please post any subsequent updates here unless they’re huge happenings. i just woke up and half our news front page is updates which is nice but also A Lot and most of these don’t have to be their own thread
Beau has three videos out on it already. He’s really good for context on military things.
Thanks for this, that was some pretty good insights.
Beau the human trafficking CIA asset? Nah thanks.
Does he have a military background or something? Why is he more of an expert on this topic?
I’ve not done a deep dive into his background, since he’s clearly been in journalism for a long time with the choice of tangents he goes off on and presumed questions he addresses. I needed only one video to know he was becoming part of my daily news diet. If he does not have a military background in some way, I would be surprised.
I think he said he was a contractor for army but didn’t go into any more details. He was also in prison for smuggling immigrants across border if I recall correctly.
His real name is Justin King, and his background is… checkered at best. His politics on screen are solid but he also has prior convictions for human trafficking. These are things you can look up. So I take everything around him with a grain of salt.
I appreciate the background. I’ve worked with a lot of journalists with checkered pasts and am one myself, so that sort of thing doesn’t bother me so long as he’s good at predicting the things he can based on experience and data and is clear when he can’t. That his politics align somewhat closely with mine makes it easier to watch, but I’m there for the analysis.
An important distinction here is that he was convicted for the visa fraud kind of trafficking and not like sex trafficking or something. There’s a huge difference there but people hear trafficking and just assume it’s the worst kind imaginable.
So I googled around, and found this conviction: https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2008/February/08_crm_145.html
Justin Eric King, 27, of Chipley, Fla., has been sentenced to 41 months in prison followed by three years supervised release resulting from his conviction on charges of conspiracy to commit visa fraud, visa fraud and conspiracy to commit alien smuggling, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and United States Attorney Gregory R. Miller of the Northern District of Florida announced today. The defendant and his co-conspirators brought illegal aliens, mostly from Bulgaria and Romania, to work in the hotel industry in and around Destin, Fla. King was sentenced by Senior District Court Judge Lacey A. Collier of Pensacola, Fla.
This isn’t usually what we think of as “human trafficking.” It seems that the people he smuggled understood what they were doing, and not being forced or coerced it. If that were the case, additional charges of exploitation would have been filed.
This is what I was referring to, thank you for finding it.
This is what like 99.9% of human trafficking is. They’ve successfully propagandized anyone who conflates sex trafficking with normal undocumented human movement.
He is intentionally vague in his videos, but he has worked with the military in some capacity as a civilian before, and he still has a lot of contacts in the military. Mostly though, I personally trust him more than most because I’ve been watching him for years and he usually turns out to be correct. He’s also pretty level headed and willing to admit what he doesn’t know.
He’s been almost as fast as social media on this one, and I trust his sources.
Second this. His channel is great for short yet accurate/level-headed views on topics like this. He will always get a shout-out from me.
Well that was… weird.
I saw several alleged videos of russian frontline units pledging their support for Prigozhin. Combine that with how little resistance wagner faced and Putin might have realized how weak his position is and given in to replacing MOD staff. Not a good look the same day he declared Prigozhin a traitor and promised punishment.
Trading the long-term stability for the short-term. Because now every aspiring russian warlord know that if you don’t like something about the state, all you need is just a big enough private army to bully the kremlin, lol.
I mean, what would Wagner do once they reach Moscow? Sit at Putins desk and start giving orders? No one would listen, they’d all still take orders from Putin sitting in St Petersburg or just quit an go home and wait it out.
And soon Russia will face the same problem as Iraq and Afghanistan did
I imagine they would take over the city, and completely destabilize Russia.
It doesn’t matter if nobody wants to listen to you if you become the local law enforcement.
Probably just re-enact Jan 6 but Russian for the propaganda points, then skedaddling before the hammer comes down.
I don’t know why anyone is taking any of this seriously. For all we know, this was done to lure Ukraine into following them into Russia to fall into a set trap, or theater or withdraw and resupply without looking weak. It is odd that it looks like Putin had weakness, but they can always say that’s what it was later and the propaganda will work like it always does.
