way of predicting what they might do under duress, so you have to keep a close eye on them, and occasionally remind them of who they work for.
Also worth mentioning is that psychopaths are very adept at presenting themselves as something they’re not, for example, philanthropists, human rights advocates, or patriots. Truth is, they only care about themselves, which is why they’re recruited in the first place, since it’s easy to motivate them to do what normal people would not, since they lack a moral foundation.
So take your pick. Psychopath oligarch sees his private empire being threatened and overreaches (another trait of psychopaths) or he’s following a script handed to him as part of the original deal that got him where he is today. The close association with Putin and the “banishment” to Belarus seems to argue for the latter, but either scenario is possible, including actual betrayal of his benefactors, since psychopaths are also known to do that.
The question that stands out most for me, however, is not why he acted that way, but who in their right mind would jump in a truck on his say so and head off to Moscow? What did they think would be the result of that? They must be really stupid to think that heading north could go any way but south.
The answer to you question at the end is: soldier. There is a recent video of an elite Ukro unit tiptoeing over minefield, and losing body parts in the process. Who in their right mind would walk over minefield? Those that are ordered to. Refusing orders in times of war is fastest way south.
Prigozhin is Acting Within Russia’s Historical Tradition
Thus far, no one has understood the significance of Prigozhin’s Rebellion nor hit upon the true and accurate interpretation of these events. Prigozhin has been pilloried as egotist screaming for attention or a traitor in the pay of Western intelligence agencies. Both of these claims partake of a highly occidental worldview which does not comprehend the cultural antecedents of Prigozhin’s actions. On the contrary, I say that Prigozhin is a Russian and that he is acting within the Russian historical tradition.
The analogues of Prigozhin’s Rebellion are not to be found in 1917 or 1905, but much further back, in the uprising of Stenka Razin (1670) and in Pugachev’s Rebellion (1773).
That curious mixture of brigandry with populist politics (so misunderstood by people in the West); those ill-fated and quixotic marches upon Moscow, chanting death to Tsars and bureaucrats; the gathering and then exile of mercenary forces sympathetic to the reform but equally and patriotically in love with the motherland—it has all happened before. This seems to be the way in which the Russian soul expresses itself in tense moments, just as surely as no American can get angry at his government without the echoes of the Tea Party and Declaration of Independence ringing in his ears.
Prigozhin gave voice to broad undercurrent in Russian society that, while very loyal to the government, wants to see the war prosecuted harder and burns with indignation at every brother Russian who dies in battle while the government plays it safe. Not wanting to appear contentious, they keep their thoughts to themselves until they explode in a great swing in the opposite direction, bringing vengeance and chastisement upon Moscow whom they view as a prodigal son. It is the style of the sudden catharsis, the style of the pogrom, the Russian style.
In each of these explosions a local hero steps forth onto the stage of history, moved towards an end that cannot hep but result in his personal destruction, he impels, focuses, and clarifies all the hidden needs of the Russian heart. We don’t excuse their misdeeds, but we redeem somewhat of their memory in museums and songs, for we are sympathetic to their passion. The same fever burns within us. Razin, Pugachev, Prigozhin—their names belong together forever.
While the West propagandizes itself with tales of Prigozhin’s ego or with utterly baseless calumnies about his subversion by Western intelligence (because that is according to its nature), Russia has been fortified by Prigozhin’s fever, even if he was fated to play the role of the evil humor.
Half hero, half criminal, all Russian—Prigozhin. Remember him with mercy.
One more good thing to come out of Prigozhin’s Rebellion (with echoes of Pugachev and Razin) is that it seems to have completely disrupted the prior news narrative concerning the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Similar to how Russia’s initial invasion in February ’22 finally dispelled the nonstop Covid-19 reporting, which by that point was nothing but a media meme which ordinary people had long since moved on from, so did it take a Progozhin’s Rebellion to finally put an end to all the MSM reporting about Ukrainian “progress,” even though it was always clear to everyone paying attention that Ukraine’s counteroffensive was doomed, pointless, and hopeless.
You’ll notice that things feel different now. Nobody even talks about Ukraine anymore as if Ukraine really had any agency in this matter. All eyes are on Russia now and what NATO is going to do. Ukraine has finally been exposed to all and sundry as the pathetic proxy it is, and now nobody even cares about it anymore. Public perception now perceives the war in its true form, as a battle between Russia and NATO.
