This is a stab in the back.
Vladimir Putin
In a speech earlier today, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that a mutiny was underway against the Russian state. He described it “as an attempt to subvert us from the inside.” He called it “treason in the face of those who are fighting on the front.” For many Russians, however, the real treason is that committed by Vladimir Putin, who lied to the Russian people about Ukraine needing to be liberated from NATO-controlled Nazis. The real treason happened when Putin, contrary to international law, committed Russia’s armed forces to an appalling act of military aggression that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of Russian dead and wounded. Whole cities and towns have been reduced to rubble because of an imaginary threat from imaginary Nazis. The mutiny of which Putin spoke, was undertaken by Mr. Prigozhin of the Wagner Group (mercenaries fighting under the Russian flag). According to Prigozhin, Russia is bombing Ukrainian civilians. According to Prigozhin, all of Putin’s justifications for the war are lies.
Putin’s government is not the victim of aggression from abroad. He is facing an uprising of his own soldiers, of his own generals, because of his wanton disregard for his soldier’s welfare. Late yesterday the Wagner mercenaries crossed from Ukraine into Russia and captured the city of Rostov, and the headquarters of Russia’s southern armies. Analysis suggests that Wagner troops could not have captured Rostov and the military district headquarters without help from generals inside the army. At the very least, regular Army generals are standing aside and allowing the Wagner mercenaries to establish a base of operations from which to strike toward Moscow. This base effectively controls the hub of all communications in the south of Russia.
Two columns of rebel troops, estimated to be 105 miles long, have been driving toward Moscow from the south during the last 16 hours. As of this writing, these motorized columns (including tanks loaded onto tank carriers) have halted their advance south of Moscow for some kind of negotiation. It is reported that the Russian elite has been fleeing Moscow, that the dictator of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has fled his capital (Minsk) in favor of Turkey (i.e., his presidential plane has made something of an improptu landing in Turkey). There is also a rumor that Putin has fled Moscow for St. Petersburg. The UK Independent reported a claim from the Russian Federation government that Putin has not fled Moscow. However, one of Putin’s presidential planes took off from Moscow at 2:15 pm local time. Then, according to the Independent “Less than half an hour later, it went off radar about 150 kilometers from Putin’s official residence.”
Today it is reported that Russia’s deputy Prime Minister, Denis Manturov, has left Russia for Turkey. At the same time, Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Russian Security Council, has reportedly been left in charge of Moscow. The rebel troops are said to be in Moscow Oblast, the lead column having crossed over. Prigozhin has publicly stated, “All of us are ready to die. All 25,000, and then another 25,000.” He added, “We are dying for the Russian people…. Putin made the wrong choice. All the worse for him. Soon we will have a new president.”
On his side, Putin has called this revolt “treason,” comparing it to the events that overthrow the Tsar in February (old calendar) 1917. “We are fighting against anarchy and capitulation,” said Putin in a speech earlier today. “This internal mutiny is a mortal blow to us. It is a blow to our people as a whole, and measures will be very hard.”
For Putin to say this is a “mortal blow” is hardly trivial. If this translation is correct, he is admitting that this might be the end of his regime. “As the commander and chief … I am doing everything to repel this attack.”
It seems, to the contrary, that Putin has done almost nothing to repel the advance of Prigozhin’s troops. This suggests a certain helplessness. It suggests a demonstration, made by others, of his helplessness. How, indeed, did Prigozhin’s troops get so far on an open highway without any serious attempt to stop them? (It is reported that one helicopter gunship tried to intervene, but was shot down). And yet, Prigozhin has supposedly agreed to turn his troops around and return to base.
It almost seems that Prigozhin’s mutiny is some kind of demonstration, supported by other elements in the Russian military. We might ask, “To what end? To stop the war?” Or maybe, to stop Putin from using nuclear weapons that are being sent to Belarus. What actually triggered this mutiny? Was it the case of a dictator failing to listen to his generals, so the generals made a demonstration?
It is alleged that the Russian air force was ordered to strike the rebel columns heading to Moscow, but they refused. Why was there no air strike? Where is Defense Minister Sergie Shoigu? Where is the Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov? And now, two hours ago, Mr. Prigozhin has agreed to return his troops to base. How can that be? They all just turn around and go home? All is forgiven?
Was Prigozhin’s public antagonism against Shoigu a ruse to hide a larger conspiracy? Has Putin been effectively neutered? Was there a secret negotiation to stop a worse set of events from being unleashed? Will Russia be offering an olive branch to Ukraine in the coming days?
Stay tuned.
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294 responses to “The Mutiny in Russia”
This was obviously staged, you fall for it, so will less intelligent people who rule America.
American strategic bombers land in Sweden and the Baltic states this week. Why? Because Putin is about to deploy nukes to Belarus.
Prigozhin marches on Moscow and the Russian generals do nothing to stop him. They let him take Rostov and get to Moscow Oblast. Why?
Because Putin is about to deploy nukes to Belarus and the Russian generals want him to stop.
Lukashenko goes to Turkey and meets with the Russian deputy prime minister to negotiate for Prigozhin. Why?
Because Lukashanko does not want the responsbility of nuclear weapons on Belarussian soil when U.S. bombers are sitting in Sweden and Lithuania breathing down his neck. Thus, he is not just negotiating for Prigozhin. He is negotiating for the Russian generals and other officials who are behind Prigozhin.
I fell for what, exactly?
It was staged only for foreign audience.
For what possible purpose? To embarrass Putin in front of the world audience?
Here is a possible explanation. He argues to sort out traitors like with Operation Trust.
Could be that Putin was in from the beginning and just played his role?
Thoughts?
I know of his work. He is an antisemite who has pretty wild theories about Hitler being a Jewish and Soviet agent.
Prigozhin was supposedly a cook for Putin. A former cook knows what is going on and certainly supports the tacktical long term Communist plan you have been talking about and is not going to flip on Putin (but more likelytell Putin of the plan). Remember what you have been teaching on Communism.
Some how “our intelligence” knew about this before it happened (how do you suppose that is)? Also another accounting error just happened to where we just found money to send over there. Is it not possible Georgetown grad, trust fund baby spooks got played by real masters of the information war for the possible moving around of troops and special operation groups while all are focused on the other slide of hand?
There is a subtle campaign beginning in the West to save Russia from chaos in order to keep the country’s nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists. Look who gets behind this idea. Track them.
Does Biden put nukes in Sweden so that people won’t think that he’s really a Communist, or at what point does Biden nuke Russia?
Why would Biden nuke Russia. Where will his next million come from if he does that?
Staged by who?
Good Question!
Commit,
I wonder why you think Putin would have gone out of his way to stage an event that makes him look wounded? I must think more of him than you do, because I dont consider him an utterly moronic dunce.
Putin definitely looks weak right now. One cannot help suspecting his replacement is waiting in the wings.
Jeff, is this the same or a different coup that Yelsen oversaw that started the staged collapse of USSR that brought the Wall down and enabled communist Gorbachov to save himself by taking up residence in the US under a guise of an environmentalist and which soon enabled Russia then to suck the US for hundreds of millions of dollars of money to both dismantle old nuclear stocks and modernize their weaponry? is this the coup from the same people that launched a small drone over the Kremlin with something like an M-80 firecracker going off and wanting the world to believe they were under attack? Thanks Jeff for writing about these timely events!
This was about a nuclear war crisis that has been brewing over the deployment of nukes to Belarus.
What an excellent opportunity for the Moscow Leninists to either launch preemptive strikes against the West, amid alleged internal chaos in Russia, or present a picture of a weak and disunited Russia, possibly inviting NATO to attack Russia first. In turn, the Kremlin would have full moral justification to clobber the West.
The timing for them is wrong. And the Russian generals know this. Time for Putin to listen to his miltiary experts.
