Simplistic fairy tale reading of Prigozhin in Belarus contradicts likely aim of Surovkin which was to turn Wagner toward threatening Baltic states
I hate being captain obvious but it is pretty clear to me that the consolation prize for Prigozhin is to threaten the viability of the Baltic states, and that there is a distinct probability that Progozhin was set up by Surovkin for just this purpose. Why ?
A. The assault on Bakhmut killed 40% of Wagner effectives in Ukraine, and was not yielding any long term strategic results
B. Wagner's methods of subversion and its mere presence as a human wave generator of bodies would be in the short term fairly suitable for threatening say Riga, in violent attacks, which could in the short term threaten say Riga before full mobilization of NATO divisions in this area
C. Germany is sending in BND troops to garrison the Baltic area, and probably due to an expected RF push to destabilize areas threatened by Wagner
In a word, Prigozhin, in his push to have some Wagner autonomy may have been manipulated by Surovkin, and to a lesser degree Putin into being shock troops for a new front line war, whereas all they were doing in Backhmut was getting slaughtered
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To many, Prigozhin seemed brave. No Russian general was seen going so close to danger.
Prigozhin claimed his troops were being starved of ammunition by another of Putin’s trusted inner circle, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu.
The Wagner boss’s obvious hatred of Shoigu had developed into a festering turf war over who would control Wagner. At stake were the vast money-making ventures Prigozhin developed and owned for the Kremlin in Africa and beyond.
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Prigozhin wanted consequentiality. He may have been "manipulated into it" by having Wagner being future shock troops for raids into the Baltic states
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"If Wagner deploys its serial killers in Belarus, all neighbouring countries face even bigger danger of instability," Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said after a meeting in The Hague with Stoltenberg and government leaders from six other NATO allies.
"This is really serious and very concerning, and we have to make very strong decisions.
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I am arguing that this has been the intention of both Putin whom offered Wagner a deal "they could not refuse" as well as Surovkin
If so, this **** has many more rounds of chaos ahead through the summer
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Why Prigozhin’s short-lived Russian rebellion failed
Analysis by Nic Robertson, CNN
Updated 8:13 AM EDT, Tue June 27, 2023
00:38 - Source: CNN
Wagner boss releases new audio in wake of armed march on Moscow
CNN —
Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin over-reached and lost.
His hubris-fuelled insurrection failed through a combination of hot-headed ambition and his inability to read Putin’s inner circle, of which he was a member, properly.
As one informed Moscow resident told me, the “system wasn’t ready for the radical change” he wanted.
When he packed up his tanks and pulled out of the Russian military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don on Saturday, well-wishers rushed up to say thank you.
His battle-hardened troops, like veteran actors at a curtain call after a long and tense 24-hour performance, waved goodbye to an apparently adoring audience.
Whether it had it all been theater, we may never know, but in Prigozhin’s mind on Friday evening when he called his heavily armed forces to action on Russia’s not Ukraine’s streets, the time had come for him to take center stage.
For weeks, months even, he’d been arguing Russia’s war in Ukraine was being badly and unnecessary fought by an elite who couldn’t care less how many Russian lives were lost.
His message gained easy traction among Russians who understand that Putin and his coterie habitually lie and tolerate it only as long as their leader is strong and they enjoy stability.
It’s a compact forged across generations: resistance to dictatorship is useless, just put your head down and survive.
CNN reporter calls out 'lie' after Putin thanks Russian forces for stopping 'civil war'
Feud spills into the open
For months now, Prigozhin struck a chord with his charismatic and carefully choreographed front-line rants from Bakhmut where his fighters were dying in their hundreds so Putin could claim a tiny gain in his grindingly slow war in Ukraine.
To many, Prigozhin seemed brave. No Russian general was seen going so close to danger.
Prigozhin claimed his troops were being starved of ammunition by another of Putin’s trusted inner circle, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu.
The Wagner boss’s obvious hatred of Shoigu had developed into a festering turf war over who would control Wagner. At stake were the vast money-making ventures Prigozhin developed and owned for the Kremlin in Africa and beyond.
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Putin, whose hitherto iron-fisted rule relies on manipulating his inner circle’s interests to keep them in line, should have shut the feud down sooner.
What the Russian public was hearing from Prigozhin, about how badly the war was going, was dangerous for Putin. The renegade mercenary boss’s regular diatribes about a screwed-up, lying military leadership were seeds of dissent falling on fertile soil.
