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Wagner coup in Russia? Wagner declared war on the Russian army

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Re: Wagner coup in Russia? Wagner declared war on the Russian army

#141

Post by [deleted] »

alvarezbjm-hn wrote: post #91
WhereIsTheTruth wrote: post #52

What kind of reaction people expect from this hackernews post? Anything that goes against the dogma will get shut down? What's the veracity of this article to begin with? In the age of digital transformation, what are the chances we are reading fake news from the Ukrainian front? They attack each other? well, if they killed some russians and stole their missiles, it's easy to create confusion on the adversary camp, c…

https://www.rt.com/russia/578547-prigozhin-fsb-armed-rebelli... I am not sorry to break the charm, but there is "SOMETHING" about it on Russian Television . You can't believe all details, but now both parts (East and West) are reporting that this is happening.

[deleted]

Re: Wagner coup in Russia? Wagner declared war on the Russian army

#142

Post by ptero »

treis wrote: post #129
ptero wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally an armchair opinion, but I think Prigozhin is a toast and he knows it. He cannot fight (troops hated, plus ranks decimated in Bakhmut) and cannot hide (no one will take him). He may be just trying to go down with a bang. My 2c.

Wagner definitely can fight and I think this is a real danger for Putin. The invasion did not go well and he's vulnerable to more hawkish members of the military who wish to escalate the war. It's not guaranteed that units will agree to deploy against other Russians. Not guaranteed that if they deploy they will fight. Not guaranteed that if they fight they will win. Wagner has crossed the Rubicon and now it's do or d…

> Wagner has crossed the Rubicon Prigozhin did, and maybe a few of his top lieutenants, but Wagner is not a uniform structure. Wagner is a mix of:

A) Older, experienced soldiers of fortune types. They did tours in Africa and other places and know how to fight. They are not too numerous and they have absolutely no interest in politics, fairness and especially any conflict with regular Russian forces. They are doing the job, they want to get paid, but instead of the paycheck the latest adventure is likely to stamp them with "treason".

B) New cannon fodder, hired from poor regions for decent (for their area) money after the invasion. They are not experienced fighters and they suffered greatly in Bakhmut. This is not your coup makers. Putin tells them to come home, they will.

C) Prison rabble, taken from prisons often with 10+ year of their sentence remaining. Their contract is that if they survive a 6-month tour they get remaining sentence voided. There are a lot of them. Getting killed in Bakhmut was a part of the contract. But this march gives them nothing. Instead of walking free they will likely end up back in prison, with new scars. If Russian army offers to honor the original contract (freedom for a 6-month tour), they will just as happily fight for it.

I do not think there is any desire at Wagner to fight the Russian army. In fact this may be a theater, designed in Kremlin to tighten the screws at home and as a side benefit to snuff out Prigozhin who seems to be getting unhinged lately. But we shall see...

Re: Wagner coup in Russia? Wagner declared war on the Russian army

#143

Post by foogazi »

1MachineElf wrote: post #117
tootie wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll say this, the guy is bold as hell. He's an absolute maniac and probably worse than Putin but he sure isn't afraid of anything. One can only hope he wrecks enough chaos make the war in Ukraine untenable. I'll also say this, Putin played his hand as poorly as humanly possible. He spent decades stockpiling loyalty and political capital with an iron fist and spent it all in less two years and has absolutely nothing…

I'll say one thing - I wish US generals would publicly speak our against our wars and the lies behind them.

This guy is not speaking out - he was directly recruiting prisoners from jails and profiting mightily

It’s just part of the game

Re: Wagner coup in Russia? Wagner declared war on the Russian army

#144

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

yreg wrote: post #128
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all unfolding literally right now. It looks like a military base in Moscow is now on fire. Edit… Also reports of fighting between Wagner and russia's national guard on the Rostov-Moscow highway. Wagner are on the move towards Moscow.

Prigozhin claims Wagner shot down a helicopter (in Rostov?), but again theres no evidence yet.

What evidence would you accept?

I’ve seen a video that appears to support the idea that a helicopter was at least fired at.

Re: Wagner coup in Russia? Wagner declared war on the Russian army

#145

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

lamontcg wrote: post #120
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all unfolding literally right now. It looks like a military base in Moscow is now on fire. Edit… Also reports of fighting between Wagner and russia's national guard on the Rostov-Moscow highway. Wagner are on the move towards Moscow.

Rostov is 1,000 km from Moscow.

And what?