Unlike some other commenters here, I don’t regard this outcome as being the intended effect of Prigozhin’s Rebellion, nor that it was “maskirovka” designed to bring out this result (and may I just say in passing that Larry Johnson is a complete idiot). Prigozhin no more intended to alter that narrative by rebelling than Putin intended to remove Covid from the headlines by invading Ukraine. In each case, what happened was simply that a stupid, fake, effeminate narrative was shoved out of the way by real, live, masculine events.
What the rebellion really was I have made clear elsewhere in the thread. It was a characteristically Russian response to the growing sentiment that the war is taking too long and the government is playing it too safe. The ball is now in Putin’s court. If he doesn’t make a major move to destroy Ukraine quickly (which he is quite capable of doing), then not only will the Putin government begin to loose legitimacy, but it may actually give NATO its one and only chance to somehow snatch victory, which would be a catastrophe for Russia and for the world.
The only “narrative” that matters now is, “What is Putin’s next move?” Does he finish it, or does he allow the silliness to continue?
Larry Johnson’s theory is absolutely idiotic, as is Scott Ritter’s theory that Prigozhin mounted an honest-to-God, Western-backed coup attempt. The Duran boys, along with Big Serge, have glommed onto the position that Prigozhin had let his ego get to him and was throwing a fit about his Wagner organization (and therefore his business interests) being sidelined. This idea is also absurd.
The truth of the matter is that Prigozhin, like Razin and Pugachev before him, was giving voice to the repressed concerns within Russian society by assuming the role of the brigand-hero which is a deep rooted archetype within Russian cultural memory. This does not mean Prigozhin’s actions are excusable, it just means that some of the concerns he expressed in his characteristically bombastic manner were indeed rooted in the truth.
Russia and the MoD need to stop the slow roll through Ukraine and wrap this thing up already. I understand the logic behind playing it cautious. I understand the need to preserve Russia’s regular forces in case of NATO escalation, and I understand that Putin is playing a long game with his global partners, getting the BRICS and the Global South to see Russia as a reliable party.
However, there is a point of diminishing returns when it comes to playing it safe. If you play it too safe, you are simply giving the enemy time to play the odds. Even a weak enemy like Ukraine might get in a lucky strike if you give him enough chances, so it makes sense to finish him off when you can. Furthermore, there is a legitimate desire on the part of many Russians to to see their people protected and their fallen revenged. They want to see and feel a decisive victory between their legs, and those desires should not simply be dismissed. Emotion plays a role in human life, and Russians have put up with a lot already.
Close to a compelling take on whatever it was Prigo was up to, Intelligent Dasein, the historical backing helps, but one could find examples of countries other than Russia, make the same argument, it may have helped if Prigo was also born in the same village the two rebelling personalities you mention were, but he wasn’t, still an interesting slicing of the fastest failure of an act that had the attention of the world for a day or two, the time will show if you’re right.
Baron’s take’s different, he believes it was the failure of whoever it was that promised to back Prigo failed to do so, the money is on NATO, the backing were the massive number of fighter jets that finished the biggest NATO air exercise ever on June 22.
The fighter jets failed to take off, fly over Ukraine piloted by experienced NATO crews launching missiles into Russia, the West claiming it was the newly trained Ukrainian pilots, why shouldn’t they hit the Russian assets, the Russians have been bombing Ukraine for more than a year.
For Prigo to turn 180deg after a chat with Lukashenko who had nothing to offer except what Putin had said he could offer makes little sense, Prigo has been working on this for months, that’s a fact, he must have known Putin will not use force on his men after he begins the rebellion because it would be ‘a Russian killing a Russian in Russia’, a civil war, more to the point, it would be killing a Russian that won it at Bachmut, a Russian very much admired by the unwashed, hence the greeting of the musicians in Rostov and other places.
With the right number of missiles hitting the right places launched by the fighter jets the mayhem would have been sufficient for those at or near Kremlin opposing Putin to make a move just as Prigo men were getting to Moscow. Prigo may not be Boris, but he should have had to difficulty standing on a tank.
This whole shitshow has shown how clueless are most of the “experts”.
There has never been an attempt at a regime change anywhere, warlord, in which the CIA (Nato, some other outfit funded by the State Department) was fully absent.
