Russian Coup Aided by Telegram, VPNs as Government Blocks Google News (nytimes.com) 140
Yevgeny V. Prigozhin heads the Russia-backed paramilitary Wagner Group — and was also "a close confidant of Russian president Vladimir Putin until he launched an alleged coup," according to Wikipedia.
The New York Times notes Prigozhin's remarkable ability to bypass government censorship: Despite years of creeping Kremlin control over the internet, the mercenary tycoon Yevgeny V. Prigozhin continued to comment live on Saturday through videos, audio recordings and statements posted on the messaging app Telegram.
His remarkable continued access to a public platform amid a crisis demonstrated both the limits of official restrictions and the rise of Telegram as a powerful mode of communication since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022. The app, along with the proliferation of virtual private networks, has effectively loosened the information controls that the Russian authorities had tightened for years.
Russian internet service providers began blocking access to Google News shortly after the authorities accused Mr. Prigozhin of organizing an armed uprising on Friday. But while unconfirmed reports surfaced of Telegram outages in some Russian cities, people within Russia continued to post on the app.
CNN just reported that Prigozhin's paramilitary group "has claimed control of several military facilities and has dispatched some of his troops towards Moscow... Russian security forces in body armor and equipped with automatic weapons have taken up a position near a highway linking Moscow with southern Russia, according to photos published by the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti Saturday."
UPDATE: CNN now reports Prigozhin "says he is turning his forces around from a march toward Moscow shortly after the Belarusian government claimed President Alexander Lukashenko had reached a deal with Prigozhin to halt the march."
The New York Times notes Prigozhin's remarkable ability to bypass government censorship: Despite years of creeping Kremlin control over the internet, the mercenary tycoon Yevgeny V. Prigozhin continued to comment live on Saturday through videos, audio recordings and statements posted on the messaging app Telegram.
His remarkable continued access to a public platform amid a crisis demonstrated both the limits of official restrictions and the rise of Telegram as a powerful mode of communication since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022. The app, along with the proliferation of virtual private networks, has effectively loosened the information controls that the Russian authorities had tightened for years.
Russian internet service providers began blocking access to Google News shortly after the authorities accused Mr. Prigozhin of organizing an armed uprising on Friday. But while unconfirmed reports surfaced of Telegram outages in some Russian cities, people within Russia continued to post on the app.
CNN just reported that Prigozhin's paramilitary group "has claimed control of several military facilities and has dispatched some of his troops towards Moscow... Russian security forces in body armor and equipped with automatic weapons have taken up a position near a highway linking Moscow with southern Russia, according to photos published by the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti Saturday."
UPDATE: CNN now reports Prigozhin "says he is turning his forces around from a march toward Moscow shortly after the Belarusian government claimed President Alexander Lukashenko had reached a deal with Prigozhin to halt the march."
Taken Rostov, driving on Moscow (Score:2)
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It looks more like they're pushing to Moscow, and have pretty much abandoned the front lines entirely.
Air forces don't allow columns on highways (Score:2)
It looks more like they're pushing to Moscow, ...
Which does not make sense beyond a false PR statement designed to instill fear and unrest. A column on a highway? Air Forces don't allow such silliness.
..."
Taking over and digging in at command centers, logistics centers, for the Ukrainian war and starting a "covert" negotiation(*) with Putin. That might be more likely.
(*) Something starting with "I am loyal to you, but the generals in the Kremlin are lying to you and undermining you. They are seeking to replace you
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But now Belarus claims to have negotiated some form of deal between Wagner and Putin.
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Re:Air forces don't allow columns on highways (Score:4, Informative)
Best short summary of all this, is that it's a mafia war. Putin and Prigozhin are essentially crime bosses. Putin for sure, Prighozin wasn't an oligarch but did serve time in jail in the past, but then reformed himself and went into the catering business where Putin got him up in the good standing. But like some mafia wars, you don't directly accuse the godfather of being the one you hate, you claim to be fighting an underling like the defense minister Shoigu (decorated general who never once served in the military). But Prigozhin has been acting oddly with his feud against the military leadership for some time.
Now, Prigozhin is a not a nice guy, in any possible way. He recruits his mercenaries at the moment from prisons and sends them in first where they will be shot if they try to retreat. Cannon fodder. His Wagner troops in Africa are accused of human rights abuses. BUT... He called out that the war in Ukraine was based on lies, that there weren't nazis there and the war wasn't about demilitarization. Then he went off the rails a bit and claimed it was about Shoigu wanting another star on his uniform. But it is telling that someone this prominent actually spoke out that the reasons for the war were lies.
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Putin for sure, Prighozin wasn't an oligarch but did serve time in jail in the past, but then reformed himself and went into the catering business where Putin got him up in the good standing.
