24 June 2023
Putin has always treated Prigozhin like a wayward kid brother and now lets him off the hook and slink away to Belarus, a less well structured state where he Prigozhin could do real damage - Belarus is almost as important to Russian security as Ukraine.
In a Western democracy, Prigozhin would be under lock and key by now.
Imagine if Prigozhin had reached Moscow and begun looting. Reminds me of those few hundred crusaders who got into Constantinople and sacked it before being beaten away. Or the military who challenged de Gaulle back in 1962 over his decision to liberate Algeria.
People are pointing out how weak Russia is north of Ukraine and a push by Ukraine would give a Kievian army access to the M4 motorway and Moscow, as had Wagner. Well, many have gone in (over 50 invasions, helps understand Russian security concerns), Napoleon the best known, the Germans tried it, history is that few have come out in one piece, so Kiev en route to Moscow is a bit fanciful ... but increasing surprises in the world today ... I'd not have imagined Moscow would let Prigozhin get this far, it sows doubts about the governance of Russia frankly.
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A coup attempt - to denounce and decry as a coup would be a classic tactic of Putin's enemies. But attempted coup it was, though Prigozhin has denied trying to topple the govt, saying he had wanted to object to a decision to disband his militia as well as demonstrate the weakness of Russia’s domestic defences.
This was an increasingly vitrioloc attack by a battlefield commander (more on that later) on his generals sitting back in HQ. Yevgeny Prigozhin considers he was deliberately undersupplied with munitions by envious armchair generals.
From what I can understand, Prigozhin was deliberately slowed down in this military operation named by Russia named Operation Meat Grinder (sic - Russian military gave this name, or adopted it) because the idea was that the Ukrainians would file into the Bahkmout trap and be annihilated - the longer they filed in the better for this strategy of attrition.
But of course the longer the strategy went on the more of Prigozhin's soldiers were sacrificed. There is one famous video of him standing in front of the bodies of 94 of his men killed he says because they did not have munitions in sufficient quantities to defend themselves.
On the one hand, you can argue that this is proof that Putin is not a dictator; but what is worrying is Putin's slack treatment of this insubordination, as though Prigozhin were a wayward kid brother. His whole approach to the war has been to try and spare the suffering, to spare the lives of his troops and also civilian lives in Ukraine.
So putting all this together, we get the impression of a rather too political or soft leadership - Putin has even let Prigozhin off the hook, aswhere we would have put him in gaol, as he is now off to Belarus where he may cause more trouble again.
While the pro-Russian chattering classes on telegram etc all rally round Putin, including Putin's harshest critics, we do come away with the worrisome impression that Putin is not fully in charge, not fully in control - this is worrisome to his people, but also to his allies.
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Strange that Ukraine's offensive and Prigordzin's coup both coincided and both required Russian weakness if they were to succeed.
Prigozhin has a massive energy behind a massive ego. This rant of his has been building since February. Russian authorities allowed all that and seemingly didn't see the trek up the M4 coming. The Russians are so confident they didn't imagine others would perceive weakness.
The attempt failed because Prigozhin had no support and the authorities mobilised quickly to put it down without bloodshed.
So it shows how solid is Russia's present political system, but it also demonstrates a strength of democracy, that opposition can flow through institutional channels and not butt against them.
My memory of this short-lived rebellion will be Putin's speech comparing this with 1917 - must be said seemed a bit panicky.
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It was in CNN 2 weeks beforehand... but of course no one in Russia reads the Western press, not for a moment.
What I would like to know is who organised this? Because Prigozhin, a figurehead, lacking military qualifications, relying on his generals, couldn't have done it on his own
But his generals didn't support him.
So he must have had outside help.
And yet no one in Russian Society supported him either.
So where did that help come from, I wonder... not that I'm paranoid or a conspiracist
We need Seymour Hersch on the trail.
Seems everyone knew what was going on except of course Putin
And that includes Prigozhin, aware he had no support, neither within Wagner, nor within Russian society ... if true what was he thinking about? What was he doing this for? Well, now he has given his explanation.