The hint here is the almost complete silence about the biggest NATO air exercise since the creation of the alliance, scores of military flying machines north and south/west of Russia, all ready to pounce, an ideal opportunity to have some fly over Ukraine, launch beyond the Ukrainian-Russsian border to assist the Wagner rebellious units, the air-to- surface missile that would fit is the AGM-158B JASSM‐ER, operational range around 900km (it’s over 450km from the Ukrainian border to Moscow).
It didn;t happen because someone stepped in (probably the true military, not the political top in Pentagon, they have been very reluctant to engage directly with the Russians from the start of the Ukrainian op).
“There has never been an attempt at a regime change anywhere, warlord, in which the CIA (Nato, some other outfit funded by the State Department) was fully absent.”
I know, from personal experience. Still, that has nothing to do with “experts” filling the blanks with things taken out of their asses, instead of saying that they don’t know.
Biggest NATO air exercise is an impotent show of force, in order to make themselves less scared. They know that they can’t go against Russia at this point in time (not to mention Russia + China). Air show probably went silent because ther ran out of fuel.
The scenario you desribed is possible, in a Tom Clancy novel, and maybe next Top Gun movie. It didn’t happen beause not even NATO generals are dumb enough to consider doing such a thing in real life. Russia is not Syria.
I’m going to suggest a hybrid scenario here. I think it was both Prigo’s hubris AND a CIA/MI6 op. Let me explain. I think the Western alphabet folks recognized Prigo’s unstable personality as something that could be exploited and manipulated indirectly. So they fed him info, possibly even false flags, to amp him up. Remember, he is not a trained military or intel man, so he would have been easy to fool with pseudo-helpful intel about Russian MOD plots against him. Then they just let nature take its course.
I also would guess that the Russian MOD and GRU had some sense of what was happening, thus they pushed him with the “integrate Wagner NOW” message so they could see what he would do.
In my scenario, Pergo was not acting, he was truly upset and believing himself to be a true patriot (about things that did not really happen); while at the same time being used to the max by CIA/MI6. Thus when Lukashenko called Pergo he simply pulled back the curtain to show him what a fool he had been and that was enough to seal the exile deal.
Of course I am not ex military or intel myself, so what do I know? But I am 60 yrs old, and lived and worked in that part of the world for many years, so I have some sense about how the games are played.
Trying to penetrate the ‘fog of war’ ; when the noise abates and the dust settles what just happened? Biden says that the US did nothing to interfere with regime changing events in Russia (Note: Biden also said that US knows next to nothing about blowing up pipelines.). Prigozhin is still standing in Belarus – this despite conspiring with Ukraine and attempting a palace coup! OK, either P is a traitor to Russia or not. If not , then what? Then Russia knows what the US does not know and the US has to question all it thinks it knows, i.e. assets in Russia have probably been compromised and information provided by such assets might end up being compromised. Is Putin really weakened? Is Russia on the verge of an existential collapse? Do you bet the farm on what you think you know if that bet is based on wrong assumptions? E.G Putin will know exactly what P is up to in Belarus and the US will be guessing and guessing.
While I disagree with most of what “Intelligent Dasein” just wrote above, this quote was worth the time reading through all the comments;
“Half hero, half criminal, all Russian—Prigozhin.”
I think the coup/mutiny intent was real. The Russian response has been so good to give an impression that this is a double crossing game. I suspect that multiple plots at work and there are unexpected factors and last minute change as usual.
Russian government must have at least some knowledge before hand but Putin was not convinced. Some counter measure was taken, Mr. P was warned politely but he did not pick up the cue. Kadyrov was on good terms with Prigozhin but drifted away from him. Putin probably had bet Prigozhin would behave like a patriotic Russian after all, and got really irritated when Prigozhin actually did it. Luckily, contingency plan has been prepared and its script was played out.
Kadyrov’s force took over a small front a while back but quickly withdrew, probably reserved as a counter force, and so accidentally stationed close to Rostov. There were also news that Russian special forces were aggregated toward Rostov right before the coup/mutiny. Using mostly AF is consistent with the minimal bloodshed principle. Monitoring was the key task for the AF so most involved AF forces were EW assets. The attacks on the convoy probably happened after a EW chopper was hit and the escort gunship returned fire.