Let's be clear here. He served time in prison for serially choking women into unconsciousness as part of gang robberies (maybe just robberies). That was his job in the gang. This will have been one of those organized mugging arrangements where one or more guys approaches from the front and presents a masked threat. You know: "Do you have the time?" "Can I bum a cigarette?", etc. Distracting and threatening without making an explicit threat. Meanwhile, someone sneaks up from behind. That someone was Prighozi
Re: Air forces don't allow columns on highways (Score:2)
We haven't seen the end of this yet.
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A column on a highway? Air Forces don't allow such silliness.
You're thinking of western air forces. This is the Russian air force which has shown itself to be completely inept at everything.
There have been attempted air attacks against the Wagner columns on the road, but they resulted in 6 Russian helicopters shot down [twitter.com]. This is in addition to an airborne command plane blown out of the sky [twitter.com] (not the AN-26 stated in the title, but an IL-18).
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I would think they would still have some functional fighter-bombers with guided munitions. Those are much harder to shoot down than a helicopter.
Re: Air forces don't allow columns on highways (Score:2)
I mean sure, if they pull it out of Ukraine first. Russia is apparently running very short on weapons and ammunition, so I think it would make sense that any military would have an easy time moving within Russia after they pass its borders.
The US had a similar experience when it invaded Germany. The Autobahn provided for excellent, undamaged lines of communication and the German military couldn't even do anything about it.
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Don't forget that Wagner is quite a large fighting force, plus they just sacked an air-force base. If they didn't have significant air defenses before they sacked the base, they probably did after as well. They were already known to have Pantsir/SA-22 systems not to mention their own jets. In fact, I found a video [youtube.com] showing that Wagner was taking an S-300 system with them to Moscow. That puts a real dent in plans to attack them from the air.
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A column on a highway? Air Forces don't allow such silliness.
You're thinking of western air forces. This is the Russian air force which has shown itself to be completely inept at everything.
There have been attempted air attacks against the Wagner columns on the road, but they resulted in 6 Russian helicopters shot down [twitter.com]. This is in addition to an airborne command plane blown out of the sky [twitter.com] (not the AN-26 stated in the title, but an IL-18).
Which is why I am expecting them to move from logistics center to logistics center, to resupply the necessary munitions. I expect that on a drive to Moscow they would exhaust their supply and/or the air force would apply greater caution and adjust tactics.
The logistics centers are also wonderful "hostages" as the Ukrainian war is so dependent upon them. The mercenaries only path is to negotiate, so they need something to negotiate with.
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They also need someone reliable to negotiate with.
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It looks more like they're pushing to Moscow, ...
Which does not make sense beyond a false PR statement designed to instill fear and unrest. A column on a highway? Air Forces don't allow such silliness.
Even considering the situation, Russia bombing (vehicles on) its own transportation infrastructure would probably be counter-productive.
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It looks more like they're pushing to Moscow, ...
Which does not make sense beyond a false PR statement designed to instill fear and unrest. A column on a highway? Air Forces don't allow such silliness.
Even considering the situation, Russia bombing (vehicles on) its own transportation infrastructure would probably be counter-productive.
Less counterproductive than letting the column reach Moscow.
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It looks more like they're pushing to Moscow, ...
Which does not make sense beyond a false PR statement designed to instill fear and unrest. A column on a highway? Air Forces don't allow such silliness.
Even considering the situation, Russia bombing (vehicles on) its own transportation infrastructure would probably be counter-productive.
Less counterproductive than letting the column reach Moscow.
Sure, but there are probably other ways to confront a convoy than simply destroying the road, which Russia would then have to rebuild.
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It looks more like they're pushing to Moscow, ...
Which does not make sense beyond a false PR statement designed to instill fear and unrest. A column on a highway? Air Forces don't allow such silliness.
Even considering the situation, Russia bombing (vehicles on) its own transportation infrastructure would probably be counter-productive.
Less counterproductive than letting the column reach Moscow.
Sure, but there are probably other ways to confront a convoy than simply destroying the road, which Russia would then have to rebuild.
Rebuilding a section of a highway is a relatively simple thing to do. Cratered runways can be rebuilt in a day.
Plus all the vehicle wreckage towed off to the side can be left in place as a display to reminder of what happens to people who don't follow orders.
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Russia has a good railway network for getting troops and equipment around. Meant for internal security it wasn't quite so good when they needed to cross borders and the tracks were shelled early in the war.
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It looks more like they're pushing to Moscow, ...
Which does not make sense beyond a false PR statement designed to instill fear and unrest. A column on a highway? Air Forces don't allow such silliness.
Even considering the situation, Russia bombing (vehicles on) its own transportation infrastructure would probably be counter-productive.
Less counterproductive than letting the column reach Moscow.
Sure, but there are probably other ways to confront a convoy than simply destroying the road, which Russia would then have to rebuild.
It seems they had been destroying the roads. With backhoes as they put up defense near Moscow.
