Moon of Alabama – June 28, 2023
There is still some fallout from the Prigozhin affair.
The U.S. propaganda campaign that falsely claims that Russia has been weakened by Wagner’s armed mutiny continues. While citing only ‘western’ intelligence affiliated sources the Washington Post headlines Putin’s standing as global strongman in jeopardy after revolt. Where please is evidence for that?
The New York Times assists in a useless attempt to sow fear and doubt on the Russian side:
A senior Russian general had advance knowledge of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plans to rebel against Russia’s military leadership, according to U.S. officials briefed on American intelligence on the matter, which has prompted questions about what support the mercenary leader had inside the top ranks.
The officials said they are trying to learn if Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the former top Russian commander in Ukraine, helped plan Mr. Prigozhin’s actions last weekend, which posed the most dramatic threat to President Vladimir V. Putin in his 23 years in power.
Gen. Sergei Surovikin of course knew that something was up with Wagner. The whole Russian leadership knew of it. Orders were obviously given for everyone to stand down and to let Prigozhin do what he had planned to do.
There was zero action taken by the border guards, the internal security force Rosguardia, by the police and the Russian military. That is unexplainable unless there was an order from very high up to step back instead of seeking a fight. President Putin’s primary aim was to avoid unnecessary casualties which he largely achieved.
One miscalculation happened. Wagner had a mobile Pantsir-1 air defense system that tried to cover its convoys on their trip towards Moscow. Several Russian helicopters and a plane where shot down when they came too near to them. It seems that the Pantsirs were a surprise.
Wagner was not supposed to have them:
Cont. reading: Ukraine SitRep: Prigozhin Affair – Kramatorsk Missile Attack
Moon of Alabama is in his habitual first-class analyst mode. But not even he asks why Prigozhin was pardoned so readily. So I feel left to speculate: Is it because Moscow did not want to lose the very able Wagner fighters? After all, the great majority of them did not take part in Prigozhin’s attempted coup. But the minority did … 6,000-8,000 of them. Is that not a too-large group of formidable armed fighters to be left to hang around? True, they will not be allowed to join the Russian Armed Forces. But that is no constraint on what they might do … join the Ukrainians, perhaps, and turn on their own side in mid-battle? I simply cannot understand Moscow’s complaisance.
I suspect one of the main reasons the hotel restaurant was bombed was not as any revenge for the west’s assistance to Prighozin’s coup, nor merely a strike on a military target, but a necessary heads-up to people in the west that their forces are illegally operating in Ukraine and that puts us close to WW3.
Even the wilfully blind who are pure anti-Russia and only follow the MSM should have picked up some of that. If civilians died and it’s likely they would have done, they need to remember in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom the Americans sent a missile which wiped out a café and killed many people because there were rumours Saddam was in there. Reports ranged from 50 to 70 victims, typical of US war crimes. Why not send troops to arrest him instead of killing everyone around? Unaccountability.
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0703strikes/ (From paragraph heading Free-For-All Flight) The US calls it a “pop-up” strike when intel/opportunity comes out of the blue. April 7 2004.
“Putin in his 23 years in power”
We can only imagine how this annoys vermin like pedo joe and brown boy whatever ‘is name is in the jew-k. 23 years vs the 4 or 5 or whatever they end up doing. Ah, the wonders of fascis… er… democracy.
@SAM
I would wish senile Joe could rule 5 years more.
more he would not be able + USA would go to shreds .
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha