Russia/Prigozhin: Power Struggle in the Russian Federation ... fizzles out as fast as it began
An ongoing report ... ends.
Published: 2023-06-24
Updated 2023-05-25: [06:00 AEST] A “Current State of Play” section has been added proving a brief summary of events. More sources, including Andrew Korybo and Craig Murray have been added.
Updated 2023-06-25: [07:10 AEST] John Helmer reports that Prigozhin will exile himself. The coup, although planned, had no support. It ends bloodlessly. Smartest move Prigozhin has made in months.
Updated 2023-06-26: Two “aftermath” commentary analyses have been added.
An ongoing report
Reports of a struggle for control of the military in the Russian Federation, led by Wagner PMC leader Prigozhin appeared since 2023-06-24 16:00 AEST [UTC+9].
This article now not only includes the conclusion of the affair, and a brief examination of the MSM’s engagement with it, but also interesting commentary on what it means from Russian speaking commentators. The ‘means’ considerations are both military (for the SMO) and political (for the current Russian government). I highly recommend these two articles, by Helmer and Baldwin. See “Aftermath”.
Coverage
See Current State of Affairs, below. Its all over, including the shouting, according to John Helmer.
Will Porter reported for Antiwar. He clearly states events and links to sources. Its a good summary of the key events.
Other reports:
There is a very short report from Gilbert Doctorow, a geopolitical analyst who lived and worked in Russia in the 1990's, visits Russia (St. Petersburg) regularly and speaks Russian. This author considers him well informed and reliable. Doctorow is being appropriately cautious with his short report.
Natalyie S. Baldwin has more on Putin’s statements, and recent events. [I class her with Doctorow, speaks Russian (is Russian?), and is a reliable source.] Natalyie recommends Andrew Korybko’s article for a good background to the current crisis.
Criag Murray has offered his assessment and how he sees the likely outcome (a short-lived coup attempt).
Berhard from MoonOfAlabama provides “some thoughts” which are well summarized in his title using the word ‘farce’.
Andrei Martyanov has little to say, yet.
Expect lots of opinion and wild speculation all over at the MSM.
Current State of Play
Update Monday 2023-06-26
Natalyie Baldwin provides more of the details of the settlement, on top of her political analysis, in her latest article. The details are, apart from ‘back to barracks’:
Wagner PMC is to be disbanded. Those who did not participate in the insurrection will be given Russian Army contracts, those who did will not.
There will be no prosecutions (except if you do this crap again, in which case you are toast).
Prigozhin will be exiled to Belarus.
Prigozhin’s public media access has already been completely blocked.
Some large proportion of Prigozhin’s assets are/will be frozen by the Russian state. Lets just call this ‘reparations’.
McGovern reports that there were 28 casualties, who were helicopter pilots and crew. (See the video below from Judging Freedom).
Baldwin also notes the often overlooked, that this event was of serious embarrasment to the current Russian government (legislative and executive), its military and president.
Update 07:10 AEST 2023-06-25
John Helmer reports that Prigozhin’s planned event/coup lacked any support within the officer class, and none elsewhere either. He’s to exile himself in Africa, probably, Belarus. Note that ‘exile’ is a strange term for Belarus. The two nations have a “One State” political/economic treaty. He is essentially being jailed in public on a ally’s soil.
Prigozhin and those thousand or so rank and file soldiers who supported him “have agreed to return to their base camps on terms negotiated late on Saturday afternoon between Prigozhin and Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarus President.”
“There is no publication yet of Lukashenko’s terms which Prigozhin has accepted for himself.” The key verb there is ‘accepted’. [There are now some details, see above.]
That’s all she wrote, folks. See Helmer’s report for more details and some history.
[Helmer is a reliable, old school reporter, speaks Russian, and obtained the conclusive “scoop” from his local sources.]
Earlier [06:20 AEST]
Prigozhin claimed that WagnerPMC troops were attacked by the Russian Military in Ukraine (or there territory being contested) during the ongoing Special Miliitary Operation. The allegation was of a missile attack. Footage of the result of some attack which included one injured or dead soldier and several fires were published by Prigozhin on Telegram. An errant missile is hardly an anomoly in war, as are blue-on-blue attacks generally. A blue-on-blue attack is not a justification for a rebellion in a country at war.