My sister-in-law lives in Russia. We called her this morning to see what was going on. She said it was all theater.
All sorts of war rhetoric from the US, including 2 Senators initiating legislation to declare article 5 if Ukraine is nuked or a nuclear power plant is destroyed (what do those senators know?), hundreds of American aircraft just finishing up an exercise in Europe and 10’s of thousands of troops there also, and ………just like that, Russia is imploding and there is no need to defend against it. Pack up everyone and go home, nothing to see here; Wagner group is doing the job for us.
Notice Putin also made references to the US, UK and ‘a middle eastern country’ (Israel?) somehow starting this? This looks and sounds like theatre to me, but I am not totally sure.
Putin is smart, and he is not weak. He is pretending to be weak, I suspect.
I am just reading ‘Icebreaker’ by Viktor Suvorov, and since Stalin seems to be Putin’s hero, you can see the patterns and objectives in what is happening. Stalin wants to split Poland so that he is closer to Germany and can take Europe more quickly while claiming the victim status……Putin takes Ukraine while claiming the victim status. Lots of lies, deception, etc. I am not that smart, but I do smell a rat.
I would like to know what you thought of Icebreaker, as I am sure you have read it. I am only a little bit into it.
Icebreaker is a very interesting book, and Viktor Suvorov wrote a sequel, “The Chief Culprit,” which goes into greater detail. I believe Putin is trying to follow Stalin’s example, but he is not as smart as Stalin, and not as tough as Stalin. Therefore, he has run into several obstacles. His Chinese allies are, no doubt, getting frustrated. But communists are patient. Persistence wins. Retreat if you have to, and come back.
I can’t help feeling reminded of the fake August 1991 coup. What could be the objectives? Wait and SEE!
Here is my working theory. I am not saying this happened, just exploring some rich possibilities:
I suspect this was a “demonstration” by the Russian generals, using Prigozhin as a double blind proxy, to change what they saw as Putin’s disastrous course. And what course is that? Deployment of nukes to Belarus, and possibly an attack on NATO, or a negotiated peace of some kind that will get Russia out of this war.
The nuclear deployment to Belarussia, which may have already begun (though Russia has refused to say how many weapons are in Belarus if any), had a negative effect for Russia. It brought American strategic bombers to Sweden and the Baltic States. How does this nuclear standoff help Russian strategy? You do not start a war when your enemy’s bombers are easily deployed to nearby countries. This NATO deployment also put’s Belarus at risk, and Lukashenko has a delicate job if he is to beg off.
The negotiation in Turkey, between Lukashenko and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, which took place today, was probably all about this — and not about some crazy mercenary trying to bum rush Moscow. The latter was done to scare Putin into listening to his associates (who have become tired of rubber-stamping Putin’s bad moves).
I believe Putin was forced to agree to certain terms by way of Prigozhin and Lukashenko and Russian generals who did not wish to be identified by name. My hypothesis is that Prigozhin was used as an attack dog who returned to his leash onced the job was finished (i.e., the negotiation). The dog is now retiring to Belarus, under the curious protection of Lukashenko (who manages to avoid absorption by Russia and perhaps sends the nukes back if they have arrived at all). Putin clearly did not hold the leash on this crazy dog (Prigozhin). Who did? We may reflect that Prigozhin’s public attacks on Defense Minister Shoigu and Gen. Gerasimov cannot be taken at face value, but rather as an alibi for this Defense ministry in this matter. Note: The Russian Defense Ministry did not raise a finger to stop Prigozhin as he siezed Rostov and blitzed north. No air strikes on the vulnerable columns of troops. No fortified outposts to bar their way. No ambuses from the roadside. The leash, however, was invisbily yanked with the same excuse at the end. “We want to prevent bloodshed.”
My theory is: Putin has been weakened. The generals have been strengthened. Let’s see how things play out from here.
In any case, they’ve been preparing and preparing for over a century. They don’t want to give the game away in one moment of fatal impatience…
What is on the political leadership’s mind has also been expressed, it seems, by the Kremlin’s bloodhound in Chechniya, Ramzan Kadyrov, who may be at times a bit of a loose cannon, not just in terms of action, but also of rhetoric. We’ve certainly heard similar wild threats from Medvedev ever since the beginning of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine (after all, somebody has to play the role that the deceased Zhirinovsky used to play!), but Kadyrov threatened that Russia might soon knock on Poland AND GERMANY’S door!
I think the best Russian strategists want to retrench. They must retreat when it is necessary, as Lenin taught. Putin does not want this. He has become inflexible; and also, too big for his britches. I think a change is coming. Let’s see how it unfolds from here. A very dangerous thing, indeed, in such a regime.
Maybe Putin is the nationalist that he presents himself to be, and the generals feel that they must behave as convinced Communists or be eliminated by their peers, even if they all are nationalists at heart? This in context of all so many generals that have been killed in battle. Putin is running out of generals who might depose him.
Putin is not a nationalist. He just pretends, like Stalin.
What about Sun Tzu?
He has been working with the Chinese
In the end, Sun Tzu must be replaced by Clausewitz. Otherwise the promise of Sun Tzu cannot be fulfilled. This is the crisis that now plays out for Beijing and Moscow. Will it be deception for deception’s sake or all out war? Were the lies of the last three decades meant to set up a global shift in power or merely to enrich communist apparatchiks and KGB-appointed oligarchs?
This is the best scenario I have heard yet. Only……it has been admitted that the nukes are already in Belarus. Still it could work no matter where they are. Strange goings on for sure.
I base this on the curious intelligence of Mr. Felshtinsky. If the Wagner mercenaries end up in Belarus then I begin to worry about the nuclear weapons there.
In communist regimes, aren’t such crises usually hidden from the outside world? Could this simply be the Soviets pushing disinformation in making the world believe Putin is being replaced?
Oh, this was real. Yet most of it was nonetheless hidden. We only saw the talefin of the shark, which has now disappeared beneath the water once more.
Your gut feeling on this?
There are too many coincidences and inexplicable happenings here. I think a powerful group in the Russian Establishment has decided on a plan to replace the President while preserving the communist structures plus getting out of this war.
Who do you people think pays the well paid PMC Wagner contractors? The very idea they are somehow independent on MOD is ridiculous.
You are exactly right, Commit. It is ridiculous. And that is my entire point.
Your point is that there is some real dispute between military and Putin.
It definitely appears that way, doesn’t it. Troops not belonging to Wagner joined in the mutiny. So you see, many soldiers have feelings that aligned with Prigozhin’s march on Moscow.
Jeff, do you think this charade was cover to withdraw the Wagner group in preparation for the use of tactical nukes in Ukraine?
I don’t think anyone knows what is going on for sure K, but I’ll give it to you, that’s the most logical reason I have heard so far. It was certainly an act, but the question is, why? And what for? And I think you may have nailed it on the head. Obviously, I hope you’re wrong.
Putin’s speech was telling. He was definitely frightened, and felt that his end was right around the corner. In fact, he described the mutiny as a “moral blow.” Imagine how pliable he was at that moment.
No, I do not. Please go back and read my answers to previous posters.
There is a 1991 or so movie called “Dawn’s Early Light” that has a nuclear war started by an opposition group of Russians launching a nuclear cruise missile from Turkey into Donbass. Strange how such movies come out and three decades later, here we are.
I wonder what the real inspiration of such movies is.
Because of Prigozhin’s declaration that Putin’s reasons for invading Ukraine were blatant lies, and because of the limp-wristed, token gesture attempts at arresting Prigozhin’s advance on Moscow, I am inclined to think this event was staged for western analysts’ consumption, as a diversion for something else, and who knows, maybe to smoke out disloyal apparatchiks and military officers as preparation for some major gesture from Putin. If he’s going all-in, he needs to know who is really on-side with him. So far from distancing us from an escalation in Ukraine, this may actually portend it; and then we shall see if Lindsey Graham’s strong words about invoking Article 5 are backed with any substance, and NATO’s bluff will be called; if it plays out that way and NATO does nothing, Putin would surely seek to frame it as “breaking NATO”.
