Russian invasion of Ukraine

I have to say, I have some sympathy for the ‘it was orchestrated’ bit. Paul Mason’s made a convincing case for it as well. It’s at least a possibility.

Background - Russia’s supply lines are being hammered in Ukraine. They are about to lose badly.

Russia clearly assumed that nuclear sabre-rattling would be enough to frighten off NATO/the West, but it’s very obviously not worked. OK, thinks Putin, what ARE they frightened of? Well, that would be Russia as a failed state, collapsing into civil war between gangsters, terrorists and ultranationalist fanatics, with a massive nuclear arsenal left lying around. So let’s show them that that’s the likely outcome if they don’t back off. Putin gives up some authority and credibility, certainly, but this is a last, desperate throw of the dice, and is preferable to the humiliation of being chased out of Crimea.

If this is the case, it shouldn’t frighten the West. As awful a scenario as the one painted above would be, it would be even worse for the Russian elites, which is why it won’t happen.

CNN has called bullshit on Lukashenko's intervention and other outlets are calling the rebellion an 'apparent' insurrection.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/25/europe/putin-belarus-lukashenko-analysis-intl/index.html

The initial details we have, it seems, do not completely add up. And adding to that uncertainty are other questions:

That is not "called bullshit" on it.

is it just a ruse to allow a transfer of 25,000 troops to a 2nd front on the belarus border subtly

although there were fuel depots destroyed and ground to air missiles fired at russian airborne hardware

but then again putin has killed plenty of his own people to advance his career

Are we turning into a conspiracy forum now?

Looks like it. Both Hanlon's and Occam's razors are sorely absent.

Nuclear sabre rattling begs the question what is the state of their weapons? How secure are they? How well maintained are they or have they degraded to non functional?
We don’t know.
Legitimately concerned about bombs being sold by oligarchs, or stolen by assholes like Kadyrov.

?

...

I can’t see this being a Putin-orchestrated false-flag operation. Where is the win? Why deploy armour on Moscow streets?

It’s just made Putin look weak. Hopefully the cracks keep forming

Atemptin a Coup or other uprising during a war that isn't goin well, isn't a sane plan to somehow take an advantage from the current situation, it's a Coup attempt.

Personally I can't get past this point. I'm not goin to overthink it. Putin's fuckedski!

I think the Prigozhin-Wagner story is only half over. He's not far away. Why would be retire when he's got public support and achieved a stunning advance which has probably killed the career of his main rival Shoigu? His fighters won't accept being scattered throughout the army where they might be given all the worst jobs and be dead within days. Wagner officers are all former army officers who were thrown out. Wagner is their second chance at a career and a good income. They won't just give up. Together they are a formidable force. Some of them are probably surrounding him to make sure that he and they don't fall out of windows.

Attempt at a joke inferring there’s a conspiracy against lfgss. Not my finest work.

I can’t see this being a Putin-orchestrated false-flag operation.

It was a reasonable question to raise in the early hours when information was sparse, but the way things played out argue strongly against it, you're right. I saw somewhere a suggestion that Progozhin thought (or was gambling) that Putin would side with him, that he saw himself as creating an opportunity for Putin to purge the establishment and reorganise Russia into whatever kind of nationalist ethnostate Prigozhin dreams of. Maybe and right now it sounds more likely than the Putin-in-control idea, but who knows?

Autocracies aren't meritocracies, particularly not ones run by paranoid bastards like Putin who regularly undermine and belittle their top generals and other administrators to keep them in check. They end up with a lot of people nominally in positions of power but scared to show initiative (or just lacking it), with madmen like Prigozhin and Kadyrov among the few capable of independent action. Which can explain why he did something so reckless and why he got as far as he did. For one thing, if Putin took a little time to decide how to deal with Prigozhin, nobody else was going to risk preempting that decision.

No idea if this has any founding but twitter suggesting the coup was a strategic distraction...

https://twitter.com/Son_of_Sankara/status/1672962909272518656?s=20

Videos already coming out of soldiers who switched side getting executed by regular soldiers

No gore, just comments in the links -
https://twitter.com/vcdgf555/status/1673085527854292992

https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1673074163471228928

Another take on what the politics of it all mean
https://twitter.com/vtchakarova/status/1673052142192427008

Found the Doomsday Watch Emergency Bulletin quite interesting on this.

Quite pursuaded by the idea that Prigozhin's moves are born more out of necessity that any 4d chess from any party.

https://youtu.be/sFOTXSg-_pc

That’s also my reading of it so far. His fight with Shoygu seems real, and the March on Moscow would’ve been him issuing an ultimatum gangster-style: with a ready cocked gun.

Were you convinced by that account's relentless cheerleading for Putin and Russian victory? Or do you also get a percentage of every click through to Neptune toilet paper?

Quite pursuaded by the idea that Prigozhin's moves are born more out of necessity that any 4d chess from any party.

Same. I despair at anyone thinking Putin is capable of 4D chess moves at this stage. And I wish we could keep this thread free of any suggestion of such things. While I am not accusing anyone on here of outright supporting the war, allowing the idea of a smart and calculated Putin to seep through can contribute to a sense of resignation in the West and weaken the support for Ukraine in the longer run. It's meme basically, and it's a shit one at that.

Just because Ruzzia does not make sense does not mean they have some great master plan. The place is a mess and they just make shit up as they go. Prigo never claimed he was fighting Putler so it makes perfect sense he quit his sabre rattling before everything got too dangerous for the czar. Still it begs the question has the mood of the ruzzian people finally changed now that the death toll is out in the open. Once the ball gets rolling it is really difficult to stop it.

Whatever the grand plan is / was, seeing defenses being built around Moscow must surely change to opinion to the worse?

The account was the first one of many reporting the same story that I clicked.

It is a bit silly that fake news makes the same or more as real news tho. *waitsforbogrolldelivery

People depend on the media and internet to learn what’s happening, and dictatorships tend to control both. They were cutting off internet on Ruzzia over the weekend, so it wouldn’t surprise me if most Russians don’t find out.