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Hades

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Its surreal that you can march all the way to Moscow without resistance and then still chose total defeat anyway.
 
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XsjadoBlayde

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Is surprising to see so many who don't trust Russian propaganda take all these events and reasons being presented by multiple levels of Russian operatives with their own motivations at face value. There's nothing to gain tactically for being honest in the midst of a failing invasion and spectres of mutiny from within. Possibly a fair share of dishonesty from different frictional parties being directed at different audiences for varying intentions, we won't be privvy to, this early on.
 
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Silvanus

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Is surprising to see so many who don't trust Russian propaganda take all these events and reasons being presented by multiple levels of Russian operatives with their own motivations at face value. There's nothing to gain tactically for being honest in the midst of a failing invasion and spectres of mutiny from within. Possibly a fair share of dishonesty from different frictional parties being directed at different audiences for varying intentions, we won't be privvy to, this early on.
There's also nothing to gain from inventing a mutiny against yourself.
 

Terminal Blue

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Its surreal that you can march all the way to Moscow without resistance and then still chose total defeat anyway.
I don't think that's what happened. Being publicly accused of treason by the president and then somehow walking away free with all charges against you dropped is a pretty baller move to be honest.

I think what probably happened is that the government agreed to some concessions, which may be very bad news for some of Prighozen's rivals in the MoD.

The reason why Putin has stayed in power for so long is not just his personal control over large parts of the state and security service, but because noone feels confident that they could replace him without painting a huge target on themselves. Bluster aside, I wouldn't assume that Prighozen necessarily wanted Putin's job, at least not yet. I suspect his ambition is simply to have a bigger share of the cake, and given the exceptional lenience with which he is being treated he may well have gotten everything he wanted.
 
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Gergar12

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The Russian military was entrenched around Moscow, say what you want about Russia, but they are pretty good at the defensive side of war, look at Ukraine vs Russia right now. You have Lancet 3 drones blowing up Bradley, Leopard 2A6s, and other vehicles.

Ukraine needed more men, and more missiles, and those F-16s armed with better cruise missiles like AGM-158.
 

Def

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Its surreal that you can march all the way to Moscow without resistance and then still chose total defeat anyway.
For the moment of turning back, his troops in Rostov were surrounded by thousands of Chechen soldiers "Ahmat", and the Moscow region was filled with mobile detachments from several regions of Russia, gathered at the bridges. The decision to start the fight would be the total defeat even if he had won the fight, and Prigozhin chose the best outcome to him and everybody else in Russia.
 

Ag3ma

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Wagner is a key element of Russian foreign policy, allowing it to militarily interfere in other countries' affairs with plausible deniability. The estimated 25,000 in Russian and Russian-occupied territory may need to be brought under heel, but there are hundreds-thousands more abroad in Africa, Middle East, etc. They presumably need to be kept on - potentially of course Prigozhin gets to keep Wagner as a PMC doing this dirty work, just not in Russia.That or they will be transferred to a new, continuation PMC.
 

Absent

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Lukashenko says he explicitely asked his friend Putin to not assassinate Prigozhin.

Which is very nice but... why ask that ? Putin assassinates people ? I thought it was just russophobic fantasies.
 
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Dalisclock

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Lukashenko says he explicitely asked his friend Putin to not assassinate Prigozhin.

Which is very nice but... why ask that ? Putin assassinates people ? I thought it was just russophobic fantasies.
And what is Luka gonna do? Offer the FSB hit team a drink? Write a slightly awkward letter to Vlad "Vova" Putin?

Pringles is walking dead man at this point. It's only a matter of when and how, not if. He fled Russia to little Russia, that owes everything to Russia and is supported by Russia. It's like Fleeing the Mansion to go live in the guest house 20 feet away. Putin can get Pringles just as easily in Belarus as in Russia.
 

Absent

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Write a slightly awkward letter to Vlad "Vova" Putin?
It was on the phone, apparently.

"I said to Putin : Yes we could take him out, it wouldn’t be a problem, if it doesn’t work the first time then it would the second. I told him : Don’t do it, because afterwards there will be no negotiations and these guys will be ready to do anything."

Though I'm not sure that argument is very strong. Wagner is so Prigozhin-centered, I'm not sure to what extent "these guys" would go on without him.
 
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Dalisclock

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It was on the phone, apparently.

"I said to Putin : Yes we could take him out, it wouldn’t be a problem, if it doesn’t work the first time then it would the second. I told him : Don’t do it, because afterwards there will be no negotiations and these guys will be ready to do anything."

Though I'm not sure that argument is very strong. Wagner is so Prigozhin-centered, I'm not sure to what extent "these guys" would go on without him.
I've heard a lot of the Wagner guys are fucking pissed, like Pringles jerked them around with this. I don't have a source though, but I know I'd be fucking pissed if I was convinced to run a coup on Moscow and then just stopped in the middle of it.
 

Dalisclock

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Emutopian PowerPoint man talks about the Counteroffensive.


TLDW We don't know much. We're probably not even out of Phase 1 yet, so it's hard to draw any conclusions and the only ones saying much of anything are Russian friendly media which is....biased at best.

Also, discussion of Pringles grand day out will probably come next week or the week after.
 
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