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It looks more like they're pushing to Moscow, and have pretty much abandoned the front lines entirely.
If nothing else, this is a great turn of events for Ukraine. Wagner - who were actually much more effective fighters that the Soviet Army - no longer being part of that conflict is a huge opening for the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Even better with their immediate C&C in Rostov perhaps also taken out of the fight by Prigozhin.
And every military resource Putin needs to maintain power in Russia is one less resource he can send to Ukraine. Things are certainly not going the way little war criminal ma
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The actual effectiveness of Wagner as a fighting force is a bit questionable. It took them how long to (only mostly) capture Bakhmut, leaving the city destroyed and completely useless and spending at least 20,000 of their own lives. This is for a a city of 70,000 people (formerly) with land area of 16 square miles. That's basically half an acre per human life, and all for a pyrrhic victory that's shaping up to potentially be fleeting. Then there's all of the other casualties aside from the dead. Generally t
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Fair enough.
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It looks more like they're pushing to Moscow, and have pretty much abandoned the front lines entirely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
No, and an update (Score:5, Interesting)
Does this mean that Wagner has the Russian Army in Ukraine surrounded?
No. Wagner was part of the Russian offensive, they have disengaged (effectively - turned around) and are probably marching on Moscow.
This is a beef between the Russian MOD Shoigu and the Wagner commander Prigozhin.
Shoigu is the MOD of Russia, and has been characterized as the most incompetent man in Russia. He has personally stolen about 1/3 of the Russian defense budget, and his minions have stolen about 1/3 more (per Peter Zeihan).
Prigozhin is the commander of the Wagner group, a private army unit that Putin pays to do war crimes at various times and places around the world. Putin then states that Russia had nothing to do with the incident. The Wagner group is one of the few units in the Ukraine war that have experience and are effective at fighting - much of the Russian army are unprovisioned, untrained, inexperienced cannon fodder.
Prigozhin wants to enter politics, he wants to start by being MOD and then eventually President of Russia. Shoigu wants to prevent that.
In past weeks Prigozhin was told to take Bakhmut, which held no special strategic importance. This was widely viewed as an attempt by Shoigu to wear down Wagner's forces. Prigozhin put the untrained Russians out in front and after some 100,000 Russian casualties (both killed and wounded) managed to take the city - then he retreated.
During the Bakhmut thing Shoigu stopped sending ammo, promised to send more ammo, reneged on the promise, and so on. Pretty much setting up Wagner for defeat.
After Bakhmut, Shoigu required all military personnel to sign a contract stating that they were part of the Russian military and under military command. There were a bunch of volunteer units (some 50,000 men, according to Shoigu) but Prigozhin refused for obvious reasons.
Now Prigozhin is between a rock and a hard place. If he signs the contract, he's under military command and Shoigu will arrange to have his group killed. If he *doesn't* sign the contract, he's essentially an enemy of the state.
Currently Prigozhin is marching on Moscow with his group, but probably he's marching on Shjoigu and not Putin, with which he's still on relatively friendly terms.
Implications for Ukraine:
This is really good news for Ukraine. Shoigu now has to contend with a rebellion of an army group that's real good at conducting warfare, and so he has to fortify Moscow somehow. Best case is that he withdraws troops from the Ukraine conflict, setting the stage for a successful counteroffensive. Worst case it's a distraction that removes top-level strategic analysis from the Russian side.
The Ukraine counteroffensive has started, or not started depending on your definitions. The first phase is to send probing units into lots of places to find out where the Russian defenses are weakest, and in particular to find out where the minefields are. This is what was happening in the past 2 weeks or so, and some have been successful and some have not. Reports of Ukraine winning or losing based on these probing attacks are complete bunkum - any report that looks only at the results of an attack is ignoring the overall strategy.
The Russians have dug in making 3 layers of trenches, which is literally a textbook strategy. Prying an opponent out of a 3-layer trench system is very difficult... unless you can get behind them. The Ukraine strategy is apparently to find the best place to attack, put all their forces in one place, and bust through to get behind the rest of the trenches. Depending on circumstances, if the Ukrainians can bust through in the right spot they can roll right through and cut off the land bridge to the Crimean peninsula, and at that point all they have to do is wait for 1/3 of the Russian army to surrender or starve.
There's absolutely no doubt that the Kakhova dam was blown up by the Russians. To blow up the dam required about 2 truckloads of explosives, and a few missiles and bombs don't have
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No. Wagner was part of the Russian offensive, they have disengaged (effectively - turned around) and are probably marching on Moscow.
Which if true puts the Russian Army in a quandry - do they attack his rear and leave Ukraine? Stay and fight in Ukraine? Join Wegner?
