One year later...

Are we wiser?

When I wrote about the March of Justice from Bakhmut to the southside of Moscow one year ago, I don't believe I had any idea how that would change the course of my vision and writing from that point. I had mostly been pointing out some of all the ways we are induced to believe what we end up believing from media reporting. And how inverted all the stories are when they hit the press it out now buttons. I had not really eaten my own cooking yet on pure narrative warfare. Selling that this war theater is,…well, a theater.

While there's not a lot published very recently on this, it is being marked on some channels and we'll put that up first. Then we'll follow with some articles/analysis we didn’t get to last year and see how that has held up in light of the intervention of time. And compare my maiden contribution on the bigger war.

The party started early - last week!

— Prigozhin, is that you? Am I already in Hell?
— I'm not Prigozhin, I'm the Pope.
— Hi, Dad. ↩t.me/RWApodcast🔸

Prigozhin #hidinginplainsight ↩t.me/defensepoliticsasia🔸

🔸📋🇷🇺🇺🇦⚔️ Two Majors #Summary #Overview for the Morning of 23 June 2024; pub. 07:01📍

🗓 The past week has been characterised by a blatant war escalation on the part of the enemy.  Strikes are being carried out on oil refineries and attempts are being made to strike nuclear facilities (#Kursk NPP). According to received info, Western weapons are being used not only in #Belgorod, but also in #Rostov and #Kursk regions. The lack of promotion of this info by official resources (only missiles shot down are added to the daily MoD summary) indicates Moscow's reluctance to go down the path of a direct or asymmetric response, which can be explained by the Supreme's trip to #NorthKorea and @Vietnam against the background of #NATO's undisguised preparations for war with #Russia. That is, we still need time to prepare.

🔹#NATO, in turn, is increasing the pace of military preparations, also counting on a period of 2 to 5 years before a full-scale direct confrontation. These terms are conditioned both by the need to establish military production of the same SAMs and artillery shells, and by the preparation of mobilisation measures, which are already included in the legislative acts and mobilisation plans of the #US, #Germany and even the Baltic States. Until then, the role of a suicidal battering ram is fulfilled by #Ukraine, which is regarded by Washington only as a testing ground for arms.

🔹Kiev is mobilising the population, not hesitating to expose the TCC itself as a lightning rod from Zelensky: it is important to keep the powerless masses in control, even at the expense of long-term prospects, which Bankova certainly does not live by.

🔹In the MoD is a demonstrative dismantling of the toxic legacy of the previous failed team. Belousov's showy trips and informational accents are aimed at restoring the confidence of the military class in the leadership. A striking event was the presentation of awards to the Wagners by the deputy defence minister, especially on the eve of the anniversary of the Prigozhin riot, which even now is still referred to by many as the "March of Justice," the demand for which is extremely high in our country.

🔹On the front, the situation has not changed much, although the Russian Army retains the initiative in most areas and is really grinding down the enemy's manpower. The enemy is gradually finding resistance to FABs and UMPCs, so the RFAF are increasingly using the latest UMPCs, which can be launched not only from aircraft, but also from MLRSs.

🔹A problem remains countering the destruction of our air defence systems, for which the AFU staged a targeted hunt, sparing Western missiles. In addition, the enemy is able to launch dozens of aircraft-type UAVs every day; our burning oil refineries show that there is still a lot of work to neutralise this threat. It also cannot be said that problems with communications, electronic warfare, transport, and timely failure of material assets have been fully resolved.

🔹The political leadership does not yet intend to sound the alarm bells and use the full potential of the entire nation, which, apparently, is due to the forecasts about the long-term nature of the war, the need to preserve social stability, as well as the economic potential. As we understand, it seems inexpedient to spend this resource now on #Ukraine.

🔹However, there are excesses in preserving the people's tranquility: the same governor of the Belgorod region, during another personal visit to the border regions, pointed out the actual need for voluntary evacuation of the elderly and children, stressing that the federal centre had provided resources for this purpose.

📌 Thus, the Russian Army continues offensive actions at the front, trying to conserve personnel and reserves in offensive battles, while the defence establishment is busy eliminating deficiencies within itself and adjusting to the efficiency of the military machine, linking the work of the rear and the front to ensure a long war.
↩t.me/two_majors /@sitreports/#smo/
Join 2 MAJORS🔺It will be interesting. We are here thinking🔸

💠Then yesterday a recap version of the events that day and immediately following (a much more mainstream narrative from a Russian source):

🔸📆 ⚔️ June 23, 2023 - the beginning of the mutiny of the Wagner PMC in Russia. Anniversary.
Insufficient time to make judgments and grades. But something can be said.

