Russia Surrounded

[Clinamenic]

Yeah thats the bit of the story that I'm still unclear on - was Prigozhin a Kremlin asset before his catering business, or was the catering business a vehicle for him to get (literally) close to the Kremlin?

 

[Clinamenic]

Also, is it accurate to refer to Prigozhin as a neo-nazi? I heard some account of the origin of the name "Wagner" as having something to do with some German WW1 personnel or equipment, but I forget the details. Think I heard that in a seminar by Sean McFate, an expert on private military companies, but it could have been from somewhere else.

 

[Leo]

Love how whenever the Times mentions Prigozhin, they describe him as a billionaire who runs a catering business.

 

[Clinamenic]

Any contingencies where Navalny's and Prigozhin's challenger movements could coincide as strange bedfellows?

 

[Clinamenic]

Love how whenever the Times mentions Prigozhin, they describe him as a billionaire who runs a catering business.

I'm sure the meme mills are having a field day with that as well.

 

[hmg]

I've seen people on Reddit and Twitter relishing the prospect of Putin being toppled, but I don't think a power vacuum or Wagner taking control of a nuclear state would be an improvement.

BORING

 

[hmg]

Tbh if you look at the Wagner presence in Africa etc the lad has potentially got very grand ambitions. No doubt the yanks preparing to mobilise

They already massacred a load in Syria

 

[Leo]

Flights are apparently leaving Moscow now, Putin's presidential plane among them.

Understandable that you’d want to move a country’s leader out of harm’s way, but it’s a really bad look for strongman Putin to be seen fleeing his power center.

 

[version]

Understandable that you’d want to move a country’s leader out of harm’s way, but it’s a really bad look for strongman Putin to be seen fleeing his power center.

Lukashenko's apparently fled Belarus too.

 

[IdleRich]

Feels like Caesar has crossed the Rubicon.

 

[Leo]

Russia, like China, likes to blame every domestic problem on the West, particularly the US. Hard to pull that off in this one, although I’ve already seen one Russian official say “international force could be involved”.

 

[Leo]

And now they’re turning around!

 

[Leo]

Never mind!

 

[Leo]

What sort of deal was struck? What could Wagner get in return for calling off the trek to Moscow? Did Putin agree to fire his own generals?

 

[Murphy]

A feint, clear out of certain armed forces management, plausible deniability

Prigozhin would make a decent scrum-half peering over a pack of brutes

Wake up tomorrow cunt’s being dragged dead through the streets of Rostov behind a horse

 

[version]

You'd have thought he'd lost the opportunity to back down the moment he launched the thing.

 

[version]

A feint, clear out of certain armed forces management, plausible deniability

The flaw in that theory's that, whichever way you slice it, it makes Putin look weak. He's either unable or unwilling to remove his opponents himself or he's lost control of a sizeable chunk of his military forces and been bullied by them.

 

[Murphy]

The flaw in that theory's that, whichever way you slice it, it makes Putin look weak. He's either unable or unwilling to remove his opponents himself or he's lost control of a sizeable chunk of his military forces and being bullied by them.

To which Putin says “what, I was lied to by the entire top brass? Yevgeny, eggs benedict, just the way I like them!”

(no idea, tincture is kicking in hard hence the prior horse drawn corpse caveat)

 

[wg-]

The only one coming out of this with any credence is Lukashenko then

Very odd

 

[Mr. Tea]

Also, is it accurate to refer to Prigozhin as a neo-nazi? I heard some account of the origin of the name "Wagner" as having something to do with some German WW1 personnel or equipment, but I forget the details. Think I heard that in a seminar by Sean McFate, an expert on private military companies, but it could have been from somewhere else.

Well it was apparently founded by Dmitri Utkin, callsign 'Wagner', who is a known neo-Nazi and has SS tats. Then there's the whole massive-antisemite-and-Hitler's-favourite-composer angle, although I suppose that could just be an unfortunate coincidence.