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Notes -
I have nothing charitable to contribute to most of this. I find 99% of the speculation about this conflict to be in bad faith and based on very little in the way of facts (which as faceh points out, we don't have and can't separate from non-facts reliably or quickly). I find myself intensely frustrated with the expert class and their endless essays and videos that at this point seem clearly to be little more than self aggrandizement and wish casting.
That out off my chest, I would like to point out that over the last couple of months Prigo had made a few videos that seemed increasingly unhinged and paranoid. He was complaining about the contract negotiations with the MoD falling through and them straight up refusing to communicate with him about it and he was convinced the MoD was going to assimilate and take Wagner from him when the contract ended (I believe in July). With the current rumors of Prigo's deal with Putin and Lukashenko consisting of cash, voluntary exile for Prigo and his men who mutineyed, and assimilation of the rest of Ukraine-front Wagner into the MoD, I think it is quite likely that this entire event was the result of a banal contractual dispute mated with (justified) paranoia and personal enmity with the military bureaucracy. Yes, yes, I know, it's a lot more boring than it being some 4D chess by Putin or [long philosophical argument on the inherent inability of those subhuman Russians to self govern because of reasons].
As you point out there are still some very big questions left here. There were videos at the time of Rostov's occupiers denying that they were Wganer. There is the effectively painless penetration of Russia almost to Moscow in just hours despite this being exactly the kind of thing Russia has been worried about, preparing for, and strategizing over since the czars. I don't know what to speculate other than that I do not think it was 4D chess, but once Wagner mobilized, it may have been used that way for a variety of reasons (did Putin's very close relationship with Prigo keep the MoD from raining hellfire on them until a settlement could be worked out?) Will there ultimately be a shake up with the MoD in the next months? Will Belarussian Wagner open up a new line of attack into Ukraine? Where were the Rosgvardiya, who report directly to Putin in my understanding, in all of this and why is the death toll almost non existent?
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