Russia 'Coup' Live Forecast
swiftcentre.org@dang anything mentioning Wagner group is being flagged off the main page, I could see why some people would react that way when there’s a 20 articles shared about the same thing in an hour, but it’s a bit disturbing that there’s currently zero articles on the front page about this
There is a more and zero chance that those flags are not from general user accounts. Also @danf doesn't actually taf him from what I have read, there is an option at the bottom of the page(apparently, I've never used it XD)
Edit:
mailto:hn@ycombinator.com
Is the link at the bottom.
I would bet it’s almost entirely authentic flagging. News about Russia’s invasion has a lot of propaganda and unverified reporting, and I imagine HN users are tired and skeptical of anything on the news about it.
For context, I’m not at all denying the invasion or how awful it is. I’m only saying there is extreme hyperbole at times in the same way there is about controversial political figures in the US
My apologies for the typos I just noticed and I was super busy at the time :-(
Quit using HN for general news. Go to your favourite news website, they all have a live section about this unfolding event.
I could not care less what software engineers have to say on the matter.
There is precedent for hackernews covering unusually large and important events. Covid, Jan 6th, the start of the Ukraine War. I don't see the problem with some general news of large scale importance, e.g., a hostile mercenary force is a 4 hour drive away from the capital of the state with the largest supply of nuclear weapons
Agree we shouldn't lose focus but this seems rare and important enough to be worth discussing.
From the guidelines of what is off-topic "Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon."
Slashdot used to get complaints like this all the time (maybe still does, wouldn't know). They would be followed by a recitation of the Slashdot motto: "News for nerds, stuff that matters. This is a story that matters." Usually shut people up immediately. HN also suffers nerds not wanting to hear about anything except nerd shit, but we don't have a handy shorthand to shut down these tedious complaints.
I mean, I get your point that others programmers are not usually were I go for political wisdom. But it's not like mainstream news website have a better alternative for discussion either. Their comment sections tend to be completely saturated with far right incel fanaticism and low brow outrage. HN, at least, is not that.
Yeah and what's wrong with techies?! We're a pretty smart bunch I like to think ;)
I didn't know about swiftcentre, or metaculus and I'm fascinated by it. That's exactly the software engineer approach to this topic i like to see when i come here.
The main page is heavily curated by dang and only features what he likes. For actual popular content I just go to /active
What you’re implying is not true at all. I am massively critical of online moderation and dang and his team definitely curate a lot but it’s done very transparently when potentially controversial and he has an extremely reputable track record
“and only features what he likes” that’s not remotely true
thanks! I didn't know about that
Almost 10 years on HN and I've never known about this. Thanks.
This like AOE2, where an enemy quietly cuts through the huge forest and the enemy suddenly appears in your base when most of your army is at the front. Your front is wrecked if you run back, and your game is wrecked if you don’t.
Does anyone have sources for this stuff?
I am seeing a lot of conjecture and not a lot of substance. Is this whole thing based on a couple telegram videos? Is there anything to suggest they aren’t just propaganda deepfakes?
The Eastern Border podcast has been my go to for awhile: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/prigozhin-crisis/id107...
The fog of war over Ukraine does continue to frustrate. You really wish there was live, perfect info sources to keep you in the know, but even ten years from now there are sure to be questions.
Edit: just got through the most recent episode and want to warn that it’s a bit crazy conspiratorial, but interesting…
Read sources. Use translation services like (google translate or yandex translate) to read official Telegram channels [1][2][3]
[1] MOD https://t.me/mod_russia https://t.me/mod_russia_en
[2] Wagner https://t.me/orchestra_w
[3] Director of the Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs https://t.me/MariaVladimirovnaZakharova
There are plenty of youtube videos showing Wagner forces control the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. They can't all be fake.
Here is local news agency in Rostov with plenty of media https://t.me/privet_rostov_ru
Phillips O’Brien has been writing presciently [1].
Here’s a pretty good source of almost realtime updates, one of the large pro-war Tg channels. If you are on paid Telegram membership, I think it allows to translate all content.
Not a fan of such media, but I’m from Rostov area so had to subscribe today to stay tuned.
There was some doubt at the beginning, but now that Putin made a speech on national TV, I think there are no more doubts.
It definitely is real, that the head of Wagner, which acted as Putins man of brute shadow force - is now an enemy of Putin. This was coming since a while, since Prigoshin stepped over the line many times and he refused the ultimatum by the Russian Ministry of Defence, to put Wagner Forces tightly under MoD control. And now things are escalating.