It was an armed uprising, a rebellion, a putsch. Undoubtedly the worst state crime. But this is not a coup attempt.
An analogue from the history of Russia is the Decembrist uprising.
The Wagnerites opposed the top of the Russian Ministry of Defense, and not the president.

On June 23, 2023, Prigozhin announced that the Russian military had launched a missile strike on the rear camps of the Wagner PMC, which took part in the Northern Military District.
That evening, Prigozhin announced that he was going to carry out a “march of justice,” denying the plot of a military coup. After this, a criminal case was opened against him under Article 279 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Armed rebellion”).
The Wagnerites took Rostov-on-Don, whose population greeted the rebels sympathetically, and in some cases even enthusiastically.
Then, during the day, they passed through the Voronezh and Lipetsk regions with minimal resistance, heading towards Moscow, while 1 plane and 6 helicopters of the Russian Army were shot down, 15 military personnel were killed.

On the evening of June 24, through the mediation of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, Yevgeny Prigozhin agreed with the Russian federal authorities to end the rebellion, stop the advance of units of the Wagner PMC towards Moscow and their return to their places of deployment.
President Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the criminal case against Prigozhin will be dropped, and he can freely leave for Belarus.
On the morning of June 27, the criminal prosecution was terminated.

There is at least one known meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and PMC commanders after the mutiny.

The absence of a criminal case and a meeting with the president legalizes Yevgeny Prigozhin in the media space; he is not a criminal; on the contrary, people who call him such are slandering him.
It's formal.
But in essence, the Wagner uprising is an attempt at rebellion. It is impossible to justify the murder of Russian military personnel, but it must be noted that the Wagnerites were only defending themselves.
At the same time, it is impossible to assess the actions of the top of the Ministry of Defense, which became the cause of the mutiny, due to the lack of information.
Was there an attack on Wagner from the rear or was it a lie? It is not possible today to give an unambiguous answer to this question.
Although even if there was a blow, it does not justify the rebellion, but is a reason to talk about signs of a crime on the part of those who gave such an order.

Vladimir Putin, during an address on state television, called the rebellion “betrayal” and “treason,” as well as a “stab in the back,” comparing the situation with 1917 (Kornilov mutiny?), and promised that everyone who took the path of rebellion, “they will suffer inevitable punishment.” Putin divided the participants in the armed uprising into “heroes fighting at the front” and into rebels who betrayed them - “their name and glory were betrayed by those who organized the rebellion.”
At the same time, the name of Yevgeny Prigozhin and the name of the Wagner PMC were never mentioned, which is important.

It is necessary to note the strong support of public opinion for the charismatic leader of the Wagner PMC. For many Russians, Yevgeny Prigozhin is an example of heroism, an excellent organizer and an effective military expert.
His harsh criticism of the monstrous corruption of the top of the Ministry of Defense was fully confirmed in criminal cases against “werewolves in stripes” later initiated by the new Russian Minister of Defense.
It became clear that unscrupulous generals were profiting from the lives and deaths of Russian soldiers, and Prigozhin was right.
He will remain a folk hero in the hearts of many Russians. And the sympathies of all our Belarusian allies are undoubted.
Rostov greeted Prigozhin enthusiastically! cm - ⤵️ 🔸

🔸cm - ⤴️ The enemies of Russia are those who compare Prigozhin with Vlasov. There was not an ounce of collaboration in his actions. He did not cooperate with external enemies; on the contrary, he beat his enemies like no one else.
Not a single outwardly formidable, but essentially amusing “tik-tok army” could compare with the best private army of “Wagner” in the world.

PMC "Wagner" in the perception of the Russian people is felt as a powerful defense against an alien, alien and aggressive ethnic substratum from the South and East.
Who will now protect the Russians from bearded thugs?

On the other hand, it should be noted that the Prigozhin rebellion, like any other manifestation of the conflict between military elites, did not serve Russia well.
Such intra-elite conflicts should be nipped in the bud, without reaching a climax.
The uprising of PMCs was not against Russia, but against corrupt generals and officials, but objectively it harmed Russia.

