The media posturing around him is ridiculous. They always put him in those sweaty green fatigues as if I’m supposed to believe any time he’s giving a speech on camera, he didn’t have time to get into something more befitting of a president because moments before he was blasting at Russians on the front lines or something.
It’s hilarious how everyone eats this up.
Or worse, complaining that his image is unpresidential?
What the actual fuck?
What do you think all of Prigozhin’s videos are?
I sincerely would have been more likely to believed that Putin is ran evil warmonger, and that Zelenskyy is a paragon, if it wasn’t the case there was so much of this top-down pressure in the US to make sure people don’t accidentally pick the wrong side to root for.
If I saw that the facts were plainly speaking for themselves I would believe them. But they aren’t, so I have to be very critical.
I understand the need for this propaganda in Ukraine for the sake of Ukrainians. I don’t understand why in the US, Ukrainian propaganda has a state sanctioned monopoly over Russian propaganda.
Your take on propaganda because a president of a country being invaded doesn't dress the part you expect is seriously bizarre. You're not being critical, you are being cynical.
Since that was the aspect of the propaganda that was relevant at the moment, that’s what I focused on. But it is a tiny part of the whole, and yes on its own I agree that it appears quite trivial and inconsequential. But when mass media (including new media) ceaselessly bombards the entire population with tiny things like this over the course of years, then it has a very real and drastic effect. And most nefarious of all, because this kind of propoganda is ever present and so subtle, it is almost invisible. And when you do point out any one of its many aspects you get responses exactly like this: that it is trivial and inconsequential and why don’t I just get with the program, and isn’t it obvious there’s good guys and there’s bad guys and isn’t it obvious who is who.
And this is the cynical post-modernist post-truth part that I criticise about your position. It's just a doubt of everything, of what's even real, and so you are just playing your part of the propaganda that made you think that way. The issue in post-truth is that your take is just another parroted version of "what's even real?". Even on this case, where it's pretty clear who are the bad guys, you prefer to be cynical and not even believe what your eyes can see.
You've been bombarded by subtle or overt propaganda your whole life, by governments and corporations. It's not by being cynical that you are somehow better than others or not being influenced by it, you aren't immune to it by believing nothing. Or by being a contrarian.
There is no reason to believe anything in the media. Anyone who doesn’t suffer from Gell-Mann amnesia should know this is the right stance, it’s not even necessary to believe that it’s all propaganda to reach this conclusion.
Even more because you won't ever be able to verify every single piece of information yourself, you don't have access to all the data possible to verify it. You don't have access to people.
Again, you not trusting anything is the result of falling for propaganda that told you that nothing is trustworthy.
Are you going to reproduce every single scientific experiment to be able to verify them? Are you going to travel to every single place that has news about to interview people yourself and get your own conclusions? Nope, you just don't believe anything, you went to the extreme cynicism side.
It's impossible to achieve what you wrote, it's a lie you tell yourself because it's uncomfortable to trust, there's no truth except your own and that is... Very, very post-modern.
Very start of an invasion doesn't feel like a great time to be broadcasting your exact location. Also maybe not a great time to be doing outtakes in the open streets.
I don't have a whole lot of information to say whether he actually stayed or not. I assume there would be a ton of credible evidence in one direction or the other - photos, videos, etc. But either way, I'm just saying that I could definitely understand the need for a professional studio and obfuscation of location.
Again, President Biden has used a fake Oval Office several times:
https://www.newsweek.com/why-white-house-built-fake-oval-off...
What would it take for the US president to leave Washington DC though? Obviously a real possibility of nuclear war. What else though?
Also President Madison evacuated Washington, DC during the War of 1812.
Where would he go? Australia ?
There's the Pentagon, Raven Rock Mountain Complex, Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center, Cheyenne Mountain Complex, the Greenbrier bunker, the Peters Mountain facility, 33 Thomas Street, nearly a dozen aircraft carriers, Camp David, and god knows how many military bases.