Everything else is filled with deepfakes, old footage and co
But Wagner forces are around 25 000. It is not clear how loyal the bulk of them are towards Prigoshin personally (I have my doubts) but many russian russians share the hate for the MoD.
And there is solid evidence, that they control some area.
What makes you so sure?
Not him, but for the last two years, I aggressively unfollowed all sources that posted wrong or premature information. I kept only those who limited themselves to what was confirmed and openly admitted error in case of mistake.
It is doable. With that strategy, I get more cautious news, not the hottest of the hot stuff, but I am pretty sure thing is happening now.
Because russian state TV is a legit source of Putin speeches?
Surely someone records this and translates it for western eyes. Do you have a source link or are we just playing Chinese whispers?
Erm, you can directly check tass.com if you like. They even have a english version.
Or really any other russian source. Russian militar blogger telegram channels, etc.
(It is a good habit btw. to always also have a look at the opposing side of view)
So looks like the coup was fake, I find it funny that the coup ended before you could send a single source link. I just wanted to know where people got their info, I wasn’t asking for much.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/06/24/europe/russia-putin-wagne...
tass.com was not a link?
Also I do not see, where tanks on the road to moscow were fake. It was the russian way of doing politics.
It's a link, but not a source. That's like you asking me for a source of a Biden speech and I reply "youtube.com" Not very useful.
Tanks on the road to Moscow could be used to give an impression of a coup. For all we know Putin set this up to expose any rogue elements looking to oust him.
If you put it into Google, you will find exactly that from multiple sources.
I do not know which accounts or news agencies you find reputable, so I do not know which one to link so you trust it. But you yourself should know which journals or accounts you trust.
Putin made speech in national TV.
Funny thing is that there were Western journalists in Beijing 1989. The CCP never arrested a non Chinese journalist.
Putin doesn't care about diplomatic relations and almost every reputable media has fled the country.
I wonder why they added quotation marks around "coup" in the headline? Is there anything nonstandardly-coupish about a military commander engaging in armed rebellion to overthrow the standing government? Seems to perfectly fit the textbook/dictionary definition of "coup".
It’s not a coup it’s a “special paramilitary operation”.
All jokes aside, Prigozhin says it's "not a military coup but a march for justice".
Incredible.
They are still hundreds of miles away from Moscow. In a textbook coup you seize centers of power and media stations as fast as you can but this attempt is on the slow side (certainly the physical size of Russia is helping too).
For now it is "only" an armed rebellion, I guess. And depending on how it unfolds it could be a lot of things.
I think that this sort of thing is not very frequent in contemporary, or even modern, history, but it is very reminiscent of Roman history.
"So far this is not a coup, as there has been no bid to seize power from the government."
If I understood correctly, the leader was (originally?) claiming to be attacking an element in the military leadership he felt was responsible for a major friendly fire incident. It appears things have progressed from there, and it's possible or even likely that a coup is and always was the intent, but it's not _certain_.
Yeah he is being smart, positioning himself as pro Russian. Which he probably is. But doesn't not make it a coup.
Putin calling him a traitor is a death sentence. If he didn't already plan to, now his only option seems to be to move against Putin.
In don't see how they can both stay in power for much longer. One of them has to go.
The way i see a coup is usually people are in the capital. Here it's the equivalent distance of austria from Paris so there's just no "coup" at all, it's at best a "publicized attempt to stage a coup"...
Because its a staged rebellion to end the war while saving the face of the current leadership, and hopefully avoid civil war.
You know, if it were, then I'm perfectly fine with that. Whatever makes him feel better so long as the fighting stops.
How are they saving face?
Internal power struggles are a sign of weakness. Putin does not like to appear weak.
Now while it certainly has staged elements, the power struggle between Wagner and the regular army is very real.
But the outcome hopefully will actually lead to ending the war (blaming it on the Wagner traitors). Or worst case, all out nuclear war.
I can't speak for a Russians perspective of saving face, as I'm an unrelated outsider.
Nonetheless, if Russia ceases their aggression after this then it wouldn't have been defeated by Ukraine. You'd basically end up with non-patriots having caused the loss, as such you'll have a group of people to blame.
This. Especially now that after Putins speech/plea on national TV[0] for the army to put a stop on the rebellion, Wagner in telegram appears to have stated: “Putin made the wrong choice. ... Soon we will have a new president".[1]
[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fjBVFL0k_-0 [1] https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/16725113220832706...
