Sharp, fast. A synthesis.Quote:
Posted by Operator
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Sharp, fast. A synthesis.Quote:
Posted by Operator
Yes Bill. I was a little fast in applauding Bustamante’s “synthesis” -- but: the picture he (and others) paints may be the real strategic purpose, and how certain are we that the Wagner group fighters will not end up 100 km North of Kiev after all, under any denomination (which is not essential, given that it is Byelorussian, not Russian soil they would be on)? Second: his mistake when citing Lukashenko’s name (I do not know where Lukashenka is coming from) is to be expected from any Anglosaxonian – if you allow me this little sting – who are not in the habit of trying to pronounce, or transcribe, any non-Aglosaxonian name correctly.Quote:
Posted by Bill RyanMany thanks, but that's a Fail. :) He's a former CIA Intelligence Officer (he says), but he doesn't even know President Lukashenko's name (he calls him Lushenko, every time.)Quote:
Posted by Operator
Moreover, he states that Wagner's 25,000 troops are now in Belarus, which isn't the case. It's only Prigozhin that's effectively been exiled there. The Wagner troops, those who didn't take part in the rebellion, will be absorbed into Russia's military with new contracts.
This guy (like most in the west, alt media or not) doesn't really know what's happening.
:focus:
For those who have been following the Progozhin affair closely, this new overview from Alexander Mercouris is the best I've heard or read so far.
It's nearly an hour long, but can be played at 1.25x or even 1.5x speed. It's articulate, measured, detailed, sober, careful, intelligent, and (for me) very interesting.
I found myself agreeing with every point he made, including the important ones that
Mercouris also VERY cautiously accepts the possibility that Prigozhin may have been contacted or influenced by other anti-Putin factions in the west. While I still believe that Prigozhin's volatile mental state was the one major factor in this entire thing, I don't discount that possibility at all. (His strange, entirely false, pro-western PR claims about the pre-SMO Donbass situation raise obvious questions about that.)
- The conclusion of this was the most optimum possible outcome, and
- Putin's position has been strengthened both domestically and internationally among his friends and allies.
Finally, Mercouris stresses that things should never have been allowed (by the Kremlin) to reach this point, and I also agree with that entirely. I don't think Putin was playing '5D chess' — but when in a difficult situation like this, which could have unfolded in many non-optimum or even disastrous ways, he's clearly an excellent chess player. :)
Prigozhin Uprising Collapses, Putin in Control, Prigozhin agrees to Exile in Belarus, Wagner under Russian MoD
https://youtube.com/watch?v=tx7pGxlarHA
Yesterday, I came across two Telegram/Twitter messages from Russian political philosopher and ultranationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, whose daughter Darya "Dasha" Dugin was killed in a car bombing, last August, in Moscow.
As both messages were somehow cryptic, as to what they were referring to exactly in regards to the Prigozhin "situation", I decided to wait before sharing them...
But today Alexander Dugin published a new message that sheds some light on his perspective and on what he wishes to communicate on the matter, and so I am bringing the three messages here...
First message (published June 24):
Second message (published June 24 on Twitter and Telegram):Such significant things that happened today have yet to be comprehended. And here you should not rush. The consequences of what happened will be colossal. In every sense and for everyone. It was a milestone. The most serious test. The state and society have already changed in the process of this horror. Irreversible. But, we will realize this gradually. And, the conclusions are also drawn gradually. The events of June 24 are so important and filled with meaning that we still have to think and think about them.
https://t.me/Dugin_Aleksandr/9874
Today I felt in a vibrant way that Dasha was very close. Her subtle but firm presence helped me get through this monstrously difficult day. Everything that happened today concerned Dasha personally: she wrote about it in her diary, talked about it in lectures and interviews.
How does an exalted, purely military ethos relate to the state order? How is an emancipated existence reconciled with the strict Logos? When the synthesis between hero and empire breaks down, Dasha feels physical pain. Perhaps she continues to seek answers to these questions even in heaven and does not forget Russia, which she loved so much, and the people she loved.
https://twitter.com/Agdchan/status/1672710114065752068
To face a direct challenge to the sovereignty of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief [Putin, ed.] there was not a single figure strong and courageous enough among his entourage. Only Sovereign Lukashenko, together with Sovereign Putin himself, confronted him. With what happened it turned out that many can frame the President and the people, acting in the shadows and apparently on his behalf, but saving the Fatherland in a critical situation is not their speciality. Yesterday's defection of the elites is more despicable than Upper Lars.
