Russia's War Against Ukraine

[JasonPratt]

Since....... .... ........ .... ......Vikings rowed up the rivers?

[Staggerwing]

I wonder if Prigozhin was banking on some of the regular army publicly throwing in with him after having gotten some behind the scenes assurances that turned out to be insincere, and when those individuals chickened out he decided his best option was to cut a deal.

[Tripoli]

As a [former] analyst, it is always nice when some of the top people in the business are just as confused as you are:
https://twitter.com/KofmanMichael/status/1672677971532947461

[SirAndrewD]

As a [former] analyst, it is always nice when some of the top people in the business are just as confused as you are:

Dude, I talked today to my old professor of Russian history, my ex-DoD cybersecurity buddy with a Masters in history and a college friend who's got a Masters of Strategic Studies from the US Naval War College and they couldn't wrap their head around it. 

[Tripoli]

As a [former] analyst, it is always nice when some of the top people in the business are just as confused as you are:

Dude, I talked today to my old professor of Russian history, my ex-DoD cybersecurity buddy with a Masters in history and a college friend who's got a Masters of Strategic Studies from the US Naval War College and they couldn't wrap their head around it. 

I'm not a Russian expert, and my experience is more on the military operations, vice political side of the house.  But I did it full time or part time for 30 years, and have degrees from both JMIC and NWC.  And I have no idea what I just saw. Prior to yesterday, Tom Clancy or any other military fiction guy would never have touched what we just witnessed for use as a back story in a novel.....   

[JasonPratt]

Putin: We are totally about to lose Crimea to the Uks. If only some actual Nazis would invade the Russian heartland, we might be able to pull this debacle out of the fire!

Priz: hold my vodka.

[Crossroads]

Russia.  Russia happened.

I assume we just witnessed your typical Russian political theatre play, where you don't know what the play is about, who wrote it, or who the actors are, said our former ambassador to Moscow yesterday when asked about this.

Just to make sure, he was as confused as everyone else, and suggested to wait and see the next act(s), if any. 

For 24 hours, Ukrainians dared to dream that the warlord's action could be the fatal blow in the war, writes the Guardian. Well, not only Ukrainians

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/24/ukrainians-dream-wagner-action-fatal-blow-war-kyiv-mutiny

[FarAway Sooner]

I still think the best answer was supplied above.  What happened?  Russia happened!

[Crossroads]

I still think the best answer was supplied above.  What happened?  Russia happened!

"Anything may happen, at any time, but nothing ever changes."

[Uberhaus]

Acts of desperation on both Putin and Prigozhin.  Putin called up the leaders of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan for troops according to CNN. 
Supporting this, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/24/putin-lukewarm-response-allies-support-belarus-deescalate/

According to Kazakhstan's Presidential Administration, Kazakh leader Kassym Jomart Tokayev told Putin politely on the phone that the coup was an entirely internal Russian problem.

This is after Russian troops put down internal dissent/a possible coup against Tokayev in January 2022. https://gwynnedyer.com/2022/kazakhstan-a-quarrel-among-thieves/

It remains to be seen how Shoigu and Gerasimov will be disciplined for even failing to stop Wagner forces on the way to Moscow.  Kadyrov's star will be rising though.

What a beautiful wargame scenario Wagner vs.  Kadyrovites will be.

[SirAndrewD]

Yeah, instant analysis today is that all parties involved managed to somehow arrange this where they all hugely lose.  Even if the Chef has been given huge promises, he surrendered his only leverage in guaranteeing Putin will keep to those promises. 

Putin isn't widely known for being a honest broker. 

Kadyrov, terrifyingly, is the only one that wins here.  He stayed loyal to the throne and kept himself out of the way for the most part.  He retains his personal army and may in fact get to strengthen it.

He's the last person you want to see coming out of a situation with more clout, but here we are.

[Crossroads]

Lots of analyses out now, the better of them concluding we still don't know what exactly happened or how the future will pan out. Here's Michael Kofman.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1672999622032195584.html

[Crossroads]

Oh, there was one tweet to explain it all. We just missed it. Kudos

https://twitter.com/salisbot/status/1672696145057808384

[Tripoli]