I think you watch to many movies real life isn’t that well planned most likely he got mad launched an ill planned invasion then made a deal with putin when both realized they could lose everything fighting each other
Do you really think Ukraine has an interest in following them into Russia? If I was them I would just want to take back Ukraine and secure the borders.
They don’t. But Putin in his own disinformation bubble may think so.
They currently have an operation attacking into Russia’s boarder…
Only if you accept Russia’s description of where the border is. The border as defined by every other country in the entire world says Ukraine is still in their own territory.
There have been some Ukrainian sympathisers setting off bombs/shooting down aircraft/etc inside Russian territory - but those aren’t Ukranian soldiers and they’re pretty generally just a few random/nonconsequential attacks and don’t show any signs of being linked to any “Operation”. The front line of the battlefield is nowhere near the border.
No, it’s documented and reported by Ukraine and US as they counterattacked on Russian soil and it was an issue because of the US supplying weapons to them: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/05/29/an-increasing-number-of-ukrainian-attacks-on-russian-soil-are-upsetting-the-united-states-and-kyiv-s-allies_6028312_4.html
It would be weird to shoot down friendly helicopters and launch cruise missiles at friendly formations just to make a big feint.
Ukraine just needs to take the land bridge to Crimea, I don’t see they have any incentive to go inwards towards Russia.
Well, it would certainly be a massive moral blow to Russia if Ukraine just up and freed Crimea. The bigger challenge would be installing a leader that isn’t going to turn around and give the country back to Putin.
Do we know for certain that any of that happened though? Because I haven’t seen any video of actual engagement between Wagner and Russia.
Well, here’s some footage with a shot down C&C plane. I mean it still could be not Wagner, but it would be an awful coincidence.
I mean we still don’t know shit beyond the fact that Ukraine is holding strong and slowly reclaiming territory. The thing about this story is that it shows that the Russians are divided, and that’s not a picture you want to show in a war, especially to your people. These events are costing the Russians dearly in one way or another.
What a weird outcome. Putin now looks weak and Prigozhin looks stupid for trusting any deal that Putin could make.
Just had a thought, what if Putin has taken Prigozhin’s family hostage and pretending to take the deal is just a play for time while they rescue them? It would be a great movie plot.
What if the Ukrainians paid Wagner to do this to cause a distraction? That would be pretty crazy too!
I wonder how many russians are actually happy with this outcome. Kremlin loyalist must be depressed, since their leader basically turned into a puppet. And the extreme wagner supporters wanted it to go all the way. So both sides hardcode supporters are now depressed. Some wagner members probably just wanted putin to concede even after his speech so they may be happy. Civilians that support none may be happy that their society didn’t collapse and cities turned to war zones.
Ukrainians are disappointed that the distraction didn’t last a little longer, but none the less content with a weakened Russia.
“Opportunity to return to Africa.”
Yeah, I suppose massacring badly equipped CAR “rebels” (while also guarding their diamond mines) and civilians is a lot more fun than having to fight someone being equipped by the military-industrial complex of the combined West.
Edit: oh and related to how many Russians are happy with this, this Mastodon post had some numbers from a Russian political blogger:
A popular Russian political blogger Tatiana Stanovaya ran a poll on her Telegram earlier today, asking: “how do you feel about the current situation”
Votes:
- 12% supporting Prigozhin
- 48% “let them fight, there are no heroes here”
- 29% “this is a catastrophe, I’m scared”
- 8% against the coup
- 3% “give power to the people”
The numbers will be skewed due to the audience, but still interesting>
Those figures can’t be at all reassuring to Putin.
This is nothing new. Politics has long involved compromise. Hardliners rarely get what they want.
Rumors on telegram that Shoigu has been detained.
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Iran called the attempted armed rebellion an internal affair of Russia, expressed support for the rule of law in the country.
source: https://t.me/rian_ru/206869
“we support the winning side”
What are the chances this will impact the war in Ukraine in a positive way for Ukraine? Will we possibly see an end to the war soon?
