Nuclear War?

[Zzzptm]

To be sure, Ukraine's view is that it doesn't survive if it doesn't push the Russian forces completely out, so if the Russians choose to end it all over their being ejected from Crimea and far eastern Ukraine, then so be it. Even a single nuke use would be the end of Putin's regime, I don't think either the West or China would tolerate it.

[Vyn]

Back on February 10th, 2022, when Russia was staging all of that military equipment and personnel on the Ukranian border and kept saying it was just some war games/training...and then shortly thereafter the attack commenced - and Vlad said it was a special military operation that will only take a few days, maybe two weeks at the longest...

...and looking back across the past 15 months at what turned out to be Russia performing a clown show but with real lives and real destruction...in many cases simply wanton destruction and murder and rape and all manner of barbarism...

one thing is certain: When Vladimir Putin wakes up every morning, he has already lost. What a disgusting ambulatory mass of steaming shit he is. Pol Pot would be proud. Stalin is snickering at his ineptness. Idi Amin nods and smiles. The list could go on.

[Zzzptm]

Speaking of already lost, have y'all seen the news out of Russia today? Apparently, the head of the Wagner Group mercenary army decided he's done with Putin. He took over the Russian southern military command HQ in Rostov and has sent a column north to Moscow, where it's traveled already over half the distance, to Voronezh.

I read that news and thought, "This has happened before when Russia lost wars, in 1905 and 1917. Also 1991, after losing the Cold War."

History Lesson Number One from this is, if you're running Russia, don't start any war you and the people on the other side aren't 100% sure you're going to win.

[Vyn]

Yeah, whether Yevgeny & Wagner can topple Putin is still a tall mountain to climb, but regardless someone is going to fill what is an obviously giant power vacuum. Vlad has never been weaker and the predators smell it. It's clear that Wagner has been planning this for a while.

True about this happening before - when your rule is underpinned by strength and fear, you'd best stay strong. Putin knows this. Scooping up Ukraine would have given him the strength he needed to keep the fear going; but it was an all in deal...

[Zzzptm]

"Conflicting reports" is now the phrase of the day as Kremlin staff insist Putin is working there while we track a plane belonging to the presidency on the way to St. Petersburg from Moscow... and then the plane disappears from radar tracking.

There are street fights breaking out between faction supporters. This thing goes wider and deeper than I first reckoned. And if Putin does a general mobilization, can he count on people to show up? They all know that the army is undersupplied and that Wagner's fighters are in the best shape, so why go against them? If Putin asks Russians to fight for their country, would they say, "OK, we fight YOU!"... eerily reminiscent of the old Yakov Smirnov routine...

And now the Wagner Group announced it will halt its drive on Moscow to avoid "the risk of spilling blood." So does that mean there are changes underway inside the Kremlin? Also rumors now that Belarus' President is either brokering the deal or has himself fled his capital, who's to know right now...

[Vyn]

Heck of a chaotic situation. No telling what things are going to look like once the dust settles. There could be a LOT more behind these machinations than simply one guy going after top Russian military leaders because of "friendly fire" gone wrong. Maybe this was all a feint, doctored by Wagner and other (as yet) unknown participants? Turn up the heat and see who jumps out of the pot??

My spies in the Kremlin have been incommunicado for decades, so I have no insight beyond speculation

[Zzzptm]

Well, he's going to take himself - and possibly his soldiers - into Belarus and out of conflict with both Russia and Ukraine. And while this may have been the Wagner Group avoiding a lose-lose situation, Putin's weakness is for all to see. He didn't end this - it was an outside broker that brought it to conclusion. If somebody with a stronger position within his own government wanted to do so, he could edge out Putin. The FSB is the most important organization inside Russia right now.

[Vyn]

Putin's weakness is for all to see. He didn't end this - it was an outside broker that brought it to conclusion. If somebody with a stronger position within his own government wanted to do so, he could edge out Putin. The FSB is the most important organization inside Russia right now.

True that. This incident reflects negatively on Putin, and I can't imagine he's not raving around throwing stuff because he has to know it's true, too.

[Charger]

Well that little "Insurrection" didn't last long!