There is only one systemic solution: the immediate and genuinely patriotic ideologisation of the ruling class and the rotation of elites. Only a well-trained elite can be expected to be heroic and behave appropriately in an emergency situation. We need an elite like the present one, we need a sovereign elite, otherwise everything will repeat itself. The weaknesses of our system were shown yesterday in all their glory, but we also saw the will of Putin, the true friendship of Lukashenko and the full and uncompromising support for our president by all true patriots. Many of them think like Prigozhin but supported Putin in a critical situation, and that is worth a lot.
https://t.me/Dugin_Aleksandr/9882
...
... Galloway + Macgregor on the March to Moscow:
The meaning of Prigozhin’s short-lived mutiny in Russia 16:43
Jun 26, 2023
https://yt3.ggpht.com/C18R3qsl2RPjGO...00ffffff-no-rj Douglas Macgregor Straight Calls
Col Douglas Macgregor Straight Calls
- Ukraine news today and in-depth discussion of current geopolitical events in the United States of America.
- Colonel Douglas Macgregor's Ukraine Russia war update,
- Russian offensive,
- Ukraine counter offensive,
- Ukraine latest news,
- Ukraine war news,
- Ukraine war video footage,
- Ukraine Russia news,
- Russia Ukraine war update and Ukraine war 2023.
Recorded June 26, 2023.
More thoughts on 'The March on Moscow', that never was, for what they may be worth: on the theatre of the last weekend. And, i'm as certain as I can be, that's what this was. But it may have only been partly theatre - time will tell.
First, here's Mike Jones who is based in Moscow who has some good points to make. He's been suitably cautious, as I have tried to be as well, in not necessarily leaping to firm conclusions too quickly, but his spidey-senses seem quite attuned to mine at this point.
Anyway, you can listen to his 7 minute summary here:
He makes the following points here some of which won't be so terribly unfamiliar to us, namely:
Here's what I've formulated and concluded so far, up to this point, subject to change in light of any compelling evidence that may later contradict it. Hey, I could be wrong here:- Some of if not all photos shown doing the rounds on social media were in some cases a year old and some of the film from supposed crash sites also not what they were reported or purported to be
- The confusion is deliberate
- There are active Ukrainian cells within Russia that the FSB are of course more than aware of; this was as much a warning sign to them as anything else
- Putin's speech only references Wagner in the context of their achievements in Artyomovsk. It may be worthwhile going back to that and listening again very carefully to what he is saying
- The 'holes' made in the road to slow any advance were largely superficial and easy to quickly 'repair'
Xi-Jinping has stated that this is a Russian 'internal affair' so Russia's main supporter appears unfazed by the 'events' and that will likely filter through to all the other partners in the world community that Russia has.
To me this all still feels like a piece of theatre deliberately concocted to throw the 'west' off the scent and a prelude for an increased military offensive. Col Macgregor made the quite sensible point - again - that some in the Russian high command want the gloves to come off now, and, my view, this theatre could perhaps have been staged to that effect. Could it have been a drill, and that Prigozhin was tasked with role-playing the enemy?
Has this been in the mind of Putin for a while now, to elevate from an SMO to an ATO (Anti-terrorist Operation) to create the conditions necessary to make that case before the Russian parliament? Has this theatre been cleverly crafted to move to this stage?
Prigozhin certainly appears at least publicly to have an axe to grind with Shoigu, and it has been suggested that this may have something to do with Shoigu's daughter and her more liberal boyfriend conducting themselves in an unfavourable light unbefitting as a daughter of a senior government official. Maybe. I'm not in Moscow of course, or privy to local news to be more informed about this but this may be a sticky issue, for some. Who knows.
I do think Prigozhin may have a screw loose here and there but if you were perhaps laying the groundwork for a theatrical 'coup' scenario you may well rehearse this, as with any performance, by perhaps making and in this case by creating the illusion that he's perhaps unwell. Again, pure speculation.
All commanders in the Russian military have FSB elements observing very closely how they conduct themselves, using whatever means to monitor them, so it's extraordinarily unlikely that Prigozhin will have been 'captured' by CIA or MI6. And in any case he could easily have pretended to go along with any such scenarios, if there was some enticement, and as has been suggested, ruse; that would surely have been fed to the Kremlin and some play acting may have then ensued.