Because it depends who wins.
He explicitly claimed he is not against Putin, but against military leadership. So, it is totally not a coup per Prigozhin.
It is kind of elementary school level of logic if you ask me, but it is the logic/argument Prigozhin is using.
So by this logic this is just a mutiny? To become a proper coup they would have to replace the government and the president who if I understand correctly is formally the leader of the military. In order to do that they should be marching towards the capital. Since this is what appears to be in progress, is it unreasonable to call it a "possible coup in progress"?
Not sure about mutiny, because he is not a soldier, technically. He is the leader of illegal but tolerated private mercenary company. (Yep Wagner are theoretically illegal per Russian law)
I am definitely not blaming anyone for calling it "possible coup" or "coup" or even "an attempt to start civil war". The original intent was to explain that coup in quotation marks is also alright term to use.
Edit: every single time I write "wagner are technically illegal in Russia" I get downvoted in HN. It is pattern at this point. So, guys, if that was reason for downvote, yep they are illegal per Russian law.
It's certainly a novel situation.
I suppose you could call it a mutiny in the sense that Wagner is being told by the state that it is now explicitly under the command of Shoigu, and Prighozin is refusing, which has led to what is now happening: an attempt to put down a rebellion and a mutiny.
That was Prigozhin originally position. He offered support to the president and the government, just not Shoigu. But things might have changed since that first statement, because since then Putin has now come out on Russian TV denouncing the uprising and calling it high treason. So, it would appear things are starting to escalate.
Yeah interesting to see.
His videos are consistently insisting he is just defending and not hostile to Russia. Which is of course how he should position himself.
But Putin essentially gave him the death sentence so one or the other has to go.
Personally, if this was a coup, I’d say Wagner would have taken control of important infrastructure by now (e.g. the Kremlin, state tv, military depots, Putin / defence minister). Or been killed/arrested himself.
This feels more like a civil war. It might not last long of course. We’ll see.
Wagner Group [1] is a mercenary company, by the way, named after German composer Richard Wagner [1]. Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin [2] is reportedly the founder and owner.
(Wagner is not a person. Or am I misreading: who does "himself" refer to?)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group
>Wagner is not a person
>He is alleged to have founded the Wagner Group, with his own call-sign reportedly being Wagner
Yes, I’m being sloppy because I’m on my phone and can’t be bothered editing.
I think it reads fine, as in Kremlin did this and that and Wagner did this and that. Wagner just stands for the group.
I'm responding to the use of the pronoun "himself":
> Personally, if this was a coup, I’d say Wagner would have taken control of important infrastructure by now ... Or been killed/arrested himself.
To anyone who isn't familiar with Wagner Group, that seems to be describing Wagner as an individual person who can be "killed or arrested himself".
Ah yes, that is wrong, but I think people who are into russian geopolitics (like me) autocorrected it and had the meaning of the person arrested automatically transfered to Prigoshin as head of Wagner.
If January 6th disorganized mob breaching into government building can be considered a coup, then organized military force taking control over 2 major cities in Russia is definitely a coup.
One of them attacked a governmental body of a country. The other one still has not. That is why it is in quotation marks.
It's also not entirely clear that Prighozin can get from here to there. Not least because he's a madman.
My uninformed read is that what he's enraged about (a Russian strike on a Wagner encampment) actually took place, and he knows he's now a dead man walking anyway, so he's going to see what he can do with the time he has left.
No, they already announced that they are going after Putin
"Putin made the wrong choice, all the worse for him. Soon we will have a new president."
https://twitter.com/ChengWeiLai2/status/1672527502223511559#...
I think Prighozin is as insane as the idiots who thought they could interfere with the count, and I have no idea if he's seriously considering taking out Putin.
But let's be clear, the crowd breaking into the Capitol wasn't the entirety of the coup attempt, and even to write that part down as just a disorganised mob is incorrect.
What was going on is better understood as an autogolpe -- a self-coup. It had several prongs -- violent, parliamentary (in the congressional sense of the word) and judicial. So, fake electors, lawsuits, attempt to persuade Pence not to count, interfering with results in several states, and the physical insurrection.
The aim was to create a scenario where the handover just didn't happen, through all these interlocking parts.
But the crowd could only ever have created the circumstances that delayed certification (and might have pulled that off, had Pence got in the car).
