Big Media has been foaming at the mouth over what they are calling an armed insurrection in Russia. Wagner group mercenaries were supposedly marching on Moscow with Yevgeny Prigozhin stating the war was immoral. Putin had no reason to start the war. Ukraine was not a threat, etc.
Big Media was saying that Putin was humiliated and that he likely would have trouble moving forward. Putin’s authority was irreparably damaged according to former US ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst. According to Prigozhin, Russian troops are demoralized and poorly led.
Then like flipping a light switch, the “insurrection” was over. Despite an arrest warrant being issued and following a furious address by Putin broadcast across Russia, Prigozhin was allowed to go into exile in Belarus and the warrant was cancelled. The Wagner Group is being assimilated into the ranks of the regular Russian Army something which Prigozhin had publicly resisted.
So what really happened?
Secretary of State Winkin Blinken went on Face The Nation Sunday to let the country know that he knows nothing about what is going on over there. Blinken’s responses were a mixture of “we are watching the situation very closely” “We are seeing real cracks in Putin’s authority” “Those are great questions” and “I don’t want to speculate on that.”
When he wasn’t dodging questions, Winkin Blinken spouted a handful of rubbish about the solidarity of the US, NATO and Europe to save Ukraine. Of course, this ignores the “cracks” in that solidarity from France, Hungary and others who have moved away from the unified front that supposedly existed.
Winkin moved off script when he stated that Russia’s aggression had moved Europe off of dependence on Russian gas. It certainly seems unclear to me why he would want to draw attention the Nordstream pipeline sabotage that was the product of warmongering by US and NATO. Does he really think that the German people want to spend so much more for gas to “save” Ukraine? This just seems to be another example of the hubris of those in our government who believe that everything they do or plan to do will be universally acclaimed in Western circles.
The situation is a bit fluid and we probably won’t know for some time the full extent of what has really happened. However, Winkin’s statements have about as much connection to reality as the idea that that it was safe to dive in a submersible to the Titanic wreck with an untested design.
If we are to understand what has happened, we need to understand the players. We need to understand just who Yevgeny Prigozhin is. Born in 1961, Prigozhin graduated from formal schooling in 1977. When his dreams of being a world class athlete proved to be just that, he devolved into a life on the streets.
In 1981 he was caught leading a group of people who were accused of robbing apartments in the better areas of St Petersburg. Progozhin spent nine years in prison. During this time the old Soviet Union collapsed and St Pete was becoming a tourist destination. Prigozhin joined the entrepreneurial revolution going on by opening a street food business.
Sundance notes:
Prigozhin is hard as nails, snarky as hell and very tricky.
He is one of the apex gremlins and very much still connected to the streets, very connected. He was never connected to the towers of Russian politics as the West portrays. Prigozhin doesn’t have the pedigree nor the disposition for political power.
Prigozhin is clearly a someone who reacts quickly to changed circumstances. He parlayed his street business into food enterprises of various kinds, restaurants, schools, etc. and watched the rubles pile up. Prigozhin became one of the Russian oligarchs that we have heard about after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He even served state dinners at the Kremlin. Prigozhin is said to have a yacht and several planes.
So, with this in mind, what actually happened? We know at this point that a video was released that purportedly showed the aftermath of an attack on the Wagner Group resulting in many casualties. However, all it actually showed was a few burning leaves and branches. Most people think it is a fake. No casualties are visible in the video.
Some have said that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MOD) wanted to eliminate the Wagner Group. Whether that is true or not, the easy approach to achieving that would be to eliminate the leadership (Prigozhin and a few in his inner circle). Hitting ordinary soldiers and their commanders is utter stupidity. Regardless of what you think about the Russian Army command structure, they are not that stupid.
Prigozhin used this an excuse to “decide” to attack Moscow. He had been quarrelling with the MOD over ammunition and supplies, claiming that military higher-ups were corrupt and inept. Now let’s think about this for a moment. Supposedly, essentially on a moment’s notice, he turned and sent his troops (20,000-30,000) towards Moscow?
This makes no sense at all. One does not just move that many men by saying let’s jump in our trucks and head to Moscow. It takes planning and logistics to do that. How long was that planning going on? Who was assisting with that planning?
There are stories out there that Prigozhin was working with Ukrainian intelligence to coordinate this “insurrection.” Supposedly it was to happen in conjunction with Ukraine’s vaunted spring offensive which morphed into a June debacle. Ukraine would have the Russian Army in disarray while he went to Moscow.
If Prigozhin was working to betray Russia, you can bet the UK and US intelligence agencies were aware and more likely were involved in such planning. So, was this an attempted coup orchestrated by the CIA? It is not like that they have never been involved in such activities.
The next question would be, if this was the scenario, how would the Russian Intelligence agencies not be aware of it? Assuming they were aware of the general outlines, does one not think that they would try to play this to their advantage? It would certainly explain the rapid ending of the “insurrection.”
Did Russia use this a ploy to reposition troops under the ruse of responding to an internal “insurrection” for the next phase of their war against Ukraine?
And who in their right mind would think that Putin would be magnanimous and allow the leader of the “insurrection” to go into exile in Belarus?
There are too many questions here that have no answers at this point in time. It will pay to watch closely to what happens going forward.