↩⤴t.me/uraldailyPeZerV🔸

Happy "world's weirdest coup attempt ever" anniversary!
🐈‍⬛️ t.me/putingers_cat🔸

Happy Prigozhin's Mutiny anniversary!🔸

🔸What was his problem?
Was it his initiative or was there a bigger conspiracy?
Were there contacts with the Ukrainians and with the West?
Why did he do all of this during Ukrainian counter-offensive?
Was it part of Western/Ukrainian plan?
Why did the generals immediately switch sides?
Why did he turn back?
Is he even dead?
Will we ever know?🔸

🔸I believe that the mutiny was an inside job. Prigozhin was instructed to taunt the Ukrainians as they were beginning their disastrous counter-attack in the South. "There's totally a civilian war going on. C'mon, Taras, the steppe is wide open for your shiny new Bradleys!"

Also, it was a way for Putin to shake up the MoD and the rest of Siloviki. To see everyone's reaction and figure out where their actual loyalties lie. Also, it was the first step of getting Shoigu out of his position and destroying his reputation.

Other than that, the mutiny was designed to test US Intel agencies' proficiency and their response. So he def was in contact with them by design.

Basically, according to my schizo-theory, Putin asked Prigozhin to help him to get rid of Shoigu, fool the Ukrainians and the West. Prigozhin did just that but the mutiny proved to be way more popular than intended. He also improvized too much, shed too much blood and crossed too many people.

Artificial scenario could grow into something bigger in the future, an actual anarchic revolt. Hence Prigo and Utkin were publicly [redacted] to send a clear message to wannabe revolutionaries.

The role of Lukashenko was also enormous in this but I won't speculate any further. Potato Reich is dangerous territory. ↩⤴t.me/RWApodcast🔸

(🏆🏅🏆⬆)

🔸A year after mutiny, Kremlin controls Wagner remnants

Yevgeny Prigozhin led Wagner forces into the Russian city of Rostov virtually unopposed
Image source, Reuters

Matt Murphy
BBC News, in London June 23, 2024
Russia has effectively dismantled and replaced the Wagner Group in the year since the mercenaries shocked the world by launching a mutiny against President Vladimir Putin’s government, experts have told the BBC.

Yevgeny Prigozhin – the late leader of the paramilitary force – crossed from Ukraine on 23 June 2023 and seized the southern city of Rostov after months of increasing tensions with military leaders in Moscow.

His forces then began a brief charge towards the capital, meeting virtually no resistance. The “march for justice”, as Prigozhin called it, came to an abrupt end the following day after he called off the advance.

Just two months later, Prigozhin's plane crashed and he was killed along with several other senior Wagner members, throwing the group’s future into uncertainty.

Dr. Sorcha MacLeod, a member of the UN's working group on mercenaries and lecturer at the University of Copenhagen, said ex-Wagner troops had fragmented across the Russian state.

"[Wagner] may not exist in exactly the form it did previously, but a version - or even versions - of it continue to exist," she told the BBC. "There's been this sort of dispersal amongst the Russian state so there is no one overall controller."

"The Wagner Group was incredibly important geopolitically and economically to Russia, so it was never going to disappear as some people suggested," she added.

…

Earlier this month the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) think tank observed that in the wake of Prigozhin's death "the Russian state’s attention in [Africa] not only did not weaken, but strengthened."

In February, the BBC obtained documents revealing that Moscow was offering a “regime survival package” in exchange for access to strategically important natural resources – an approach previously favoured by the Wagner Group.

The plan was being offered by a so-called Russian “expeditionary group” – nicknamed the Africa Corps – and commanded by former GRU Gen Andrey Averyanov. He previously oversaw secretive operations specialising in targeting killings and destabilising foreign governments.

Experts told the BBC that the Africa Corps has effectively replaced Wagner in West Africa. On Telegram, the unit boasted of offering recruits salaries of up to 110,000 rubles a month ($1,250; £990) and service “under the leadership of competent commanders with extensive combat experience.”

…

Ruslan Trad, a security analyst with the Atlantic Council, told the BBC that, in effect, Wagner "became the Africa Corps and now serves the full purposes of military intelligence" and the ministry of defence.

"In Africa, these soldiers are doing much the same thing - guarding trade routes, securing resources that Moscow uses to circumvent sanctions, and more - serving local juntas and directing the flow of migrants," he observed.

…

Dan Storyev of the OVD-Info monitoring group told the BBC that Prigozhin's legacy mostly lay with those aligned with the Kremlin.

"Generally speaking the Wagner mutiny hasn’t had much, if any, real grassroots support for there to be, say, mass rallies marking the anniversary - perhaps because it had no genuine anti-war messaging," he noted.