It was much more co-ordinated than we have yet seen documented in courts, but that time is coming.
This always being left out by those decrying the classification as a coup attempt is a tacit admission of the whole scheme actually being a coup. Only by leaving it out they can make it seem like it was anything less.
Right. And I think it's often misunderstood that these parts don't actually need to have been under strict, detailed co-ordination to work, because the whole thing just needs to be set in motion when you have teams of people who can react on the ground.
But some people had advance plans to create pressure in the knowledge that it might lead to disorder, and then exploit the uncertainty in the moment. It could really all have happened, and it hinges on small moments of bravery that are well documented now but that many of those involved seem hesitant to admit to in public, which shows you that the landscape of threat still exists.
So in short, you're saying that a stochastic coup is a thing, and the Capitol case was an example of one?
No.
(I appreciate that I said "exploit the uncertainty" but I meant more the sort of news media confusion, unclear facts on the ground sort of uncertainty -- fast moving events)
Firstly: the Capitol violence wasn't a coup (or putsch) in and of itself. They had no organised plans to seize direct power. It was an armed mob assault, and everyone there knew what their job was: to stop the count. Some of them even went home when they realised they'd achieved it.
Second: it wasn't really stochastic in an important sense.
Stochastic terrorism is what I understand you to be alluding to by analogy. That is usually considered to be e.g. regular lone-wolf or small attacks that are implicitly encouraged by not being condemned. There is no organising thread or support network (unlike e.g. Al Qaeda and the Taliban).
The people encouraging that stuff don't know what specific outcomes there will be to exploit, but they have reason to suspect an increase in exploitable outcomes and they do nothing to stop it (or better, they are sort of notably half-hearted and equivocal in stopping it).
But in this case, the rally was long-planned and there was plenty of evidence online about who it was attracting. And all the other threads in the autogolpe I mentioned are planned and organised by a small group of people. This is widely understood -- the challenge is proving it in a court.
And it's not "stochastic" if you stand in front of that known crowd of people who have turned up to "stop the steal", and you tell them to "fight like hell". There's no defence that it is metaphorical, especially given everything we know he'd been advised. He (repeatedly) tried to get armed supporters allowed into the main crowd. "They're not here to hurt me!"
Almost nobody stands up in front of a mob and issues direct, unambiguous commands. You do that with a team or an army. Not with a mob. That's not the true power of that situation. You stand up in front of a mob, you use dogwhistles and the mob does what you want. Because that means you can try plausible deniability, which might keep you personally out of jail to do it all over again.
Trump is disordered but he is cunning; he knew he had an armed crowd out there, and he riled them up. And Giuliani literally has form for inciting a riot (of police officers!) so he knew what was going to happen too. They had to have an idea what the specific immediate time-sensitive outcome would be, and it is one they desired. That is not "stochastic". It's directed.
(Edited considerably, haven't had coffee yet)
To clarify: the fact that I think Prighozin is insane shouldn't be read as support for Putin.
But he's a madman whose organisation has committed atrocities in several countries; if he is Russia's hope for an end to Putin, that is not a good scenario.
I am curious on how this will reflect on the Ukraine invasion: as far as I understand, Wagner was a huge source of soldiers on the front lines.
I am sure this coup, however it will ends, is a major source of distraction from the war. Meanwhile, Ukraine is pushing east: will they be able to use this coup to liberate some territories?
Surely at least part of the regular Russian army will have to be pulled back to defend Moscow.
The big question, the only question that really matters at this point, is will the Russian military remain loyal?
If they don't then it's all over for Putin.
An additional qiestin would be is : how many experienced groups do they have vs new conscripts with minimal training?
What is the state of decentralized betting platforms where people can place crypto on their predictions?
Shouldn't that give us the best possible predictions? Everybody with expertise or inside knowledge who sees the probabilities are off would rush in, place bets and "correct" the probabilities while making a profit.
Metaculus has regime change at 16% right now: https://www.metaculus.com/questions/10246/russian-coup-or-re...
up 3% in one hour
The people who have legitimate inside information are billionaires and I doubt the market would be that deep. And it's a genuine coup, so the outcome is fundamentally unknowable. But yeah, historically prediction markets are great for stuff like this.
As of 11:05 cest, 2023-06-24, manifold thinks Russia will curb wagner group, and reaching moscow is at 10%. It id considered a serious attempt (95%). Expect a civil war by July 14 (70%).