Prigozhin claims to have taken over Russia’s Southern District Command Headquarters in the Rostov oblast to theoretically prevent further blue-on-blue attacks. (Russia’s military are separated in four zones, the “Southern” is on of them; see the introduction to this old article). Prigozhin seems to be appealing to the rank-and-file Russian military personnel to join him against the Russian General Staff, i.e a coup d’etat.
President Putin gave a 5 minute national televised address at 10:00 Moscow time in which Prigozhin and collaborators were described using the word treason. See Natalyie’s article for the speech translated into English. Putin called for those involved to stop, warning of the use of the full force of the law should the insurrection continue.
The address, using these terms and being nationally televised, suggests that Prigozhin’s group and possibly some regular Russian forces have surrounded or taken control of some parts of Southern District’s HQ. Putin has issued instructions to Russia’s armed forces, and various controls have been established around Moscow, indicating that this is a serious matter.
Speculation/Comment
When Prigozhin published the video, a few months ago, ranting about a lack of artillery rounds and other logistics shortfalls by the Russian Army, with the bodies of dead soliders in the background, my conclusion was that he’d lost his mind. He’d been too close to the front for too long. War does do this to people.
It is from this position which I consider this development.
Bernhard [MoonOfAlabama] asks what/who urged him to take this reckless action? Due to near universal public support for Putin and the SMO, Mr. Murray sees this coup attempt as being short lived.
I’m sticking with “lost his mind”, and yes this will be short lived. Insubordination is one thing, an armed coup and attempting to take control of a District HQ is quite another. Prigozhin is about to find out what the full weight of the Russian state can do.
And he did. Lukashenko did himself proud in serving as the negotiator. I’m sure his words were clear, as was Prigozhin’s position. No bloodshed and Prigozhin’s antics can be relegated to the dustbin of history, while Russia’s military intelligence might get a bit of a shakedown for “how the hell did this happen?” Putin being forced to issue a national address at short notice is not his style.
OMG, the MSM went Nuts!
As predicted, the MSM went completely nuts over the events in Russia.
How many articles could the New York Times milk out of the less than 24 hours during which the event/events occurred? The “limit to last 24 hours” search at DuckDuckGo was “prigohzin russia site:nytimes.com” and yeilded:
Titles
I cut off the ends because, do we really need to even read the titles of this trash?
Timeline: What Led to the Standoff Between Russia and Prigo ...
Russia Live Updates: Prigozhin Says Wagner Forces Will Turn ...
U.S. Suspected Prigozhin Was Preparing to Take Military Action ...
As Putin's Partner, Prigozhin Was Always Willing to Do the Dirty ...
Yevgeny Prigozhin leads Wagner troops into Russia - The N ...
Rebel Wagner Forces, Threatening Moscow, Abrup ...
Wagner Chief Prigozhin Appears in Videos at A Rus ...
Wagner Chief Seizes a Military Compound Aft ...
Russia Updates: Putin Mobilizes Forces Against Prigozh ...
Putin Embraced Turmoil. Now It Is Rattling His Leade ...
Tracking the Military Convoys Approaching Mosco ...
Map: Tracking Wagner Military Convoys on Route to Mosc ...
Timeline: What Led to the Standoff Between Rus ...
Crisis in Russia - The New Yor ...
As Putin's Trusted Partner, Prigozhin Was Always Willi ...
Putin embraced turmoil, and now it is rattling h ...
A tense Europe closely monitors the developmen ...
Russian Paramilitary Chief Says His Forces W ...
Tracking the Military Convoys Approachi ...
Corresponding URLs
I have purposely broken them all. You can put them together if you wish. This is to prove that they correspond to the above titles.