I believe it ensures a much much sooner end, yes, but exactly when depends on who wins.
If Putin wins his authority will be significantly weakened, his army will be significantly weakened, and it’s likely he’d have to pull more of them away to ensure his leadership and security even after Wagner is defeated.
If Wagner wins the army will likely be immediately recalled out of Ukraine, they will want to confirm the army’s submission to new rule and ensure no counter coup attempts, but also it would be very easy to blame Putin for everything and win popularity with the Russian people by bringing back soldiers who would likely have died pointlessly.
Crimea, however, may be a point of contention, depending on the opinions of the winners.
I guess I don’t really care who wins as long as the war ends sooner, and no nukes are used.
100% true. Putin will survive and will be forced to come to the negotiating table. The war in Ukraine will be over in a couple of months.
Zero chances it will end the war. Russians are used to swapping out regimes all the time.
This is just an infighting between two criminals, whoever wins is not going to be better for anyone.
Wanger is war fighting force, they’re not a peace-keeping unit, they’ll keep the war going if it benefits them.
Russia pulled out of WW1 because the Bolsheviks successfully took power and didn’t want to fight. Let’s hope history repeats itself.
I don’t think it would though - they have limited supplies and people, and if they take Russia they’ll need all of that to keep it. Fighting a second war at the same time would be more costly than it’s worth I think.
They’re not used to running a country, either. That’s a different skillset than their usual, so they may run into extra problems there.
and then things got worse.
Things are gonna get worse before they, uh, get worse.
It doesn’t benefit them. They’ve lost tons of people and they’re up against a determined adversary swimming in NATO firepower.
The same regime has been in power 24 years.
That’s nothing in the whole scheme. We’re talking centuries here, not the last 24 years. Stalin, Gorbachev, Lenin, Bolsheviks, Romanov, Czars, Cath the Great, etc.
Ok you could say the same thing about France. Also you repeated the same groups multiple times. The Romanovs were Tsars. Stalin Lenin and Gorbachev were all Bolsheviks, and although there was a struggle when Stalin took over Lenin to Stalin was just the passing of the torch between one revolutionary leader to the next. So really your long list of regime changes were: Catherine the Great from 1796, the Tsars who lost power in 1917, and Gorbachev who brought the USSR down in 1991. I’ll give you that Russia went through a period of intense chaos in the 90s between the dissolution of the USSR and when Putin took over. But 3 regime changes over 250 years isn’t that much.
I’m also no military strategist, but it seems like a good time for Ukraine to start pushing their counter offensive into overdrive, no?
Seems like a good time for them to be enquiring about Warner’s day-rates
Probably not quite yet - they’ll want to give Russian units time to retreat from the frontline and intervene in Russia.
Rushing can also do more damage than helping; it all depends on what is happening for sure.
However, it is a double-edge sword here. One is that they don’t need to waste limited resources they have (ammo, humans, tanks, etc) on units that may be called back to Russia to help against the rebellion or join the rebellion.
Waiting for that means they’ll fight against much smaller units and so on, which can protect Ukrainian’s soldiers from getting killed as well. So, they should take this time to shore up their offensive, give them breaks, watch for new weaknesses to appear and so on.
Slow and steady can be much more effective than fast and fail.
Remember that many Ukrainians do not want to kill Russians, many of Russian soliders are still their brothers and sisters that were conscripted or forced into this.
Now hearing from Al Jazeera news and NYT that Prigozhin has agreed to order his Wagner troops back to their bases. What in the hell is going on?
Paywalled NYT article please post content.
See also BBC live updates https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-66006142
https://twitter.com/Euan_MacDonald/status/1672614474967322624?s=20
graphic showing the progress of Prigozhin’s rebellion. Little bright spots mark district centers where evidence of fighting has been observed, and big bright spots mark cities where explosions have been heard. Regions where Wagner column has been spotted marked in purple
My pet hypothesis is that Putin and Prigozhin were engaging in a bit of play acting to stage Wagner troops for an action against Ukraine (Prigozhin benefits) and illustrate the legal and financial measures that Putin will take against powerful dissenters (Putin benefits).
