this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2023
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My pet hypothesis is that Putin and Prigozhin were engaging in a bit of play acting to stage Wagner troops for an action against Ukraine (Prigozhin benefits) and illustrate the legal and financial measures that Putin will take against powerful dissenters (Putin benefits).
With 25k troops, there's simply no way Wagner could have succeeded in a coup. The regular army is better equipped and could have severed their supply lines with minimal effort, starving the coup with minimal bloodshed. They could have done this in their own interests, and not necessarily in defense of Putin.
Considering how swiftly Wagner's offices were raided and their assets seized, this affair makes more sense as a morality tale to caution antsy oligarchs than as a military action.
Putin declared Prigozhin a traitor on national TV, then fled Moscow, then gave Prigozhin everything he asked for and let him walk away. All within a day. This wasn't some 5D chess nonsense. Putin just surrendered.
Putin hasn't done anything yet except flee to safety yet, he doesn't personally hold a gun in moscow to hold it as his own. A surrender would mean a civil war in wagner's favor. Currently not at that point of desperation but we are getting there. An interesting situatiuon nevertheless.
Putin's absolutely still in charge of Russia until someone else tries something. He still lost to Wagner though. Prigozhin got everything he wanted out of his little stunt. Putin caved because he was afraid.
Despite what a lot of people have said, this wasn't about Prigozhin trying to pull off a coup. Wagner was supposed to be absorbed into the Russian army, and rumor had it that Prigozhin was going to be in serious trouble when that happened. Now he gets to take his still independent army to Belarus and got his enemies in the MoD fired. Prigozhin got what he wanted, and Putin couldn't stop him.
Where does this information come from. All I've heard is the Wagner guys aren't heading towards Moscow and some deal was made involving the president of Belarus. Are there specifics that have been made public?
Several news sites are reporting that part of the deal was for Prigozhin to go and live in Belarus. It's not clear whether he's supposed to take the Wagner troops with him, but there are questions about their loyalty to him now, since he may have set them up to be absorbed into the Russian army.
I haven't been able to figure out from any of the arti Lea I've seen.. What is it that Putin ended up giving to Prigozhin? What was Prigozhin asking for?
You give too much credit to putin and prigozhin in terms of strategies thinking. Usually when things seem simple they are and in this case it's just short term vision by both sides and signs of weakness in both as well. It's really funny how some people try to spin this situation as "putin staged it all to draw Ukraine into a trap and to show his strength"