The Russians have dug in making 3 layers of trenches, which is literally a textbook strategy. Prying an opponent out of a 3-layer trench system is very difficult... unless you can get behind them. The Ukraine strategy is apparently to find the best place to attack, put all their forces in one place, and bust through to get behind the rest of the trenches. Depending on circumstances, if the Ukrainians can bust through in the right spot they can roll right through and cut off the land bridge to the Crimean peninsula, and at that point all they have to do is wait for 1/3 of the Russian army to surrender or starve.
If Prigozhin is intent on marching on Moscow, the Russian soldiers in the Ukraine may decide hauling ass is better than being left on their own while Moscow decides what to do about Prigozhin. They may find it hard to get resupplied if material gets redeployed to protect Moscow. For all we know Prigozhin may have already made a deal with their commanders, who may be waiting
Tactically interesting (Score:2)
No. Wagner was part of the Russian offensive, they have disengaged (effectively - turned around) and are probably marching on Moscow.
Which if true puts the Russian Army in a quandry - do they attack his rear and leave Ukraine? Stay and fight in Ukraine? Join Wegner?
The Russians have dug in making 3 layers of trenches, which is literally a textbook strategy. Prying an opponent out of a 3-layer trench system is very difficult... unless you can get behind them. The Ukraine strategy is apparently to find the best place to attack, put all their forces in one place, and bust through to get behind the rest of the trenches. Depending on circumstances, if the Ukrainians can bust through in the right spot they can roll right through and cut off the land bridge to the Crimean peninsula, and at that point all they have to do is wait for 1/3 of the Russian army to surrender or starve.
If Prigozhin is intent on marching on Moscow, the Russian soldiers in the Ukraine may decide hauling ass is better than being left on their own while Moscow decides what to do about Prigozhin. They may find it hard to get resupplied if material gets redeployed to protect Moscow. For all we know Prigozhin may have already made a deal with their commanders, who may be waiting to see which side will win.
This whole situation is very interesting, if you're into tactical games.
Prigozhin is starting from Rostov-on-Dom, where he has apparently captured the city, and Rostov-on-Dom is the central command for the Russian offensive.
I don't know how important "central command" is in this context, it could be enough to completely paralyze the Russian army and freeze provisions, or it could be nothing. Or something in between.
One thing for certain: if Prigozhin becomes MOD it would be very bad for the Ukranians becaus
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One thing for certain: if Prigozhin becomes MOD it would be very bad for the Ukranians because unlike Shoigu, Prigozhin is most definitely *not* incompetent.
Also, there's supposedly a lot of unrest in Russia (Moscow specifically) right now over the invasion, so there might also be a popular uprising to consider.
Interesting times.
This could be an all or nothing move for Prigozhin, especially if the elites who depend on Putin dislike him. He might not last long as MOD, and Putin probabaly already is think Prigozhin I wants his job. If Prigozhin succeeds and Putin is gone, I wonder if he would leave Ukraine, blame the mess on Putin and make nice with teh west to get rid of sanctions, helping the elites to garner support. Interesting times indeed.
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There's also the possibility that this is all some elaborate pantomime. As for the why of it, it could be for Wagner to serve the true purpose it has always existed for: to be a scapegoat for illegal/shady things that Putin wants to do. It worked in Crimea. At least long enough for it to be a fait accompli before anyone seemed to be able to get their act together. So, maybe Putin thinks he can point at this rebel Prighozin who turned against his own country and retroactively blame all the war crimes on Wagn
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The Wagner group is one of the few units in the Ukraine war that have experience and are effective at fighting
The Wagner group does not have experienced militia fighting in Ukraine. They have staffed their ranks with prisoners in an offer to have their sentences reduced. They have largely been seen as woefully incompetent and have suffered staggering losses. Wagner admits that nearly half of its enlisted troops have died (over 20k died in the Bakhmut battle alone), the USA government estimates it's actually over 30k.
Wagner has competent and effective fighters, but they aren't the large force they mobilised in the U
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Although Wagner has been recruiting from prisons to restock the numbers for the front line cannon fodder. Not sure if he's callling in the hardened mercs who are currently busy performing atrocities in Africa. So how seasoned are they really there in Bakhmut? Probably more seasoned lieutenants I think.
Also... Part of the beef Prigozhin has against the ministry of defense is because the Russian army was indeed inept. And he's been down and dirty with the insults and accusations this year. Probably not
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Do you have any specific points to raise, or did you just want to chuck a dead skunk into the thread and run away giggling?
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You need to slow down.
Part of your comment was showing off and part of it was frustration with the hubris of people supporting more military engagement.
But your hubris and dismissive tone really aren't any better and neither are you any more helping the people that are really suffering.
Seems very difficult to pull off a coup (Score:3)
Modern coups are only possible if the government is unpopular/feckless or the military is pissed off. My understanding, which could be wrong, is that Putin is widely popular throughout Russia. Wagner group doesn't have the political support or military strength to pull off a coup. The most they could do is a few targeted assassinations that acheive no strategic victory. How many Russian army, popular public figures, and police are going to go along with a Wagner coup?