With 25k troops, there’s simply no way Wagner could have succeeded in a coup. The regular army is better equipped and could have severed their supply lines with minimal effort, starving the coup with minimal bloodshed. They could have done this in their own interests, and not necessarily in defense of Putin.
Considering how swiftly Wagner’s offices were raided and their assets seized, this affair makes more sense as a morality tale to caution antsy oligarchs than as a military action.
You give too much credit to putin and prigozhin in terms of strategies thinking. Usually when things seem simple they are and in this case it’s just short term vision by both sides and signs of weakness in both as well. It’s really funny how some people try to spin this situation as “putin staged it all to draw Ukraine into a trap and to show his strength”
Putin declared Prigozhin a traitor on national TV, then fled Moscow, then gave Prigozhin everything he asked for and let him walk away. All within a day. This wasn’t some 5D chess nonsense. Putin just surrendered.
I haven’t been able to figure out from any of the arti Lea I’ve seen… What is it that Putin ended up giving to Prigozhin? What was Prigozhin asking for?
Putin hasn’t done anything yet except flee to safety yet, he doesn’t personally hold a gun in moscow to hold it as his own. A surrender would mean a civil war in wagner’s favor. Currently not at that point of desperation but we are getting there. An interesting situatiuon nevertheless.
Putin’s absolutely still in charge of Russia until someone else tries something. He still lost to Wagner though. Prigozhin got everything he wanted out of his little stunt. Putin caved because he was afraid.
Despite what a lot of people have said, this wasn’t about Prigozhin trying to pull off a coup. Wagner was supposed to be absorbed into the Russian army, and rumor had it that Prigozhin was going to be in serious trouble when that happened. Now he gets to take his still independent army to Belarus and got his enemies in the MoD fired. Prigozhin got what he wanted, and Putin couldn’t stop him.
Where does this information come from. All I’ve heard is the Wagner guys aren’t heading towards Moscow and some deal was made involving the president of Belarus. Are there specifics that have been made public?
Several news sites are reporting that part of the deal was for Prigozhin to go and live in Belarus. It’s not clear whether he’s supposed to take the Wagner troops with him, but there are questions about their loyalty to him now, since he may have set them up to be absorbed into the Russian army.
Trying to constantly remind myself that none of us are immune to propaganda, and that it would be really easy for this scenario to be misrepresented as a clean-sweep against the Russian military. Wagner’s def gonna cause serious problems but I’d frankly be shocked if this ended with a successful coup or any meaningful change
Even if they win, this dude is a literal war monger fascist. Not better or worse than Putin.
I have such mixed feelings. Happy that there is visible weakness in Putin’s power, which could maybe lead to his eventual removal from power which would be amazing. Very frightening though that the ones replacing him might have the same goals as Putin, except this time, actually be competent at their jobs. That’s a horrible outlook for Ukraine. Oh man…
The guy has gone on the record stating that he thinks the war in Ukraine was not justified and was done simply to please the defense ministry. Who knows what he would get into as a leader, but at least with him in charge Ukraine should be less worried.
Likely to see de-escalation of the war in Ukraine if he succeedes. But I don’t have hope for a whole sale withdrawal.
My guess is at a minimum he trys to hold Crimea
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Yup.
With rumors the defense minister has been detained coupled with Wagner blaming the defense minister for the lies justifying the invasion… MAYBE this is some weird way for Putin to save face/stay alive while pulling out of eastern Ukraine?
But that sounds like bullshit, this whole thing is getting weirder by the moment right now. Smells like a lot of misinformation flowing from all sides right now.
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Actually Prigozhin is arguably waaayyyy worse. Putin is a ruthless warlord just like Prigozhin, yes. They have equally virulent ideologies, yep.
But Putin is a politician first and Prigozhin is 100% not. Say what you want of Putin but deep down he still gives a shit about projecting certain images of control, law, etc – he still values the opinion of certain international communities. He is still the leader of a government, not just a battalion or an army.
