Ukraine War: Wagner’s fading thrust

[A Horse Named Stranger]

3 hours ago, Zorral said:

Without sources this remarkably comes through as merely pulling something out of a hat that has nothing in it to start with.  Does that make sense?  

 

Click on the tweet in full. He touches on that issue of Wagner having not heavy equipment there.

 

And he repeats here

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

OTOH, everyone involved this lies all the time about everything. So I wonder if Wagner will actually be handing over any heavy equipment or not.

Yeah, but tanks are kinda hard to hide in your luggage among your worn boxers.

And I think transformer technologies is a few decades away from a tank carmouflaging as an RV.

[horangi]

2 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Yeah, but tanks are kinda hard to hide in your luggage among your worn boxers.

And I think transformer technologies is a few decades away from a tank carmouflaging as an RV.

https://www.newsweek.com/video-ukraine-combat-vehicle-camouflaged-civilian-home-house-1804722

Luggage no, house, yes.  Its just the annual migration North to Belerus of the nomadic people of Wagnergrad. 

[Zorral]

A Horse Named Stranger -- Again, where are you seeing Prigozhin is planning to attack from Belarus?  What would he get out of it except a whole lot of misery?  Could you provide the credentials of these twit commentators, as I don't know who they are and am not coming up with a whole lot myself when I looked (granted, looking while at the local with Partner and talking talking talking!  Ha!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sure they did. If we were poot, we would have, right?

June 27, 2023, 1:46 p.m. ETJune 27, 2023
Valerie HopkinsRussia correspondent

Lukashenko says he and Putin, in a phone call on Saturday, discussed killing the mercenary leader.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/06/27/world/russia-ukraine-news#belarus-lukashenko

Still this gets weirder all the time, particularly as so much of it -- or what we get to see anyway -- is playing out in front of ours and the world's eyes, almost in real time. 

Quote

 

.... President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus said on Tuesday that in a phone call two days earlier, as rebelling Wagner mercenaries were advancing on Moscow, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had raised the option of simply killing the mercenary leader Yevgeny V. Prigozhin.

Speaking in depth for the first time about what he said was his role in the negotiations between the Russian president and Mr. Prigozhin, Mr. Lukashenko said that he had convinced Mr. Putin “not to do anything rash,” assuring him that “a bad peace is better than any war.” Mr. Lukashenko’s version of the conversation, reported by Belarusian state news media, could not be verified independently, and the Kremlin did not immediately comment on it. ....

 

 

Edited June 28, 2023 by Zorral

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

17 minutes ago, Zorral said:

A Horse Named Stranger -- Again, where are you seeing Prigozhin is planning to attack from Belarus?  What would he get out of it except a whole lot of misery?  Could you provide the credentials of these twit commentators, as I don't know who they are and am not coming up with a whole lot myself when I looked (granted, looking while at the local with Partner and talking talking talking!  Ha!)

The Pripyat marshes that run for much of the border between Ukraine and Belarus aren’t particularly friendly to armored warfare.

 

[The Anti-Targ]

There is no way Wagner alone can [successfully] invade Ukraine from Belarus. They would have to do it with the Belarus military. That would be a high stakes game by Belarus. But it could work to draw resources away from Ukraine's southern counteroffensive, which might be all that Putin really wants, forcing Ukraine to defend on yet another front.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

4 hours ago, Zorral said:

A Horse Named Stranger -- Again, where are you seeing Prigozhin is planning to attack from Belarus?  What would he get out of it except a whole lot of misery?  Could you provide the credentials of these twit commentators, as I don't know who they are and am not coming up with a whole lot myself when I looked (granted, looking while at the local with Partner and talking talking talking!  Ha!)

 

???

OH FFS.

 

Can you read posts in context?

 

Darzin (sorry for highlight)

13 hours ago, Darzin said:

Another interesting thing, is that at full strength Wagner is likely stronger than the Belarus army. Belarus has more bodies but Wagner is a well paid, well trained, and has a lot of real world combat experience. Not sure if that will matter but it's good to note.

 

Direct response from me.

12 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

But with no heavy equipment. The heavy equipment went to the Rosgvardia and other arms of the regular forces.

That's important qualifier. I'd back the guys with the tanks over the veterans without tanks.

 

You inserted yourself at this point for whatever reason.

 

12 hours ago, Zorral said:

A Horse Named Stranger  --  Stating here that backing the guys with tanks over the other guys is pretty meaningless.  Banking on them to do what exactly?  Who is going to do what exactly?  How much heavy equipment -- if one side having heavy equipment depends on taking it from the other side -- to, what? invade Belarus?  Invade Africa? Aren't they invading Ukraine? 

?!

The discussion was pretty much about Wagnerites not being stronger than the Belarusk army in a potential conflict, because they had to give up their equipment and hand it over to the Russian army.

