Putin Recognizes Donbass Republics, Sends Russian Military to 'Denazify' Ukraine

for me this covers
Joe said:
Can you write them out here, for the benefit of others who don't have 2 hrs to watch the whole thing?
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ok- so here a few of the factors-

1 - prigozin and wagner forces had been in an acutely ferocious front around bachkmut and other areas- there were alot of shortcomings in terms of logistical support from standard russian forces under command of top military officials (many in moscow and nowhere on the front lines) hence disputes between top brass and Prigozin (Prigozhin released a video saying his forces would blockade Rostov-on-Don unless Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, come to meet him.) They didnt - so clearly a lack of support and efficient back up-

2 the extreme effects on the wagner forces in terms of the intense fighting and losses of their comrades - ive seen alot of film footage from the front with prigozin reporting with dead corpes strewn everywhere - experiencing this kind of thing for weeks on end could and in my opinion give rise to resentment and hostility to Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov et al- these people ,in wagners eyes seem to be out of touch or not doing enough to support them. So for that reason maybe the fact they were not being listened to gave rise to a rebellion chiefly aimed at the top military brass in moscow( note prigosin did not direct this at Putin).

3. extreme trauma/desensitisation from frontline combat leading to radicilisation.
Radicalization processes among active service members are likely to involve risk factors related to military
service, including membership in extremist cliques with fellow service members. Veterans, on the other
hand, often face age-related risk factors for radicalization, such as failed relationships, unemployment, and
previous encounters with the criminal justice system, as well as psychological vulnerabilities tied to their
military service, including very high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder. its clear that Wagner has been unto its own, as its a private security force and the conflicts between the military establishment have been all to obvious.

4 . The Russian Army is massive and on a larger scale than anything in the west - Clearly the logistics involved in supply and support are massive - and many shortcomings have arisen - some through oversight and others through endemic corruption of certain factions. These issue would have given rise to alot of grieviences to those on the front.
5. looking at prigozins iife history is valuable in contest to this rebellion as well as the father figure effect on his wagner troops(he is on the front with them ,so he understands their concerns.

hey Joe :) I understand -it is quite a long vid! - i too dont always have the time to watch loads of videos etc but in this case I was drawn to watch it in full as i fund it both engaging and covered some of the points i outlined above .
 
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Emerald Rob said:
for me this covers

ok- so here a few of the factors-

1 - prigozin and wagner forces had been in an acutely ferocious front around bachkmut and other areas- there were alot of shortcomings in terms of logistical support from standard russian forces under command of top military officials (many in moscow and nowhere on the front lines) hence disputes between top brass and Prigozin (Prigozhin released a video saying his forces would blockade Rostov-on-Don unless Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, come to meet him.) They didnt - so clearly a lack of support and efficient back up-
Click to expand...

That's the problem: this, the fundamental assumption everyone bases their analysis on, is not clear at all. It ALL comes from Prigozhin, who is now a confirmed traitor. No doubt there were, and still are, logistical problems, but it has now become global mantra (in Western media, in Russian media, in Western alt-media, in Russian alt-media, etc) that Wagner were intentionally deprived of resources 'because of top brass', i.e. Shoigu, Gerasimov, and, by implication, Putin.
Emerald Rob said:
2 the extreme effects on the wagner forces in terms of the intense fighting and losses of their comrades - ive seen alot of film footage from the front with prigozin reporting with dead corpes strewn everywhere - experiencing this kind of thing for weeks on end could and in my opinion give rise to resentment and hostility to Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov et al- these people ,in wagners eyes seem to be out of touch or not doing enough to support them. So for that reason maybe the fact they were not being listened to gave rise to a rebellion chiefly aimed at the top military brass in moscow( note prigosin did not direct this at Putin).
Click to expand...
See above.

Emerald Rob said:
3. extreme trauma/desensitisation from frontline combat leading to radicilisation.
Radicalization processes among active service members are likely to involve risk factors related to military
service, including membership in extremist cliques with fellow service members. Veterans, on the other
hand, often face age-related risk factors for radicalization, such as failed relationships, unemployment, and
previous encounters with the criminal justice system, as well as psychological vulnerabilities tied to their
military service, including very high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder. its clear that Wagner has been unto its own, as its a private security force and the conflicts between the military establishment have been all to obvious.
Click to expand...
Yes, and they were radicalized by Prigozhin, who, despite himself being a 1990s gangster oligarch, has manipulated swathes of Russia's working class that 'the current oligarchy hates you'.

Prigozhin is a lying snake, and what distinguishes him from other oligarchs Putin has already dealt with is that he has played a really good game of pretending to be a 'man of the people'. Prigozhin is way more slippery than Boris Berezovsky, for example, who Putin could see through right away.
 