(excerpted:) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4nn1p81q59o🔸

🇷🇺🔻🇷🇺🔸🇷🇺🔻🇷🇺🔸🇷🇺

Almost everyone (above and broadly, except the event recap which really just didn’t go there) agrees that Putin and Russia are in an even stronger (and more visible) place today than back then. Is Putin just that lucky? Or was there a reason for that fortune to favor him? Let’s go back to see what the prognostication was then. And square it all up.

by Tom Luongo June 26, 2023

After this weekend’s whirlwind events in Russia we’re left with a lot more questions than answers about what happened with Wagner Group’s Yevgeny Prigozhin’s abortive rebellion against Moscow. I’m not here to answer any of those questions definitively because we’ll never really know.

That said, if what I think happened is anything close to the truth then this may be one of the greatest non-battlefield victories in modern history.

Let’s start with what we know. Prigozhin’s been running his mouth for months about lack of support from the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) while his boys did all the heavy lifting in Bakhmut. His issues with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu are pretty well known. It’s also likely that there’s zero love lost between Prigozhin and General Valeri Gerasimov either.

Pissing contests between military commanders are not unheard of, after all.

You could easily make the argument that Wagner was brought in to clean up the mess made by Shoigu while Gerasimov undertook the bigger task to reorient the Russian military away from Battalion Tactical Groups (BTGs) towards an infantry-focused army more capable of taking and holding territory.

There is this looming war with NATO after all.

You could also easily make the argument that his successes left Prigozhin in a position to demand changes and for him to begin getting a big head.

Now, let’s bring in the external factor here, the enemy, NATO.

But really it is the US/UK neoconservatives who have been the ones spending every waking hour punching Russia in the face with blatant escalatory moves to try and draw Russia and Putin offside.

Nordstream 2, the Kerch Strait Bridge bombing, the staged massacre at Bucha, the Kakhovka dam explosion, the attacks at Belgorod, the arms smuggling into Odessa under the auspice of the ‘Grain deal…” The list is nearly endless.

We heard reports of the Russian FSB thwarting a smuggling operation of Cesium-137 into Ukraine to simulate a nuclear weapons attack. Salt some of this stuff to taste, but in the world I’ve come to live in there is almost nothing, no dirty trick low enough, that in desperation the Brits and their American co-conspirators would not attempt.

In my worldview MI6 and the British Defense Ministry spend all day, everyday coming up with a new way to justify a wider conflict between NATO and Russia. The destruction and balkanization of Russia has, after all, been their raison d’etre for more than 300 years.

And, so far, that heuristic has been almost perfectly accurate in predicting where things would go next.

So, let’s cut through all the bullshit about this, shall we?

In no way was this an organic affair. It’s been building for months. But what’s been building?

A guy like Prigozhin could easily become massively disheartened with Russia’s leadership. Could it be to the point of him taking up arms against Putin? Well, that’s certainly what a lot of people wanted us to believe this weekend.

And I’m in no way suggesting that it isn’t possible or even probable. It is the most likely story.

Now factor in the stories floating around out there that Prigozhin was bribed with billions for Wagner to stage his insurrection. Would anyone be surprised by this if it were ever found out?

What? The CIA with suitcases of cash for some foreign malcontent with delusions of grandeur?

The deuce you say!!

Remember folks, since we live in a world of dis- if not mal-information we have to concoct stories that fit what few facts we have along with assessing such basic things as motive, means and opportunity.

NATO or Bust

Moreover, things are accelerating into the July 11-12th NATO Summit, where it is obvious the neocons are pushing for a statement or policy change that will be the ultimate punch in the mouth for Putin.

It will be one he cannot ignore because it will violate a major red line which he has laid out with stunning clarity.

Those are either Ukraine’s accession into the EU or NATO, one begets the other. For anyone thinking they are not one and the same thing, please turn in your geopolitics street cred card with the usher by the door.

But this is exactly what is being pushed by the most openly hostile members of NATO — namely UK Foreign Minister James Cleverly and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. At the same time the Brits are nearly as mad at President Joe Biden as they are at Putin himself.

Why? Because Biden is the one that blocked UK Defense Minister (and IQ 60 mouth-breathing moron!) Ben Wallace from taking over for Jens Stoltenberg as NATO’s General Secretary. This was supposed to happen next month. It’s been put on hold and Stoltenberg has been urged by Biden to stay on for another year.

The Brits are pushing the world into war.

Wallace becoming NATO Chief would ensure this.

