Public opinion, both inside Russia and in the international community, is divided on this question. However, I do not believe this was an orchestrated stunt. The rationale for such a “loyalty test” does not make any sense. Especially because, if for no other reason, there was violence – and the stories of helicopters being shot down. Such a conspiracy could also have unforeseen consequences, such as demoralizing the Russian armed forces and giving their Ukrainian opposition the edge they need for a successful offensive.
Some commentators are upset that the FSB didn’t catch on to Prigozhin’s coup until it was already happening. Well, maybe. To say that the FSB should have known about the plan implies there was a plan to begin with, and I’m not so sure. Prigozhin has a pattern of acting erratically, and up until now some of us tried to give him the benefit of the doubt that he deliberately trolls on the behalf of the Russian government and his talking points were expressed with their permission. But now, it’s clear that he is just a loose cannon. I’m sure, actually, there were warnings that Prigozhin is going off the rails, but Putin disregarded them.
And that’s my chief reason for believing the coup was real and not a false flag. This whole debacle reflects poorly on the government, and Putin himself. He should have dealt with Prigozhin much sooner, especially when he was repeatedly bashing on Shoigu and the Russian armed forces, but didn’t. There were surely at least a few people around Putin saying for a long time that he should do something, but he still didn’t. That’s the burden of leadership for you, and personal mistakes at that level have serious repercussions. Maybe Putin was reluctant to act harshly against a personal friend (yes believe it or not, even heads of state have friends). Or maybe Prigozhin and Wagner Group’s celebrity status made him reluctant to act. In the end, the situation could have been handled better, but it could have also been handled much worse.
Biden’s “intelligence community” is trying to retroactively claim they knew about Prigozhin’s coup all along before it happened, which I think is nonsense. I don’t think even Prigozhin himself planned this coup, it was a spontaneous decision made by a crooked businessman who is used to resolving personal conflicts like a brawl in the prison yard. And yet, the American “intelligence community” tried to take credit for predicting something that was likely impossible to predict, and had no evidence for their claim of predicting it. That’s simply the pattern of Biden’s chaotic and incompetent rule. Every geopolitical development catches his goons totally by surprise and this is how they’ve responded every single time. The collapse of the Afghan puppet government, the Chinese “spy balloon,” the start of the SMO, and the Wagner coup all caught the Biden regime totally off guard and they obviously had no planned response. Biden’s officials, like Lloyd Austin and Antony Blinken, are slow, stupid, and incompetent people who wouldn’t last five seconds in the real world without their family and political connections. Imagine, for example, Austin and Blinken trying to run a lemonade stand. They wouldn’t be able to do it, much less respond to a serious international crisis.
What’s even more concerning is that the Biden regime showed a willingness to actually support the Wagner coup if it developed to the point it had a chance of succeeding. This illustrates just how dangerously stupid and insane our leaders are. If Russia, China, or another nuclear power has a serious crisis that risks fragmenting their country, Biden’s crooked anglo-zionist gangsters will support the rebellion, and have no concern about any potential consequences, up to and including nukes falling into the wrong hands.
This did serve as a “stress test” of Russia’s government and society, and they passed with flying colors. No one supported Prigozhin’s childish tantrum – not even, apparently – most of the personnel within Wagner Group itself. The Russian government, police, and armed forces also demonstrated the admirable ability to de-escalate and defuse an actual armed coup without a blood bath. Compare the way the Wagner coup was handled to, say, the Jan. 6 protest in the USA.
I think there will be more coups in the future, but not necessarily in Russia. There will probably be another American civil war after the 2024 presidential election. It’s hard to imagine that there won’t be a civil war. Biden is effectively destroying the country and no other political figure is lifting a finger to stop him. He can barely string a sentence together, how is anyone going to even pretend that he fairly won an election the second time? There will be unrest, it’s just a question of how much unrest.
When large numbers of people are indifferent, or actually rejoicing in the idea of the Russian state disintegrating along with their nuclear arsenal, this is the sign of advanced social decay. If a person is fine with 6,000 nukes being scattered to terrorist and separatist groups, those people will also be fine with their internal enemies being put in death camps. Mark my words.
On the bright side, just like I predicted yesterday, the Ukrainians tried more meat grinder attacks, which were all destroyed with heavy casualties, like the destroyed Leopards and Bradleys.