Here's one recommended by Michael Koffman: •   Tatiana Stanovaya  https://twitter.com/Stanovaya/status/1672991911538196482
o   Below is a brief description of Prigozhin's mutiny and the factors that contributed to its outcome. We, as observers, initially missed important details due to the scarcity of information and lack of time for in-depth analysis. Here's the perspective that currently seems most plausible:
o   1️ Prigozhin's rebellion wasn't a bid for power or an attempt to overtake the Kremlin. It arose from a sense of desperation; Prigozhin was forced out of Ukraine and found himself unable to sustain Wagner the way he did before, while the state machinery was turning against him. To top it off, Putin was ignoring him and publicly supporting his most dangerous adversaries.
o   2️Prigozhin's objective was to draw Putin's attention and to impose a discussion about conditions to preserve his activities  - a defined role, security, and funding. These weren't demands for a governmental overthrow; they were a desperate bid to save the enterprise, hoping that Prigozhin's merits in taking Bakhmut (that's why he needed it!) would be taken into account and the concerns would catch Putin's serious attention. Now it appears that these merits helped Prigozhin to get out of this crisis alive, but without a political future in Russia (at least while Putin is in power).
o   3️Prigozhin was caught off-guard by Putin's reaction and found himself unprepared to assume the role of a revolutionary. He also wasn't prepared for the fact that Wagner was about to reach Moscow where his only option remained - to "take the Kremlin" - an action that would inevitably result in him and his fighters being eradicated.
o   4️Those in the elites who were able reached out to Prigozhin with offers to surrender. This likely added to his sense of impending doom. However, I don't believe any high-level negotiations took place. Lukashenko presented Prigozhin with a Putin-endorsed offer to retreat on the condition that Prigozhin would leave Russia and Wagner would be dissolved.
o   5️I don't think Prigozhin was in a position to make demands (such as the resignation of Shoigu or Gerasimov - something many observers expect today. If that happens, it will be due to another reason.) After Putin's address in the morning of June 24th, Prigozhin's primary concern was to find an off-ramp. The situation would have led to inevitable death in merely a few hours. It is possible that Putin has promised him safety on the condition that Prigozhin remains quietly in Belarus.
o   I stand by my previous assertion that Putin and the state have been dealt a severe blow (which will have significant repercussions for the regime). However, I want to emphasize that image has always been a secondary concern for Putin. Setting optics aside, Putin objectively resolved the Wagner and Prigozhin problem by dissolving the former and expelling the latter. The situation would have been far worse if it had culminated in a bloody mess in the outskirts of Moscow. And no, Putin doesn't need Wagner or Prigozhin. He can manage with his own forces. He's now certainly convinced of that. I will disclose many more details in my bulletin to be issued tomorrow evening.

[Tripoli]

This is the Wall Street Journal's take:
•   Wall Street Journal, Wagner's Aborted Mutiny Leaves No Winners in Russia (June 25, 2023)   https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-russia-processes-wagners-aborted-mutiny-no-winners-emerge-in-the-aftermath-989d9345
o   Shaken by the Wagner mutiny, Russia began addressing the damage of Saturday's bout of violence as its citizens tried to understand how these events will affect President Vladimir Putin's regime, which has shown itself so unexpectedly vulnerable.
o   The whereabouts of Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin were unclear on Sunday, and neither he nor Putin made public remarks about the conditions under which the rebellion ended. The Russian minister of defense and the head of Russia's armed forces also remained out of sight. One widely shared conclusion in Russia, however, was that none of the key players in the power struggle that began when Prigozhin seized the southern city of Rostov on Saturday morning has been strengthened by the ordeal that brought the country to the edge of civil war....
o   Prigozhin, who showed Wagner's strength by marching two-thirds of the way toward Moscow with little opposition, ended up aborting the rebellion and accepting, at least for now, exile in Belarus. The Russian army and security forces, meanwhile, displayed little glory as their troops proved reluctant, if not outright afraid, to try stopping Wagner. ..."The entire system has lost yesterday, including Prigozhin, who is also part of the system," said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment who was in Moscow on Saturday. As for Putin, he added, "it turned out that the czar is not a real czar because he couldn't control a man from his own system who's supposed to be under his full control." As a result, the authority and self-image of the Russian state has sustained lasting damage, likely fueling future challenges to its writ regardless of what happens to Prigozhin. That is especially so as the war in Ukraine, ..."Our country will never be the way it used to be. Wagner's column didn't move on the asphalt, it moved through people's hearts, cutting them in half," noted Aleksandr Khodakovsky, a veteran of the pro-Russian movement in Ukraine's Donbas region who is now deputy commander of the Russian National Guard in Donetsk. "Yesterday, everything was hanging on a very thin thread."Wagner's forces Saturday shot down six Russian helicopters and an IL-22 airborne command-center plane, killing 13 airmen, according to Russian military analysts—deaths that will not be easily forgotten, ... Disconcertingly for Putin, many locals cheered Wagner's troops as they withdrew from the city—and jeered the regular police that reappeared on Rostov's streets after hiding for a day. In Moscow, too, feelings about Prigozhin were mixed at best on Saturday. "There was a moment of total loss of control. Moscow was already awaiting him, the city froze in expectation that some groups of people would enter," Kolesnikov said. "And people were not afraid. Putin was afraid of him, but not the country's population."...Yet, the very fact that there was so little spontaneous rallying for the Russian president on Saturday, in Rostov or in Moscow, showed the pent-up hunger for change after 23 years of Putin's rule, many Russian analysts noted....Fighters loyal to Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, who has had his own feud with Prigozhin, deployed to the outskirts of Moscow and erected roadblocks—once Wagner had turned around its columns.
o   Prigozhin, so far, hasn't spoken in public about leaving Russia, saying only that he had agreed to Lukashenko's request to cease the march on Moscow in order to avoid bloodshed. Putin, too, hasn't made any public remarks since accusing Prigozhin of treason on Saturday morning. Russia's minister of defense, Sergei Shoigu, whose removal was Prigozhin's key demand, hasn't been seen since before the mutiny. Neither has the chief of general staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov. Shoigu maintained silence on Sunday, even as Russian social media lit up with unconfirmed rumors of his likely replacement in coming days. "The entire world has seen that Russia is on the brink of the most acute political crisis," Sergei Markov, a former Putin adviser and a political analyst in Moscow, said on Telegram. "Yes, the putsch failed now. But putsches have fundamental reasons. And if the reasons remain, a putsch will happen again. And it could be successful."