Seeing mixed reports about the head of wagner rolling into Rostov, Russia. All kinds of other rumors swirling around. Anyone have any good info, or good sources to follow?
This is the inevitible result of nations wholly relying on mercenary groups to fight their wars. As major powers, not just Russia, continue to rely on privatized militaries these militaries are going to become emboldened and realize how much power they have over their capitalist financiers.
The other day I was listening to an old episode of The Deprogram where they talked about this. Surreal to see it actually happening now.
Yes, and furthermore: this just brings up the larger point that you cannot fight imperialism solely on the basis of the national bourgeoisie. They are weak and disunited, and many times will stab you in the back. One hopes the Russian government can learn from this episode, and move (as Chavez did) toward a stronger state with more socialistic policies.
nations should stop tolerating the laundering of responsibility. a country using individuals or private companies to project its power / do its violence etc. must be held culpable, otherwise it is too easy to get away with stuff
we should stop acting like hiring mercs is a loophole
Which episode?
I couldn’t tell you the specific episode, sorry. I’ve been going on a binge lately while commuting to work so I’ve listened to a lot. Likely a 2022 one.
Basically they were remarking on how, even though past wars have been fought with private contractors, the Russia-Ukraine War is the first major war where one party has been so reliant on one mercenary company and that in the future these mercenary groups may end up trying to seize political power for themselves.
Which is exactly what’s happening.
once again Metal Gear Solid correctly predicted something lol
I have no fucking idea and I feel like that might be intentional. We’re told this bizarre narative that Wagner is committing a coup and magically just bulldozed the entire Russian Military to get to Moscow, but the only real source of this info are Pro-Ukraine accounts who lie about everything.
For the record, Russian state media is also calling this a coup attempt.
https://www.rt.com/russia/578601-recap-putin-address-wagner-coup/
Putin has issued an emergency statement denouncing Prigozjin as a traitor and that his drive on Moscow would be stopped.
Prigozjin is leading his pack of avengers and will go on a heckin epic fighting tour all the way to the Kremlin. I heard Tom Holland, Chris Evans and a Marvel film crew were there as well.
No no no, he is doing a Harry Star Wars Potter! They will use the heckin force to overthrow the evil bad Putler Voldemort emperor, and establish democracy like the good guys did!
Comment I saw on another site: “Prigozhin seems determined to go down as the cheap knock-off version of Stenka Razin”
Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
From what I know, all the Wagner mercs and other volunteer groups were said to sign a contract with Russian MoD, so there was a plan to nationalize them. Prigozhin, of course, didn’t want to lose his PMC (and sweet sweet money), so he made a strange fake video (and it was so stupid that I and many other people really thought it was some kind of distraction from something) about russian army bombing one of the Wagner camps, and used this as a justification for his coup attempt.
News blackout currently underway as of the night of the 23rd. Don’t trust anything being said at the moment as it’s all speculation and rumor. Even from official sources a lot of the information in a breaking story is going to be wrong, exaggerated, or confusing.
I’m going to check with Russian sources when I wake up, but currently there is no information coming out of the area or about Wagner.
Also the videos showing Wagners “coup” in Rostov are a bit funny. If they are what they claim to be, Wagners force appears to be 2 tanks (one modern and one very obsolete tank by the look of things), 1 IFV, 2 armored Humvee style cars, 1 military transport truck, and then about 5-10 assorted civilian vehicles.
Assuming they’re all full to the brim with troops and supplies, that’s enough men and machines for what? An under-strength Company of troops? The NYPD could handle that force.
NYPD’s budget is larger than the military budget of many small countries (for eg. DPRK) lol
the NYPD pays way way way more for that gear though, there’s no way they have more equipment than the DPRK’s army
[New York] City officials say that the NYPD will acquire two robot dogs for a total of $750,000, according to the NYT, and that they will only be used during life-threatening situations, such as bomb threats.
Yeah checks out
Literally Skynet shit good lord
Robot dogs are nothing. They are currently developing AI to try and make the US Reaper and Predator drones autonomous and be able to operate without a pilot.
Gotta stock up on EMP’s
I can see that going very wrong very quickly. If they train the AI on existing US data and let them loose at home, they’ll take out half of Washington.
fortunately, the nypd lacks equipment such as tanks, missiles, and artillery. spending isn’t everything; what they spend it on is everything.
Wrong actually, the NYPD uses IFV’s and APC’s purchased from the military. They also have a store if Stinger missiles they purchased after 9/11.
During the last Marvel(?) film that I watched, I thought, ‘This is daft as shit. As if there are tanks just sat around in cities waiting for villains to turn up.’ Turns out, maybe the film was truer to life than I thought.
Hard to say. Given this guy has apparently lied before and started up a whole drama about not getting ammo just to fool the west/Ukrainians into continuing to attack his positions and get destroyed I wouldn’t rule out this is an elaborate ruse to bait the Ukrainians into charging Russian positions thinking this is their best time. Basically an attempt to further weaken their forces and shorten the conflict by drawing out reserves.