https://www.nytimes . com//2023/06/24/world/europe/russia-military-prigozhin-wagner-timeline.html
https://www.nytimes . com//live/2023/06/24/world/russia-wagner-prigozhin-ukraine-news
https://www.nytimes . com//2023/06/24/world/europe/us-suspected-prigozhin-was-preparing-to-take-military-action-against-russia.html
https://www.nytimes . com//2023/06/24/world/europe/prigozhin-russia-wagner-putin.html
https://www.nytimes . com//2023/06/24/briefing/russia-wagner-prigozhin.html
https://www.nytimes . com//2023/06/24/world/europe/russia-wagner-prigozhin.html
https://www.nytimes . com//2023/06/24/world/europe/prigozhin-videos-rostov.html
https://www.nytimes . com//2023/06/24/world/europe/russia-prigozhin-wagner-chief-rostov.html
https://www.nytimes . com//live/2023/06/24/world/russia-ukraine-news
https://www.nytimes . com//2023/06/24/world/europe/putin-prigozhin-wagner.html
https://www.nytimes . com//2023/06/24/world/europe/tracking-the-military-convoys-approaching-moscow.html
https://www.nytimes . com//2023/06/24/world/europe/wagner-moscow-russia-map.html
https://www.nytimes . com//2023/06/24/world/europe/russia-military-prigozhin-wagner-timeline.html
https://www.nytimes . com//2023/06/24/briefing/russia-wagner-prigozhin.html
https://www.nytimes . com//2023/06/24/world/europe/prigozhin-russia-wagner-putin.html
https://www.nytimes . com//2023/06/24/world/europe/putin-prigozhin-wagner.html
https://www.nytimes . com//live/2023/06/24/world/russia-ukraine-news/a-tense-europe-closely-monitors-the-developments-in-russia
https://www.nytimes . com//live/2023/06/24/world/russia-wagner-prigozhin-ukraine-news/the-ugly-personal-feud-between-russias-defense-ministry-and-putins-chef-has-roots-in-the-battle-for-bakhmut
https://www.nytimes . com//2023/06/24/world/europe/tracking-the-military-convoys-approaching-moscow.html
The answer is ... 19 !!! Good job, NYT.
I'll take no points for predicting this:
Aftermath
John Helmer places the pathetic coup d’etat attempt in the context of the SMO, and provides some insight into developments of the operation before and now just post the idiotic rebellion.
Natalyie Baldwin provides further details of the settlement, asks what the dumb-as-door-nails revolt means politically, and draws a very interesting parallel with the West’s use of fanatics to achieve geopolitical objectives.
Baldwin uses the term ‘mutiny’ for the insurrection which is not applicable, as that is for sailors rebelling against a naval command rather than soldiers against an army command. When the latter happens and the group attempts to call other soldier to them, denouces the military leadership and attempts to capture or control a major military facility, in this case Southern District HQ, the term is coup d’etat.
Enjoy these two informative articles. (There formal source listings are, of course, included below)
Sources
FROM PUGACHEV TO LEBED – THE MUZHIK REBELLION FIZZLES OUT WITHOUT BLOODSHED, PRIGOZHIN TO EXILE, John Helmer, Dances with Bears, 2023-06-25
Putin Gave Public Statement on Wagner Mutiny, Natalyie S. Baldwin, Natylie's Place: Understanding Russia, 2023-06-24
Prigozhin's armed mutiny: Putin speaks of 'treason' in address to the nation, Gilbert Doctorow, Gilbert Doctorow, 2023-06-24
Wagner Chief Attempts ‘Armed Insurrection’ in Russia: Kremlin, Will Porter, Antiwar, 2023-06-24
Prigozhin’s Treason Is Unacceptable No Matter One’s Opinion Of The Special Operation, Andrew Korybko, Andrew Korybko's Newsletter, 2023-06-24
Russia and the Wagner Coup, Craig Murray, his newsletter, 2023-06-24
On Prigozhin's Insurrection Farce, b., MoonOfAlabama, 2024-06-24
Putin Verbatim:, Andrei Martyanov, Reminiscence of the future ..., 2023-06-24
Lukashenko saves the day. Prigozhin calls off mutiny. U⧸3, Alex Christofou, his youtube channel, 2023-06-25
Aftermath
Some Preliminary Thoughts on the Failed Wagner Mutiny, Natalyie S. Baldwin, Natylie's Place: Understanding Russia, 2023-06-25
Putin Orders Reality Check – No Ukrainians LEFT On the Battlefield, no Sovereignty in Kiev, John Helmer, Dances with Bears, 2023-06-25
Rebellion in Russia, Now What？ w⧸Ray McGovern fmr CIA, Napolitan interviews McGovern, Judging Freedom, 2023-06-26
Culture
Peace Dog, The Cult (from their third album “Electric”, 1987), CULTV, uploaded 2019-12-22
Martyanov seems a hard rock fan, so this one’s for you Andrei.
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