Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Grain of salt but interesting if true

The money and stolen resources from Africa is what's keeping Prigozhin alive.

It's incredible that Hungary are still so anti-Ukraine. At this stage it's pretty obvious who is going to win the war and they are making a conscious decision to double down on their previous support of Russia.

Can they not see the reputational damage that all things Hungarian are suffering because of this? Or do they simply not care?

Their leader is pretty dependent on the Russian propoganda machine. He is not willing to let freedom of the press show up his corruption which would be a requirement of being more western focused.

Like Belarus it is about what is best for dear leader as opposed to the population.

Latest statement from Prig

“Despite the fact that we did not show any Aggression, a Missile Attack was launched on us. 30 Fighters were Killed and others were Injured. This served as a trigger for our Immediate Advance. One of the Columns went to Rostov, the other towards Moscow. Was not a single Soldier was Killed on the Ground. We regret that we had to Strike at Aircraft, but they Attacked us with Bombs. We traveled 780 km, this is 200km to Moscow and we Blocked all Military Bases and Airfields along the way. Among the PMC Fighters, there are several Wounded and 2 Dead - among them Employees of the Ministry of Defense that decided to join our Cause. None of the PMC Fighters was Forced to March, and everyone knew his Goal. Our March showed Serious Security Problems across our Country but it was never our Goal to Overthrow the current Regime and Legally-Elected Government.”

Thank you and thanks to Francie, it was a bit odd that Igor was the only one talking about stolen nukes

This has been mentioned several times as a possibility. It may have that effect, but Putin is not the 4D chess master he likes to portray himself as, and we know this by his amazingly stupid decision to invade Ukraine. A decision of hubris and disastrously bad intelligence.

So, while it could be a setup, I'm much less sure of that than I would have been two years ago.

The Americans blew the whistle in December 2021 on Putin’s preparations to invade Ukraine when no other Western intelligence service agreed. That shows the US has the best sigint, especially satellite, but also some humint within the Russian defence forces to confirm that the troop movements were not just a repeat of the Zapad exercise that had the Poles so excited in 2017. But the information would have been very widespread with the Russian military staff so I don’t think those sources have direct access to the top level.

Over the weekend, I think the Western intelligence service were totally blindsided. I don’t blame them for not anticipating Prigozhin’s move- neither did Putin - but it seems they still have no idea what really happened with the Lukashenko “deal” nor what will happen next. Even Anthony Blinken on the Sunday talk shows was reduced to the sort of speculation you can read here. We are back to the days of Kremlinology when Western “experts” on Russia scrutinised the body language among Russian leaders to figure out who was in and who was out.

One amazing feature of the weekend - the Western powers were scared sh**less that Putin would be ousted . Imagine if Prigozhin controlled Russia’s nuclear arsenal! The West can see there is no organised resistance to Putin left in Russia. If there was, they missed a golden opportunity. The only threat to Putin is a Palace coup. It may already be underway for all we know: my guess is Putin hangs on but there will be relentless jockeying for position among key figures.

Well here in Belgrade Saturday evening, the main evening news on TV was one of rejoicing at how the incredibly stupid Americans had been taken for 6 billion USD by the clever scam orchestrated by Prigozhin and Putin. When the CIA were unable to destroy Russia on the battle field, they made a plan to stage a coup to get rid of Putin ( getting rid of elected governments is what they do) So Prigozhin set the trap months ago, and the stupid Americans fell for it, hook, line and sinker! He began bad mouthing the Russian military leadership, and became a thorn in their side, and when the CIA offered him 6 billion to finance a coup, he accepted. To make it as realistic as possible, he moved his military from Ukraine to Rostov, and then set out for Moscow, when the final payment had been confirmed, he turned his army around and away from Moscow. Mr Putin was in on the plan the whole time. This was repeated several times throughout the evening in Serbia, but strangely enough, it had vanished by the next day, and no mention has been heard of it since. And people here, also followed it hook, line and sinker. Much discussion and laughter in the bars etc.

Exactly.

Please understand, that ALL official Russian information at a time of a crisis is a LIE. Always. Whatever Putin says about "pardoning Wagner", or Peskov saying that Prigozhin is in Belarus, or that Lukashenko averted the crisis and now everything is a hunky dory, these are all lies. We know some probably-true facts: that Putin considers Prigozhin a traitor; that the Russian MoD attacked Wagner's camp; that some Wagner troops were moving towards Moscow without much resistance on the ground; and that they have destroyed some helicopters and a plane. There is just no way Prigozhin has no backup plan, and running to Belarus where he can be easily captured is not it. Going to Belarus with 10000 troops? Lukashenko would be doubly stupid to allow that.

I think if Prigozhin is still alive, we will see interesting things happening really soon.

More gear on the way

Seriously, it's been a couple of days and the best tankie explanation is "Wagner was able to move to Belarus, 100km from Kyiv"? The Kremlin propaganda machine must be down for summer maintenance.

What was stopping them from relocating before this debacle?

MAGA nuts are all over Twitter with this to bash Biden as well as the text recovered from the famous Hunter laptop where he extorted 5 m from China

I think given the fact the Western intelligence agencies may have been blindsighted by this and, as you say, were alarmed at the prospect of someone like Prigozhin at the helm, this will perhaps focus minds in the west to try and line someone up who they deem acceptable to replace Putin. Finding someone like that will be tricky. Also implementing it will be tough given the FSB will be on heightened alert for such a possibility now. You maybe right about there not being a high ranking spy in the Russian MOD,but some of information(especially regarding the plan for Kyiv) the Americans had at their disposal seemed too precise to be more widely known amongst the rank and file soldiers. It was risky for the Americans to reveal it,but they probably calculated it had to be done in the hope Putin might have doubts about going ahead, but that's not his way.

Wonder what Vlad has in store