Also note the role of Turkey in this; remember, it will side with Russia in the very near future (going by Ezekiel 38); not only is it under US sanctions over the S-400 acquisition and ejected from the F-35 project, it is also too flirty with Russia to be loyal to NATO; and Erdogan was reported today in the UK media to have offered his support to Putin. Turkey is looking more and more like a Russian plant inside NATO. If it were to formally withdraw and align with Moscow, that too would be held up to Russia’s allies as a NATO-splitting victory… the fundamentals of that development are all falling into place.
Turkey under Erdogan is definitely worse than a wild card. I would say Turkey as a reliable member of NATO is gone. As for “Soviet plants” inside NATO, one needn’t look any further than Orbán’s allegedly nationalist Hungary, Bulgaria, possibly Romania and definitely the former North Korea of Europe, Albania! And God knows where the loyalty of all the other former East-European satellites lies.
There are many snake-nests in such places.
And God knows where the loyalty of Germany and France lies. Whatever Scholz, Macron or the people around them decide will be of far greater consequence than anything a small East European state does.
Germany is in a strange condition.
Why should Turkey fight Ruskies alone? You think and count that they are expendable ‘mu-slimies’? Do not expect a catholic NATO nation to bleed with them in that fight. And of course, every war needs a place to negotiate a settlement.
As for the commie sleepers in NATO structures, start from Germany (ex DDR part) and their financial interests in the east.
This is a good point.
Please see my earlier responses.
I just spoke to an ex Bulgarian army guy I know here in Northern Ireland and asked him what he thought about yesterday’s events in Russia, given his background and that he trained with the Russian army back in the Cold War.
His view, for what it is worth, is that it was “theatre” staged for some ulterior motive. He noted that the force ostensibly advancing on Moscow was small and vulnerable to airstrikes, but instead presented as an existential threat to the regime. He also told me that Russia has been routinely committing acts of sabotage on armaments factories within his native Bulgaria, aided and abetted by friendly mafia there; again, it’s anecdotal, so assess accordingly.
—-
If Putin backs down over this, I can’t see how he can maintain face in the sight of his allies, especially China and the power brokers in Russia. He has to either step aside and have his legacy sullied with the mother of debacles and bloodshed for no gain whatsoever, or escalate hoping to finally win:
“…I am in blood
Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er…” (Macbeth)
Imagine a few Russian generals who know the plan is to eventually attack NATO. Imagine their desperation to stop such a mad scheme. The Belarussian military wants nothing to do with such schemes, as Lukashenko cannot get them to fight for Putin. How many Russian generals are, privately, of the same mind? An interesting thought.
If Putin remains in power, then what was the point of the Wagner march, assuming it was not some sleight-of-hand misdirection event? Just to scare him into making concessions to the disenfranchised generals? But if they don’t want war with the West, then Putin has to back down in Ukraine, not just surrender a few policies and strategies to pacify them. And if he fully backs down, how can he retain his credibility and authority? Surely that would signal the end of his tenure and leave his legacy in ruins?
It seems (to me at least) that loyalty to Putin is built around financial incentives and above-the-law protections for his inner circle, rather than a principled investment in the sagacity of the man or any idealism about his Marxism, that instead being seen by all from Putin downwards as an important weapon to corral the useful idiot cadre and to maintain unaccountable governance (aka tyranny) in Russia, as well as to subvert and undermine what remains of western institutions.
But we can only surmise and try to make educated guesses; Russia is as dark and unfathomable as the ocean; one can see why Churchill spoke of it as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”.
The system itself is failing as the war goes badly.
So glad you have promptly posted an article about this situation! I first heard about the internal unrest late last night. I immediately felt there is something serious afoot here and we can’t trust anything that is being reported from either side of the situation. IF it is a coup and Putin is ousted, I don’t think Russia ends up with anything better and possibly could be more aggresive. IF it is some sort of ruse could it be a prelude move for China and Russia to move in tandem into the next phase of the global war against the US and the West? With the current people in power in the US and Europe I would not be shocked if the next few months become the most tumultous of the past 100 years. Get prepped and prayed up everyone. Godspeed!
I think there is an internal debate going on inside Russia about the war, and this event was an adjustment in that debate.
And we have people (whistleblowers) coming out of the woodwork here showing how our leader is also compromised by the Russians. There is a lot more to this than anyone here can reasonably understand. I’m thinking that praying is the only solution to this problem at this time. And yes, I know people who have interacted with Russians and about all you can say about them is they are not ordinary people, but badly damaged by their own hate towards each other. That is what communism is all about, wanting something others have.
I have been praying, but the only thing I know to pray right now is for God’s will to be done. It’s hard to know what is going on, but God knows.
He does know.
I think the smart strategists in Russia want to take things very slow. They are destroying our society from within. Naturally, they want to back off the war business and get back into the subversion business. That’s their winning game. But some of the communists have lost patience — like Putin and Xi.
Yevgeny Prigozhin is not long for this World, and his mercenaries will be drafted into the Russian Army, or if foreign, incarcerated if they refuse to volunteer.
Well that is just it; so many oligarchs fall out windows when they counter the narrative, but now we find out that Prigozhin is being ‘exiled to Belarus’. This tells me it was all theatre, and his next job is cleaning up the resistance in Belarus.
I forgot; link for that info:
https://warnewsupdates.blogspot.com/2023/06/kremlin-says-wagner-boss-prigozhin-will.html
I was thinking the same: The Wagner-people have effectively been told: “No harm done, we forgive you”. It seems totally out of character for the communists/Putin. Btw, how was this so-called private army ever allowed to exist in the first place?
Buy harm was done. So it’s quite strange.
There are many such armies in Russia. They are supposedly controlled by loyal people. But loyalties can change under pressure.
They are going to appoint a new leader of Wagner.
It really seems to be a big theater. What you forgot to mention is that this happened when Zelensky admitted that they had big problems with their counteroffensive. So why this clown show? If it is true that Prigoschin has been sent with Wagner to the polish border maybe this can be the sense of the whole operation. So if something happens in Poland no one can blame Russia, but these crazy Wagner guys…..
Well now, he has been sent to the Polish border in all likelihood; exiled to Belarus anyway.
https://warnewsupdates.blogspot.com/2023/06/kremlin-says-wagner-boss-prigozhin-will.html
They are only sending Prigozhin to Belarus, not his troops.
I’d say you inadvertently stumbled into a Bingo!
Nobody knows what is going on. But it will be made more clear by events that follow. Something is very off here. Why Lukashenko was the one to calm Prigozhyn down? Does it have anything to do with the fact of nukes being stored in Belarus? Why Prigozhyn said that Russian president lied about reasons to invade Ukraine, but the same Prigozhyn says that he is a patriot and will continue to fight Ukraine. I see no logic here. Some people say that it is all staged (and the smoke is very thick if they wanted to use it as a distraction). Others say it could not have been staged, because Putin looks extremely weak as a leader in this situation and Russia looks very vulnerable and disorderly. Very opposite to what they wanted to portray to the world. May God help us all in whatever is coming next!
The question is “who” staged it? A very interesting question!
Who is the right question.
Events from 24 June show:
– popular support for W in regional centers was high,
– easy to ‘liberate’ regional centers,
– difficult to reach Moscow
This was just a rehearsal. Real show should happen within 3-6 months. Or earlier.
Than we shall see.