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That said, there's no reason the US can't play this to our advantage -- though I am 100% sure we won't. There's a bunch of err, creative, or strategery level things we, or NATO, could do to at least score some points against the Putin regime. I don't think we'll do it though. We might have if it were the 50s or 60s.
Re:Seems very difficult to pull off a coup (Score:5, Insightful)
Any more involvement and you would lose the PR war, and therefore support for this hands-off approach to Russian self-sabotage.
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That said, there's no reason the US can't play this to our advantage -- though I am 100% sure we won't. There's a bunch of err, creative, or strategery level things we, or NATO, could do to at least score some points against the Putin regime. I don't think we'll do it though. We might have if it were the 50s or 60s.
While getting rid of Putin would do the world a favor, we have to be careful we don't end up with a 1917 situation where the people who take power are worse than what was there before.
What we could hope for, and possibly give a nudge to, is places such as Georgia take back those parts of their country which Russia has stolen. That would help spread what little remains of Russia's army even more thinly, and possibly (hopefully) force Russian forces in Ukraine to flee home to help. One has to remember, in 2
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I dunno, Putin is essentially mirroring Hitler in so many ways. We're past the 1917 analogies and into the 1940 ones. A new dictator would have to build up popular support from scratch, and that's hard. Mostly only the Kim family has been able to keep a dictatorship running long term.
Re:Seems very difficult to pull off a coup (Score:5, Interesting)
Putin is widely popular throughout Russia
The thing with running an authoritarian, mafia-style state with almost entirely state run media and a historical intelligence apparatus who has a reputation for crushing dissent and jailing troublemakers is one can never know really if that is the case.
Think about the poll in Crimea after Russia invaded that showed a majority of the people supported rhe Russian takeover. Is it really a fair assesment when people have soldiers already outside their door? How many Russia citizens are really going to go out there and say they don't like Putin and think his decisions have been mistakes.
Wagner group doesn't have the political support or military strength to pull off a coup.
This we just don't know currently. There are mixed reports of Russian guard and police forces not getting in the way and that perhaps Prigozin has been planning this for months, including shoring up supports of other military and police commanders ahead of time.
Fact is this whole thing is going to be rife with misinformation and hasty predcitons for a while now. Every player in this has an incentive to spin whatever information they can to their support. Most of what us in the West can do is wait and see.
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Putin is widely popular throughout Russia
The thing with running an authoritarian, mafia-style state with almost entirely state run media and a historical intelligence apparatus who has a reputation for crushing dissent and jailing troublemakers is one can never know really if that is the case.
Think about the poll in Crimea after Russia invaded that showed a majority of the people supported rhe Russian takeover. Is it really a fair assesment when people have soldiers already outside their door? How many Russia citizens are really going to go out there and say they don't like Putin and think his decisions have been mistakes.
It's not even that direct, it's easier to lie when you believe the lie. If nobody I know is really willing to criticize Dear Leader, then maybe I really do like Dear Leader.
It's only once that control of information starts to fail, and my neighbour says "oh, remember when Dear Leader did that stupid thing", and I go "oh yeah, but do you remember that even stupider thing Dear Leader did before that?!"
Soon, we both start realizing that we don't like Dear Leader nearly as much as we thought we did, and everyon
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Soon, we both start realizing that we don't like Dear Leader nearly as much as we thought we did, and everyone else starts realizing it at the same time.
There is another factor, the one that James Carville talked about: "It's the economy, stupid". Putin has been able to use the oil revenue to improve the conditions for ordinary Russians, but now with the war and sanctions, that's not happening any more.
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The poll in Crimea was a farce though. Most of the population in Sevastopol where there to support Russian naval docs and were either Russian citizens or deep ties to the military. The rest of Crimea was not at all so favorable but were a minority. Also, there's a lot of suspicion that nothing about the poll was even remotely fair and above board, with soldiers watching who votes and who for.
Finally - polls don't mean anything. A poll is not the same as democracy unless you're talking about very local po
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1. where is that data coming from, i'd have to read the question and who answered it to make an assesment
and 2. honestly, who cares? they are immigrants enjoying america, their views are going to be somewhat warped and different than people living in the country, see for example opinions about israel by jewish people in america. yes, its kinda interesting but in reality its a non-issue because they don't live there.
its easy to support putin from the comfort and safety of living in US because you can get p
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If they manage to kill or capture Putin, it will be remarkable how many of Putin's inner circle will have always been opposed to the war, opposed to Putin, etc., followed by a rapid withdrawal and generous terms offered to Ukraine.
Prigozhin won't likely end up in control of much, but a quiet (and substantial) payoff so he can retire in a foreign country wouldn't be a surprise.