The only good news here is that France’s military, as much as likely the American’s, would rather be caught dead in a bathroom with an underaged hooker and pile of blow than have a Brit running this war.

It’s clear they have promised everyone a piece of the pie after Russia is defeated in Ukraine. The Poles get back Lvov and parts of Belarus. Ukrainian Right Sector thugs get to wipe out Russians in the Donbass, Hungary gets Transcarphia (to Viktor Orban’s credit he doesn’t want it on these terms), Georgia gets the Caucuses…. etc.

They are being cheered on by serial Death Eaters Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal, who this week penned a bipartisan resolution to widen the scope of NATO’s Article 5 to include not only Russia’s use of a tactical nuke but also any radiation that resulted from a nuclear accident.

Really, Lindsey, like we can’t see the setup here at it pertains to the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant?

The bribes have been flying around everywhere. And Wallace as NATO chief would ensure that the final iteration of Britain’s ‘divide and rule’ strategy would work. But Biden said no.

And that’s the piece to this puzzle that tells me we’ve reached the crescendo of this nonsense.

That maybe, just maybe, the Pentagon and even Davos are getting off this train.

Putin – Lucky, Smart or Both?

With all of that in your back pocket now let’s look at this weekend’s events.

Here’s your quick and dirty list of hits:

• Prigozhin may or may not have been bribed by the CIA/MI6 with money and dreams of ruling the Caucuses. Long a dream of the Brits to deny Russia the oil and gas from that region.

• Oil, gas and coal Ukraine and Europe desperately need.

• He comes out with some ridiculous statement about Putin lying about the reasons for this war.

• He also implicates the Russian MoD in dispersing Wagner

• He begins the March to Moscow.

• There are unconfirmed reports of helicopters being shot down. Fighting, etc.

• The Neocons go into absolute overdrive that this is the end for Putin.

• Twitter becomes unreadable

• Chechen Leader Ramzan Kadyrov comes out in full support of Putin

• So too, the Russian Ministry of Defense.

• There are no defectors from the Russian military

• There are small kerfluffles in St. Pete and Moscow

• Putin comes out and makes his speech denouncing Prigozhin as a ‘traitor.’ He is as angry as I’ve ever seen him.

• President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko negotiates with Prigozhin and within an hour the whole thing is over.

What started out as the ‘Fall of the Evil Russian Empire’ ended with “Suck what?” in a matter of hours.

The Neocons went from drooling in anticipation to crying in their lattes in about 15 minutes.

The final outcome is the real head scratcher if you believe for a moment that Prigozhin wasn’t someone’s puppet — Putin’s or Western Intelligence agencies.

Wagner forces would be moved to Belarus. All charges of insurrection would be dropped for those that marched. Those that stood down and didn’t back Prigozhin would be offered contracts with the Russian military directly.

Prigozhin would not be executed as a traitor.

Now, are you buying any of this? But these are the announced facts. And while the Neocons would like you to believe “this isn’t over.” Putin’s been weakened. The reality here is far, far different.

So, here are three likely scenarios as to what really happened. They are not, however, comprehensive.

#1 Prigozhin Really Rebelled

With the backing of the West, Prigozhin pushes all in. Sensing that their attempts on Putin’s rule would be successful because of assurances that hardliners in Russia have his back the CIA/MI6 go for the gold. Prigozhin’s still in a hyper-combative state, angry and distraught over Shoigu’s incompetence and Putin’s passivity.

Since backstabbing is not unheard of in the Russian oligarchy, he’s convinced of the plot against him. There may even be some money and promises of him ruling in Rostov-on-Don under the balkanization of Russia carrot dangled in front of him.

He hopes for a wider uprising against Putin’s rule, doesn’t get it, and quickly is put down.

Putin knew all about all of this, as did the West, and, like his swift moves to put down Nasarbaev’s attempt to get back into power in Kakakhstan in January of 2022 (with the obvious backing of the CIA/MI6), he gave Prigozhin all the rope he needed to hang himself.

If Prigozhin disappears in the next few weeks we’ll have a better answer.

#2 Prigozhin Set Everyone Up

Prigozhin begins his ‘anti-MoD’ ranting a day or two after securing Bakhmut and begins playing into the fever dreams of the West that the hardliners are ready to dump Putin for his passivity. This isn’t implausible. There are many in Russia who are angry with Putin for not punching back.

Attacks like Nordstream and Kerch are designed to lose Putin ‘face.’ It’s no different than Nancy Piglosi going to Taiwan for China. Make Xi lose face, get Chinese big mad. Win.