From the WSJ:
“Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner paramilitary group, said his forces would stop their march on Moscow and return to their camps to avoid bloodshed, as the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, announced a deal to halt the armed confrontation threatening Russia. As part of the deal, Prigozhin will leave Russia for Belarus and criminal charges against him will be dropped.”
Does Prigozhin really think he’ll be safe in Belarus? Didn’t Russia just send a bunch of nukes to Belarus? Shaking my head.
He must have protectors inside Russia’s military structures than poor old Lukashenko.
Lukashenko comes across as only one degree less absurd than the vodka-soaked Yeltsin, but perhaps now he can pose as a credible statesman… however, I am not suggesting that was the main aim of this strange development yesterday.
Lukashenko has managed to maintain a sliver of independence from Putin. Note that his army did not join the war against Ukraine when Moscow asked for him to join.
Thank you, Jeff, for posting. I had checked your site as soon as I read that Prigozhin turned his men around hoping you would write, so I was delighted to discover you had.
Is it fair to say that the only things we can be sure of is that Russian leaders lie and they show no mercy? Things will not end well.
I wonder what China is thinking now.
Hopefully, the west is safer while this confrontation in Russia plays out. Is it a bad sign for Russia that their Moscow leadership fled the city and the Belarus leader left his country? If Prigozhin is going to be in Belarus, it must be because he expects to be welcomed, just as he was in Rostov on Don. The people seem to have different ideas than the leaders.
“The people seem to have different ideas than the leaders.”
Same for the US on many things!
Communism is contagious.
It was educational to see how many were fleeing Moscow. The regime is not as solid as many have imagined.
Jeff deleted the article from, The Hill, 2018 which states that Congress tried multiple times to defund the AZOV NAZIS, from 2014 onward. He seems determined to cover up that fact.
By posting stuff about some Ukrainian unit being Nazis you are misrepresenting the Ukrainian government in a way that conforms with Russian propaganda. This is not a Russian propaganda site. The Azov battlion is not a Nazi in the sense you and others seem to say. Read some scholarly papers on its history. The Azov movement actually started among Russian speakers in Kharkhov, and one of its inspirations was a guy from Moscow (going by memory). Two of the leaders in the unit flirted with some racist ideas. That does not make all its members “Nazis.” Furthermore, a Jewish oligarch financed the thing originally if my information is not mistaken. So if it’s good enough for a guy who built a lot of synagogues, give it a rest.
PS – Lenyard, you are a pro-Russian troll. I do not want you on this site. Please respect my wishes. I do not have time to debate you over and over.
You have time to make deceptive declarations of “fake” NAZIS. How do you explain Democrats in US Congress defunding AZOV NAZIS?
The Democrats would probably defund you as a Nazi.
Zelensky is supposedly Jewish, yet he’s a NAZI homosexual. It’s like the Rothschieds pretend to be Jewish, like the British Royal family are actually, Romanian descendants of Dracula.
Lanyard. You are so absurd that you bring the whole discussion down. That’s why I do not want you posting here.
The political sciences methodology as taught by Olavo de Carvalho, to be applied in this case, as in any other politics object of study, would be (some of it, anyway):
1) To distinguish between the doxa (or pretextual discourse of the political agent) and the non-merely-pretextual objective discourse. [Plato and Aristotle].
Number 1) is not currently very helpful since discourses have been largely improvised or not transparent and have been given over in the form of subtle insinuations concerning the mutiny, besides current opinions being given dispersely and not much information being available on the actors as a whole.
2) To distinguish between the efficient cause’s/agent’s apparent infra-rational response to a situation and his real likely intentions [François de La Rochefoucauld and Lenin].
Prigozhin’s actions, because of their apparent incohesion or lack of a clear basis from an outsider’s perspective, seem to be infra-rational, but since not much information is available, this line of inquiry is not very promising.
3) To inquire who or what has the effective means of leading and fascinating ideologically in order to determine the situation [Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling’s political philosophy].
In this context this specific line o inquiry seems more promising. Putin’s response-address to the mutiny, in conflict with Prigozhin’s ideological take, seemed to give the impression the ideological justification for the war is undergoing some sort of crisis. Just as the Khrushchev era anti-Stalin Soviet ideological response (as explained by Golitsyn) was a response to a crisis, so also the Russia ideological justification may be undergoing a crisis that needs some sort of internal dispute scenario to be worked out by the dialectics marxist political technique.
4) To inquire whether the power being exerted is intellectual, military or economic, and consider the first [intellectual] is unlikely to be exerted personally/immediately/through a chain of command, the second [military] is stereotypically exerted in the guise of a threat, the third [economic] is stereotypically exerted in the guise of an alluring promise [Olavo de Carvalho].
Prigozhin’s power is a military one, so it is presumably above all a threat. But his quick retreat betrays the threat is not the unequivocal point that is being made. Prigozhin is not projecting himself enough as an intellectual leader nor does he seem conspicuously beholden to economical interests. This suggests sufficiently that whatever powerplay is being waged Prigozhin is not the efficient cause/main character. Putin, thus, may have obscure rivals. This is perfectly in line with Golitsyn’s thesis the head of the Soviet Union is “not the pope or Luther, but the as it were secretary of a syndicate”.
5) To inquire whether the “qualitative leap” technique is being employed, a technique according to which accumulated quantity (howsoever gradual or not), e.g. an amount of change, leads to an overall qualitative change of state [Hegel and Mao Zedong].
The mutiny does signal that the longstanding nature of the war did as a matter of fact change the whole qualitative dynamic of the scenario. It means the rulers of Russia have begun to be comfortable enough with the situation, considering it the new normal, that they allow themselves to have semi-public disputes that formerly wouldn’t be aired at all. This perfectly fits Prigozhin’s statement, made (if I am not mistaken) after securing Rostov, that troops/men from that headquarter had just been dispatched to Ukraine as usual. A CNN piece quotes him as saying “Planes that leave for combat work leave as usual no problems. Medical flights are leaving as usual. All we did was to take control so that the attack aviation would not strike us but strike in the Ukrainian direction.” The CNN page says “Criminal charges against Prigozhin will be dropped and he will be sent to neighboring Belarus, according to the Kremlin.”
6) To distinguish between the effects that were planned, and what are their respective historical agents (which agents cannot be national states, but only revolutionary movements, secret societies, religions, dynasties etc.), on the one hand; and the effects that were unintended results of actions [Partly from Max Weber].
On that score, it is clear that the mutiny subliminally illustrates an interesting fact, namely, the communist revolutionaries are the only agents whose ideological take and agency upon the situation stands as the primary and non-largely neutralized factor at play. As Malachi Martin showed in considerable detail in Windswept House, a secret society as Freemansonry (which had a considerable lobby in the American State) had shown in the early nineties remarkable signs of being neutralized and divided or cast in confusion by influences associable to the communist bloc. The same effect communists have had significantly and demonstrably on dynasties, religions etc. In other words, communists seem to look on the landscape as though the demoralization and destabilization processes have already occurred and those subjected to them/it or affected by it are like beings who lack grasping of a third dimension to their situation. In other words, communists are, however materially challenged by the war, taking full advantage of people’s inability to see the communists have the ideological upper hand. Advantage is being taken of the expectation that the internal cohesion of the communist polity is far lesser than it actuallly is, when communism is the only one historical agent who is strictly speaking [, arguably,] visibly coherent and acting in the carrying out of a long-range plan. Their cohesion and the decisiveness of their position is arguably so great they don’t even have to hide it, they involuntarily hide in plain sight effortlessly at this point, and the outsiders can’t get it [at most only the tip of the iceberg].
This raises the question: what is the historical agent behind Ukraine? Is there one? It is not the nation itself, which would be impossible (according to Olavo’s take), nor, it seems, the Western governments for the same reason.
7) To inquire whether the latter, unintended results of actions, create new means of action, especially such as are promising for one to explore [René guénon].