This sounds like a "length of the emperor's nose" situation.
Came here to ask the same question.
They are in Voronezh now on their way to capture local airfield - regular Russian units backfilled with conscripts (the good ones were all decimated in Ukraine) won't take on Wagner troops on the ground.
Air power will be the key.
Multiple videos from apartment dwellers in Voronezh of a KH-52 destroying a tank farm. Either Wagner was fueling up there or the Russian military is trying to deny fuel to Wagner, or both.
Quote:
A modern Russian meme is "to bomb Voronezh". A typical joke went like: "Obama ordered new sanctions on Russia; Putin retaliated by bombing Voronezh". Voronezh, a quaint provincial town south off Moscow, is unremarkable by itself, an Anytown, Russia. Bombing Voronezh is a hyperbola describing the favorite game of Russian ruler, - to punish his citizens for his own mistakes. T
Ed Nash is a military analyst who has provided factual information in the past. This video includes a translated statement from the leader of Wagner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIY3OfSU1VY
Here is a Russian anti-war streamer. This is a much longer and less formal video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIn41Gl6pVU
Will current regime resort to use of nuclear weapons against Wagner formations as they approach Moscow? After all, the state and the power regime are facing an existential risk.
While russia nuking themselves would be hilarious end of the current clown fiesta, I don't think they are that stupid, there is no way to explain that to public in favourable way to whichever side is left standing
> While russia nuking themselves would be hilarious end of the current clown fiesta
Oh dropping nuclear bombs on place-where-I-don’t-live is so funny hahahaha it’s not like nuclear weapons have been a genuine threat since WWII and still is hahaha.
I'm quite disturbed that you think a nuclear genocide on the Russian people would be "hilarious". It would be a humanitarian disaster and an almost unprecedented tragedy.
Let's not participate in the vilification of the Russian people.
Sorry, I ran out of fucks somewhere in the middle of COVID. Them nuking their own army/PMC themselves would be small price if that ended Ukraine's conflict
> Let's not participate in the vilification of the Russian people.
I'm vilifying their leadership. But I'm still amazed there is no revolt there
> Sorry, I ran out of fucks somewhere in the middle of COVID.
Oh my gosh. Did having to wear masks in public and self-isolating make you a badass on the Internet?
>I'm villifying their leadership.
Do you think the nukes would hit the Kreml? Or potentially millions of innocent civilians?
At what point are the citizens of a country responsible for what the country's military is doing?
Note: not advocating for a nuclear genocide, but I do feel that citizens become culpable if they are allowing their country to stop on others and they aren't protesting or emigrating (if possible)
At the point where they go to war for their tyrant instead of toppling it down.
Well, avoiding the deeper philosophical waters, I would say whatever responsibility is there would depend on how democratic the country is. Russia is very far from being a functioning democracy at the moment. Sure they have elections, but they're likely partially fixed, freedom of the press is a joke, political protest is punished harshly(typically with violence), and opposing political candidates are prosecuted on false charges, jailed, even killed. Given this, I think holding the Russian people as a whole responsible for the war seems unreasonable. Certainly there's some responsibility there in various ways in terms of the personal contributions of individual people. But precisely because Russia is so undemocratic, the distribution of responsibility is heavily distributed onto the oligarchy and military leadership.
But like you say, genocide is never justified, no matter what. And that was mainly what I was reacting to.
I was never talking about hitting any population centers, just using the weapons, that's entirely your misunderstanding.
Also russia is already far on genocide scale looking by their actions in current war
Nope, I'd think that if ever something so bizzare would happen it would be tactical nuke targeted at bigger gathering of wagner forces. Little hitler at power there wouldn't care of a village or two got wiped if alternative was coup succeeding.
Russia nuking themselves does not imply that tho. It would be same humanitarian catastrophe as Russia nuking Ukraine, Russia blowing up that nuclear plant in Ukraine they are currently likely planning to blow, Russia blowing up the damm.
Meaning, it would be exactly the same humanitarian disaster as Russia is comiting elsewhere right now. Only difference is that a.) nationality of innocent victims b.) event that harms Russia itself as opposed event that harms countries around Russia.
I'm not sure what you mean here. I'm not saying we should somehow care more about Russians than about anyone else. I just don't think Putin nuking cities with millions of people would be hilarious in any sense of the word, and I don't see how that changes based on which side of the border it's on.