Loss of face is a big deal in domestic politics of these countries. But, at the same time, you have to realize that Putin’s been cleaning out Russia of western assets. The main reason why we know that “Putin jails reporters” is because those reporters who were jailed were foreign intelligence assets, not journalists.

Over the years of doing this, surviving multiple assassination attempts and passing laws banning NGOs, Putin has cleaned up the streets in Moscow. For this reason you have to assume that our ground game there is really weak.

It’s not hard to believe that Prigozhin could help feed them all the bullshit they wanted to hear. We are talking about people increasingly desperate to get this war past the point of no return and Putin refuses to give it to them.

So, with that background it’s easy to believe that Prigozhin sets the hook for a few months, even goes so far to take a few billion in ‘lost money’ to seal the deal.

He stages the walk out, gets on the road and ‘negotiates’ a settlement at the exact moment when his convoy would have had to make a left and go to Belarus anyway.

Scenario #3 – A Strategic Reallocation

For the past ten years I’ve watched Putin engage the West’s false flags and provocations and turn them into strategic victories by veering from the whiteboard script at GCHQ and Langley.

He prefers engaging in ‘parallel aggression’ — proportionally making a move to counter some other act of open aggression.

So, with that parallel aggression idea in your head here’s the scenario:

If you know that NATO is getting ready to widen the conflict next month and the British are supplying Ukraine with Storm Shadow missiles to soften up Crimea while the UAF struggles to make headway in the misnamed “counter-offensive,” then wouldn’t you want your best and battle-battle-hardened troops strategically placed to respond if things go sideways?

Look at the outcome of Prigozhin’s Rebellion. Wagner is now in Belarus. The disloyal ones are cannon fodder to soak up anything Poland tries to do.

The rest are positioned to make a move on Kiev if anyone gets silly ideas of going after Crimea.

With the UAF getting ground into paste as the attacker down south, a bad situation for them gets worse now that Putin has an army he can use in Belarus.

Remember, legally, this isn’t a war. Putin doesn’t have a free hand to do certain things under the auspice of an SMO. This is why Wagner has been so important to events thus far.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say a whole lotta folks coming off their Russian military contracts may be ‘reassigned to Wagner’ in the next couple of weeks to bolster their ranks.

Your move, NATO.

Oh, and just to remind everyone, Belarus now has tactical nuclear weapons that Putin just announced he moved into country. Does he trust Wagner enough to give them those nukes? I’m not touching that one with Lindsey Graham’s dick.

And the truth is that none of these scenarios fully cover what’s happening or even what’s happened. The fate of Sergei Shoigu hasn’t been resolved. The hardliners may get their wish with a new Defense Minister of a more Prigozhin-esque character.

You can pick bits and pieces of these scenarios out and reassemble them like Legos and you’ll have something interesting and worth considering.

But it’s hard to argue with the final outcome. A big military unit with real combat experience under the harshest conditions are now stationed within 150 miles of Kiev potentially armed with tac nukes while Putin just sniffed out a another layer of 5th and 6th columnists who outed themselves in their zeal to kill Russians with American money.

“Good? Bad? I’m the guy with the gun.”

 – ASH, ARMY OF DARKNESS

https://tomluongo.me/2023/06/25/was-prigozhins-rebellion-live-or-memorex/🔸

Wagner’s Prigozhin Planned to Capture Russian Military Leaders. He claims to have the inside scoop on how Western intelligence agencies knew in advance that Prigozhin was going full Benedict Arnold, but is so naive that he did not realize he was being fed a fairy tale. He wrote:

Western intelligence agencies also found out early about the plans by Prigozhin, Putin’s former confidant, by analyzing electronic communications intercepts and satellite imagery, according to a person familiar with the findings. Western officials said they believe the original plot had a good chance of success but failed after the conspiracy was leaked, forcing Prigozhin to improvise an alternative plan.

This is a pitiful cover story. It is an insult to your intelligence to ask you to believe that the West’s intel folks discovered that Prigozhin was going rogue by “analyzing electronic communications intercepts and satellite imagery.” Exactly how does “satellite imagery” tell some photo interpreter that a coup is about to happen? Did Prigozhin scribble out his intentions on a big sign and carry it around outside for all to read? Maybe he was trying to recruit some muscle for the trip to Moscow. “Hey, I’m Going to Moscow to Grab Shoigu. Join Me!”