That said, could be real too I guess but it seems more likely it’s trying to bait the Ukrainians as he’s done before.
Well some parts of Wagner apparently tried the dumbest semi-coup against the MoD. Seems like this was known in advance, because some videos, etc by the RAF were spread immediately. Western media reacted so fast, it looks kinda sus too, especially factoring in that Navalny called on the Russian military to join Wagner.
Also Putin being the revisionist he is dared to compare this to February 1917.
Navalny called on the Russian military to join Wagner.
Anything about Navalny supporting the operation in Ukraine, joining Russian army or PMC Wagner was a joke to mock Navalny and liberals. Nothing of this kind actually happened.
dared to compare this to February 1917.
More like september 1917 (august old style)
Putin being the revisionist he is dared to compare this to February 1917
To the surprise of no-one.
Navalny called on the Russian military to join Wagner
For real? I’ve not heard about this, where’d you see it?
For real? I’ve not heard about this, where’d you see it?
Was tweeted by a news site, but I looked it up and can’t find the tweet anymore, so might’ve been bs and they took it down again.
For real? I’ve not heard about this, where’d you see it?
I saw it on the one tg channel that also posted about Yanucovich becoming the head on provisional government of Russia or Lukashenko thinking about nuclear strike on Wagner, so it’s just a joke lmao
The whole thing is just a bit too odd, we will have to wait for the dust to settle
Dispose of a troublesome mercenary leader with this one simple trick: 10 million dollars and full amnesty to all Wagner mercenaries that dispose of him.
“Civil war” resolved in 10 minutes, tops.
I heard that some Wagner mercs are already laying down their arms and asking to be shipped back to their old positions on the front; they are saying Prigozhin “misled” them, that it wasn’t immediately clear he was trying to start a coup, etc. They may or may not be telling the truth here. But the Russian government is apparently offering blanket amnesty to all Wagner fighters who surrender, on the rationale that they were “betrayed” by their own leader. (Source: Hindustan Times, which is quite pro-Russian, but also not the most serious news outlet in the world, so take whatever they say with a couple grains of salt).
Prigozhin has always been, at best, a nut. One can’t doubt his bravery, but one questions his brains, and certainly now his loyalty. He’s had, up until now, a certain following in the west, simply because he’s such a colorful figure – like Igor Strelkov way back at the begining of the conflict; though Russell Bentley, who I tend to trust on these things, was critical of Strelkov early on. The whole stunt with dead servicemen probably should have convinced the Russian government that Prigozhin was not well, or at rate simply not reliable; that he has been allowed to remain at the front for so long is very odd.
I think this mostly sums it up:
There’s already a Wikipedia page???
I recommend waiting a day for all the rumors and other BS to filter themselves out.
Yeah, a bit hard to tell what’s actually going on with that. Things will probably clear up within a day or two. Does appear that it is serious given Putin’s address.
True. Mostly, though, I just want my mind to pass the “WTF” phase first before I start processing the event.
Like…I know Prigozhin is nuts, but…WTF?
The fact that he was allowed to operate as long as he did is the real failure in my opinion. He should’ve never been allowed to go to the front lines and build himself up the way he did, and once he started making unhinged statements that should’ve been the end of it months ago. It’s absolutely surreal that they let it get this far.
As others have said, we need to wait.
The presence of “Wagner PMC” troops at the Rostov headquarters of the Southern Military Command is no more than several dozen people, maybe 50 in all. The tank and the two APCs that were previously positioned outside the building have been parked.
That is what some TG channel said, and there was some video with civillians next to some soldiers. Still, nothing official.
do you remember which TG channel it was?
Yes, for this and all the comments in the megathread I’ve used Slavyangrad. All of the things they reported were quite factual, they did not hurry up to conclusions and were pretty straightforward. I recommend them quite a lot to follow this event.
yeah that channel seems good so far. thanks for introducing it to me
The only place for a mercenary is prison. We are now learning why this is the case.
a for-profit prison?
For stuff like there are telegram channels like intelslava but I am not sure how reliable they are. It is best for the dust to settle down a little bit after which it will be easier for reality to make itself clearer. Following these events closely is also anxiety inducing and confusing since a lot of people say a lot of different things and it is impossible to verify.
To risky. That’s a breeding ground for misinformation, and once rumors start flying it’s next to impossible to stop. Can’t discount potential interference from intelligence agencies as well.
Best thing to do is wait.
Damn this seems like a proper plot twist. Tonali going to Newcastle for £70m level of unexpected here. Interested to see how this pans out and where the dust settles but thus far doesn’t seem ideal
money really ruining football…tonali should be a milan player but their ownership just doesn’t care
Money really is ruining football. People are constantly shitting on Saudi buying up football, which is bad sure, but there is not the same criticism for Americans buying it up and exploiting it such as in Milan’s case
It’s totally ruining football. Wish it was run totally differently.