Basically, you say that if two killers will shoot each one, then it's the exact same tragedy as when they shot innocents. In your eyes, offender and defender are both innocent people.
No, this is not what I said. It's so far from what I said or even implied, I'm not even sure how to explain it in a way you won't completely twist around.
I guess this will suffice: a nuclear assault by the Russian state, on Russian soil, is not "two killers shooting eachother"; whether they're aiming for Wagner group is irrelevant, since it would also kill thousands if not millions of civilians. Hence, it is an act of genocide.
I thought this was completely obvious, so I left it implied, but clearly things need to be spelled out to the nth degree around here.
Genocide is not defined by number of victims, but rather by intent. If the actual target is Wagner and civilians are "side victims" then it does not fall into genocide definition. If your intent is to destroy some group in population, for them to not exist, then it becomes genocide. Even if you fail to kill that many people of use non lethal methods.
Oh, you're right, I change my mind. It would be hilarious after all.
What point are you even trying to make here?
> Let's not participate in the vilification of the Russian people
Sure. But let also admit that the support for Ukrainian war and actual ongoing genocide in Ukraine is high in Russia.
Sure, but let's also not pretend the average Russian has unfettered access to independent media.
They haven't started killing people for using VPNs yet so I think more correct statement is that they are too stupid to look for that access, or too ignorant or brainwashed to keep believing official propaganda.
I don't think it's more correct. But if you wanted to keep arguing for the sake of it, I agree that's the point you'd make. Good job. "Unfettered access" now means "can use a VPN without being killed for it". Sure.
Nuclear genocide != nuclear suicide. Russian people started the war. Majority of Russians support war with Ukraine even today, with hope that they kill all Ukrainians and occupy their territory, to show their power to Rotten West. They sad that their leader is too weak to nuke Washington and London.
"...it is distressing to see the [British] press grovelling in the gutter as low as Goebbels in his prime, shrieking that any German commander who holds out in a desperate situation (when, too, the military needs of his side clearly benefit) is a drunkard, and a besotted fanatic. ... There was a solemn article in the local [Oxford] paper seriously advocating systematic exterminating of the entire German nation as the only proper course after military victory: because, if you please, they are rattlesnakes, and don't know the difference between good and evil! (What of the writer?) The Germans have just as much right to declare the Poles and Jews exterminable vermin, subhuman, as we have to select the Germans: in other words, no right, whatever they have done."
J.R.R. Tolkien, 1944, in a letter to his son, commenting on British war-time propaganda.
Very apt quote, sadly.
Offtopic:
Regarding your Ask HN thread - some years ago I used (well, tried to) a small smartphone stylus which 'docked' in the headphone socket so it would be always with the phone. It wasn't good for me, because it wasn't sensitive enough for sketching, but overall it was fine for navigating the UI.
If your phone has no 3.5 jack but you use a case it can be attached to the case.
Maybe you can try to use a notebook style case, so your palms would sweat the case, not the phone and therefore you would have a bit less trouble with false touches.
Eg: https://www.amazon.com/x-girl-P-TPS-XG1-Collaboration-Stylus...
Tolkien was a shockingly wise man for his time. I've been enjoying reading his letters lately. Adds so much context to his fictional work as well.
Hah, well thank you! Luckily the hyperhidrosis has since passed, since it was just a temporary side effect from medication. But I'm definitelly gonna get one of these anyway, because it will definitely be an issue again sometime in the future.
Easy mis information claiming it was US that nuked Wagner
Nuclear weapons have pretty clear signatures. That said, in the confusion afterwards it is of course debatable if any of that will matter.
Easy in what sense? Easy to make that claim? Sure. Easy to actually convince people? I seriously doubt it.
Point of nukes is deterring other country. If your opponent is not country than there is little use for nukes because there is no target. That is why terrorism was such big topic for US/Russia for last two decades.
It might be strange to say, but Putin is not an absolute dictator. He could not order the use of nuclear weapons on a whim, and have that obeyed throughout the chain. The Russian system will be much more sophisticated than that. https://thebulletin.org/2022/03/read-the-fine-print-russias-...
Seems unlikely tbh, he will turn into a martyr, and irradiation of NATO countries will trigger A5.
It won't. For that it would have to be an attack on NATO countries.
No direct attack is needed. Both Dems and Reps said they would trigger article 5 on the event of a nuclear accident or attack in Ukraine that would result in irradiation of NATO territory.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/nuclear-...