In my experience, coup plotters are careful not to put their plans in writing or to talk openly about them on phones or radios. A genuine coup starts with the assumption by the plotters that they could die if the plan does not succeed. That sobering thought tends to be accompanied by cautious, subdued activity, not reckless bragging or boasting. That includes shying away from the prolific use of texts or emails.

Do you remember the first rule of Fight Club? You don’t talk about Fight Club. Well, the first rule of espionage is that YOU DO NOT REVEAL YOUR SOURCES. Come to think of it, that used to be the cardinal rule of journalism as well. The “official” who fed Pancevski the “secret” account of how intrepid Western intelligence analysts solved the Prigozhin putsch puzzle broke that rule. Looks to me like he was confident that he had a willing tool in Pancevski and could count on him to persuade a gullible public that the CIA is really good at eavesdropping.

The fact that the CIA briefed the Gang of Eight in Congress on Prigozhin’s planned uprising two days prior means that the CIA had information from a human source. It could have been a recruited CIA asset or someone recruited and controlled by a foreign intelligence organization. But someone close to Prigozhin was blabbing. Or maybe it was Prigozhin himself.

I find it noteworthy that the Biden Administration went to extraordinary lengths to insist it knew nothing about the coup and certainly did not encourage it or support it. Oh no. Biden, Blinken and Nuland do not want Putin overthrown by force. Perish the thought.

I think this leak to Pancevski provides additional confirmation that Prigozhin was acting in concert with Western intelligence operatives. What remains unknown is whether Prigozhin was genuinely cooperating with the West or pretending to spy for the West while actually being controlled by Russian authorities. I continue to believe it is the latter. If Prigozhin committed treason then Putin’s decision to go unscathed into exile in Belarus sends the message that you can go after Putin and live. That is not being magnanimous, that is madness.

My read of the Wall Street Journal article is that it is the latest iteration of the West’s covert action to shape public opinion as well as damage control. It is no coincidence that Pancevski is told that other Russian Generals are under a cloud of suspicion:

Made aware of the leak, Prigozhin was then forced to act sooner than planned on Friday and managed to capture the southern Russian city of Rostov, a key command point for the invasion of Ukraine. The ease with which Wagner’s troops took the city of one million that is home to a large military airport suggests that some regular forces commanders could have been part of the plot, according to Western intelligence.

Western officials said they believe Prigozhin had communicated his intentions to senior military officers, possibly including Gen. Sergei Surovikin, commander of the Russian aerospace force. It couldn’t be determined whether Surovikin passed this information on to the FSB, or how the agency found out about Prigozhin’s plans.

Yep, toss Surovikin under the suspicion bus. Why in the world would the CIA or MI6 want to cast doubts on Surovikin? That could weaken him and affect his ability to counter the Ukrainian offensive. Oh, I got it. Never mind. This article is a graphic example that the West is not going to let up in its campaign to destroy Russia regardless of setbacks on the ground in Ukraine. I wonder if Putin, Gerasimov and Shoigu understand that fact.

↩https://sonar21.com/more-evidence-that-prigozhins-mutiny-was-backed-by-the-west/🔸

Two men sit at control boards inside the control room at a nuclear missile base outside Moscow.

Prigozhin’s Failed Coup Was a Blessing in Disguise

In times of political instability, Washington prefers the nuclear devil it knows.
July 10, 2023 by Christopher Clary, Joshua Shifrinson

When the Wagner Group’s rebellion against the Kremlin unraveled, many commentators welcomed the prospect of Russian unrest and potential regime change as a way of complicating Russia’s war in Ukraine. In reality, however, the United States likely dodged a bullet when this uprising failed to topple Russian President Vladimir Putin. Though a weakened Russia might struggle to sustain its operations in Ukraine, political turmoil in a nuclear-armed state has historically given Washington good cause for hand-wringing, sparking fears about the stability and security of foreign nuclear arsenals. And even though Russia takes considerable steps to secure that arsenal in peacetime, the sheer size of its nuclear weapon and fissile material stockpile leaves it open to major risks. The Wagner Group crisis may be in the rear-view mirror for now, but as Washington contemplates future challenges to Putin’s authority, it ought to tread carefully. Russian political turmoil might be good for Ukraine today but awful for other U.S. priorities in the near and distant future. …

Even when events threaten to topple an adversary, foreign-policy makers tend to worry that a replacement might be even worse than the leader or regime they know. For example, despite having started the Korean War in 1950 and fighting against the United States, when North Korean leader Kim Il Sung died in 1994, many U.S. officials feared his successor, Kim Jong Il, would be worse. William Perry, then the U.S. deputy defense secretary, went so far as to argue that before the elder Kim’s death, a primary goal of U.S. policy was to prevent North Korea from developing a nuclear arsenal in case a power transition turned violent. “This is a government which has clearly failed and in my opinion is going to collapse sometime in the next few years,” Perry said in 1993. “Our concern is, if it goes out with a cataclysm, we don’t want it to be a cataclysm with nuclear weapons.”