Once Putin found that he had bet wrong on Prigozhin, he decided to conclude the unexpected (to him) incident ASAP without a full-strength “harvesting” operation by FSB which would need the incident to last at least another 24 hours to get all the moles to stick their heads out. Russians have been constructing camps in Belarus for potential troop movement into Belarus for all kinds of emergency especially that Belarus military is much weaker and not yet mobilized. Lukashenko must have been preparing for mobilization but prefers to keep the build up under the radar. I think a large number of Wagner forces did move into Belarus, but most of these are tightly controlled by the GRU to be used when the Russian offensive starts. The force is also a good deterrent against western fifth columns and Polish ambitions. The real core organized by Prigozhin is likely small, and I suspect most of them recruits from the prison rather than the pure volunteers who come to Wagner for glory. Once in Belarus, either they cooperate fully with Belarus military or, Lukashenko would be far more brutal than Putin to deal with these true mercenary and Prigozhin specifically. After a while, Prigozhin would “retire” and his small cadets would either be absorbed back into special forces or sanitized quietly if they don’t behave. And I suspect many of them cannot live a peaceful normal life.
I wouldn’t trust Prigozhin as far as I could throw him. It’s all about him, nothing else matters! Prigozhin is a SNAKE, end of discussion!
Larry, if you don’t know what happened why are you wasting time with useless speculation? (click bait?). Isn’t there enough nonsense and BS in this propaganda and click bait war from both sides.
Because it attracts viewers, and livens up the discussion. Everything is a show in a Brave New World we live in. Some commenters even complained about the lack of bloodshed in this shitshow. They want a real coup attempt, with real blood on the streets and not some aircraft burning in the distance. I wish them all a real coup on their doorstep.
The US authorities expect to achieve the extradition of the curator of Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin, if he appears in a country with which there are relevant agreements. This was stated by the head of the press service of the US State Department, Matthew Miller.
Due to the events in Russia with the appearance of the “Wagnerites” and their “March on Moscow” Yevgeny Prigozhin had to leave for Belarus. The story clearly inspired the American authorities. They considered how they could still achieve Prigozhin’s arrest.
Miller lamented that the U.S. had no extradition treaties with the Russian Federation or Belarus. But “at every opportunity,” the U.S. State Department promises to obtain Prigozhin’s detention and extradition to the United States.
Prigozhin has shown the Yanks up and spared them nothing in terms of embarrassment.
https://de.topwar.ru/220253-gosdep-ssha-poobeschal-pri-ljubom-udobnom-sluchae-dobitsja-zaderzhanija-i-jekstradicii-prigozhina.html
The US authorities expect to achieve the extradition of the curator of Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin, if he appears in a country with which there are relevant agreements. This was stated by the head of the press service of the US State Department, Matthew Miller.
Due to the events in Russia with the appearance of the “Wagnerites” and their “March on Moscow” Yevgeny Prigozhin had to leave for Belarus. The story clearly inspired the American authorities. They considered how they could still achieve Prigozhin’s arrest.
Miller lamented that the U.S. had no extradition treaties with the Russian Federation or Belarus. But “at every opportunity,” the U.S. State Department promises to obtain Prigozhin’s detention and extradition to the United States.
Prigozhin has shown the Yanks up and spared them nothing in terms of embarrassme
https://de.topwar.ru/220253-gosdep-ssha-poobeschal-pri-ljubom-udobnom-sluchae-dobitsja-zaderzhanija-i-jekstradicii-prigozhina.html
‘ Speculating without all the facts or proper insight is pretty stupid, especially about important issues.’
Completely disagree.
Who has access to all the facts? The NSA will know a huge amount but they won’t know everything.
All we can do is speculate on the knowledge we have and strive to learn as much as possible.
And most importantly be flexible to change our mind if the new facts point to a difference conclusion.
IT all seems fairly familiar…..
Oh
I know, the NATO military plan for Ukraine required the Russian economy to collapse, panic in the streets, Putin to be overthrown, and a civil war to be detonated – or at least mass confusion.
Same Hollywood script, it seems.
Personally, I speculate that the GRU fingered Prighozin and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Its just too too convenient – him, walking around (alive) in BeloRuss with 8000 Wagner troops, close to Kiev, in newly built fort, field station, . . ., the treason charges dropped….