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The "capture Putin" fantasy possibility is not even worth considering in any equation, they have zero chance of doing anything to Putin. Usually coups START with eliminating leadership, now they lost that possibility. In Turkey a few years ago, a more-organized-than-Wagner actual military tried a coup but it failed because they didn't capture Erdogan .. and Erdogan wasn't even as popular --with entire provinces hating him .. yet he managed to rally the public and overturned the coup.
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I don't think Turkey is a good example, because it is quite possible that the whole "coup attempt" was a feint created by Erdogan.
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My tinfoil hat would tell me that the "west" is paying off Prigozhin and happy to see where the chips fall. There are a few things that he can do that will make it very hard for the Russian military to continue to operate in Ukraine or even Crimea. This is in the best interests for many people in Russia's elite as well.
In the end I would guess Prigozhin and Putin are both dead, Prigozhin's empire is split up and defanged as a threat, and Russia spends the next 5-10 years regrouping to find their identity.
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Apparently, a lot already have gone along. According to reports, he met no resistance when he took over in Rostov. A lot of the Russian military is PISSED at the MOD and some at Putin as well. It's easy to claim you didn't see anything.
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Modern coups are only possible if the government is unpopular/feckless or the military is pissed off. My understanding, which could be wrong, is that Putin is widely popular throughout Russia. Wagner group doesn't have the political support or military strength to pull off a coup. The most they could do is a few targeted assassinations that acheive no strategic victory. How many Russian army, popular public figures, and police are going to go along with a Wagner coup?
I believe there's president in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] (;TLDR -91 coup, Yeltsin stands on a tank and the army turns around) and also in how Zelensky handled the latest Russian invasion.
Who will back their leaders when all information indicates they have fled Moscow?
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Blocking Google News (Score:2)
is like squeezing a zit. Blood and Pus everywhere but nothing of value affected.
I fucking called this last year (Score:5, Insightful)
Democracies can withstand military humiliations abroad. Autocracies can't.
Say what you will about the West in general and America in particular, but at least here, information travels mostly freely and you can see trouble coming far enough ahead to avoid it or take corrective action. Over there, it bites you in the ass before you realize you might have a problem.
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Democracies can withstand military humiliations abroad. Autocracies can't.
Yeah that's why Stalin was deposed after Finland, Louis the XIV was deposed after losing the War of Spanish Succession, and Frederick the Great was deposed after the battle of Kolin, and for that matter Ramses was deposed after being forced to withdraw from the battle of Kadesh, and Napoleon was deposed by his own people after the Russian campaign. Oh wait, none of that happened. Learn history noob. Autocrats aren't always deposed after military humiliations.
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Re:I fucking called this last year (Score:4, Informative)
Invading the Soviet Union and eliminating/displacing its population was always the plan; it was one of the fundamntal ideological principles of the Nazi Party. The program was laid out in *Mein Kampf* in 1925, but it wasn't original to that. *Lebensraum* was part of Imperial Germany's war aims in WW1.d the Soviets wanted Finland.
Re: I fucking called this last year (Score:2)
Yeah whatever. Finland wasn't the end of Stalin's story re: military and foreign affairs.
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Really? Then why is it called Finland and not "Finland Oblast." Stalin lost the Winter War which had the objective of capturing the entire Finland (which was part of the Russian empire for over 100 years prior to the revolution). Stalin "won" the Continuation War which was against Finland/Germany .. but all they got in return was a tiny piece of it.
Re: I fucking called this last year (Score:2)
Galtieri didn't survive the Falklands because he staked his reputation to make Argentina great again on conquering the Falklands. He had to.
America survived Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan, and given the way we tend to operate, there will be more, because politicians who stand for reelection generally have many more hills they can choose to die on than military conquest.
Which of those two scenarios more closely resembles Russia in Ukraine?
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You're conflating leaders and countries.
The United States survived Vietnam, but Johnson and his government didn't. Democratic governments tend to fall if they get more than a handful of citizens killed in a foreign war, unless there's a really, really good reason for it.
Re: I fucking called this last year (Score:2)
Governments being swept out is unusual but is part and parcel of how democracies work. The state and the ruling party/ruling strongman are distinct entities and the former is not dependent on the latter for survival. The flags don't change when the Republicans sweep out the Democrats or vice versa.
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Stalin successfully captured parts of Finland, which Russia still holds to this day. This was also happening at the same time as the Great Patriotic War, the glorious victory over fascism, of which songs are sung down through the generations. Stalin might have suffered one bad news cycle, but was never was humiliated, not even close.
Re:I fucking called this last year (Score:4, Interesting)
Dictators are hard to topple because they're outliers when it comes to suriving domestic threats. They're the products of a brutal survival-of-the-fittest process.
But despite loving the trappings of military power, they aren't necessarily also good at external war. The problem is you can't win a war by the dictator's normal tools of control. You can't manage public perception, and foreigners stubbornly resist attempts at intimidation to an almost unbelievable degree.