Equally disconcerting is the risk that political instability could lead to civil war and what former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker once called “Yugoslavia with nukes.” The problem here is both ambiguity over who controls a nuclear arsenal and the possibility that rival factions might deploy nuclear weapons against competitors. During a coup attempt in France in 1961, the coup plotters attempted to delay a scheduled French nuclear weapons test in Algeria. One of the plotting generals instructed the general responsible for the nuclear explosive device: “Refrain from detonating your little bomb. Keep it for us—it will always be useful.” After the plot fizzled, several members of the nuclear test team commented that they believed the plotters sought the device as a bargaining chip to blackmail Paris.
Meanwhile, because domestic instability by definition undermines law and order, it raises the risk that nuclear technologies will be lost, stolen, or diverted and imperil counterproliferation efforts. When South Africa’s apartheid government faced growing domestic unrest in the late 1980s, a major impetus behind U.S. engagement with the noxious white-minority government was the desire—driven to some extent by overblown fears of what Black-majority rule might mean—to prevent South African nuclear assets from spreading beyond its borders. The available evidence indicates that U.S. policymakers were “extremely concerned about the possibility of Pretoria’s nuclear capability falling into the hands of an irresponsible government with links to communist and extremist Islamic countries,” scholar Anna-Mart van Wyk writes.

Such worst-case scenarios have not come to pass, but the potential is real. Because these risks are so stark, foreign governments have tried to find ways of mitigating the dangers. But the options for confronting the collapse of a nuclear state are limited. …

The research in this piece was supported by a grant from the Stanton Foundation.

Excerpted from https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/10/russia-putin-prigozhin-wagner-ukraine-nuclear-weapons/🔸

Not to mean any arguable association with that set of august company, but here were my three two cents worth back then (scouts honor there was no peeking at those reports for the last one):

Prigozhin, Practices, and Priorities

Well that was fast

Week 2 Working Weekend

The first was a working theory posted as soon as I finished writing another piece that morning and joined the information stream. The other two are low single digit minute read updates. I never changed my theory of that day and still haven't.

It actually has parts from both Tom and Larry (Johnson, former CIA, not the entire agency I coincidentally call Larry!). I was highly encouraged by that at the time. Especially as I wasn't nearly as organized as I am now. And had no genuine expectations of reaching much more audience than I had then. But the salient point I am making (for you!) is that I didn't study this situation. I had studied the man. And two months later that came back into play.

The reason you don't need a big budget Foreign Policy degree (used to produce that drivel above!) to suss these narratives out is because you have probably seen all of it before - in some movie, most likely - or a former telling of history or perhaps a novel. Remember all the elements we tied up for the Iran-Israel drama? Straight out of movies and a novel.

I included a few excerpts from that FP treatise that went also to Pakistan and Afghanistan, but not to Iran. Other than just this week have Pakis or Afghans been any real cross for them? They couldn't mouth the word Iran much less use it in a sentence back then.

Anyway, other than personally having a genuine connection to this character and event, I think it is fair to say it provided an essentially zero cost way to dampen the Ukrainian conflict which was the exact opposite of Western desires. The African mission has prospered as well, literally expelling France and decimating ECOWAS in the interim. Russia has a firm hand on the wheel there. Not for control, for guidance and assistance.

The recent shake ups in the Russian MoD speak for themselves, too. Consternation from all the right parties, and no jubilation from the wrong ones. I alluded to that housekeeping as likely to be pivotal, and here we are, sitting at the crest of summer offensive time.

But most of all, we now have the triumph of last week. Putin's masterful treaties, demeanor (confident yet humble), and now star power in a world starved for leaders has sealed this Prigozhin event of last year like a bookend. And just in time for this anniversary. If he is no longer with us I hope he is watching how that sacrifice panned out. If he is - bottoms up, Yevgeny. You are still one of a kind. And with less credit than is due you. The only “coup” was against the Western Intel Agencies - and they haven't recovered yet.