Prigozhin doesn’t give a shit about any of that, he is a simple and ruthless warlord without any pretense of governance at all, who only understands force and who has no qualms about being open in his toxic ideologies.
I think it’s extraordinarily unlikely Prigozhin actually accomplishes any of his own goals towards Russia because he isn’t a politician and he’s just a thug, but I also think it’s equally unlikely Putin’s Russia recovers from this. Wagner was Putin’s pitbull. They were virtually the entirety of professional real soldiers Russia had under its command. No more pit bull changes things dramatically. We can easily expect a social “downgrade” of Russia’s status as superpower in the eyes of other nations. That leaves some big doors open for China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and of course, the United States.
We may be on the cusp of a second break up of the USSR, further breaking Russia down into disparate nationstates. That possibility offers a lot of problems on its own. It’s no longer a question of “rogue warlord gains control of russian nukes”, now its “russian nukes don’t exist, now those nukes belong to 15 new whatever-istan nations, each without any pre-existing relationships or treaties”. That’s scarier. Doubly so because in that big muck of former Russian states, Wagner could still be around in the middle of it with the biggest dick on the block. He’d predictably go Atilla, march through every one of them and conscript every dude over 16 to fight. And history tells us over and over just how those situations end: global-scale wars. Conqueror types never stop, they just keep conquering until they get stopped.
How do you know all this about him? I’ve never heard of this guy until 5 minutes ago and am very curious.
Edit: 2022 corrupt person of the year… Great.
Have you been following the war in Ukraine at all in the last 16mo? If not, that’s surprising, but understandable.
Anyway, Prigozhin and his Wagner PMC group of mercenaries have been talked about consistently since the beginning. In the last ~6mo or so, he’s been constantly in the eyes of the (Western) media as his rhetoric against the Russian military leadership—not against Putin, though—has steadily been increasing all the way to this sudden outbreak of internecine violence.
Aside from Putin, he’s basically been the #2 face of this war from the Russian side, at least in Western media, over even Russia MoD head Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, who’s the Chief of Staff of the Russian military, who are supposedly in charge of prosecuting this war.
Oh dear god the war has been going for 16 months now?
I stopped following it after the first month.
Thanks for the information that’s very helpful.
I think you’re mistaken, it is Putin who is the warmongering conqueror here, not Prigozhin.
If you think Prigozhin isn’t a warmongering conqueror, you don’t know much about him.
They both are. I’m late to this thread now, but the best case scenario for Ukraine would have been Prigozhin not backing down, Wagner getting wiped out, but the Russian military facing heavy losses, which would significantly hinder their ability to wage war.
And then maybe some other less warmongering oligarchs assassinating Putin
Just to add to this, a Prigozhin government would likely be far worse for Ukraine. While Putin had few qualms brutalizing civilians and committing war crimes Prigozhin has none. He’s a ruthless, murderous thug. The best outcome would be that he is defeated by the Russian military but that they have to withdraw troops from Ukraine, allowing the Ukrainians to seize the initiative with their offensive. The worst outcomes don’t bear thinking about.
Wagnerians in Lipetsk, avout 300 km from Moscow
https://canada.unofficialbird.com/nexta_tv/status/1672602398915809282#m
There’s something up. Both putin and Wagners head aren’t stupid.
I feel it’s a plan to justify future actions.
Yes, Poutine highly control GRU with an iron glove, and Wagner is controlled by GRU. It’s a masquerade to kick choigou and guerassimov because they are bad.
Wagner opened fire on Russian forces. Shot down helicopters and apparently at least one transport plane. That’s a lot for just playacting. No pretense would be needed to replace a general in wartime. It’s a common occurrence throughout history, and Putin wouldn’t need an excuse either way, since he answers to no one in the Russian government. As to the statement that neither Putin nor Prigozhin are stupid… Well this entire conflict has provided an enormous amount of evidence to the contrary.