Because of their survival skills, you can't count on an unfavorable war unseating a dictator, but it can certainly make them vulnerable. Soldiers and a lesser degree their familes are outside the bubble where dictator controls information, which accounts for Putin's curious attempts to win this war without doing a major mobilization that would affect ethnic Russians.
Another thing war can do is disrupt the delicate balance of power between the domestic institutions you pit against each other. We can see that here where the Russian MoD is stretched to its limit in Ukrainen and Wagner at the moment finds itself with lots of troops who are not engaged.
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Many dictators start with popular support. Then they engineer ways to stay in power, or to keep the popular support. It very often doesn't last long though. Many African dictators fell quickly when some weakness was seen. Look maybe at Gaddafi as an example: oil rich he kept a lot of people happy by buying it, at the same time ruthlessly quelling anyone who might cause dissent. Often dictators go down because of someone within their circles, which is why so many of them will have purges.
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Democracies can withstand military humiliations abroad. Autocracies can't.
Yeah that's why Stalin was deposed after Finland, Louis the XIV was deposed after losing the War of Spanish Succession, and Frederick the Great was deposed after the battle of Kolin, and for that matter Ramses was deposed after being forced to withdraw from the battle of Kadesh, and Napoleon was deposed by his own people after the Russian campaign. Oh wait, none of that happened. Learn history noob. Autocrats aren't always deposed after military humiliations.
Fortunately neither the OP nor their intended audience were complete morons who assumed the statement meant that military humiliations would destroy autocracies 100% of the time.
In general, autocracies do seem to have more trouble recovering from military defeat than Democracies. True this is more "commonly accepted wisdom" than peer reviewed study, but it does seem to hold.
At its essence, political authority derives from two places. The consent of the people and the monopoly of force.
Autocracy uses the sec
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True this is more "commonly accepted wisdom" than peer reviewed study, but it does seem to hold.
You should have just said that and left the rest of your comment out. Why not at least come up with some examples, instead of just "commonly accepted wisdom." Then we can have an interesting conversation.
Autocrats aren't always deposed after military hum (Score:2)
The last Tsar of Russia (Nicholas II) was deposed after his army lost in WWI and the guy that took over after him (Kerensky) was kicked out because he was trying to continue the fight against Germany and Austro-Hungary.
Re: I fucking called this last year (Score:2)
Hehe. Rumors and superstitions spread at twice the speed of light in places with conspicuous censorships and no reliable/trustworthy way to verify or disprove whatever you might here from a guy who knows a overheard his boss's kid talking to his girlfriend who's the general's housekeeper.
That one has made me scratch my head (Score:4, Interesting)
The most likely to me (if really Wagner is doing a "coup") is that some oligarch and military are supporting them behind the scene , as a way to kick Putin out.
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All not being as it appears is a safe bet, the question is how far does reality differ from appearances.
Russia's main forces are overextended, and likely morale is low as well. Prigozhin could be banking on a collapse in the will to fight. However I get the feeling the Red Army still has some cohesion left, particularly among the home guard, if they have at all kept any sense in keeping the most loyal troops closest. So I doubt a total collapse like what happened with Afghanistan a couple years ago is comin
Mutiny (Score:3)
The Mockinbird talking points are boring.
Everybody in Russia uses a VPN. Ask any Russian. That's a non-issue.
It's a mutiny, not a coup.
Prigozhin seems to have gone bonkers - people suggest he's had PTSD problems in recent months.
Wagner has 25K soldiers and is staffed largely by patriotic Russians who didn't sign up for a mutiny. 300K Russian and Chechen troops are headed to accept their surrender.
Wagner is also supplied by Russia's Defense agency. They're not rearming Wagner ever.
Unless CIA intends to arm them there's no chance of living past Monday - in that case it's neither a coup or mutiny. Citizens in Moscow have been ordered to stay home Monday.
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The Mockinbird talking points are boring.
Everybody in Russia uses a VPN. Ask any Russian.
Just like everyone you know votes for the political party you support.
The Russian you can talk to use VPN, and their social circles, but not "everyone".
It's a mutiny, not a coup.
Not a coup, he was just planning to replace the Defence Minister.
The only question was whether he was planning to oust Putin, puppet Putin, or he really had gone bonkers and assumed all would be fine once he became Defence Minister.
Prigozhin seems to have gone bonkers - people suggest he's had PTSD problems in recent months.
Possibly, doesn't mean it wasn't a coup.
Wagner has 25K soldiers and is staffed largely by patriotic Russians who didn't sign up for a mutiny.
And yet they were marching with him on Moscow.
300K Russian and Chechen troops are headed to accept their surrender.
From where? Wagner could easily take Mosco
Not a Coup yet (Score:2)
From what I understand Wagner has only turned on the military. Until they are walking into the Kremlin it is not quite a coup, yet.