One unintended result of the communists overwhelming and neutralizing the whole ordinary ideological world landscape is, as explained by Dan Heath and Chip Heath, they come to be aflicted by the “curse of knowledge”, namely, failing in grasping the extent of other people’s ignorance of their plans; which can have a rhetorical and strategic disadvantage to them. They have to always know their enemies to calibrate their actions, as Sun Tzu taught. However, the war just gave the communists the upper hand in this regard too, because the media attention and the study of how the West reacts to them gives them the feedback they need to escape the “curse of knowledge”.
The dialectical problem, thus, created by the situation (among other problems), or rather expressed by it, is how can the communists be endowed with the upper hand ideologically (in a way clearly dramatic), and the mutiny be connected to some sort of ideological crisis?
James Burnham said, “Politics is about three things: Power, power, and power.” I do not entirely concur, but for the non-philosophical politician it is usually the case.
Stephen Kotkin if I am not mistaken has notably pointed out he was surprised to learn Stalin, in his correspondences, used the language and the analytical techniques of Marxism. “Big surprise”, he said or words to that effect, “the leader of the USSR was a marxist.” I grant some of the lingo of political science is Greek to ordinary politicians; but I believe it is simply a fact people in positions of command, namely noblemen understood broadly, are a kind of priesthood even if in recent history of a degenerate kind. If you have to encourage others, you do so by definition in the name of what is percieved to be sacred/especially intelligible.
Putin also used Marxist terminology in his speech on Saturday, calling the mutiny “adventurism.” That has a very definite meaning for Marxist-Leninists. It is a criticism Putin himself has probably been tagged with recently.
I am keeping tabs on the formerly mentioned “Father Oliveira’s prophecies”, of the pseudonym post-conciliar priest from Brazil who is making waves and got right a few predictions. The two most clear ones are the predictions; 1) that in 2022 Putin/or something connected to him would set the Northern Hemisphere on fire and Putin would mockingly laugh at the world globe; 2) in 2022 Benedict XVI would seemingly pass away/die.
The recent predictions are that a period of great tribulation will begin in October 2023. It purportedly won’t come loudly, but will spread everywhere gradually and slowly, and different evils are mentioned. I thought it is strange that a specific date should be associated with something gradual and relatively subtle with an indeterminate time-span. While coming back to the October month, the text released mentioned a great devastation coming from Russia, instigated in association with it. This makes sense in a way in light of the late Prigozhin mutiny in so far as a cornered/pressured Russia would predictably end up unleashing plan B reprisals that are unforeseen, for “Father Oliveira” does not mention what are the damages this devastation will bring out.
If it is slow and gradual, could it be pandemic-related? The after-effects of unsafe vaccines?
He did mention something about ailments in this latest prediction, as well as before. I guess we’ll know soon, provided the predictions come true.
On a lighter note, maybe Prigozhin will soon cook dinner for Putin. I heard he is nicknamed “Putin’s chef.”
I think his catering days are over.
I remain baffled as to this whole turn of events. It seemed to me he had the throne within his sights but turns around to gain nothing. The way between him and Moscow was clear. No military power stood between him and the goal that could have stopped his march. Did he get queezy at the idea of fighting and killing what few forces remained in Moscow? But this is the same Wagner that has created Al-Qaeda style videos murdering people. They shot down 4-7 aircraft on the way to Moscow. Then they stopped. Under the deal, Wagner is dissolved, with its members made to sign regular military contracts to which Prigozhen was opposed, and Prigozhen is exiled to Belarus. Shoigu and what’s-his-name are rumored that they may be removed, but I’ve seen no official hints or suggestions this will occur. If they are not removed, then Prigozhen achieved none of his stated goals.
Inoculation. The real adventurers might take pause, if they believe that somebody else takes the risk, so they don’t have to.
Nothing is as it appears.
Yes. The whole procedure covers another agenda. Prigozhin only got as far as he did because he had help. I do not think he conceived of this alone. Why ask for a Shoigu to go? Shoigu is not really a military guy. He is loyal to Putin. Removing him damaged Putin’s position. Who really is behind this?
“There is a story circulating that during his long and continuous stay on the Ukrainian front, Prigozhin met with Ukrainian intelligence officials and representatives of the CIA.
The CIA offered Prigozhin $6.2 billion if he would carry out an armed coup in Russia. Prigozhin agreed, but did not intend to go all the way. He even informed the Kremlin about this plan.” Quoted from Amir Tsarfati Telegram channel.
That’s a fanciful story. So the CIA just walked up to him while he was in a trench at the front line? Did they pay him in cash? How was it transported? Where is the money now? How can he spend it in Belarus? Can he take it with him when he is murdered?
I was awake and watching when this BS story was invented on Twitter. I was followign the tweets and the live so-called coverage of an Elon Musk promoted ‘Spaces’ event hosted by a gaggle of Pro-Russian freaks and other questionable personages: (1) Mario Nawfal, best known for his involvement in a long string of pump and dump crypto coin schemes (all of which collapsed to zero in value, burning all investors, after Nawfal pumped and dumped the tokens with each new “coin” or crypto project as they reached their peak in value, even burning his own direct investors), (2) Kim Dotcom, convicted fraudster and Pro-Russian shill currently hiding from US law enforcement in New Zealand, also a promotor of crypto-fraud, (3) some guy named Hinkle who calls himself a “conservative communist”, (4) some Filipino guy best known for being a grifter who even makes white supremacist statements despite being Filipino, (5) and other freaks of nature I was not immediately familiar with.
There WERE, to their credit, some people who were on the program who pushed a different view. But Kim Dotcom and the other freaks would just repeatedly laugh at them whenever they suggested this was a serious problem or threat. Someone quoted NPR, and someone spoke up to say that “crazy Ukrainian propaganda” (NPR is default Ukrainian propaganda) and other anti-Russian sources should not be cited.
Whatever the case, it was during this nonsense that I saw these creatures throw different you-know-what at the wall, and one of them, either in a tweet or spoken live, was the whole “this is a CIA psyop.” Elon Musk was promoting this view immediately after with a near pornographic meme.
The only upside to listening to this propaganda was hearing their desperation and panic as the hours passed and Putin hadn’t made an announcement.
Thank you for reporting this. I was not watching this feed, and it is dismaying that Musk would get caught up in such themes. We all can make mistakes, but the pro-Russian stuff is so far from the truth that anyone who falls for it is making a kind of confession. What the particulars of the confession are depends on the individual. Perhaps it signifies ignorance, or a corrupt way of thinking, or a pathological hatred of all things Western. I try to remember that the West is many things, good and bad; that the victory of the West is not the victory of something perfectly good or absolutely right. It just signifies a chance, or opportunity, to continue existing in freedom, to continue prospering, in the hope we will change course and recognize our errors because we can still publicly talk about it. With defeat at the hands of someone like Putin, or Xi, or their minions here in the West, none of that will be possible. In that event, there will be no chance to change for the better. It simply means the END of a civilization, the END of prosperity and what knowledge and science we have — followed by a crushing totalitarian dominance, grinding poverty for nearly everyone, and a new dark age. We may be heading there anyway. But while we have some freedom, there is only hope here, in the Western countries, however small that hope may be. Moscow is not the herald of our liberation.
Yes. It’s a meme going around the internet. https://www.instagram.com/p/Ct5B3vnvMKN/?igshid=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng==
This idea is going the rounds, without a shred of proof. Would they have paid him all the money up front, before he did anything? Or do they pay him the $6.2 billion now? Why not take the money up front and laugh, and do nothing? Why pay him a penny after he failed to deliver? Think of this as a practical matter. How would you arrange for such a “job” if you were the CIA?
Well, if the CIA did a coup in Ukraine they have to do one in Russia. It’s only fair!