I think this is legitimately the commander of the most elite force being fed up that his men are dying in a losing war and his recommendations falling on deaf ears. His “I need ammo” video from a few weeks ago certainly wasn’t part of some grand masquerade either, the city’s supply lines were just destroyed by Ukrainian artillery.
He’s not demanding Putin out, he’s demanding changes in military leadership to properly supply and command the war forces. He can’t just leave the war at this point, so he had to do something drastic otherwise most of his forces will end up as casualties. It also gives him some setup to actually leave the war if his demands aren’t met.
All of this “highly controlled” talk has gotten a little hyperbolic given recent events. I think there’s serious reason to think Putin has an at least somewhat loose control of everything except the oligarchs and GRU. He absolutely has the wealth and kompromat that is claimed and there’s no question he’s had several oligarchs assassinated, but beyond that it appears his control and oversight is relatively weak. Probably because competent people are dangerous to give too much power to. Look at Prigozhin, he’s far from being capable of knocking Putin down but he’s still starting to make demands.
What happens when you give barely competent and corrupt people the majority of the military leadership roles? Ukraine - the best equipped troops were sent in first but the plan barely went beyond that and went completely tits up once those forces got wiped out. They keep outrunning the supply lines of what little they do have. Morale is in free fall.
I don’t think Putin is close to getting ousted, but for the same reason Russia can’t be more than a barely functional country. There just aren’t enough competent people in powerful positions that he trusts/can control to run a country.
It makes both Putin and Prigozhin look bad though. Would they go through this damage to their reputations just for that? And couldn’t Putin just have fired those guys without going through some elaborate pantomime first?
Putin benefited from:
- Showed that the largest military group couldn’t complete a coup
- No longer need to justify the damage Wagner group done
- Shows Russian that he prefer to negotiate rather than bloodshed
- Shows international theatre that Russian troops are loyal, peaceful, and follow orders
- Identified disloyal government officials who sided with Wagner if any
And the list goes on
Wagner head got out of it and terrorisim accusations in the future
I’m still thinking that it’s not over. Moscow still on high alert.
- Showed that the largest military group couldn’t complete a coup
This showed that they wouldn’t, at least under these circumstances, not that they couldn’t.
I agree with all other points though.
Just saw on the news that Wagner is turning around after Lukashenko got involved?
Well that would be funny
Ml
Backing down like this puts a target on their heads. It’s never wise to do something like a coup and not follow through .
Belarus is more likely to side with Wagner over Lukashenko. That clown will be gone the second Putin is.
I saw that as well. Idk, it just seems really unlikely to just back down from a coup because Belarus gets involved…
Also didnt Lulashenko just jet over to Turkey?
This feels like wrestling “Kayfabe.” Like, was this just some weird feint by Russia? Try to bait Ukraine into doing something? This would be a new level of gaslighting if so…
So strange.
It could also be a way to shake out any elements of the Russian military or other paramilitary groups that are looking for ways to get out of Ukraine. Like, maybe the attacks on Wagner coming from the Russian army are rogue elements where Wagner is obviously the most effective target for friendly fire.
This.
I had that thought too, some false flag to get Ukraine to launch it’s main counteroffensive early
This has been months in the making. From what I can tell it’s a mix of Russian incompitence in the war effort and the Kremlins attempts to control more of Wagner. I have no idea where this is going or what either side has in mind but it’s definetly motivated by Wagner seeing the Kremlin itself as being the thing holding the war effort back.
Wagner troops taking over nuclear facility
A nuclear weapons storage facility. The prospect of Prigozhin and his prison-recruited mercenaries in charge of nuclear weapons is not reassuring.
While that’s true, those weapons are currently under the control of a fascist government and increasingly desperate despot, so I don’t see how them being in the hands of mercs is any worse. At least you know what mercs are motivated by.
I wonder how many of them are actually made of wood.
Needs an “allegedly”, apart from being a questionable source in the first place (as a random social media account, nothing against the person running it), the source you quoted makes it clear that they aren’t confident in their own source.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408347/
Wagner Group’s veterans ordered to wait on high alert – Russian media