Prigozhin’s miscalculation was how fertile that soil was, or more specifically which bits weren’t.
Not only had his message been gaining traction with the public, he’d also been drawing support from top military ranks. At the end of April, he recruited Deputy Defense Minister Mikhail Mizintsev direct from the Kremlin.
Another top defense official, Sergey Surovkin, who for a while last year was put in charge of Russia’s war in Ukraine, was a favorite of Prigozhin. “This is the only person with the star of the General of the Army who knows how to fight,” Prigozhin said, at the height of his spat with the defense ministry in Moscow.
Rumors were the respect was reciprocated.
Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
Prigozhin's actions followed months of feuding with Russia's military top brass.
Roman Romokhov/AFP/Getty Images
Wagner fighters captured the city of Rostov-on-Don over the weekend.
Around the same time Putin’s massively powerful and vital ally Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov heaped praise on Prigozhin’s troops. “The Wagner PMC has very good, courageous, necessary, necessary people,” Kadyrov said.
As Prigozhin threatened to pull his forces from the front lines Kadyrov was trying to mediate. “If you stay with us,” Kadyrov said, “I promise you that we will give you more, create better conditions, than you have today. We will try to make everything top notch for you.”
At 9 p.m. Friday night, Prigozhin claimed he met with Shoigu. What they discussed is still unknown. Shoigu left abruptly. Hours later, Prigozhin said he wasn’t budging till Shoigu came back to talk, and in the meantime said he had dispatched a fighting force to Moscow.
‘Treacherous’ Prigozhin
Late Saturday morning, as Prigozhin was still holed up in the Russian military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, Kadyrov played kingmakers’ hand: “What is happening is not an ultimatum to the Ministry of Defense. This is a challenge to the state, and against this challenge it is necessary to rally around the national leader,” he declared.
He called Prigozhin “treacherous” and said he was sending his special forces to rout the mercenary boss. The walls were closing in.
Any thought Prigozhin might rally Russian army generals to his cause was evaporating too. Hours earlier, Surovkin, the only general he valued, released a video message telling him to “stop” and to “obey the will” of President Vladimir Putin.
Facing a potential Alamo, Prigozhin appeared to negotiate his way out on Saturday afternoon – or at least, he thought he did.
Prigozhin claimed he called off his march on Moscow to save “Russian blood,” but the reality was that his neck was on the line.
Putin, fabled for rewarding loyalty and punishing the disloyal, had only hours earlier accused Prigozhin of “treason” and “armed rebellion.” Now, he hid behind a diplomatic fig leaf, allowing his weak Belarus neighbor and supplicant, President Alexander Lukashenko, to announce an amnesty and sanctuary for Prigozhin.
But by Monday, that amnesty appeared to have evaporated. Russian state media said charges against Prigozhin had not been dropped, and since Belarus is an enfeebled client of Russia, it can surely offer little safety for Prigozhin.
If the Wagner boss does have any leverage left, it is bundled up in his shady diamond, gold and other dealings with Kremlin clients he helped recruit in Mali, Central African Republic, Sudan and Libya.
Such currency rarely holds its value long.
Prigozhin’s world is a much smaller and more dangerous place now, but there can be little satisfaction for Putin in this as his empire is the most fragile it’s been since he consolidated his power from a wholly different group of oligarchs two decades ago.
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Whereas
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East Europe NATO allies say Wagner troops in Belarus spell trouble
June 27, 202310:53 PM EDTUpdated an hour ago
THE HAGUE, June 27 (Reuters) - Eastern European NATO countries on Tuesday warned that a move of Wagner's Russian mercenary troops to Belarus would create greater regional instability, but NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance is ready to defend itself against any threat.
"If Wagner deploys its serial killers in Belarus, all neighbouring countries face even bigger danger of instability," Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said after a meeting in The Hague with Stoltenberg and government leaders from six other NATO allies.
"This is really serious and very concerning, and we have to make very strong decisions. It requires a very, very tough answer of NATO," Polish President Andrzej Duda added.
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin arrived in Belarus on Tuesday under a deal negotiated by President Alexander Lukashenko that ended the mercenaries' mutiny in Russia on Saturday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wagner's fighters would be offered the choice of relocating there.
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Andrew Beckwith, PhD