All joking aside, it’s not a surprise to see stories like this. The whole war in Ukraine has been portrayed by the Russian media as a dastardly attempt by NATO to destroy Russia. It’s interesting how after all the dust settles things are mostly the same. Russian troops are still in Ukraine, pro-Russian propagandists have a new bee in their bonnet, Putin and Shoigu are still in power. The nukes in Belarus will go back to Russia (if they ever arrived) and there might be less nuclear sabre rattling from Russia in the future. And the West also will continue to be none the wiser about the combined threat of Russia and China. If Jeff is right about the smarter communist strategists prevailing we may see a shift in how Russia conducts the war in Ukraine, they may revert back to a more low-level war that attracts less fear and interest from the West.
The whole ‘mutiny’ is a confirmation that, whatever Russia defenders might say, Russia is not winning the war and at least some in leadership think the state may be heading for even worse internal trouble if Putin doesn’t back down a little. My initial thought was that this mutiny was staged to make Russia look weak and get the West to back off the sanctions while also giving Putin cover to pull back the troops, or even to negotiate a treaty to end the war (for now). But the nukes in Belarus issue makes much more sense given the sudden timing of the mutiny and the intercession of Lukashenko.
In the speech that announced the mutiny, Prigozhin was careful to not attack Putin directly. The Tsar is not bad, it’s his counsellors (Shoigu and Gerasimov) who give him bad advice and withhold information. A sign that this was never meant to be a serious attempt to remove Putin from power. I also could not figure out how the Wagner Group was going to get all the way to Moscow unopposed. What happened in Rostov might not necessarily represent the view of the whole army. Taking a city is one thing, but marching all the way to Moscow with only 25k troops and equipment supplied by the Russian army (and money that Putin gave to Prigozhin) didn’t make sense. Prigozhin did not have any truly independent source of power and wealth, so how could he succeed? It makes more sense that he was acting as a frontman for Russian army commanders and other disenchanted communist bigwigs.
My guess that this was all about the nuclear weapons being sent to Belarus could be wrong. It all depends on whether Yuri Felshtinsky’s intelligence on intended nuclear use against Poland was correct. The involvement of Belarus President Lukashenko is suggestive. The capture of Rostov without army resistance, etc., and the failure of anyone to detect the mutiny in advance, are also suggestive. Putin was the target, but they did not want to kill him. The instigators did not want to destroy the Russian state, but save it from something — from some kind of danger. If this wasn’t about stopping some wild plan (alleged by Yuri Felshtinsky) to attack Poland and Lithuania with nukes based in Belarus, then some other important issue was at stake here. Perhaps having to do with ending the war, or an internal power struggle, or Putin’s succession. One thing is certain. Putin has been weakened by this. His rule and image will never be the same.
It’s not exactly the same subject, but it’s related : Why do you think did Yeltsin bomb the Russian Parliament in 1993 ?
Democracy was never the real plan. It was to be controlled democracy. The mechanisms for controlling it had to be adjusted.
All this is very strange, at the end they are winning the war, so why to stop the war? It will be also a desaster for many Russians
Do you really think Russia is winning the war? Don’t you think this mutiny had something to do with the fact that the war has gone badly for Moscow?
Many german and austrian generals say excactly this and i talked to many ukrainians from Charkiv or here in Riga and tey all told me that it is not as it appears in our media. I am not saying that Russia is winning but the ukraiian counteroffensive is not going well (what can they do without aircraft?), Nato is running out of weapons. Zelenski itself annouced that they had some problems and not log after Prigoshin started his show (very strange beacause he also stated that the war reasons were all lies), all this is very strange..
Let me offer some comments about land warfare and air power. First, without airpower land combat involves a lot of attrition. If you are at the front, it can involve a lot of people getting killed a wounded in your vicinity, whether or not your side is winning overall. Being in combat involves death and loss for both sides. If you study battles, the winning side sometimes suffers higher casualties than the losing side, and often suffers more in the early stages of an offensive. You might wonder how this can be. It all has to do with the position of the troops, the state of supply, the organization of command and control, and the cost in lives that must be paid to outposition a defender. Once that cost is paid, huge dividends can be reaped. The decision happens when, positionally, the defending force is outflanked or some key units become surrounded and trapped. Following that, collapse and surrender can follow quickly as happened in 1940 in the Battle of France. Therefore, the side that has the initiative, that is actually attacking, is the only side in a position to win. The side that is defending is merely trying to avoid losing it because he momentarily does not have the supplies or the men to push into the enemy lines. Therefore, as Ukraine has the initiative, this is their chance to break down the Russian position. This process is, intially, one of horrific attrition for both sides. You will not know if it succeeds or is working until you lose the initiative or break through the enemy position.
Jeff, I read a theory on Twitter that this was a staged “coup”, to get Prigozhin in position to use the nukes since Lukashenko doesn’t want to, and thus give Lukashenko an out. Do you think this sounds plausible?
I mean get him in position to where he can take charge of a nuclear strike.
A former caterer and owner of a mercenary company is not ever going to be in a position to launch a nuclear strike. Again, he has no launch codes.
I wondered the same thing after seeing the youtube video of Felshtinsky theorizing that Putin would launch nuclear weapons of Ukraine from Belarus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR26qqYZpNw
Felshtinsky has some kind of source deep inside the Russian security establishment. However garbled or inaccurate his assessment, it’s important to keep his warnings in mind as we watch events unfold. We are approaching July.
What is significant about July?
July is when Feltshinsky thought there was a danger of a nuclear attack on Poland and Lithuania coming from Belarus (from the nuclear weapons Putin sent there).
Since Prigozhin has denounced the war in Ukraine as unjustified, saying there was no threat from NATO, on what basis would he want to unleash nuclear weapons on NATO now? And how would he get anywhere near such weapons? In reality, of course, nuclear weapons can only be launched with codes from Moscow. You cannot just steal a nuke and use it. Therefore, such scenarios are far-fetched.
Yessir, I understand that you can’t just launch them, and that he would have to be working with Moscow in order to do so. And that was what I was wondering if could be going on. But I see you mean that wouldn’t remove Moscow from clearly being responsible, so wouldn’t be plausible.
Your working theory makes the most sense to me, but on the surface, that theory seemed logical as well.
The Kremlin might use a very poor excuse to launch nuclear strikes, of course. Sometimes their propaganda is quite silly. Sometimes it is about fooling the Russian people while not caring what the West thinks. But then, when you are talking about nuclear retaliation, you are entiring a very difficult area. Nobody in Russian really knows what foreign leaders will do. They might even have promises from agents in Western governments. But how reliable would such agents be in such matters? Ultimately, it’s a gamble. In the communist lexicon, it is “adventurism.” Marxism-Leninism says that you do not take such gambles.
Now I see more clearly. It would be out of sync with their strategic doctrine.
Yes. Imagine a secretive machine, made up of agencies and think tanks, trying to follow given principles under a plan known only to the highest management. Imagine if the top managers become dominated by a clique led by a person like Putin, who has lost focus in attempting to correct a mistake (like invading Ukraine and getting stuck in a war). At some point the leadership group needs to extricate itself, seeing the situation as increasingly desperate. Everyone below this level sees the leadership taking larger and larger gambles to get themselves out. How, then, to save the system or save their own necks?
Thank you.
Provocation is possible in this, but it was too damaging to Putin to have been that.
Has this caused uncertainty and hesitation on the Russian/Wagner forces in Ukraine? That would be telling to me. I know that missile and artillery attacks have continued throughout this event. Also, if the troops on the ground were confused by this, I hope the Ukrainians were able to make some substantial pushes in their offensive.
I heard that the Ukrainians crossed the Dnipro yesterday around Kherson. If they have established themselves there, with a reasonable supply line, Russia’s overall position has a new problem. If they can expand the bridgehead, say goodbye to Russian control of the south.
