29 thoughts on “The New Russian Revolution”

  2. I don’t get it. Opportunities like this happen about once per century. Putin will be able to pick them off now one by one. It would appear also that the top ranks of the military are not all that popular. Another opportunity squandered.

    1. I saw some comments on Twitter, maybe pure conjecture maybe not, that family members of top Wagner people were pulled from their homes and Putin sent Prigozhin word that, in essence, “your move”.

      1. The only thing unbelievable about it is that a Russian had to have it explained to them. The capacity of Russians to tolerate bad government may not be infinite but it’s never been exceeded.

        1. And that’s the thing isn’t it? It’s never clear what would replace Putin would be any better. I always assume not. Haven’t been disappointed yet.

      3. OK, then, but where does the seemingly gentle treatment of Mr. Prigozshin and his loyal followers come from?

        Or is this all a setup?

        1. Nobody really knows where Prigozhin is. Wagner hasn’t surrendered the airfield they seized either. Surely he can’t believe he’d be safe alone in Belarus. Unless he takes his army with him. Lukashenko is a useful apparat but isn’t popular at home. Compared to a bona-fide war hero like Prigozhin? Is Putin going to threaten Wagner families if they seize control in Belarus? Nuclear armed Belarus? There are a lot of moving pieces here.

          1. I think Mr. Prigozshin doesn’t study history.

            Starting in Ukraine, his big goof was marching on Moscow instead of heading thr opposite way towards the Caucausus oil fields.

          2. Supposedly Prigozhin has landed near Minsk. As a welcome gift Lukashenko presented him with a tailor-made shirt bearing target logos on the front and back.

    2. We use mercs. Ever hear what happened to Blackwater?

      Wagner is barely mercenary. The reasons for the coup have less to do with the method of payment but rather the conditions they fight in. Killing tens of thousands of Ukrainians doesn’t much matter when Russians die at the same rate. Add into that the internal power struggles and sabotage and things like this can happen.

      Ukraine are also fighting in these same conditions with heavy losses but have better leadership. It must be very hard on them though.

  3. there was some pretty strong advice against using mercenaries.

    In a corrupt country like Russia, who isn’t a mercenary?

    2. This is a well known organizational move, to split the military into factions as insurance against the military turning against the head guy.

      The states that do such a thing have to deal with the dual demands of external as well as internal security. It is sometimes a tradeoff of one against the other.

      Much is made in the Blogosphere of, cough, “cultural changes” being imposed on the US Armed Forces that weaken their ability to conduct their mission of fighting wars beyond our borders. Such changes, however, may be a means of shoring up loyalty in our military, the personnel of which, especially below “flag rank”, are traditionally “small c” conservatives even if not voting Republican?

    3. The more I hear about Wagner Group, the more they don’t seem to conform to labels such as “mercenary” or “private contractors.”

      There is the odd thing about this Peter Zeihan dude bursting out into maniacal laughter doing one of his many You Tube videos inasmuch as the entire military staffing of Russian “operations and interventions” beyond its border is Wagner, and even if the Wagner “operators” have been granted amnesty, their head guy has been “put on ice.” According to Zeihan, Russia has decapitated their entire apparatus for project power beyond their borders.

      Does Zeihan know anything about how this works. The US Marine Corps is one of the primary services for maintaining a US “presence” overseas, and suppose the head of the Marine Corps was thrown in jail on discovery of a role in the January 6 business?

      The civilian command structure would find a loyal officer somewhere in the Marine command structure to make the new head guy and move forward from there? But does the Kremlin leadership exercise authority over the Wagner command structure? Or did they just “federalize” Wagner by converting it to regular army?

    4. In a corrupt country like the USA, who isn’t a mercenary? I’m speaking about our political class.

        1. No, though they get a butt-load of money for promoting war. So in that sense, they are mercenaries.

      2. There’s a bit more to the US than its political class. And politics is mercenary in nature. There’s a lot of horse trading even in the best of circumstances.

  5. The writing was on the wall for Prigozhin when Shoigu ordered all PMC soldiers, including Wagner’s, to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defence. If he agreed, he would eventually lose control over his troops and lose his powerbase. If he refused, he might be charged with treason. So, I think that the purpose of this mutiny was to show what Prigozhin could do if he wasn’t given a way out, and Putin understood the message. That’s why Prigozhin has apparently been allowed to go into exile in Belarus.

    Of course, the Russian government will now treat all Wagner personnel as suspect. Its soldiers will be re-assigned to regular army units or other PMCs, or sent to Africa or Syria where they can’t cause any trouble for Putin.

    The result is that Prigozhin gets his exit route, Putin removes a potential rival, the suckers who followed Prigozhin get purged, and as a side-effect the Russian war effort is harmed by dismantling some of its most effective fighting units. It’s corrupt, cynical, business as usual for the Russian oligarchs.

  6. “The capacity of Russians to tolerate bad government may not be infinite but it’s never been exceeded.”
    The USA has the Biden administration and Australia has the Albanese government (for those who wanted to know the name of Australia’s Prime Minister).

    1. The USA has the Biden administration and Australia has the Albanese government (for those who wanted to know the name of Australia’s Prime Minister).

      And the point of that observation is? A clear difference between those two administrations and Putin’s is that Putin has been in power one way or another since 1999. Both Australia and the US have had long serving heads of state, but not recently: Albanese started in 2022 and Biden in 2021. Perhaps, one of these two will end up in power for two decades, but I just don’t see it.

  7. H. P. Lovecraft also has a relevant quote: “Do not call up that which you cannot put down”.

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