Ian Kummer
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Agree, that’s almost exactly what I said in the social media in Russia. I don’t believe in a stunt, especially headed by an unstable guy Prigozhin is. Also, it was paramount to resolve it without blood and through de-escalation because Wagner guys ARE popular, and many people, while supporting Putin and the SMO, would feel very reluctant to fight them (they are also our guys, that’s the sentiment many people share). And there are reasons for that, of course. Some people also follow that Russian tradition of trusting the “Tsar” figure while doubting his entourage (the MoD). So it was a dangerous moment historically.
Suvorov had to leave a very good position in a war with Turkey due to Pugatchiov mutiny against Catherine, btw.
The good result is that probably the PMC issue is now closed. They will cease to exist in Russia. Those who didn’t support the coup will sign the contract with the MoD, reported Peskov. The rest are pardoned given their previous heroism.
“This did serve as a “stress test” of Russia’s government and society, and they passed with flying colors.”
Well said. I think this is the most important conclusion.
Larry Johnson and others believe there’s high probability this “Coup Attempt” was a stupendous mariscova. The purpose would be to expose disloyal elements within the Russian government, military and oligarchy. If so, what a brilliant operation.
Regarding aircraft shot down, if so it’s said it was in self defense. I haven’t seen anything proving it actually happened. The RF Air Force could have destroyed the entire column.
It’s really too early to tell what actually happened. It’s been said Prigozhin was approached by Western Intelligence. He could have taken a bribe or he could have informed the GRU setting up the mariscova.
If Prigozhin falls out of a 10 story window in Belorussia we will know for sure it’s been determined he was colluding with MI-6.
Yes, I saw that post. It’s a stupendously dumb thing to think. People here in Moscow were legitimately worried, it’s not something you do to your own population and the statement doesn’t make any sense.
What if the truth is somewhere in between? Not a false flag, but I find it hard to believe that the Russian State was caught completely by surprise. Perhaps they got wind of it months ago and let it play out.
What 4? Unfortunately, it’s a very Russian thing to happen ♂️
I finished reading a long post from yesterday by Simplicius the Thinker. That one began about a Ukrainian false flag on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, then the Wagner fiasco in great detail and ending with the mood of the Russian People illustrated by the Scarlet Sails graduation exercise. The video of Scarlett Sails and Shaman was very beautiful and impressive.
I tend to go with your assessment of Johnson’s post. We’ll know for sure if Prigozhin is eventually dead. Much has happened in that 24 hours and time will tell.
On another note, Zelenski is officially a dictator. He has cancelled the election next year.
If the NATOstani “intelligence” agencies had known about the putsch in advance, they’d have told their nazi puppets in Kiev to get ready to attack Russia with everything they had as soon as the Wagner convoy began to roll.
I don’t think however that Prigozhin just suddenly decided on a coup. And as proof: Russian regular military soldiers had videos ready to go to be uploaded as soon as Prigozhin began the Rostov occupation. Someone obviously knew it was coming.
Short videos you cam make woth your phone in 10 minutes
Wargonzo (Semën Pegov) interviewed Prigozhin weeks ago and openly said the MoD was restricting ammunition to Wagner because they thought Prigozhin would launch a coup.
Lesson of the failed MI6-sponsored Prigozhin coup attempt
In WW2, the US Army’s 442nd Infantry Regiment was composed of Japanese Americans who were unfairly tainted with the stigma of betrayal because of prior internment of their families. To this day, their heroic actions in Italy have earned them the title of most decorated fighting unit in US history. They had something to prove, and prove it they did.
Most of the Wagners fighting in Ukraine earned in blood great glory via their hard fought victory in Bahkmut. Then they were betrayed by Prigozhin and lured into an unwitting coup attempt that cost them their honor, and now they have been unfairly cast as back-stabbing insurrectionists. Wisely, the Russian MoD chose not to slaughter them on the road to Moscow, and they will soon be given a chance to prove to the Russian people that they are not traitors. God help the first Ukrainian soldiers to meet them in the next battle.
I had a super tinfoil-hat thought that, however unlikely, I still think is curious to look at. What if Prigozhin was maintaining, in secret, some sort of ties with Western services, and the whole insurrection attempt WAS agreed upon with them?