Or he could just board the doomsday fleet of E-4Bs and stay in the air ("Airborne Command Center")
Government Continuity of Operations:
Continuity of Operations (COOP) is a United States federal government initiative, required by U.S. Presidential Policy Directive 40 (PPD-40), to ensure that agencies are able to continue performance of essential functions under a broad range of circumstances. PPD-40 specifies certain requirements for continuity plan development, including the requirement that all federal executive branch departments and agencies develop an integrated, overlapping continuity capability, that supports the eight National Essential Functions (NEFs) described in the document.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_governme...>
See also:
Post Attack Command and Control System: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Attack_Command_and_Contro...>
United States Continuity of Operations Facilities: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Continuity_of_Op...>
Nowhere. AF1 can be refueled in the air indefinitely, and carries enough food and water for several days. You ground civilian traffic and shoot down anything non-military in the air; nothing's getting to you.
In other words: APCs on a highway are not that different from intercity buses, and highways are designed to let you cross the country quickly.
Highways let you move fast only as long as they're intact and no one is shooting at you; otherwise, they make you an easy target. Russian army experienced that first-hand in the first two months of their invasion of Ukraine.
my point was that they tried and they failed. wagner has a bunch of manpads and few pantsir sam systems. they tried to bomb them on highway from planes but missed and kill civilians in track. they also tried to shoot at them missles at voronezh but blew up some petrol refinary. they also tried to bomb some bridge to block road to moscow - but also missed
No, I believe the oil refinery got blown up by a Wagner surface to air missile. The Wagners were trying to shoot down a federal Ka-52, the helicopter successfully deployed countermeasures, and the missile flew off target into the backstop - which happened to be a refinery.
There are two videos of the event from different angles circulating on telegram, it's pretty clear.
Edit: here's a link but this is not on the main highway. Unsure of the scale of this "operation" and if this was ordered from top brass or local initiative.
https://meduza.io/news/2023/06/24/v-lipetskoy-oblasti-gde-na...
It surely was considered. I can imagine in the state of panic even tactical nukes were considered, but sure, not reasonable.
But if Wagner forces would have actually pushed through, then they definitely would have blown up bridges, if the alternative would have been Moscow under siege or house to house fighting.
Especially if there's been reports it's seriously been considered in Ukraine.
NATO is not what it was before 1989, and will take decades to come back up to a minimally acceptable level.
And some things do take decades, even in perfect conditions. Building up a navy takes time due to the long construction timelines for ships. Developing coordination for combined arms operations requires both good officers and non-coms. These take time to develop as well, and need to be continually sustained.
If you focus efforts, it doesn’t take long at all.
And surely you understand that the US economy and state of industry in 1943 (when the Liberty ships were being launched daily) is quite different than today? Only one country currently has the shipbuilding capacity to even think of something like that. The US (and Europe) have closed down a huge number of shipyards since the end of the Cold War, and it would take decades to create new ones, with trained workforces. All the US shipyards are short workers in almost all categories.
This one statement means you don’t know what you’re talking about. Non commissioned officers are E4 rank, you can leave bootcamp at E3 rank. 6 months later get E4. NCO only requires experience at the E7 or above level, which don’t fight only lead.
The name Kriegsmarine, when used to describe the German Navy explicitly and not as the German word for "navy" (for other countries), has extremly strong WW2 connotations, on a similar level as "Wehrmacht". :)
NATO simply has neither the stockpiles nor the production capacity to enter this war.
Can you?
That's the amusing part. The sad part is that the people behind the troll farms still think they're fooling anybody in the West.
And of course marching towards Moscow only staying hundrends of kilometers away from it (while being let to march), and "taking Moscow in a matter of hours" is a totally different thing.
i think you overestimate russian military might. russian military is second strongest military in russia those days
prior to this, last month, some RDK and Russian Legion performed ~10km deep incursions into russia, pretty much unopposed and stayed there for a days.
so no, it's not only onliners. it's just state of russian state. where everything is fake and for show
Reality is ground forces let wagner pass out of fear/solidarity. Only aviation tried, and failed hard to stop the convoy.
Note: I support Ukraine, Russia is absolutely in the wrong
That’s an absolute win, for Prigozhin, since that was the original goal
this internal issue has nothing to do with anyone outside of that region
thats a pretty big shakeup. “I dont like this guy and there is no political process to remove him so I brought in my private army, the President fleed and he resigned in 10 hours”
Seems like a terrible outcome for Putin. He looks really weak and presumably just lost most if not all of Wagner, who were his most effective troops. He might have Prigozhin poisoned, but that would probably cause further instability internally as it causes more of his leadership to realize he'll clearly betray anybody and his word isn't worth anything.