Have we indeed seen perhaps for the first time and been witness to a clever illusion created by Putin with buy-in from close confidantes? It's tempting to think so.
I do in spite of this remain very objective, but, I just can't help this feeling. If I'm wildly off-base then my spidey senses may need an MOT :p
Perhaps one should just step back now and observe developments that will then 'infer motive' :)
I hope this is not an example of me doubling-down to save a pre-existing theory! But the more I discover of what happened, the more convinced I become that Prigozhin's irrational mental state was the central cause of the attempted coup.
The attempted coup was hardly planned at all, with ridiculously inadequate military resources - and without Wagner officers! The idea of taking large scale military action to takeover a massive nation without officers strikes me as evidence of literal insanity - of itself. As others have said, this is structurally more like a mutiny than a coup.
Whether or not P. was encouraged by Western intelligence services, or (broken) promises of money from backers, are secondary to the blazingly obvious fact that this coup attempts was a bizarre, a crazy, scheme - so crazy that someone of Prigozhin's experience, (surely?) could not have even considered it, let alone embarked upon it, if he had been in a sane state of mind.
And no matter how well the event has been dealt with - as events unroll - this coup attempt was not a good thing for Russia or for Russia's leadership. Yes, adverse events can be turned to eventual benefit; but that does not make the events anything but adverse.
If indeed this coup was staged by the Russian leadership, for whatever supposed purpose, this would be evidence of a very worrying lack of judgment, and recklessness. Since Russian relative maturity, long-termism, and focus are all that have so-far prevented a no-holds-barred, NATO versus Russia (plus allies) war - such risky behaviour from Russia would be ominous.
(That does not mean it can't be true that this was staged! But if true, it would mean a much higher probability of full escalation from now.)
I suppose that some of the Russian leadership will have known at least rumours of what P was planning. But it must have been very difficult to imagine that P. would do anything so stupid as he did - so my guess is that their mistake was to assume that although disaffected, P. was at least rational - and this would prevent him from acting.
But Prigozhin was (apparently) Not rationa! - and so it happened.
I found this very very interesting, and it surprised me: Doug Macgregor was pretty much defending (or justifying) Prigozhin's actions, and is worth listening to simply because anything Macgregor argues has to be worth considering carefully.Quote:
Posted by Gwin Ru
But contrast that with this much longer interview (lasting for about an hour, but it's not necessary to go through it all), which I most definitely recommend for anyone who's been following all this closely.
Here, Scott Ritter argues the case for western/CIA/MI6 influence or control over Progozhin so strongly and persuasively that I'm now starting to change my mind about this.
Ritter also roundly condemns Progozhin for his actions — regardless of any western influence on him — simply because whatever the righteousness of one's cause, in the military this is not how one goes about things. Not ever.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=aPTqGmxEH1c
Text:
According to @meduzaproject’s sources close to the presidential administration, around midday on June 24, #Prigozhin started trying to get in touch with the Kremlin himself - and allegedly even "tried to call Putin, but the president did not want to talk to him.
According to Meduza's sources close to the Kremlin and the Russian government, it is likely that Prigozhin realized that he had "exceeded the limit" and that "the prospects for his columns to move are foggy. When the Kremlin saw Prigozhin's changed mood, it allegedly decided against a "bloody clash," according to Meduza's sources. They claim that a large group of officials, including Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Anton Vaino, Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, and Russian Ambassador to Belarus Boris Gryzlov, were engaged in the final negotiations. "Prigozhin needed a worthy confidant to get out of the game [saving face]. Lukashenko acted as such. He loves PR and understands the benefits - so he agreed," says the interlocutor of "Meduza. According to him, the "benefit" for Lukashenko is obvious: publicly he became the man who "saved Russia from a civil war at most, but at least from a great blood. #geopolitics #Velsig
https://twitter.com/vtchakarova/stat...99718426750981
Another “explanation”
https://twitter.com/vtchakarova/stat...09534381654019
Text:
An agreement has been reached between Kiev and UNESCO on the removal of Christian valuables, including holy relics, from Kiev Pechersk Lavra, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service has said.
According to it, they are then planned to be handed over to museums in Italy, France, Germany and the Vatican under the pretext of "saving them from Russian missile attacks".