The main reason I pondered it is that it looks totally nonsensical when taken on its own merits – an almost entirely unmotivated, ideology-light revolt in a situation where the populace is not visibly fragmented along political lines on the issue he stressed, let alone fragmented enough to stage a revolt. However, it DOES dovetail beautifully with both Western perceptions of Russia and situation therein, AND with what the West has been talking like these past few months.
Remember how all Western political and media figures pushed the main line of “Kiev needs to defeat Russia as much as possible now so as to get a better position at the peace negotiations coming up shortly”? It always left the hanging question of “so why would Russia agree to peace negotiations even if Kiev made some sort of successful push, wouldn’t Russia just strike right back?”. Prigozhin’s little escapade may explain why – if it was always in the cards, it may’ve been intended as the CIA “secret weapon” ace-in-the-hole, something they believed would cripple Russia politically and militarily and force it to sue for peace ASAP on whatever terms. Hence the apparent tone of “Kiev must do as much as it can before the deadline comes” – Priggy’s revolt WAS that deadline.
Problem is, it exposed just how braindead official-Western understanding of Russia in general and the current situation in particular really is. It strongly feels like this revolt was meant to springboard off at least a somewhat successful Ukie offensive – justified by some part of the front being breached, some defeats and some serious losses somewhere, which Priggy would’ve then blamed on “bad leadership” that needs to be removed. He did, in fact, make just such tirades – it’s just that they had no grievous losses or battlefield defeats to rest upon, because those failed to materialize thanks to Kiev’s forces being poor blind fools and the Russian army not being such. Yet it’s precisely the “Russians would be easily broken” meme that CIA and sundry seem to stubbornly cling to. And so they gave the go-ahead, using whatever leverages or agreements they have with Priggy, banking on the idea that it would be enough to “topple the wobbling and rotten Russian colossus” and only achieving precisely the opposite. They keep on thinking that Russians hate their state and government (because the CIA and sundry do, so obviously everyone else must too!), and believed that giving us an obvious option to rise up in arms against it alongside a clear and present armed force staging a revolt is all it would take to ignite a popularly supported coup d’etat. They very obviously do not understand Russian thinking one bit yet they keep doing this sorta shit over and over.
What further feels fitting in this regard is Prigozhin’s overall history, both personally and with Wagner (which he did NOT create, contrary to popular misconception). Over several years, Wagner has been built up into a semi-independent urban fighting outfit, at least a semblance of an army able to exert and project some power, both in actual terms and in terms of PR and propaganda messaging. Now it feels like that, at least for some of it, Prigozhin must have been entertaining the idea of using it as his private army to claim actual political power – with or without Western intelligence connivance and support. After all, prospects for some sort of serious defection, disobedience or mutiny within actual Russian armed forces, such that would lead to an internecine conflict and struggle for power, are effectively nil – and at the same time it is impossible to claim power in Russia without having some credible military muscle behind oneself. In a way, it may well be that Wagner has been built up as “a prospective coup army” for several years now, in secret and known only to Priggy himself (and if there were any foreign agents working with him on that, them too). Heck, maybe even all his hysteric hollering about “we don’t have enough munitions and weapons” in winter was a trick to requisition extras and build up some stockpiles to be used in the coup later.
Of course, this is again all just tinfoil hattery. I’d be extremely surprised if this was going on without FSB knowing of it, whether or not they chose to take action (and it may well be that they knew and deliberately let it proceed, knowing that it is doomed to fail and only serve to discredit any potential rebellions or disobedience). But in the extra thick fog of war nowadays, anything is possible.
That’s not a crazy thing to think. I wondered myself if this was some sort of mad ploy to kill Putin and “collapse Russia” like the western meme. However, if that were true… why did Prigozhin disperse his guys so easily?
Because Russian society turned out to be united against him and showed extreme hostility to him, and he realized that. That is, he had no chance. What Red Outsider said looks kinda convincing to me, Prigozhin’s increasingly annoying antics had had the purpose to prepare the field, he had been kinda working himself into a rage in a manner that had looked at least not entirely implausible.
He wanted to be considered a Robin Hood
Yeah, and he failed spectacularly. A fat, finished moe-foe, that’s what he is, and he’ll likely spend the rest of his days in house arrest in Belarus. He’s nothing like Givi or Motorola or Alexander Zakharchenko all that you can legitimately call Robin Hood.
Never trust a jew