They are more likely to nuke the people backing Prigozhin rather than anything in Russia itself.
Would the new regime resort to the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine or anyone else?
As unpredictable and irrational as he's become, there's some comfort in Putin's track record of staying off the button. I really hope these events don't cause him to start getting YOLOy
There is no reason. How nukes benefit Putin?
only if maybe Russians will interpret this as super matcho/alpha , to sacrifice entire cities including their future to cleanup your own shit.
I've had the exact thought, it looks as if we are further descending into apocalyptic territory.
You have people capable of extreme destruction being cornered into an existential state, leaving them with very little rational options. This is when the irrational options starts appearing very rational..
True or not, what if this appears like a western backed coup to Putin and his inner circle. The kind of retaliations such an action would call for is unimaginable.
I'm not sure the Kremlin is full of irrational individuals ready see their country totally annihilated. I suspect the Kremlin is full of self-serving individuals determined to look after their own self-interest. They'll be happy to see Putin hang on, provided of course his success aligns with their success. But if their interests could be better served supporting someone else, they will quickly flip allegiances.
I'm inclined to agree with your line of thinking but my comment was on the second and third order consequences of what just happened.
When you put rational people in extremely chaotic situations, they tend to make very irrational choices.
As of just a few hours ago we just entered a world where the following is an actual possibility, albeit an unlikely possibility: Prigozhin closes in, creating an existential crises for Putin and his inner circle. They believe this is a western backed coup where defeat isn't just personal but also defeat for Russia. Putin & his inner circle are put in a position to consider retaliation under the context of a rapidly deteriorating existential crises.
I'm a voracious consumer of history and I can tell the one thing you learn from history is how a set of seemingly unrelated harmless dominos change the world overnight whether if its the death of a duke from a second tier power or the ambition of a failed artist.
I could see the probability of a deranged Putin ordering nuclear strikes within Russia going up, but I think the probability of his order being followed will go down accordingly. It's not as if Putin can actually launch the nukes unilaterally.
As I understand it Wagner have already taken control of or surrounded various buildings in Moscow
This is false. The Wagner column is 500 kms away from Moscow.
Hard to say what the videos in Moscow are of then if that’s the case.
They're likely the "anti-terrorist" measures that have been announced. Not hard to say at all.
Not Wagner. They are preparation - response of Russian security services to potential threat.
Russian (state) controlled vehicles there for security? Can you link to sources?
The (very few) videos that I've seen look like Russian state vehicles.
It was other city far from Moscow. What I see is civilians are split in 2 camps , young ones that follow social media will probably be in one camp and old people that only follow TV will be in other camp. Let's see what is next.
And I see that a few started blaming USA, Israel and nazis for this.
BBC seems to be more "Live" with recent events including them taking another city/town [1].
The Guardian's Ukraine live blog has good coverage as well:
I find it funny how everyone is suddenly a Russian foreign policy expert.
Given the fog of war, I am taking a wait and see approach.
Especially where politics is proscribed. No exercise or training allowed but lets go sprint on race day!
Reporting from a traditional media outlet:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/wagner-head-suggests-hi...
My estimation: short term it will fail.
Long term it will lead to substantial power movement.
Most of the young nationalistic russians are Wagner fans and despise the ordinary military, they view as corrupt and incompetent (which might be very true).
But they have been the fuel of the war. If Wagner is no more, or just a soulless hulk, this fuel is gone and moral will drop significantly.
And the current options for Prigoshin are
a) become a marty
b) submit to "justice" and public trial (but he knows this will likely not happen, but rather bullet or poison)
c) defect to Ukraine
He already made clear statements, that the war was wrong from the beginning, there was never a threat from Ukraine and the evil military commanders gave Putin wrong information. This sounds to me like building a bridge.
In either case, for the russian empire it is a desaster. And if it becomes a true desaster, there are chances it will become a disaster for everyone, as russian think tanks openly discussed the possibility of "preemptive counter nuclear strike". If they are about to die, they are willing to take everyone with them.
Mostly this is surely bluffing, as they made that statement, while they the internal power struggle was already ongoing as a message to the west: "don't exploit our weakness, we still have nukes". But partly I think it is a legit threat of cornered bullies.
> defect to Ukraine
I don't see that happening.
Me currently neither. But this seems to be his only choice, where he would go on living. I am sure, there are secret negotiations taking place behind the scenes.