Re: Wagner coup in Russia? Wagner declared war on the Russian army

#146

Post by dbsights »

everyone wrote: post #126
dbsights wrote: post #100

My guess: its a tactic designed to embolden the enemy and keep them committed to a failing strategy. Bakhmut was a meat grinder, but as long as the hope of victory could be kept alive in the Ukrainian army, they would keep sending their troops to slaughter. So we got all of these videos about chaos & ammo running out on the Russian side. And the Ukrainians obligingly poured manpower into an almost-perfectly-surrounde…

Ukraine was defending in an urban area. They were trading casualties favourably with Russian the entire time.

Yes, they were defending in an urban area, but I think this matters less than you might expect. Russia's strategy was to saturate the Ukrainians with artillery, and they undoubtedly have superiority in this area. This kind of warfare basically negates the advantages of urban defence. Sure, it took a long time to make progress, but by design it limits the casualties of the attacker. I'd wager that most Ukrainians that died there never even saw a Russian solider.

Truthfully, no one really knows how many died (on either side), but Wagner stayed in the field vs 50-odd Ukr. brigades. How do you reconcile that with a favourable casualty ratio?

Re: Wagner coup in Russia? Wagner declared war on the Russian army

#147

Post by scarab92 »

wrp wrote: post #132
mcphage wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seeing Westerners instinctively reaching for "the best known source" tells why something like this came as a surprise in the first place, while this exact scenario been a watercooler talk for most Russians, both in Ukraine, and Russia itself. > Why Western experts driving the conversation on Russia, China, etc are completely blind to things known to every highschooler? I’m not sure I follow you here. You’re saying…

He is complaining that the West does a poor job of elevating well-informed commenters to prominence. Having close association to the Soviet/Russia watching community since the 1980s, I agree. The problem is that the kind of people who get the on-the-ground experience you need are not the type who play politics well and rise in organizations.

It's also because journalists are experts in nothing but journalism.

Instead of finding domain experts and giving them communications training and a platform to reach an audience, we instead find people with nothing useful to share, and give them journalism degrees.

Journalism should be an activity that our most knowledgeable people do, not our least.

Re: Wagner coup in Russia? Wagner declared war on the Russian army

#148

Post by LeonB »

rq1 wrote: post #133
it_citizen wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think he is an idiot?

The Prince.

As in… “having read Machiavelli’s The Prince, I am aware that a mercenary army is not reliable?” ??

That’s what keeps occurring to me.

Re: Wagner coup in Russia? Wagner declared war on the Russian army

#149

Post by COGlory »

ptero wrote: post #142
treis wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wagner definitely can fight and I think this is a real danger for Putin. The invasion did not go well and he's vulnerable to more hawkish members of the military who wish to escalate the war. It's not guaranteed that units will agree to deploy against other Russians. Not guaranteed that if they deploy they will fight. Not guaranteed that if they fight they will win. Wagner has crossed the Rubicon and now it's do or d…

> Wagner has crossed the Rubicon Prigozhin did, and maybe a few of his top lieutenants, but Wagner is not a uniform structure. Wagner is a mix of: A) Older, experienced soldiers of fortune types. They did tours in Africa and other places and know how to fight. They are not too numerous and they have absolutely no interest in politics, fairness and especially any conflict with regular Russian forces. They are doing th…

I think you are underestimating the potential of a shared trauma experience in Bakhmut and a new motivating factor of "revenge". Whether it's enough is uncertain, but it has to factor.

Re: Wagner coup in Russia? Wagner declared war on the Russian army

#150

Post by dragonwriter »

baybal2 wrote: post #89
Youden wrote: post #37

Better known source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-mercenary-boss-...

An unfortunate Russian passport holder, my parents were one of richest people in Russian Far East in the early nineties. Hackernewsers knows well I am extremely anti-Russian. The West massively misunderstands Russia, and how it works on the inside. If you watch CSIS, RAND, Aspen institute, you will see 10 talking heads each talking his own completely different story, and none of them tells more than a Russian highsch…

> Seeing Westerners instinctively reaching for "the best known source" tells why something like this came as a surprise in the first place

Except for the specific timing, it didn’t, really. The spiralling conflict between Prigozhin and the military establishment has been heavily covered in Western media, that a catastrophic breach was a likely eventuality has been talked about by Western experts for a while, and was seen as particularly likely with the recent move to consolidate control of the PMCs under MoD command, which was viewed as directed very much at Prigozhin specifically.

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