That remains to be seen? Might be that some of their warriors will take the offer to join the military, and others... might select (or be given) new leadership, and go back to Ukraine to resume their regular business there.
If this really was Prigozhin vs. MoD, then that particular issue might be a closed case. Mercenaries are what they are - they're loyal to themselves and money, not state policy. Prigozhin got them to march at Moscow, so they did; then got them to march back, safe and sound, so they did. Russian government can just say "okay, no shots fired, no hard feelings" and leave it at that; it's not like they trusted them in the first place.
Putin angle though, that's a new thing. One way of spinning today's events is that Prigozhin took a swing at the Tsar, missed, and still lived to talk about it. Leaving it at that is not safe for the Tsar.
As of right this second. I hope his affairs are in order because the writing is on the wall.
I’m not saying that was the original plan, but even just moving 20K Wagner troop as part of the deal, even with no intention of attack, would draw a significant chunk of ukraines attention.
And if the Ukrainians don’t move additional defense, then an opportunistic attack might be on the table for some exchange that would be mutually beneficial to the Russian factions.
Let me be clear, this was not meant to be a grand ruse, but that doesn’t it can’t be turned in to one after the fact in order for the opposing Russian sides to salvage their situation.
Maybe he thought more parts of the army would back him?
I think it's also possible that it was never a legitimate attempt on his part. He may never have expected it to succeed, but it would cause enough problems that it forced Russian leadership to back away and be willing to cut a deal that lets Prigozhin keep his life (for now) in exile. He'd been incrementally pushing things for months for a variety of reasons (real anger over lack of material support? Pure power play? Who knows). But unlike critical journalists, oligarchs and political enemies that have been assassinated over the years, Prigozhin had an army to use as leverage. Though I still won't be surprised if he's the next person to fall out a window or die from a novel poisoning method.
I am reminded of the story:
Chen Sheng was an officer serving the Qin Dynasty, famous for their draconian punishments. He was supposed to lead his army to a rendezvous point, but he got delayed by heavy rains and it became clear he was going to arrive late.
Chen turns to his friend Wu Guang and asks “What’s the penalty for being late?”
“Death,” says Wu.
“And what’s the penalty for rebellion?”
“Death,” says Wu.
“Well then…” says Chen Sheng.
And thus began the famous Dazexiang Uprising, which caused thousands of deaths and helped usher in a period of instability and chaos that resulted in the fall of the Qin Dynasty three years later.
Really. It's a threshold problem. If the penalty for shoplifting is death, and the penalty for a massacre is death, a good number of sociopathic shoplifters will gamble for freedom via massacre. (It's rational.)
It's why dictatorships consistently flame out. If there is no peaceful transition of power, losing power means death. That incentivises a dictator on the edge to take risks that otherwise make no sense because even a minute chance of success is worth it.
In the context of a Russian revolution, this animates concerns around our species' first nuclear civil war.
To repeat myself from another comment: haven't we hadn't enough examples of smart people being stupid lately?
I think this coupled with the military didn’t seem to come over to his side in large enough numbers quickly enough indicated it was going to be a real fight, and not a one or two day affair. Otherwise, yes, Progozhin is a dead man walking.
Prigozhin has been repeatedly casting doubt on the decision of attacking Ukraine for the past couple of weeks. He went as far as rejecting Russian propaganda on how Ukraine provoked it and stating that Ukraine only reacted to Russian's military presence. He even proceeded to pin the blame of this Russian quagmire on Putin and the Russian MoD.
Before starting the military coup, Prigozhin laid the groundwork to pin Russia's invasion of Ukraine as betraying Russia by weakening it. Keeping Russia's armed forces in Ukraine was also critical for the success of his military coup.
I don't think your scenario is plausible. There's something else in play.
Peter Zeihan stated the obvious in a video on this that Wagner would have been decimated from the air on their way to Moscow too. I don't think you need to attend an Army war college to figure that out.
Ultimately, someone crazy enough to build a giant private army is going to do crazy things.
None of this seems good to me unless one is cheering for the doomsday clock to strike midnight.
Maybe trying to force flip some Aces - and when they didn’t come up he retreated
> It was very likely just a rash miscalculation by Prigozhin
Situation became untenable with MoD trying to enlist Private troops - reaction must have been anticipated
How are things in regular army that they have to ingest Wagner contractors ?