🙏
See this post from someone named Tindar. He has a similar viewpoint as Jeff, but seems much closer to the action. https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1672913289393717252
Yes, Tindar is accurately describing the nihilism of the Russian state, of all totalitarian states. Even if they pretend to have a philosophy, it is just cynical garbage. People are then left in a moral and spiritual vacuum. The result is what you see in Russia, in China, etc. The West has been slowly-walking in this same direction, unfortunately.
This is a tweet from NEXTA. They claim to be the largest media outlet for Eastern Europe.
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1672647424186220545
There are still Russians who dream of freedom. Perhaps this incident will cause more dreams, inspiring future actions.
Too funny! From someone posting with the name Darth Putin: “I can’t decide which is more humiliating, that I ran to Saint Petersburg or that I had to be rescued by Lukashenka.”
When I first heard of this “revolt”, my fraud detectors went on high alert. One of Putin’s planes “went off radar”—just turned off its transponder then returned to Moscow? There was no real defense against this revolt? All charges dropped against the leader of the revolt? It just doesn’t add up.
Months ago I read a snippet that said that Moscow had training facilities able to train a million men every three months. From that time to the end of July would train three million men. That would be an additional three million to add to the military already mustered.
Sun Tzu: when strong appear to be weak. Is this theater to make Russia appear to be weak just before making a massive attack against NATO? Did Moscow allow Ukraine to have recent victories again to appear weak, after being surprised by the defeat of their Blitzkrieg in the early part of the war?
Has Moscow switched Russia’s economy to a wartime economy? Wouldn’t they need to do that in order to raise millions more for their military? I personally have heard no solid information about what’s happening inside of Russia for months, what’s going on?
I have heard that China is switching over to a wartime economy, putting the military in charge of everything.
Questions abound, and answers are few.
Russia has been unable to fully mobilize, even if the government has intended to do so. The country’s economic would probably collapse. It seems there are too many weaknesses, and there would be political risks. China is more tightly controlled, but even there, we saw a kind of spontaneously public outcry against the lockdowns. Even the Chinese government backed down. Society itself is a power with a law unto itself. Dictators must be more creative if they are to accomplish what personalities like Stalin and Hitler or Mao accomplished.
@JRNyquist: And you have basically said that the current dictators in Russia and in China are not as “creative” or as original Stalin or Mao were, right?
They do not seem to be as smart.
Sorry, that should read, “as original as Stalin or Mao were, right?”
I think I meant that are not as intelligent and creative.
Yes, I think I had understood what you had meant. What I had meant by “not as original” was “not as unique nor as clever in their evil plans, and in their evil thinking, as Stalin and Mao were”.
Yes, exactly.
What would constitute full mobilization for Russia? With their training facilities able to train only a million men every few months, wouldn’t that limit their mobilization to only a partial mobilization by the end of July? Wouldn’t that still give them a three million man army? Many small businesses have had to close down because of a lack of spare parts for their imported machines, thanks to Western sanctions, how many of those newly unemployed workers can be drafted without shutting down the remaining economy? How much solid information are we getting out of Russia?
As for the Wagner Group, it sounds like they are building barracks for them in Belarus, a building project started before this “revolt”. What does that mean? Was this “revolt” staged to get the Wagner Group in place for the next stage of the battle?
As for attacking NATO, will the Russians ever get another chance like now? Their population is shrinking. After years of NATO neglecting their militaries, making NATO especially weak at this moment, the NATO countries are talking of reopening their defense industries this fall. By spring, how much stronger will they be?
I still expect World War III to come this year. I would rather that it not come at all, but I’m not in charge of that question.
Russia haven’t used its mobilized troops so far. Most of the fighting was done by Wagner. They want NATO keep supporting Ukraine failing offensive. They want NATO believe Russia is to collapse, investing resources into war they can’t win.
This is not true. The Wagner troops are a small portion of the troops fighting in Ukraine. The Russian Army is fighting right now.
It’s not the same subject, but I have a question for you : Do you have any information regarding what happened in 1989 on Tiananmen Square ? Why were protests organized and why were they tolerated before being crushed ? Never found a convincing explanation.. Anyways thank you for all your work
Provocation is a standard thing with police states. There were probably agent provocateurs at Tiananmen Square, and probably some elements of “controlled opposition.” Yet how such controlled opposition works out in the long run is an interesting study. The protest was, at the time, about democracy and more freedom for China. The Communist Party felt threatened and cracked down. It is a simple story. The CCP decided against the path that Gorbachev took, for reasons peculair to themselves. Gorbachev’s reforms, and the false opposition in the various East Bloc country, did not turn out entirely as planned. The results were mixed.
Speaking about controlled opposition, I was really sad to understand that Sakharov was a KGB-controlled opposition after reading Golitsyn. I don’t know if you read Sakharov’s essay in 1968 where he spoke about “convergence”. When you give interviews or write article,I think you should really speak about him and his essay. Reading it convinced me that Golitsyn was right. The essay : https://www.sakharov.space/lib/thoughts-on-peace-progress-and-intellectual-freedom
Yes, and there are other sources that speak to Sakharov’s strange history with the authorities. I have not focussed on it, because most people in the West would not understand and are often offended at the suggestion that Sakharaov worked with the KGB and other authorities. There are so many topics to delve into, and some are more difficult to treat.
Maybe the first comment was right. It’s another fake split. Crypto-communist politicians and newsmedia in Germany will give political asylum there to the Wagner group, who will become like Xenophon’s 10,000. When nukes are launched, suddenly it will be Wagner’s job to seize US/NATO assets in Germany that the Russians can’t or don’t want to nuke.
Off-topic, but relevant is a link to a story about the dam that the Russians destroyed with pictures. Almost ancient history. https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-war-kakhovka-dam-collapse-investigation-f5b76fe1ddbf98aa5ff7e4dfd3199c38
In Europe, many of our leader have supported the concept of “multipolarity” whithout understanding that it means joint sino-russian world domination. Multipolarity is the final objective of the long range communist strategy that has been adopted in 1960
That is true.
When XI Jinping talks about change that hasn’t happened in 100 years, do you think is talking about the October Revolution in 1917 ? (105 years from now). Since 100 years there has been WW2, the Cold War, very important events so this statement mays seem surprising. I think XI Jinping wants to say that multipolarity is the second October Revolution that Golitsyn talked about https://twitter.com/lporiginalg/status/1639405120088838144?s=20
Yes, I agree.
NEXTA just published that Russian leadership has approved a plan to blow up the nuclear power plant at . Four of six power units have been mined already. https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1672998423300022273
It’s nuclear blackmail, plain and simple. Russia is saying, in essence, if you defeat us on the front lines, we explode the biggest nuclear dirty bomb in Europe and irradiate south central Ukraine. A nuclear power plant can have more radioactive poison in it than a full-blown nuclear war. Chernobyl could have been much worse than it was. What kind of government, and what kind of military, weaponizes a nuclear power plant to hold an entire nation hostage.
“US Intelligence Knew Of Wagner Plot Days In Advance, Briefed Congress”
Maybe that is where some of the other “conspiracy theories” came from?
See how strange this is. The U.S. knew before Putin knew. Or was Putin the one being misled? Or was it a provocation to find out any treacherous generals. But then, such an experiment in a war would be very dangerous. And what about those loyal helicopter pilots to who were shot down while attempting to intercept the column headed to Moscow? And what about pardoning everyone? People were killed. How do you do that? It’s not good optics for Moscow. Could Putin have actually embarrassed himself with that broadcast saying it was “treason.” Then failing to punish? It’s all very strange.