#source
Join Slavyangrad chat. Your opinion matters.
https://t.me/+B6ixfOM5VkxhODQx
https://twitter.com/djuric_zlatko/st...58133664284679
Am I alone in wondering whether Prigozhin suffered some kind of mental breakdown which may have contributed to his erratic behaviour over the past few months? They seem to be treating him gently although I for one would prefer to take my chances with Putin rather than be a "guest" of Lukashenko any time.
YouTube has unfortunately made that very good video age-restricted (at least on that particular account), and so one must sign in to confirm one's age in order to be able to watch it...Quote:
Posted by Bill Ryan
But here it is, shared by a different YouTube account that has not (yet) been hit with the age-restriction:
Alternatively, the video can also be found on Rumble (which for some reason I am not able to embed):
Streamed on: Jun 25, 1:04 pm EDT
Scenes from the Evolution Ep. 42 with special guest Scott Ritter on Prigozhin's Treason
https://rumble.com/v2w8ame-scenes-fr...n-prigozh.html
Mods: It might be more useful to update the original post by Bill Ryan and to remove this one.
Quote:
Posted by Ravenlocke
Prigozhin’s ‘Coup’ May Be ‘Staged,’ Says Ex-CIA Analyst.
Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s march on Moscow was ‘staged’ by Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, to boost his political power and reinforce support for the conflict, argues the Russian-born, former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst Rebekah Koffler. “What has changed… in the last few hours? All of a sudden, [Prigozhin] decided to turn his troopers around and made this deal? No, this is all staged,” Koffler claims. The mutiny was also used to “demonstrate to President Biden that, no, Russia is not a threat. Russia is actually… involved in its own domestic turmoil. But this is all a classic distraction and classic Putin.” US intelligence agencies believe Putin was aware of the Wagner rebellion before the event began on Friday but have been confused by Putin’s lack of action and willingness to accept a deal with the Wagner chief, brokered by Aleksandr Lukashenko, the President of Belarus.
Velina’s explanation,
Text:
My short analysis of the recent events concerning Russia's political dynamics, particularly focusing on the intricate relationships between President Putin, the Ministry of Defence (MoD), and Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the private military company Wagner PMC.
As I asserted right from the beginning of the events, the actions of Prigozhin do not appear to constitute an outright coup against Putin. Rather, his challenge seems to be an effort to resist a perceived threat from the MoD, set to act against the Wagner PMC by the 1st of July. Prigozhin's offensive appears to have been predicated on the assumption that Putin would support him, certainly a miscalculation of the complex power interplays within the Kremlin.
While Prigozhin's criticisms of the MoD indeed have dovetailed with Putin's interests, helping to offset a powerful competitor in the ongoing power contest between St Petersburg and Moscow, taking such a stance publicly against the MoD, and by extension against key Russian defence figures, has seemingly pushed him into a precarious position.
The information revealed by the Pentagon Leaks, suggesting that MoD's General Gerasimov and Minister Shoigu plotted to end the war against Ukraine during Putin's chemotherapy treatment, only further compounds this complex web of loyalties and power struggles.
Despite these events, Prigozhin's saving grace may indeed be Putin's calculus. Prigozhin has proven a useful domestic instrument, allowing Putin to deflect blame for military failures onto the MoD. Furthermore, the Wagner network of approximately 20,000-25,000 troops operating in Africa's challenging terrains gives Russia a strategic advantage in geopolitical and geoeconomic pursuits on the resource-rich continent.
In the absence of a suitable alternative, Prigozhin's position seems secure, provided his usefulness to Putin remains intact. This staged rebellion has also served Putin's interests by flushing out potential traitors within his inner circles and examining the reaction of the Moscow faction.
The unification of the two main competing factions in opposition to a common adversary, once Prigozhin advanced dangerously close to Moscow, is particularly noteworthy. Future significant resignations within the General Staff and the MoD, albeit unlikely, would mark a considerable victory for Putin. If Prigozhin survives this upheaval, it will be chiefly due to his value in relation to Russia's growing interests in Africa.
