The 2023 Russian Coup.

[ska invita]

"BBC Security Correspondent Frank Gardner says Lukashenko's deal means it is "one-nil to President Putin".

He says Yevgeny Prigozhin expected people to "rise up and join him" but that did not happen.

Putin is "not somebody who's going to forgive this", Gardner says.

"I think Prigozhin's military and political future must now be over."!


....well that does explain a lot
file under very failed coup

 

[Cloo]

So Prigozhin will move to Belarus... where he will mysteriously, very accidentally fall out of a 12th floor window.

 

[planetgeli]

did Pirighozin not already say this started because they already trying to kill them at the front by shelling them

Yes but he said lots of things. The biggest of which was the war being based on a lie.

hmm doing a run at the capital not going to give them any reason not the shell them again

Was it a real run at the capital?

Putins not running the war his general are
and this man think he better suited to do it

He's pissed off with his conditions, I don't think he does want to run the war. He wants the conditions to create more psychopathy, which does actually help to win wars.

from their prospective best to kill him and anyone loyal to the man as quickly as possible

Him, yes. Man above his station. Dead man walking. May as well have agreed to choose his own bridge to hang from. Loyal to him? They are mercenaries. They are loyal to nobody. Either psychopaths or people who see no other better future.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

He only needs to look at Litvinenko, Berezovsky, the Skripals etc to see where the future of Putin’s’ traitors lie.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yes but he said lots of things. The biggest of which was the war being based on a lie.



Was it a real run at the capital?



He's pissed off with his conditions, I don't think he does want to run the war. He wants the conditions to create more psychopathy, which does actually help to win wars.


Him, yes. Man above his station. Dead man walking. May as well have agreed to choose his own bridge to hang from. Loyal to him? They are mercenaries. They are loyal to nobody. Either psychopaths or people who see no other better future.

They're mostly convicts serving long stretches trying to stay alive for six months to get a pardon. I'm not sure mercenary is quite the right term. They're effectively slaves.

 

[planetgeli]

They're mostly convicts serving long stretches trying to stay alive for six months to get a pardon. I'm not sure mercenary is quite the right term. They're effectively slaves.

Yes. I thought I covered that by people who see no other better future. I know they're (often) convicts. They are the ones who suffered the most, through little training and being WW1'd.

 

[ska invita]

"BBC Security Correspondent Frank Gardner says Lukashenko's deal means it is "one-nil to President Putin".
He says Yevgeny Prigozhin expected people to "rise up and join him" but that did not happen.

If this is the case the question then is Who did he expect to rise up and join him - anyone in particular? - and at which point did it become crystal clear to him it wasn't going to happen.

 

[Raheem]

For sure. As I said earlier, there's still an Act still to come, to see who benefits. At the moment, in contrast to any normal play, we're left guessing because BOTH protagonists look beat.

One always wins. I'm backing the man with a country and the FSB behind him still (probably).

Having the FSB behind you is not always good news. Particularly if you are near a window.

 

[planetgeli]

Having the FSB behind you is not always good news. Particularly if you are near a window.

Open goal but yeah, very good.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

If this is the case the question then is Who did he expect to rise up and join him - anyone in particular? - and at which point did it become crystal clear to him it wasn't going to happen.

Tbh that sounds to me like the BBC security correspondent saying something because he's the BBC security correspondent so he's expected to say something. I doubt Gardner knows any better than the rest of us about Prigozhin's plans.

 

[ska invita]

Tbh that sounds to me like the BBC security correspondent saying something because he's the BBC security correspondent so he's expected to say something. I doubt Gardner knows any better than the rest of us about Prigozhin's plans.

Fair enough - but its a narrative that does actually make a lot of sense here.

 

[planetgeli]

Loving the Russian guarantees to Prigozhin of guarantees he'll be transferred to Belarus. Reminds me of football chairmen expressing their confidence in the manager on a Sunday before sacking him on the Monday.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Fair enough - but its a narrative that does actually make a lot of sense here.

It does, but it's guesswork. He took Rostov easily enough. Something spooked him about entering Moscow. Truth is we don't know what.

 

[Raheem]

Fair enough - but its a narrative that does actually make a lot of sense here.