Very good analysis. Since we are all guessing, I would like to add. Maybe fsb knew about this and starting to plant their own agents to spread dissatisfaction and made prigozhin think that everyone was waiting for him. He is corrupt and ambitious, he thought he was using Ukrainians too. I do not believe he truly crossed over. Putin probably decided it to fish him out since he could not just take him out directly. So prigozhin came all the way to Moscow and nobody joined him. Surprise!!! That wad when Putin called him to give him an exit and saved troops.
Prigozhin probably wanted to wait until early July for his coup but the folks in DC said “no – it has to be in Pride month!”
It went as good as all other LGBT parades in Russia.
John Connor says
June 27, 2023 at 5:12 pm
Exactly- that is the point and the mark.
The western services are now being subtly decoupled.
The installed 5th US column is becoming a powder keg of double agents or crashes.
It can’t get any worse for a GD.
*** Facts are unclear, rumors abound and nothing makes sense. ***
Given those constraints, this still turned out to be a fascinating concatenation of ideas.
I predict there won’t be large forces of mercenaries led by unhinged former criminals in Russia during the immediate future.
A reasonable explanation of these events is that Prighozin is mentally disturbed and manifests signs of delusions of grandeur. I might suggest a possible diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Also, it would not be surprising to learn that he uses stimulant drugs(e.g. cocaine, speed etc). So why did Putin tolerate what should have been intolerable behavior for so long? Maybe it’s because he did not want to risk interrupting the valuable combat operations being carried out by Wagner at the time. Once Bakhmut was taken, Prighozin lost much of his personal value to the Russian war campaign, and he could finally be reined in.
My theory does not involve a conspiracy, but it’s at least as plausible as other theories that do.
Similar stuff has already been written in comments in previous days, but it’s not interesting enough for Netflix show, so people got on to writing a better script.
Every now and then the dummy says out loud what the ventriloquist is actually thinking.
Once Prigozhin started parroting Kiev’s talking points like an NPR mouthpiece, it became more obvious that his real intentions ran counter to all of his previous posture. In his final campaign of lies, he inadvertently “outed” himself to the entire Russian nation, when he denied Poroshenko and Zelensky’s nine-year aerial pogrom against civilians in Donetsk, which all of Russia knows to be historical fact.
In the lead-up to the English Civil War – and in parallel cases throughout history – traitors have set the stage for their assault on the throne through campaigns of slander and disinformation against everyone in the palace with the painstaking exception of the monarch himself. The turncoat saves his venom for all of the king’s advisors – all in the name of King and Country – until the groundwork is finally in place for the culminating act of regicide.
The biggest of many problems with your hypothesis is that the troops driving to Moscow were led by the very non expendable Dmitry Utkin, who is one of the founders of Wagner (in fact call sign Wagner), which makes him Prigozhin’s boss.
Other problems with your hypothesis:
1. Far from being brainwashed, 75% of Wagner didn’t participate in any way in Prigozhin’s putsch while of the remaining 8000, the majority didn’t even know what was up until they rolled into Rostov and surrounded the military HQ.
2. Wagner is full of GRU and other military officers, such as the two top commanders Lotus and General Mizintsev, who absolutely would have known where Prigozhin was and what was in the offing.
3. Semën Pegov (Wargonzo) openly on video told Prigozhin the MoD was restricting ammunition to Wagner to stop it from launching a coup.
4. Prigozhin isn’t a military commander of Wagner. Saying he ordered Wagner men to their deaths is ludicrous because of the simple reason that his orders would have no validity unless Lotus or Mizintsev issued them, and Lotus and Mizintsev didn’t in any way participate in the coup.
These are facts that your hypothesis can’t get around.
I remember very early in the SMO that so many people were complaining bitterly that Russia was losing the “psy-ops war” meaning the social media/propaganda war. I simply said that the psy-ops war was irrelevant, that it was the military war on the ground that mattered and, besides, Russia was fighting the propaganda with the truth which was the only way to fight lies. My comments were usually erased before they even got to the thread.
Anyway, now that we have reached the crisis segment of the real war (the ground war in Ukraine) now we see Russia beginning to deploy a real psy-op. How do I know this is a real psy-op you may ask? Well, just look at the results:
Who (either the West or Russia) is completely grasping at straws as to what is happening now in the theater of war and what we can expect to come next? I would say it is the West whose heads are spinning at this moment and who are in disarray as to what may happen in the immediate future. This gives Russia a distinct advantage because it creates an environment of fog from which surprises can emerge.