In conclusion, regardless of the public perception of these events, it seems that Putin stands to gain, underpinning his capacity to manipulate complex power dynamics in his favour. The evolving situation warrants continuous monitoring for a deeper understanding of the ongoing power struggles within the Russian political sphere. #Velsig #geopolitics #Prigozhin
https://twitter.com/vtchakarova/stat...52142192427008
So if I follow correctly, Scott Ritter is saying:Quote:
Posted by atmanBut here it is, shared by a different YouTube account that has not (yet) been hit with the age-restriction:Quote:
Posted by Bill Ryan
Alternatively, the video can also be found on Rumble (which for some reason I am not able to embed):
Streamed on: Jun 25, 1:04 pm EDT
Scenes from the Evolution Ep. 42 with special guest Scott Ritter on Prigozhin's Treason
https://rumble.com/v2w8ame-scenes-fr...n-prigozh.html
- Russian Coup d'état treason was meant to cause Russia to move her troops back home
- Then a Ukrainian counter-offensive might have been more successful
- And this was organised by the UK
- Putin didn't take the bait
Well thanks a million to my UK government. For their next trick they're going to remove the threat of hornets by kicking a hornets nest a few feet away. If this is all true and I find it easy to believe then the only consolation is that our dirty, sneaky meddling didn't work except perhaps to REALLY piss the Russians off. I hate my country right now.
Sorry to interrupt. Are they at truce or something? What is going on on the battle front in the past few days? No one is reporting/posting on it.
I am sharing a new article by Russian political philosopher Alexander Dugin.
He contends that the West has played "without rules" in its hell-bent attempt to weaken and subjugate Russia.
He calls the Ukrainian rulers irrational, as they have shown that "provoking a nuclear conflict is not only permissible, but also desirable."
He recognizes the huge losses suffered by the Ukraine so far, as well as the criticized and even ridiculed (by the West) self-restraint on Moscow's part, and so he finally advises that when battling madmen "it would be better if it were sharp, unexpected, hard and fatal for the enemy", an opinion, if I am not mistaken, that resembles some of what Wagner Group's EO Prigozhin has been lamenting about...
________________________________________________
NO MORE THREATS, TIME TO RESPOND
https://www.geopolitika.ru/sites/def...?itok=V8zlevUo
26.06.2023
Russia
Alexander Dugin
The Russian authorities are eager to demonstrate compliance with certain rules in the war in Ukraine. The West has believed since the beginning of the SMO, and in fact since 2014, with the annexation of Crimea, that Russia had broken the (beneficial to the West) rules. And even if it did not, it would mean nothing. Therefore, the West is playing without rules against Russia.
It is important for the West to defeat and 'decolonise' Russia - at the very least to weaken and subjugate it, i.e. to bring it back to the 1990s. What price can be paid for this? Anything but a direct nuclear confrontation. Anything else could be used.
Instead, Russia is building its own autonomous system of rules, which the West does not take into account at all. And it does not even pretend to take them into account. The West interprets any self-restraint on Moscow's part in the war as weakness. And it continues to insist.
Ukraine has long acted irrationally. The more it loses, the more it bites. It is a form of animal rage, so lethal are the raccoons and squirrels that have escaped from the woods and are pursued by a black frenzy. There are no rules here. That is why, for the Ukrainian rulers, provoking a nuclear conflict is not only permissible, but also desirable. What to take from a rabid, poisonous squirrel?
To proceed properly, we need to build a more realistic call-and-response system. Before using TNWs and SNWs (tactical and strategic nuclear weapons), there is still a broad spectrum of possibilities for escalating conflict with conventional weapons. And many registers have not yet been exploited. This stems from the rules. The rules do not allow it. But if the rules only exist for one side, and simply do not exist for the West, let alone for the Kiev obsessives, then it is no longer about rules.
A language that only one participant in the dialogue understands serves no purpose. After all, no one inside the country needs or understands these rules.
Simply threatening that we will respond if necessary, and that we have what we need, is clearly not enough. We have to respond. If we have what we need, now is the time. But if we have nothing, we can do it - do it or find something. Preferably difficult, targeted and very frightening. There is no cure for anger. We must proceed from this.
Crimea will be attacked and so will our old territories. They are already attacking.
We will not reach the West yet. Still the question of the TNWs and NSNWs. This is the last topic. Not the penultimate.
But there is something we can do against the madmen. I think this is a case where if we can do it, we will do it.
Otherwise, our threats are becoming too light.
We are holding the front, and thanks to the heroic efforts of our men, it is difficult, but we are holding, and the enemy's losses are huge, but something else is needed here. It would be better if it were sharp, unexpected, hard and fatal for the enemy. Victory is above any rule, which in our situation makes no sense. And nothing less than Victory will satisfy us.