Also, this is the worst time to be citing Wikipedia, since most of this information is fresh, probably being rewritten and not 100% validated, by people of multiple geographical origins.
Over before it started (Score:3)
But who knows? By the time you read this the situation may have changed again.
Wagner chief says he ordered his Russian mercenaries to halt march on Moscow and return to Ukraine [apnews.com]
Re: Over before it started (Score:2)
Turning Around? (Score:2)
I'll believe it when I see it. My expectation is that he'd say anything to confuse the situation. By the time you march on Moscow, you're all-in.
Coup staged by Putin? (Score:2)
Did Prigozhin and Putin plan this together as a way to out their rivals? They probably got the idea while watching a documentary on Turkey's coup in 2016.
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Why would they when Putin already has 80% support or more at home?
This is common in shithole dictatorships where lack of support can be very bad for the health of you and your family. Kim Jong Un has even higher levels of "support" than little war criminal man in the Kremlin.
Westerners have been propagandized into thinking he's the devil, but oddly enough fighting Nazis and western powers that have invaded Russia is popular within Russia.
Actually Russians have been propagandized into thinking Nazis and western powers were a threat. Neither Ukraine nor NATO were a threat to Russia. They are not going to lie down in the face of aggression either though. Ukraine is going to make the Soviets time in Afghanistan seem like a picnic. I
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Cue Twilight Zone theme here.
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I have the luxury of freely reading both sides and it is kind of obvious which one is full of shit. Good luck!
What a clown show (Score:3)
Shame the clowns have ballistic missiles and nukes.
Nukes (Score:2)
Psychohistory_(fictional) in action (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I think your opinion of Putin is somewhat too high. His background is KGB/FSB, which is not any better than mercenary. Worse, if anything. They were behind most of the fucked-up goings-on in the Soviet era. They bombed their own citizens in 1999, blowing up apartment buildings and blaming it on the Chechens, to bring Putin into power in the first place.
They orchestrated the whole Ukraine fiasco. Wagner only came into the picture because Putin was paying them.
I'd take a soldier-by-trade over a deceiver-by-tr
Re: (Score:2)
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LOL. The difference between the US and Russia is that the US can make more weapons. Russia is a bankrupt gas station with a few rusted-out nukes that nobody with any sense thinks will actually work anymore.
It's what we do best.
Re: (Score:2)
over 150 billion of advanced weaponry and a year and a half has not been able to push them out of Ukraine
Yes, because Russia's leadership couldn't care less about how many losses they sustain. They have already suffered more casualties than the US experienced in the Vietnam War, and they continue to not care.
The question is the same as the one that arose in WWII, and sadly the answer is also probably the same: will the enemy run out of bullets before the Russians run out of Russians?
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Comedy gold.
Pro tip: in times of war, don't look to the media for truth. This goes back to Sun Tzu Wu. Look weak when you are strong, look strong when you are weak.
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Does it bother you to consider how utterly helpless you'd be if you couldn't keep throwing Iraq back in our faces?
A lot of us protested the war strongly. It didn't help, but you know what? No Americans were imprisoned, executed, or exiled for speaking up and calling out Bush for the liar and war criminal that he was.
Yes, that does make us better than Russia. Deal with it and get over it.
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LOL. Russia is a nuclear power. They can never be attacked or invaded again, except from within (as we've seen).
Everything you wrote is rendered invalid by that simple truth.
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You do realize that Putin would just be replaced with a hardliner that would make Ukraine cry for the days when it was just an SMO, yes? The kid gloves would come off,
Russia has not been using kid gloves. Their usual tactic of trying to grind their untrained and ill equipped opponent to dust under a wall of artillery doesn't work in the face better artillery like HIMARS and CAESAR. Their tanks are taken to pieces by Javelin missiles. Their air force is vulnerable to Stinger block II and starstreak missiles.
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Started with a force half the size of Ukraine's
Putin though he was awesome and could get a quick, cheap win.
Hasn't even demanded Zelensky step down
He wants to fold the entirety of Ukraine into Russia.
Haven't targeted "decision making centers" i.e. tried to bomb Zelensky or Parliament. Attacks on Kiev have focused on the power grid, as trains used to move troops and arms run on electricity.
They keep hitting random residential targets. They lack the capability to actually make a material difference to Ukraine
Re: (Score:2)
You're living in Putin's and Xi's back to front world.
The backwards world where the aggressors, Russia and China are somehow in the right and the people they're attacking or wish to (Ukraine and Taiwan) are in the wrong for not wanting to be attacked.
Thankfully, your propaganda laden bizarro world take on it all bumps into reality. The much vaunted Russian military turned out to be better at propaganda than fighting, which is why they're completely bogged down in Ukraine, suffering 3x the losses of the Ukra