The West are going to want to brush the dust off of their copies of Sun Tzu, “The Art Of War” if they want to stay in this game. I have the feeling the real psy-ops are only just beginning and these have little to do with disinformation and lies on social media. Remember Putin’s background.
“Prigo was bought and recruited by Western and Ukrainian intelligence during or before the battle of Bakhmut.”
That’s hilarious. Same with the 6.2 billion that Prig supposedly got from the CIA. A very small bit of thought would realize what a hoot such an assertion is.
Putin’s Security Council meeting stills……..
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1673424453458358293
Clearly Putin is taking maximum advantage of this PsyOp.
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1581
Western handlers have spoken.
Sanctions on Wagner.
Guess they were displeased with Geny’s performance.
Glad Johnson awarded him a much deserved Oscar.
Kim Dotcom then posted this meme suggesting the $6.2 billion for Ukraine that Pentagon accountants “discovered” in June was actually pocketed by Prigozhin in return for his aborted coup attempt.
https://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=270431
Prigozhin is Jewish. What is his motivation and involvement if any getting thousands of Slavs killed and Ukraine becoming “a new Israel” mentioned by Ukraine’s Zelensky?
BlackRock is headed by the Jewish Fink and BlackRock is cutting deals to set up a central bank in Ukraine to profit off Ukraine being rebuilt? Rebuilt for who exactly?
Excellent writing. And a neat story all fitted together nicely like a piece of accomplished cabinet making. Who knows, it may even be true. But what about the officers of the Wagner forces and the three-quarters of the Wagner soldiery who did not take part in Prigo’s frolic? How do they fit into the tale?
I have to say I am unconvinced by this essay.
The Western intelligence services quite literally wrote the book on how to overthrow unfriendly regimes. They have more experience in this that anyone else.
And here is a case that Giaus Baltar makes wherein those intelligence services have a crazy megalomaniac with 25,000 heavily-armed mercenaries (even if only 8,000 could participate in the first steps) PLUS they have sabotage cells in the unfriendly capital PLUS the armed forces of that unfriendly regime are somewhat distracted by events to the immediate west.
PLUS those heavily-armed mercenaries were actually behind that army i.e. placed in such a way that there was nothing more than a highway between them and the seat of power.
We are expected to accept that the Western backers of this scheme had *all* those advantages and the only thing they achieved was to get the Wagner Group to waste a lot of petrol driving 60 trucks aimlessly up a highway and then back again?
I don’t believe it. Not for a second.
If that was the scheme then it went so spectacularly unstuck so quickly that I think the far more likely explanation is that West intelligence was suckered into a pantomime act with Prigozhin acting as a shill for the GRU i.e. what they thought was going down wasn’t what was going down.
I have no evidence for that, any more than Baltar has evidence for his conclusions. But time will tell.
If Prigozhin is still alive and walking around freely in Belarus in, oh, two weeks then this was all pantomime. If he has the misfortune of falling out of a window then Baltar is correct, and this is real.
If he gets “novichoked” then that will be the work of Western or Ukrainian agents, and will tell you nothing except that the West never forgive, and never forget.
Nothing more than a “highway?” Are you kidding? Do you understand the logistics required to move 3000 men in truck 1200 kilometers? I was wrong in estimating 30 men per truck. The number is 12 (plus all their backpacks, rifles and ammunition). That is 250 trucks. That means a convoy that is at lest two miles long. You need to think about the logistics. I apologize for not getting the numbers right in the first place.
Larry, I was pointing to the force disposition, not to the travel distance.
If Wagner were still in Bakhmut then the entire “coup” idea is a non-starter, totally inconceivable, because the Wagner forces would need to go through the Russian army to even get a toe-hold on that road to Moscow.
Totally ludicrous to the point that *no* neocon would believe it.
But Wagner wasn’t in Bakhmut.
They had been pulled back inside Russia. Which meant that the Russian army involved in the SMO was behind them, even as Moscow was in front of them.
That’s totally different, and enough of a difference to make a neocon giddy with anticipation.
I take your point about the distance, and note that even you – no neocon indeed! – underestimated the logistics.
But a neocon has only a loose grasp on reality. They won’t even think about the logistics problem.
If this WAS a GRU psych-ops then a necessary prerequisite is that Wagner had to be pulled back to somewhere near, oh, I dunno, somewhere like …. Rostov.
