“Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe.”
Niccolo Machiavelli - The Prince
“Windows are dangerous. Also, radioactive umbrellas” - zeppo, a Lemmy Member
A merc is loyal, until the last payment clears.
The Wagnerites also seized the buildings of the head office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB department, the administration of #Rostov and one of the police departments, according to local channels. Nobody in the city understands what’s going on.
How lovely
Like watching Cobra attack the Decepticons.
Can you explain the significance of these buildings?
Are they the head offices of those departments, or the offices that are in that city?
How powerful are these departments?
Rostov is the admin centre of Rostov Oblast (state capital city). I would assume the main offices are in Moscow and these are the regional headquarters.
So while it is big if they have taken them it is not as big as if they had done so in Moscow.
The city is apparently the base for the Russian southern military district command which is key to the war efforts in Ukraine - according to the Institute for the Study of War via the Guardian
Nobody knew what was going on in 1968 czechoslovakia as well, when the russians came with the tanks. I don’t really wish them any harm, but I’m glad they can experience the same confusion now. May this experience serve as a warning.
Actually Russians didn’t come here. Soviets did, but not from Russia.
I doubt the people in Rostov are the ones who were in Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Holly shit this has been picked up by the BBC.
Remember, it doesn’t matter if they succeed or not. The fact it has happened will terrify Putin.
I feel like this might be on behalf of Putin.
Wagner has been pretty careful to call out everyone but Putin.
Feels like setting the stage for a claim that the war was orchestrated by rogue elements in the Russian military, giving an out to tuck tail and run and move toward easing sanctions.
Judging from the address to the nation, this doesn’t seem the case now.
The situation is still very confused.
This is what I’m worried about. I hope they all tear themselves to pieces, but if Putin gets out scot free, I’ll be disappointed
Nah, this feels more like an “evil counsellors” situation - you don’t want to take on the king directly, so you instead give him an out by saying that he’s OK but he’s been given bad advice. Which also means if you do take over you can keep him around as a figurehead who now listens to better advisers like yourself.
True, it’ll be interesting to see what the hell happened once the dust settles.
I feel like this might be on behalf of Putin.
Wagner has been pretty careful to call out everyone but Putin.
Feels like setting the stage for a claim that the war was orchestrated by rogue elements in the Russian military, giving an out to tuck tail and run and move toward easing sanctions.
It won’t terrify Putin. It all goes according to the plan. Different forces are fighting between themselves to show who’s more loyal to Putin, those who are not loyal enough are either falling out of windows or being killed on the battlefield. And those who are loyal are getting ludicrously rich. The amount of billionaires in Russia has increased fivefold during the first year of the war.
Army generals got too corrupt and too complacent since their success in Crimea in 2014, this war is a tool to put them into place and Prigozhin talks a lot so that Putin can put generals’ noses into their shit to teach them a lesson or two while the public fully supports this. Prigozhin gets his piece of the pie in the process.
According to Forbes, the number of billionaires in Russia has increased from 99 in 2022 to 105 in 2023.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/04/20/billionaires-a80889
Yes, I misread, shame on me. Still, the number has increased noticeably. All while multiple oligarchs jumped out of the window.
Yea, kinda sus
Yes, this is way too open. To me this looks like turkey 2016 “coup”
25,000 troops marching on Moscow. How many does the Kremlin have not already in Ukraine?
How many do they have not in Ukraine… Who are also willing to kill fellow Russians? If the average Russian military sentiment is, “Eh, let them through” this could be huge.
Plus a lot of the “Royal Guard” may be well-connected rich kids who are even less inclined to fight.
Way too soon to know for sure, but. 🍿
Yep, it depends if Russian military is loyal to Putin or not.
This is not a “war”, it is a “special military operation”.
This is not a “coup”, it is a “march for justice”.
Everyone tries to control the narrative, this is completely normal. Anti-terrorist operation, peacekeeping mission, special military operation, march for X. I don’t remember someone who just said “yep, we are invading X”.
In this case both Prigozhin and Putin (or the establishment) are trying to control the narrative to gather support from “patriots”. Saying you are making a coup sounds antigonizing, while saying you are marching for justice, because it’s the government who has betrayed the people does not.
I would like to submit “Putin panics and nukes his own people to stop the advance” for my Bingo card.
the latest resolution from NATO didnt say Russia cant nuke itself…
Any nuke west of the Urals is likely to provoke radiation that reaches NATO, and nukes east of the Urals would be, uh, insignificant most likely.
Launching a nuke would have to be the dumbest thing Putin could do. A huge chunk of NATO must already be salivating at the internal chaos.
I bet Polish social media is on fire right now.
More like shitting themselves.
Think of all the dirty bombs that could end up on the black market in the event of a Russian collapse.