Prigozhin's business empire apparently includes a movie-making company that has made a number of movies in support of the Russian military. I've heard anecdotal evidence that he has other 'media interests'. Can anyone find out what those are? I'm interested to know because - although his political adventures are over - he has clearly excelled at media/information operations.

There's a whole other thread that needs to be explored here: it's Prigozhin's IRA - Internet Research Agency. Recall that that nothing-burger is central to the US govt's case that 'Russia meddled in the 2016 election', when something like 44 tweets made by Prigozhin's clickbait farm were ludicrously held up as 'proof' that Trump was a Russian agent and that his presidency was therefore illegitimate.

Well, in February this year, right when Prigozhin began his divisive rants about Shoigu/Gerasimov, he didn't just admit to ownership of the IRA, he boasted that he "invented it," and claimed that "it was founded to protect the Russian information space from boorish aggressive propaganda of anti-Russian narrative from the West."

This obviously supports the US govt's narrative about the IRA, when it reality, as explained here, for example, by Aaron Maté, it was a crappy little social media marketing operation engaging in clickbait capitalism.
 
In case this has yet to be mentioned here, Prigozhin stated, in one of his pre-'coup' Telegram rants, that Russia invaded Ukraine last year 'based on a lie', something Western media naturally picked up on:

Newsweek, 23 June 2023

Prigozhin Says Putin's Reason for Invading Ukraine Was a Lie​

"There was nothing extraordinary happening on the eve of February 24 [2022]," Prigozhin said.

"The Ministry of Defense is trying to deceive the public and the president and spin the story that there were insane levels of aggression from the Ukrainian side and that they were going to attack us together with the whole NATO block," the Russian businessman said. "The special operation was started for a completely different reason."
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...and that 'different reason', which Prigozhin has been telling his large Russian audience for months now, is because the 'regime' just wanted to 'enrich itself'.
 
This next item is from about 6 weeks ago. It either got lost in the flurry of reports about the so-called 'Discord Server Leaks', or it was dismissed as 'not credible' because everyone assumed - back then - that Prigozhin was a patriot:

Wagner chief offered to give Russian troop locations to Ukraine, leak says​

THE DISCORD LEAKS | Yevgeniy Prigozhin said he would tell Ukraine’s military where to attack Russian troops if they pulled their own forces back from the beleaguered city of Bakhmut, where Wagner mercenaries were taking heavy losses​

In late January, with his mercenary forces dying by the thousands in a fight for the ruined city of Bakhmut, Wagner Group owner Yevgeniy Prigozhin made Ukraine an extraordinary offer.

Prigozhin said that if Ukraine’s commanders withdrew their soldiers from the area around Bakhmut, he would give Kyiv information on Russian troop positions, which Ukraine could use to attack them. Prigozhin conveyed the proposal to his contacts in Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, with whom he has maintained secret communications during the course of the war, according to previously unreported U.S. intelligence documents leaked on the group-chat platform Discord.
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With 'compatriots' like that, who needs enemies?
 
Niall said:
That's the problem: this, the fundamental assumption everyone bases their analysis on, is not clear at all. It ALL comes from Prigozhin, who is now a confirmed traitor. No doubt there were, and still are, logistical problems, but it has now become global mantra (in Western media, in Russian media, in Western alt-media, in Russian alt-media, etc) that Wagner were intentionally deprived of resources 'because of top brass', i.e. Shoigu, Gerasimov, and, by implication, Putin.
Click to expand...
Another take on this - Inessa S posted this the other day:
t.me

Inessa S ️️

Two weeks ago, Putin met with war correspondents and Telegram bloggers - including Pegov of War Gonzo [speaking]. A part of that meeting was closed to the media. In this older interview, Pegov tells Wagner Chief Prigozhin that the Ministry of Defense is not issuing him more ammo in the event...
t.me t.me

Two weeks ago, Putin met with war correspondents and Telegram bloggers - including Pegov of War Gonzo [speaking]. A part of that meeting was closed to the media.

In this older interview, Pegov tells Wagner Chief Prigozhin that the Ministry of Defense is not issuing him more ammo in the event of Wagner going rogue.

So, the chicken or the egg - which side created the scenario?
Click to expand...
 
Niall said:
That's the problem: this, the fundamental assumption everyone bases their analysis on, is not clear at all. It ALL comes from Prigozhin, who is now a confirmed traitor. No doubt there were, and still are, logistical problems, but it has now become global mantra (in Western media, in Russian media, in Western alt-media, in Russian alt-media, etc) that Wagner were intentionally deprived of resources 'because of top brass', i.e. Shoigu, Gerasimov, and, by implication, Putin.

See above.