And Putin comes of a little stronger again crushing a "mutiny" with such ease! And people are praising the strong leader once again.

I'm not saying this whole thing was staged but they sure made it look like it was.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

^^^
You might be right, but no regular news outlets are looking at it that way, they are all saying he's a wounded animal and is probably playing for time now.

[Charger]

Yeah...it's kind of hard for me to trust anything that is being reported about Russia these days...as it's all third hand knowlage at best with a lot of speculation added.

Also it seems that the mainstream media wants to see Putin weak so they tend to report things that way...even if that wouldn't be the case.

[Zzzptm]

Well, here's what we do know:

1. Wagner Group made a MASSIVE "F U" gesture to Putin by capturing Rostov and driving unopposed to within 120 miles of Moscow.
2. Putin's only public statements in the last few days have been pre-recorded ones. (EDIT: as I typed, he made a statement with zero mention of the mutiny/coup attempt.)
3. Wagner Group stopped their drive on Moscow because of the intervention of a third party - Belarus' leader - and not Putin.
4. Wagner Group gets free tickets to Belarus and keep their heads attached to their necks.

My take on the facts is that if Putin were strong, there would not have been such a move and the Wagner Group would have acquiesced to Putin's demands that they fall under Russian military control.

Winding the clock back even further, if Putin were truly strong, we'd be shaking our heads about the swift Russian occupation of Ukraine and wondering aloud if he was going to be able to pry Turkey out of NATO. Ukraine stood up to Putin and managed to not only stop the Russian Army in its tracks, but then proceed to push it back. That's a massive setback for the Russian Army. It's one thing to fail in an unconventional war in Afghanistan, it's quite another to be beaten in conventional war, which was supposed to be the strength of the Russian Army.

There was zero Russian Army or internal security between Moscow and the advancing mutinous mercenaries until a last-minute scramble put some AFVs on the highways to Moscow and the roads got dug up. (Ironically, I just had Highway Star come up in my playlist! ) That's not weakness, that's naked to the world kind of vulnerability. The mercenaries saw and opportunity and took a swing. It seems to have been done in haste, after their leader claimed his troops got hit with a Russian airstrike. I don't think the leader of that group really had an endgame plan when he sent the tanks and troops north.

If Belarus didn't exist as an independent political entity/buffer state, then we'd likely be reading news of increasingly violent chaos in Russia. And that kind of action is bad for everyone, which is why Lukashenko found a way to end it - because Putin couldn't.

We already knew that the Russian effort in Ukraine depended almost entirely on mercenary forces, with Wagner Group being pre-eminent among them. Now that force is off the table. Would we see them again? If I was running a war, I'd say hell no to that proposal. The guy has demonstrated a willingness to escalate command issues straight to the top, even if he doesn't roll tanks, I don't need that kind of interference. Does this impact Russia's ability to hire and retain mercenary groups? I think absolutely so. The situation was so bad, the top mercs mutinied? Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn... Sure, some will think the guy's a prima donna and that they can do business with the Russians, but frontline morale has got to be absolute shit right now. Like the 1917 kind of absolute shit, when the soldiers threatened to kill the officers if they tried to make them attack. It's either there right now or so close to being there, just about any sort of reverse will push it there.

Putin's left with some tough choices...

1. Vodka and a revolver
2. One-way flight to Beijing or Tehran or Minsk or SOMEWHERE
3.

That alternative to self-exile or suicide is not easy to figure out. The Wagner Group had people cheering them on - that speaks to the home front morale, and it's not a pretty story at all. And if he can't count on his people or his military to save him, can he count on his close staff and internal security apparatus? Putin knows how Khrushchev got taken down: people around him thought it was time for him to go after a string of failures, including the way he blinked in the Cuban Missile Crisis, so they arranged to have his calls to military commanders go unanswered and his internal security apparatus didn't inform him about what his enemies were up to.

That may be what Putin fears most of all, not an armed uprising he's got a faint hope of winning, but a surety that he's edged out and put on ice, never to have power again. He doesn't have to die to lose, he just has to be under house arrest that's enforced by people who don't hate him, but who have zero desire for him to ever call the shots again.