Generally, I don’t like to gloat, but I did call that one ~ June 5th over on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/france/comments/140qkwu/destructions_incursions_évacuations_dans_la/jmyndp3/?context=3; in French because it was on r/France).
It actually is much worse than it seems - I did a write up over on Mastodon to explain why and how (https://mastodon.social/@andrei_chiffa/110599724720727202). The TLDR is that cities taken by Wagner mercs will be hard to retake without leveling, all internal protection troops are either tied or were lost in Ukraine, and mercs themselves have nothing to loose and all the revenge to take.
Tu avais raison.
It’s very strange how things are going right now. The fact that they are quite effortlessly moving hundreds of kilometers through Russian territory is quite telling.
Breaking
„Ukraine runs out of popcorn“https://twitter.com/war__online/status/1672535209038827521?s=20
We need to start sending popcorn bags to Ukraine
Send Putin thoughts and prayers and send Ukraine guns and bombs.
I welcome russian infighting. Hope it makes it easier for Ukraine to retake Crimea.
All the Nazi’s who were “expelled” out of Azov/various militias could join up with Wagner and then they all take Ukraine for themselves.
Can someone please explain what’s going on ? I am out of the loop. I know Wagner was fighting for Russia but what happened now?
Everyone in Wagner was about to be conscripted into the regular Russian Army as the latest in an ongoing power struggle between Wagner’s boss and the Russian MoD. So to avoid losing his private army, the boss has stepped up the power struggle to an attempted coup, basically.
The coup will be crushed, but it will weaken the Russian military even more and they lose their (now former) elite forces
I know next to nothing about whats going on but crushed appears harsh. They’re marching through to Moscow unfettered.
Who’s going to crush them? The Russian military? They are going to join them.
Well, according to newest updates apparently not.
My money isn’t on the Russian Army being able to “crush” anything tougher than a chicken egg at this point.
woah, so a win-win for us
Having Russia and its nukes controlled by a mercenary doesn’t seem like much of a win, tbh. Not to say Putin’s better, but I see more of a lose-lose, myself.
The head of Wagner was unhappy with Russian military leaders and thought he’d take matters into his own hands as Putin was going to support him. Putin did not. Now there are 10,000 men heading to Moscow.
Thanks
People are tired of this war. Putin wanted to secure food reserves and have an open access sea port for his military; however he wasn’t honest as to his reasons why; understandably so. Given this the Russian public doesn’t see the actual geopolitical value of the conflict. This was inevitable. If Russia couldn’t play nice with the rest of the world as their money mostly comes from oil and gas; which we are moving away from. Let them pay for their crimes.
Wagner switching sides was not on my bingo card
They didn’t switch sides. They created a third side. A Mêlée à Trois.
Mercs are always on their own side first and foremost.
Purchased loyalty always has an expiry date, usually about 6 hours after the last payment clears.
They are on the side that pays them or that they see the most profit from.
Feel like no one has had any matching bingo cards in the past few years.
To be honest I thought Wagner and also the Chechen commanded forces would cause chaos in Russia after the war - Putin unleashed the genies from their bottles in his desperation. Both see themselves as successors to Putin should he fall, and civil war was on the cards but more likely a conflict between Wagner and the Chechen forces of some form. I agree - moving DURING the war with Ukraine - that is totally unexpected!
But they’ve not switched sides tbf - this seems to be the first steps in a civil war. And it shows just how broken Russia is. The question is, will Wagner step back from the precipice after exacting some sort of price out of the Russian state? Or is this a battle for survival and so unstoppable.
The really really worrying this is when things get unpredictable like this, there is no telling how things could escalate further. Look at WW1 - the death of Franz Ferdinand helped unleash chaos in a way no one could have forseen.
If Kiev has been saving something up for a special occasion, this occasion is starting to look pretty special.
Almost feels a little too special.
I think this is a good time to continue what they’ve been doing, interfering with Russian logistics and pressing forward on the front lines.
They could make an attack on Russian territory (e.g. drone strikes against airbases, oilfields, bridges, or other suitable targets), but right now might be the right time to hold off on anything that might distract Russia and Wagner from fighting with each other. Nothing unifies squabbling factions quite like a serious external threat.
I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if Ukraine ops to antagonize Russia as much as they can, while leaving Wagner mostly alone. That would also be a sensible strategy.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my history classes it’s that power vacuums (or even perceived power vacuums) and the ensuing instability always end well for everyone involved…
/s
Things are escalating quickly in Russia.
Yes and no, the war started 9 years ago
Sure, but now things are escalating. Quickly.
Well, seems like things have deescalated quickly! ;-)
It’s just a special military coup operation, nothing more to see.
