Russian invasion of Ukraine

Superb

Prizoghin has put out a video of him standing in front of 30 PMC Wagner corpses and calling Shoigu and Gerasimov motherfuckers and shouting "where's my fucking ammo?".

It's all going to plan.

Edit. that was last night, this morning he is apparently also threatening to pull out of Bahkmut completely.

Theres no way Wagner would withdraw, not in a million years. If the Ukrainians capitalised on it Prizoghin would be scapegoated and dead meat. It's all just bluster as we've heard many times before.

Seems unlikely, but this brinkmanship might be pushing Prighozin closer to a high window.

I expect Prigozhin has an escape plan. He can certainly afford it.

Wonder if the drones hitting the Kremlin were sent by a disgruntled Russian then.

I find Prigozhin very weird person. He has more money than he could spend, yet instead of just spending time in sunny Murmansk, he's all boots on the ground with these thug soldiers of his. On the other hand maybe daily check ins via zoom wouldn't motivate much.

Victory day is just a couple of days away and I really hope Ukrainians have served Putin something very special.

According to the Denys Davidov telegram channel Wagner really are pulling out of Bakhmut. According to Davidov it's not for the lack of ammo as the Ukranian defenders have not noticed any reduction in shelling. So one could speculate that for Prigozhin the businessman this just turned out to be a failing business venture? Also, according to the Davidov channel there are formal agreements in place for the Kadyrovites to take over the positition.

Wagner are busy in Sudan apparently, so maybe thats more lucrative and they must be pretty ineffective at this point and need rotating out, that or they are being redeployed for when a counter offensive happens

Looks like bakhmut was being showered in white phosphorous or similar incendiary last night

"there are formal agreements in place for the Kadyrovites to take over the position."

And do what exactly? film tik-tok vids 60k behind the front line? I doubt they will actually get anywhere near the danger zone.

Think in the last few weeks the VDV have been deployed to Bakhmut, so guess they'll do the remaining routing and Kadroyvites can just hold existing positions

Hang on, now it seems more unclear again. Prigozhin signed a document claiming they will withdraw on the 10th of May, but apparently the document is only valid if Shoigu countersigns it. It might be that ambiguity is the best that he can manage for now. It could be that he is hedging PR-wise against any shame/blame if Wagner gets their asses kicked during the Ukrainian spring offensive. "Lost against the Ukranians? No way, we had already pulled out by that point."

My understanding is that the Wagner ex-prison conscripts were being used in the frontal westwards assault on central Bakhmut.
The VDV and ther experienced Russian troops were stationed on the north and south sides of the salient, and made progress as the Ukrainians were unable to hold off all three fronts.

Supposedly some of the recently trained and equipped new Ukrainian forces have been sent to Bakhmut, (possibly to get some combat experience, and allow other UKF to rotate).

Prigozhin has burnt through his ex-prison guys and doesn't want to lose (all) his trained/experienced guys in the meat grinder of Bakhmut or in any Ukrainian counter attack.

Victory day parade in Moscow was able to muster exactly one tank; a WWII era T-34.

It’s almost like 60% of their MBT are busy or in pieces

There are more Russian tanks on display in Kiev than in Moscow r/n.

Here is 'The Russian Dude's take on the parade:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2j-8n3gtSg

The more I think about it, the more I believe that the Kremlin drone 'attack' was a Russian false flag operation.

1. It was a really weak attempt, it didn't do any damage.
   
2. It reinforces the Putin narrative about Russia being under attack at home, being the victim, so justifying and preparing the population for further mobilisation.
   
3. Considering the timing, it prepared the PR ground for what they knew was going to be a small Victory Day parade today, so they could say 'security concerns' as the reason for it being smaller and not impressive.
   

Victory day parade in Moscow was able to muster exactly one tank; a WWII era T-34.

Link?

the Putin narrative about Russia being under attack at home, being the victim

People who aren't normally into conspiracies have pretty much staked their careers on the theory that Putin and the FSB were behind the Moscow bombings in the 1990s. Peter Pomerantsev is the only name that comes to mind right now, but I am sure I have heard plenty of others going quite far in suggesting this.

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/16972014/

All these "terror acts" correlate with Putin's ratings rise.

Quick google sends me to some scientific paper which i'm too lazy to read but basically:
Terrorist attacks and public approval and confidence in the Russian president: Evidence from time series analysis

p.s. Ok, i've read some of it and it's interesting

1 Attachment

Things are about to step up a gear, at last.

Does this mean planes as well? Or do they already have compatible planes?

I think I read somewhere that these can already by launched from their existing aircraft. The argument for more planes is still ongoing, although this is a step in the same direction, in terms of longer-range strike capabilities.