And, oh, look, that’s where the Russians moved them.
Go figure. Surely a coincidence.
I was a Drill Instructor for a bit in the Army. Water. You have no idea how much freaking water you need for 100 men in warm weather. They can drain a “Water Buffalo” dry in one stop. Fort Benning. The “Heat Bulb” warnings. They will freaking die on you in 4 hours. And they don’t want to drink when they dehydrate.
A battalion of soldiers is like carpenter ants. They devour the world. Water, shit paper, food.
Yes its fun to speculate and theorize. But for whatever happened, this mans huge ego, hubris and self importance played a big role in the theatrics, intrigue and confusion. In any of the scenarios above. He showed himself to be a very unskilled politician and persuader, what we saw was a man in panic mode trying to get heard and respect probably after being blown off as a blow hard long ago. There is confusion present simply because whatever goal this man had, pick any one above… he did not possess the skills in the end to work with Russian generals and politicians who have every bit of as much stake in things, and work just as hard. Basically whatever the goal, he would have blown it.
A 180deg inversion of the typical analyses of the affair, ostensibly from a Russian Marine officer. Namely, Wagner marched on Moscow to prevent rather than execute a coup.
Inverted it may be, but the unknown officer’s story maps onto the known facts no more loosely than various others I’ve been following.
https://www.bitchute.com/embed/54cvIMikvXct/
Events yet to unfold will tell us more.
To: HMS Terror:
‘The page not found’ says the message.
Sorry, was working at the time I posted. Here’s the same video posted by somebody else…
https://www.bitchute.com/video/4sZfcRUdWIXK/
Thanks, HMS Terror.
A fun article rife with speculation and wild dependencies, and most entertainingly the work of a fanciful imagination. Simpler theory: this was a classic Russian psychological operation to, among other objectives, adroitly convince the West that disunity prevails among the military forces and civilians of the Russian Federation. Mission accomplished, I would say. Look at all the self-congratulatory tut-tutting going on in Western power circles. The RF is playin’ them like a fiddle! The slow and steady demilitarization of the West and the corresponding erosion of political viability shall continue uninterrupted.
Here’s an alternative take for you:
There are people among Russian political elites who dream about engaging war economy, full mobilization, large-scale offensive, no negotiations and strict state ideology — let’s call them schizo-patriots. According to former Wagner high-ranking official interview in Vedomosti Prigo himself was into that stuff, too.
There’s a very good chance that schizo-patriot elites decided to bet on Prigo as a battering ram and were building up his image while attacking MoD leadership using a net of media outlets — Rybar and many others.
In the end Prigo started to believe that his personality and those ideas were so popular among people and in the army that he could stage a coup guised as a ‘march for justice’ — he even discussed it briefly during his WarGonzo interview some time ago.
During the crisis aforementioned net of media outlets lit up as a Christmas tree actively calling for MoD and Kremlin to negotiate with Prigo while ridiculing Shoigu and Gerasimov relentlessly.
So now those schizo-patriot elites are in the world of hurt and some of their media outlets are running to cover their asses by removing compromising publications while the dumber ones are still trying to attack Shoigu not understanding that their rabbi has left the building.
If Prigozhin gets to the West, they will Novichok him (or equiv) and blame on Putin. He now has no further value to them (or indeed to anyone).
Thank you. This was one of the best analysis on Prigo, so far. At one point, according to historical records Judas Ikarious also was supposed to be a very close friend and associate of Jesus.
If Prigo is not the commander of Wagner but just the spokesman, how can he order the Wagner troops to march on Moskow? This could only be done by the real commanders in charge who are all former Russian military. Are they all bribed too by the west and the FSB did not know this?
Why did the Kremlin/MoD not just pull Prigo/Wagner out of Ukrainia and send him on Mission far away in Syria/Africa. They were assigned to this job for the last 10 years therefore Prigo could not have objected. This is standart procedure for kings throughout history to get rid of annoying adversaries without turnig them into martyrs.
Who is doing now the job in Syria/Africa. The Kremlin must not send regular troops there?
Sergej Lawrow confirmed on Monday that Wagner reopend their recruiting offices in St. Petersburg and other regions in Russia – as nothing ever had happened – and at the very moment is opening up a new recruiting camp of 24’000 m2 in Assipowitschy, Belarus (where Russia is delivering nukes next week). What an unreal situation!