I'm not so sure. I don't imagine you can expect people who matter to show their hand at the outset of an attempted coup, because no-one wants to be associated with a failed coup. They will make their decision once you've got your feet under one of those lengthy tables in the Kremlin.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'm not so sure. I don't imagine you can expect people who matter to show their hand at the outset of an attempted coup, because no-one wants to be associated with a failed coup. They will make their decision once you've got your feet under one of those lengthy tables in the Kremlin.

And the lack of resistance in Rostov was surely an encouraging start to the day.

 

[ska invita]

And the lack of resistance in Rostov was surely an encouraging start to the day.

they are tbf fighting on the same side, so walking into their local military hq shouldnt be that hard. id imagine they already had previous positive contact for a long time now

 

[Magnus McGinty]

they are tbf fighting on the same side, so walking into their local military hq shouldnt be that hard. id imagine they already had previous positive contact

Didn’t an officer there fuck off sharpish? So he must have assumed it wasn’t a friendly visit.

 

[Riklet]

Im going to go out on a limb here and say this has very much gone to plan for Prigozhin. He never intended to topple the government. He has used a high stakes negotiating tactic possibly at his own expense to deeply unsettle the Russian political and military elite.

We need to step back and consider two things. The reactions of the Russian state to armed dissent and the reaction of the general population.

I believe Prigozhin regards this as a win win. He is too high profile to kill and he might have to spend a few years in Belarus. But he is winning the war even if he has lost the battle. He is going to ensure heads will roll - as they will have to in order to defuse the threats that are now so apparent. That he could take over Rostov in a few hours for example. And Putin is forced to address it on the news. He has forced things into the public realm off social media. And he has widespread support amongst ordinary Russian people who are unhappy with how the war is going and being 'sold out' by military elites. Russia's military failure in Ukraine is starting to show us a new and worrying vision of what Russia's future could likely be.

 

[planetgeli]

Im going to go out on a limb here and say this has very much gone to plan for Prigozhin. He never intended to topple the government. He has used a high stakes negotiating tactic possibly at his own expense to deeply unsettle the Russian political and military elite.

We need to step back and consider two things. The reactions of the Russian state to armed dissent and the reaction of the general population.

I believe Prigozhin regards this as a win win. He is too high profile to kill and he might have to spend a few years in Belarus. But he is winning the war even if he has lost the battle. He is going to ensure heads will roll - as they will have to in order to defuse the threats that are now so apparent. That he could take over Rostov in a few hours for example. And Putin is forced to address it on the news. He has forced things into the public realm off social media. And he has widespread support amongst ordinary Russian people who are unhappy with how the war is going and being 'sold out' by military elites. Russia's military failure in Ukraine is starting to show us a new and worrying vision of what Russia's future could likely be.

This is, of course, almost completely bollocks.

Sorry mate.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Bets on when he’s on a mortuary slab?
Won’t be a win then.

 

[ska invita]

Don't think this has been posted before - FT reporting on what was Prigozhin’s motivation and thinking:

"The exact circumstances leading to the uprising remain unclear. One person close to the FSB said Russia’s security forces had spent the past several days preparing for some kind of assault, suggesting Prigozhin had learnt of the plan and had decided to go out all guns blazing. “This isn’t out of nowhere and it didn’t come as a surprise,” the person said.

.....

An important trigger for Prigozhin’s uprising appears to have been Putin’s decision to back the defence ministry’s attempts to bring Wagner to heel. After Russia captured Bakhmut last month, Wagner’s forces left the front lines, prompting Prigozhin to muse about whether they would return at all. Then, Putin supported defence minister Sergei Shoigu’s attempt to bring the jumble of militias fighting in Ukraine under the army’s control.

“He was pushed to this when he realised he was being driven into a corner, losing power and control over Wagner,” Pukhov said. “He didn’t just want to sink into obscurity.”

Prigozhin’s meteoric rise as a public figure appeared to have fostered a deep resentment at being told to take orders, as well as personal grievances against Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, commander of Russia’s invasion force. Stanovaya said the war had brutalised Prigozhin, who had recorded several tirades where he posed in front of battlefield corpses and blamed Shoigu for their deaths, to the point where he lost sight of his place in Russia’s hierarchy.

“This is a man who spent several months looking at torn-off arms and legs and severed heads while at war. He doesn’t think about red lines, how the [Kremlin] thinks of him and so on,” she said. “He thinks he deserves privileges and that even Putin can’t do anything about it.”