Yes, and they were radicalized by Prigozhin, who, despite himself being a 1990s gangster oligarch, has manipulated swathes of Russia's working class that 'the current oligarchy hates you'.

Prigozhin is a lying snake, and what distinguishes him from other oligarchs Putin has already dealt with is that he has played a really good game of pretending to be a 'man of the people'. Prigozhin is way more slippery than Boris Berezovsky, for example, who Putin could see through right away.
Click to expand...
Thanks Niall all good points ;) father figure radicalising his followers - he is playing out his resentments and personal grivences and transferring them onto the system - very dodgey ground I believe !

more will be revealed and time will indeed tell...
 
Pat said:
I am surprised @ how much information differentiate for each one of us. Not going very deeply into all the information, I heard that Putin liked Prigohzin... I also remarked that both time when he made remarks, the reason was about his team being endangered first by the lack of ammunition and then helicopter firing at his team. His rant was about getting rid of two persons who seem to have resign after the "coup".
He is a successful business man but he is also with his men on the field. He has done excellent work that nobody else could have done IMO. And finally we are not in the know about what's happening. I am not going to speculate... I will just wait and see.
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About the two bolded parts of yours above, one could see it that way (and I do): Keep your enemies close to you, and use their assets as long as they don't harm your own.
 
Niall said:
Yes, and they were radicalized by Prigozhin, who, despite himself being a 1990s gangster oligarch, has manipulated swathes of Russia's working class that 'the current oligarchy hates you'.
Click to expand...

Yes - here's a take:

There is a far-right element in Russian society and politics that sees Putin's inner circle (Lavrov, Peskov etc.) as liberal traitors who are globalist/internationalist etc. Putin and his people see this element as potentially dangerous and as a destabilizing factor to Russia's unity, a unity that is so needed at this time.

Add to this that fighting forces who gain lots of experience and achieve victories inevitably develop a sort of corps spirit, which can easily get out of hand especially if pathological individuals are not rooted out early on (Ponerology talks about this, as does some Western military person if I remember correctly - you just need a few bad apples in military units to turn everything upside down). This might have partly happened with Wagner, and perhaps even with some of the military figures from the Donetsk/Lugansk militias.

All of that, taken together, may have led to a situation where discontent is brewing among certain demographics thanks to some of these demagogues, especially younger men politically more right-wing than Putin who don't consume Russia's state media but get their info from "heroes" on the internet. It might not have become truly dangerous for Putin, but at least concerning, and potentially even threatening down the road, if those forces come together one day in a serious coup attempt.

Enter Prigozhin, a walking sh*tshow waiting to go off. They had to know that he's up to something, and so they just watched closely and allowed him to escalate. Who knows, maybe they had even subtly encouraged him, the spook game and all that. He probably thought he had a chance to achieve something, as did some of his allies and some of the "patriots" who would love to see Shoigun and gang go down. So he did his thing.

Of course, he couldn't achieve anything but was busted. Letting this happen achieved two things:

1) Unmasking the conspirators and rogue elements in Wagner and likely other places, perhaps even some Western-/Ukraine-aligned 5th column types and organizations who joined the fray once the sh*tshow got rolling (remember that so many in the West actually believed he could regime-change Putin! And even within Russia there are people who believed this.)

2) Discrediting the radical "patriot" elements within Russia in the eyes of the majority population, including those who may have been on the fence or sympathizing somewhat with their positions.

Especially the second would explain why Putin made such a big deal of it, with his speech and all that. They could have dealt with it more quietly, sending the message that they don't even take it seriously, which would have looked better on the world stage. But they needed the media storm to discredit them and, by proxy, everybody who shares some of their ideas - ideas, again, that might threaten national unity.

Putin's speech also fits this perfectly - he basically said: "Look, these guys are telling you they are the real patriots, that our military is incompetent, that my closest circle are sell-outs and liberal traitors. But look now, it's actually *them* who are the traitors, the back-stabbers, who threaten our unity as a country and people. Oh, and they are also incompetent as hell." And he even mentioned 1917, where such unpatriotic treachery led to the Bolshevik revolution - and of course the Bolsheviks are the arch-enemies of the right-wingers. The message is basically: "it's not me (Putin) and my friends who usher in Western globalist leftism; rather it's that if those traitors have their way, we will have another Bolshevik revolution." All of that is precisely what he would say if he wanted to discredit those currents within Russia and its institutions.

Well, that's one take. There are others, and let's see how all of this unfolds.
 
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ziutek said:
I think Wagner may have been moved to Belarus to secure saber waving by Polish authorities.
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There is no evidence that any Wagner mercenaries have been sent into Belarus. Nor has Putin or anyone else in the Russian government suggested that such might happen. 'Social media influencers' and 'analysts' out there are inventing things willy-nilly.
 
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