To me everithing in this coup appears murky!
The overseas units are separate from the troops that are fighting in Ukraine, Riddle, they have their own management, will not be touched by the Prigo shenanigans.
There are to much hearsay and gossips about western implications and not the beginning of a concrete proof. It looks like some in the West are desperately trying to look involved … despite the obvious risks.
NEVER tell an advancing storm troop to limit its operational tempo – big no-go!
Imagine Eisenhower or Hitler told Patton, Guderian or Dietrich to slow down their attack – unthinkable. If the MoD really did this tell the Wagner troop , then they are really foolish.
Excellent analysis, Larry. I would only add that it is most likely that Putin and team Russia already knew about this and played it for all it is worth. They now have Priggy in custody in Belarus and will drain him of all the conspiracy info he has – which is probably abundant. Then I have a feeling that his life expectancy will be considerably shortened.
Theories are created to explain events. Mr. Balar does a pretty good job of fitting the curve to the data points. The problem with much of the “analysis” out there is the projection by the Analyst onto the data of the Analyst’s own biases and motivations in explaining causes of particular datum. This projection is unfortunately universal; we all do it.
At this point along the timeline, what is important is to observe the after-action effects. What are those effects? Has enough time elapsed between the action and any possible effects? Can you objectively estimate probabilities? What is leadership of your adversary saying / doing?
We’re only a few hours past the termination of Prig’s operation. I’d wait at least till the weekend before drawing tentative conclusions.
Some are fitting the curve to the data points, others are fitting the data points to the desired curve. Very few are willing to accept the uncertanty or, got foribid, say that they just don’t know.
Sorry for my basic English. Cannot be excluded the ZNPP attack ( that appears to obsess zelensky) was also in the ploy.
I call bullshit on the whole theory.
As Big Serge said, this was a contract dispute using tanks.
Prigozhin was making money off Wagner and his side deals based on Wagner activities in the rest of the world.
Then Wagner was hauled in to Ukraine. Fine, Prigozhin, it will be a short war, I’ll make money here, then we can go back to doing business elsewhere. I can recruit some more guys from prison with MoD blessing and build up my private army.
Then the war lasted 18 MONTHS! And many of his troops ended up dead.
So he starts bitching about the war is being lost because it’s not going fast enough and everyone in the MoD is incompetent.
So now the MoD sees that Wagner is the best urban assault force in the world and they decide to get rid of the front man and incorporate Wagner into the regular army.
Prigozhin sees his meal ticket being stripped from him. So he tries one last desperate ploy to pressure his occasional acquaintance Putin to lean on Shoigu and let Prigozhin keep being the front man.
He fails. That’s it. It’s as simple as that.
There is no Western intel involvement or Ukrainian double-dealing like Martyanov says – unless Prigozhin was acting like a double when he gave them information. Remember Prigozhin is under the thumb of the GRU and SVR. They would know who he is, what he might do, and would keep him under observation and ignore anything he does that doesn’t inconvenience them, like making money on the side in his other businesses based on Wagner activity elsewhere. But if he turned, they would clamp down and make him a double.
All these “plausible” conspiracy theories are bullshit. Based on Prigozhin’s nature as a former (and present) criminal, his activities while being the Wagner front man, his actions in Ukraine and the results being the MoD stripping him of his position, the only probable explanation for the “stunt” is as I’ve averred above.
There may be unanswered questions about why he got as far as he did with his stunt, why Putin reacted the way he did and other extraneous matters. All those things will be explained eventually (or not) and do not constitute enough “connect-the-dots” to provide any realistic theories compared to what we actually know.
I think Larry and others like Macgregor have massively misread this whole affair based on their own biases – ex-Cia Larry for the CIA to be involved, and “Russia needs a big offensive” Macgregor on believing Prigozhin’s bullshit about the pace of the war as his motivation.
They’re wrong. The explanation is: a contract negotiation with tanks.
What is your opinion on Prigozhin’s complaint that Russian forces attacked Wagner from the rear and soldiers were killed? Besides being a labor dispute, could Prig have been going to Moscow to confront Shogiu to seek resolution, redress for his soldiers over allegations of withholding ammunition during the critical Bakmuht phase and attacking Wagnerians from the rear? Prigozhin’s allegations should be taken thoroughly investigated and the conclusions made public. The sooner the better so as to end speculation.