I understand what you say about Sakharov. As Golitsyn explains, he knew a lot of nuclear secrets and would not have been allowed to talk to foreigners if he was really Public Enemy Number 1 as Andropov designated him. Soviet Public enemy Number One Sakharov attacks US “racism” and “militarism” in his essay which is ridiculous. KGB may have had Kompromat on him so that he collaborates. Sakharov was “prepared” to be “used” to promote convergence when liberalization comes. Anyway, the essay where he talks about multiparty system was written in 1968, KGB prepared perestroika since 1968. Even if it can seem hard to explain, when people understand that everything else becomes obvious.
They were preparing even before 1968.
There was also the Prague Spring in 1968 with “socialism with human face”. It was crushed by the Soviet Union and had been compared to Hungary in 1956. But it was not the same as in Hungary, Dubcek unlike Nagy was not executed. The Prague Spring and its crushing was a preparation for the liberalization of the entire communist bloc.
Yes. Golitsyn was very persuasive in arguing this. Then we saw Dubcek return to politics in 1989-90, as Golitsyn predicted.
Yes. The hard part is explaining. And then some people misapply the lessons learned.
Mr. Nyquist, I listened the first part of your discussion in NBR with these Jewish Conspiracy -guys, and something occurred to me.
I think socialist oppose Jews because of what the Jews represent, namely the Law of Moses. (Here in Finland we use the term Ten Commandments)
Socialists want to socialize or nationalize (steal) other peoples property. Lenin did this, and Hitler and his National Socialists did this as well. And they also murdered many people while stealing their property. The Law of Moses of against stealing and killing. And not only that: the Law also condemns desiring other peoples property, which makes it very hard for socialists to advocate for redistribution of property, based on a number of excuses.
In our Judeo-Christian culture the Law of Moses has a huge influence on peoples values and the culture. So I think socialist wanted to discredit also these ideas contained in it, and that is why they chose to attack Jews, and that is why Marx attacks them in his Jewish Question writings and Hitler attacks them in his book. The Law came from God. But it was given to the Jews, so as a people they still kind of represent it here on this Earth.
Communist want to destroy the traditional culture and these ideas that are part of the culture. That is why they had a Cultural Revolution in China to destroy the traditional Chinese culture. They could not do it in the same way in United States back then, but they influenced the Counter Culture Movement. At least According to the Wikipedia Russian defector Stanislav Lunev said that Soviet Union gave more money to those anti war protesters than it gave to Vietcong fighters during the Vietnam War.
For younger generations those things like sex, drugs and rock and roll might be something not so radical, but I think they were a necessary step back then, when it comes to those crazy things that are promoted today. Just wanted to share this.
Interesting. Can you post the link?
Not sure whether this is what you were asking for, but here is an interview with Stanislav Lunev of many years ago; forgot who the host was. The video is actually on Jeff’s YouTube channel:
This interview was with the late Barry Farber, who I knew at the time. It was nice to hear Stan’s voice again.
Sorry, this was only part 1/2. Here is part 2/2:
Unfortunately, even part 2 wasn’t the end of it. But here is a transcript of another interview with Colonel Lunev of 1999. You can easily register at scribd by using your Facebook or Google account:
https://de.scribd.com/document/17553968/Interview-with-Colonel-Stanislav-Lunev-1999#
Much of this is also in Lunev’s book, “Through the Eyes of the Enemy.”
Yes, Col. Lunev wrote about cultural subversion of American culture, and he told me his own impressions. He knew of KGB operations to bribe Hollywood producers to put more sex and violence in our entertainment. They did this through intermediaries. The idea of a Jewish conspiracy is an obsession of people who have not understood the last 100 plus years of history. There are philosophical rather than racial issues here. It is in our moral philosophy, not in our genes, that we are failing.
I wonder if Prigozhin stopped advancing on Moscow, because he got word of his pending doom. Since he may have cooperated, Russia might have let him vacation in Minsk.
Jeff,
What do you think of these comments from Rebekah Koffler?
“An ex-CIA analyst has claimed Vladimir Putin ‘orchestrated’ the coup with Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhi in a ‘classic false flag’ to try to make the West believe his army had weakened.
“Rebekah Koffler told Fox News’ Eric Shawn on Saturday the coup was staged as a way for the Russian leader to boost his political power and he will eventually ‘gain momentum, mobilize additional personnel, and re-energize his offensive on Ukraine.’”
https://michaeltsnyder.substack.com/p/what-in-the-world-is-happening-in
Koffler’s idea is interesting. I would ask her some questions about making a government appear weak, or on the point of collapse, as a way of strengthening and “gaining momentum” when you are in a war. If you overdo it, your army might break or desertions might increase. You could end up collapsing yourself for real. What if several generals had used the event to move against Putin, using that moment as an opportunity? It’s a very dangerous kind of game to play. It is one thing to pretend to do something on a small scale against the government, and draw witless people into participating so you can arrest them all; but marching on Moscow with 25,000 troops? Moscow has also learned, by the mistakes of 1989-91, that a fake liberalization can lead to genuine liberalization in several countries where this was not the plan. So it is a manuever that requires great preparation and finesse. It involves grave risks. So you would only doing it during peacetime, not during a war. And you would not do it when your military had lost battles or suffered from low morale. Such a moral contagion, in 1917, turned the tsar’s army against the monarchy in a few days, and nothing could be done to stop the process. How does this rebellion by Prigozhin increase confidence in Putin, or increase the moral of the troops, or give the Kremlin an excuse to mobilize? It shows, rather, a weakening of authority rather than its strengthening. There is something contemptible about a leader who cries treason and mutiny in the morning, and declares forgiveness in the afternoon. To model insubordination, and to pardon capital crimes as if nothing important had happened, not only looks weak. It is weak. Perhaps someone has outwitted themselves if this was the intention, if this was the plan. I would call it a really stupid plan. Naturally, if the Kremlin wanted to get mutinous generals to join in a rebellion to expose themselves, and used this method, they could end up in total chaos. What you do is involve generals in a secret conspiracy and arrest them before the public hears of it. All this business taking place on live TV, on social media, is asking for the collapse of your state. What if an entire army joined the rebellion and left the front lines. Ukraine would be handed a decisvie victory out of it. Who would risk that? Are generals so reliable that you can show them that such opportunities exist? If two army commands had stood up and agreed with Prigozhin when Prigozhin was only fooling, a civil war would have been triggered. This is nothing to play around with, and is not the usual kind of deception game. Can you arrest an army? Can you put back the front when it has collapsed from disobedience? Whatever this thing was, and whatever Lukashenko was doing in Turkey negotiating over it, somebody was putting a check on Putin. Someone was making demands at the point of a gun. And it was somebody other than that clown, Prigozhin. If Prigozhin went and did this by himself, why was the President of a former Soviet Republic leaving for Turkey BEFORE anyone knew he was going for Moscow? Obviously, there was an intrigue and it was against Putin.
This was an excellent analysis of what the rebellion was and what it wasn’t. No doubt whoever was behind it was well aware of the danger of staging a mutiny when Russia is bogged down in a disastrous war, which is why the whole thing was called off after 24 hours. And yet despite it being over as soon as it began, Putin managed to look weak and not in control. He called high treason and then pardoned the ringleader a few hours later. The whole affair must be a powerful blow to the ego of someone who sees himself as the next Stalin or Peter the Great. Maybe taking Putin’s ego down a peg was one of the intended outcomes.
Another funny thought. Last year Russian propaganda was saying that Zelensky was not in control of the country and was under the thumb of the Azov battalion. Their evidence was a pre-war video where a Donbas soldier talked back to Zelensky. Based on what happened this weekend Prigozhin and Lukashenko really call the shots in Russia now.
A criminal and the president of a weak country turn out to call the shots. Forces behind them must be powerful indeed. Is it the old Party exerting control or the Army? Russia has decayed considerably under this crew. What kind of power combination now emerges?