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news from ukraine: the leader of wagner group has accused the russian military of bombing his forces. seems to be preparing some kind of
coupspecial military operation. russian generals are asking mercenaries not to join in. prigozhin has vocally criticized russian military leaders recently, but this is a massive escalation. could we see a civil war break out in the middle of this war?update: prigozhin claims that he has entered rostov without resistance. lots of unverified videos on twitter of wagner/russian convoy movements, and some combat footage; wagner claims to have shot down a russian helicopter.
video of supposedly wagner soldiers and tanks surrounding the MoD building in rostov.
Civil war in the middle of a (self-inflicted) world war is not exactly new for Russia.
There's nothing complicated about it, Kremlinology in Karlin's manner is obsolete. The regime is absolutely dysfunctional, flailing about with room temperature IQ reactions, there are no longer any Mnogokhodovochkas and Maskirovkas, and Prigozhin is straightforwardly a warlord (with vague Imperial sympathies) who's trying to avoid getting deep-fried like early LDNR leaders who were deemed a threat by Kremlin. This kill-your-military-heroes pattern is a staple of the Russian state and its dickless-but-psychopathic apparatchik leadership over the last century, so he has no way out but up. It very likely won't work, but it very likely heralds the final episode of our very special military operation: you can't very well fight the Ukrainian counteroffensive at the same time as you eliminate your most infamous and highest-morale military company by far.
Like a hour ago I paused the rewatch of Wings of Honneamise to see Russian state TV announce live the charging of Prigozhin with armed insurgency attempt (вооружённый мятеж), yada yada mercs don't support him in this urgent moment of our struggle against pro-fascist Ukrainians. Minutes later Prig said his forces are entering Rostov. There are some noises from the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense in Moscow; probably nothing. Putin has congratulated Russians with the Day of Youth or whatever it's called. Russia, unlike Prigozhin, doesn't have any way out of this.
The details of the forthcoming decay can feed morbid curiosity of idle observers but don't matter more than, e.g., LeCun-Bengio debate on AI safety the other day so I won't follow it too closely.
As an aside, I cannot express in words my sheer contempt for everyone who's been denying the utter degeneracy of Russian power structure over the last 1.5 years, especially for people who accused me of «defeatism» and «selling out» and stanned muh based Putin The Savior of White Race from (I presume) the comfort and safety of their Western McMansions. You folks deserve whatever the GAE has in store for you.
I'm kind of surprised this is your reaction, since in the past you've been predicting (one might even say "hoping for") Putin's death at the start of the war. This is by far the closest its come to fruition. I mean, the coup is overwhelmingly likely to fail and Putin will remain in power, but still.
Putin's death will no doubt be one of the few things that make me truly happy. Nevertheless, I still have some family in Moscow, and it becoming a battlefield or, hypothetically, coming under Wagner military rule (can you imagine how it goes given Prig's priorities and background?) will be quite horrible (not to mention I would rather not see the city itself harmed, much as that'd entertain Ukrainians and NAFO dogs).
Coup-like events in Russia are associated with the death of Paul I, who got hit in the head with snuffbox and succeeded by his son Alexander I. Now I wouldn't like the regime to just go on and Putin to be succeeded by… Dyomin, I guess? But there is no way this shitshow kills him anywhere so cleanly.
My preferred fantasy scenario is not worth discussing at this point.
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