 

[Leighsw2]

Go to dinner, come back, discover the fun's over. Guess it's safe for the rats to jump back on the sinking ship (for the time being).

But nothing has better demonstrated Putin and the Russian state's weakness than this bizarre incident. Almost overthrown by his catering manager!

 

[Riklet]

This is, of course, almost completely bollocks.

Sorry mate.

Why?

If Putin goes too hard on him then it feeds his narrative of a ruling elite cover up. If he gives in then he succeeds in his aims. It's a tactical manoever not an attempt at revolution.

And anyone who knows anything about Russia knows Russians really know their own history. Prigozhin will be looking to 19th century and early 20th C parallels not dreaming of nuclear war like some dickhead liberal twitterati analysis.

It's also a lazy analysis to say that anyone who opposes the government or the state gets killed off instantly in Russia. Prigozhin may be on a list but he is too high profile to do anthing about now.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Don't think this has been posted before - FT reporting on what was Prigozhin’s motivation and thinking:

"The exact circumstances leading to the uprising remain unclear. One person close to the FSB said Russia’s security forces had spent the past several days preparing for some kind of assault, suggesting Prigozhin had learnt of the plan and had decided to go out all guns blazing. “This isn’t out of nowhere and it didn’t come as a surprise,” the person said.

.....

An important trigger for Prigozhin’s uprising appears to have been Putin’s decision to back the defence ministry’s attempts to bring Wagner to heel. After Russia captured Bakhmut last month, Wagner’s forces left the front lines, prompting Prigozhin to muse about whether they would return at all. Then, Putin supported defence minister Sergei Shoigu’s attempt to bring the jumble of militias fighting in Ukraine under the army’s control.

“He was pushed to this when he realised he was being driven into a corner, losing power and control over Wagner,” Pukhov said. “He didn’t just want to sink into obscurity.”

Prigozhin’s meteoric rise as a public figure appeared to have fostered a deep resentment at being told to take orders, as well as personal grievances against Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, commander of Russia’s invasion force. Stanovaya said the war had brutalised Prigozhin, who had recorded several tirades where he posed in front of battlefield corpses and blamed Shoigu for their deaths, to the point where he lost sight of his place in Russia’s hierarchy.

“This is a man who spent several months looking at torn-off arms and legs and severed heads while at war. He doesn’t think about red lines, how the [Kremlin] thinks of him and so on,” she said. “He thinks he deserves privileges and that even Putin can’t do anything about it.”

Although still basically hearsay and conjecture, this feels more likely to me than most other explanations. These certainly do look like the actions of a man pushed into a corner, quite possibly expecting to be killed anyway, so thinking fuck it.

 

[not-bono-ever]

Uncle Ho Chi Minh was a pastry chef and he did Ok. ( Yes I know he wasnt the actual brains behind the big operation but yeh)

 

[Plumdaff]

The only thing that makes sense is that Prigozhin knew he was imminently being killed and has bought some time to try to avoid death in Belarus. Good luck there.

As others have said, what will be more interesting is the willingness of your average Russian soldier or Wagner grunt to return to meat grinder as usual.

 

[ska invita]

Although still basically hearsay and conjecture, this feels more likely to me than most other explanations. These certainly do look like the actions of a man pushed into a corner, quite possibly expecting to be killed anyway, so thinking fuck it.

yes but that doesnt explain the hitting of the brakes and deciding to move to Belarus. Expecting others to "rise up and join him" does explain that part of the day. dont get me wrong, as with everything here its all shifting sands, i'm not arguing for it as dead certain truth

 

[teqniq]

This is just completely bizarre. I know this has already been posted but there's a little bit more info in this tweet. What the actual fuck is happening here? A failed coup is usually a ticket to meet the grim reaper, but not here. Putin is looking increasingly weak imo

 

[Humberto]

yes but that doesnt explain the hitting of the brakes and deciding to move to Belarus. Expecting others to "rise up and join him" does explain that part of the day. dont get me wrong, as with everything here its all shifting sands, i'm not arguing for it as dead certain truth

Deep oligarch pockets?

 

[RD2003]

Me and Weltweit did call out the coup as half-arsed quite a few hours ago...

Seems that too many people are easily excited these days. Does anybody have some kind of psycho-sociological explanation?