But he knows, that he will confirm in the eye of the russian public, that he is a traitor then. But officially he already is and his loyal forces can never take Moscow.
It gets pretty weird, apparently there is now some kind of deal where he gets to abscond to Belarus and Wagner soldiers will be placed under regular Russian command.
Yes, I totally did not see that coming.
I still would be surprised, if Prigoshin would die of natural causes.
In either case it shows how weak Putin is, that he has to let him go, after they did an armed uprising.
Agreed they both come out of this much weaker than they were going in.
Either he or Putin will be dead in the next few weeks, my money is on Putin surviving for the time being. But he's going to come out much weaker.
Vova will have to purge whatever is left after this coup.
Doing so will make an already paper-tiger of an army/bureaucracy even worse off, as paranoia and shows of loyalty will be paramount, not effective fighting ability. Think North Korea, but even more so.
Whatever command structure of the army is left will have even worse of a time in Ukraine and, especially, in Crimea.
Vova is running out of cards to play, Wagner having now taken some double-digit percent of his remaining deck.
When Ukraine pushes into Crimea, the chances of nukes going off goes up a lot now.
This is off the hook. @mysaigin says the AN-24 shoot down is old... oh well.
If nothing else Putin's prerogatives just experienced a sudden realignment. Going to be hard to continue prosecuting the Ukraine invasion.
This is just a random guy on Twitter. Can we leave this kind of clickbait emotional reporting to Reddit please?
Is that actually confirmed? As in, is there a reason to believe it happened and that it is not some old video from elsewhere resurfacing? (People always post old videos on twitter claiming they relate to current situation.)
What… is this site and what’s with the swiftlang logo
It was inevitable - this is what happens when you allow private armies as a business. Nearly a century ago, when the British government decided to take control of a private army the British empire ultimately collapsed because of the backlash from the corporates who ran it. Putin is right to act swiftly and harshly against this kind of behaviour before they become an actual threat to the nation - Mercenaries, unlike national armies, tend to prioritise money and power. (In fact, the harsh action against them seems to suggest that is exactly how the Russians are looking at it - that this group has been paid to rebel).
The reason they had a private army was to do dirty stuff in Africa that would cause an international incident if the Russian military was involved directly. Without Wagner, it'd have been much harder for Russia to force project.
The core problem is the poorly managed war; Wagner'd be unlikely to rebel if the war was going well and everyone was satisfied with the Russian leadership.
Private Armies or Private Military Contractors are desired by governments who want to deflect political accountability, and, to that end, Russian leadership isn't any different to the west on how they've been using them. In the Ukraine conflict, the Wagner group has often been used as cannon fodder. Especially in Bakhmut, where the Ukranians recently lost the bulk of their real soldiers, good soldiers, while the brunt of Russian losses was borne by the Wagner group and not the Russian military. (That is one explanation of why the Wagner group is pissed at Russian military, and, thus, the mutiny).
I agree with your perspective that certain aspects of the war weren't managed well by Russia, but disagree that war isn't going well for Russia - they appear to have achieved 80% of their strategic objectives by annexing Crimea and bordering areas of Ukraine, and holding on to it while Ukranian counter-offensives have failed to dislodge the Russians. In fact military experts in both US (Ukraine’s Chances of Victory in 2023 are Vanishingly Small - https://www.19fortyfive.com/2023/06/ukraines-chances-of-vict... ) and India (Final Battle In Russia-Ukraine War? - https://youtu.be/D0oA-Y5eTs4 ) agree that the chances of a Ukraine counter-offensive being successful are quite low.
very confused by the logo, which is the one from the swift programming language. What's the relationship ?
It's not the exact same logo. It may just be another representation of a swift (a type of bird).
It looks similar but not the same.
Can someone tell me why Putin let it get this far? It seems pretty foreseeable that when you have two independent militaries in constant conflict with each other, and when the heads of both are publicly insulting and threatening each other that eventually this will boil over. Did he just need Wagner that badly that he tolerated the open insults to his military as long as they were winning battles in Ukraine?
Didn't the head of Wagner have close ties to Putin? I guess those are pretty much severed now?
Would smart person start this war in the first place?
Apparently he prefers to work by having his subordinates and departments fighting with each other (Hitler used the same "management" tactic). What worked in the past for him may not work in the future.
> Swift Forecaster: 42%. Very uncertain about this right now.
after the west being duped by him time and again, has there been zero introspection into our own biases? How is anyone believing this?