11 hours ago, Zorral said:

On what are you basing the idea that Wagner wants to / plans to take over Belarus?  Would Putin have 'sent' him there if that was the case?  Would Lukashenko voluntarily brokered a deal to have Wagner come into Belarus if that seemed likely? What is the source that Wagner has given up its heavy equipment, or even that it has any, or doesn't have any?

Without sources this remarkably comes through as merely pulling something out of a hat that has nothing in it to start with.  Does that make sense?  

For the 3rd time: IT WAS THE ANSWER TO DARZIN'S HYPOTHETICAL!

Reading is key, sometimes.

[dog-days]

OK, I've Googled and checked the name in different languages and still don't get it: @A Horse Named Stranger, why do you call Belarus, Belarusk? Am I missing an obvious pun? 

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Me simply not being attentive enough, stupid mistakes happen. Even to horses. 

[dog-days]

11 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Me simply not being attentive enough, stupid mistakes happen. Even to horses. 

I blame the combustion engine. This kind of mistake didn't happen before the spread of motorised transport. 

[3CityApache]

Prigozhin apparently stays in Minsk hotel without any windows. Sensible move. 

[Pebble thats Stubby]

8 minutes ago, 3CityApache said:

Prigozhin apparently stays in Minsk hotel without any windows. Sensible move. 

does it have door handles?

[karaddin]

No windows, no doors and below ground level sounds like a safe place for him

[mormont]

4 minutes ago, karaddin said:

No windows, no doors and below ground level sounds like a safe place for him

I'm sure Vlad would agree. 

[Zorral]

@A Horse Named Stranger -- Why pull out a hypothetical out of your hat though, when on the ground there is nothing on which to base such a thing? Can't you read in context?  That is what I'm objecting to -- why are you continuing to speculate and argue about something for which there is no context or base?  Since things are so fluid, since nobody KNOWS anything, why throw up an entirely baseless speculation without telling us that it is baseless? Since this is a critical and developing situation, not only for Ukraine, but globally, because we don't KNOW anything, we are each pulling together whatever information we find from reputable sources to pass on, so I thought you had seen something I hadn't seen over here.  So I'm not getting why you are now angry at being asked for information. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Russia in Africa is concerned.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-27-2023?

Quote

 

.... Countries near Russia are reevaluating Putin’s power; countries in Africa, too, are recalculating. The Wagner Group has been supporting African strongmen, and Philip Obaji Jr. reported Sunday that cabinet officers in the Central African Republic (CAR), whose leadership depends on the Wagner group, were calling each other over the weekend with concern. An advisor to CAR president Faustin-Archange Touadéra told Obaji, “The Russians play a very important role in the security architecture of our country and if they are forced to pull out completely, things could become messy…. The last thing the government [in CAR] wants to see at the moment is the exit of Russia from the country.”

The Wagner Group manages a CAR shell company known as Diamville, and today the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on it and Midas Ressources, another CAR firm associated with Prigozhin. It also sanctioned Industrial Resources General Trading, a Dubai-based company that has funded Prigozhin, as well as a Russian firm and a Russian national working in Mali to force those standing against the Wagner Group out of Africa. “The Wagner Group exploits insecurity around the world, committing atrocities and criminal acts that threaten the safety, good governance, prosperity, and human rights of nations, as well as exploiting their natural resources,” the Treasury said. The sanctions are designed to cut off the illicit gold trade and thus stop the flow of money to the Wagner Group.  

China, too, has reason to be concerned about Putin’s apparent weakness. As Daniel B. Baer noted in Foreign Policy, Putin’s political power has centered around his own personal power, an approach Chinese president Xi Jinping has also favored. Baer points out that “Xi generally does not want Russia to put on display, for all the world to see, the risks of building a centralized authoritarian regime on an autocrat’s highly personalized power.”

When President Biden gave his first speech to the State Department in February 2021, he made it clear that he intended “to rally the nations of the world to defend democracy globally, to push back the authoritarianism’s advance.” And, he said, such an effort depended on the successful defense of democracy at home.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/27/putin-wagner-prigozhin-mutiny-war-russia-central-asia-caucasus-geopolitics-ukraine-belarus-moldova/

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/04/remarks-by-president-biden-on-americas-place-in-the-world/

 

 

Edited June 28, 2023 by Zorral

[karaddin]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

I'm sure Vlad would agree. 

I might have been commenting from his perspective lol

[Zorral]

Russian General Knew About Mercenary Chief’s Rebellion Plans, U.S. Officials Say
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner, may have believed he had support in Russia’s military.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/27/us/politics/russian-general-prigozhin-rebellion.html

Quote

 

.... American officials also said there are signs that other Russian generals may also have supported Mr. Prigozhin’s attempt to change the leadership of the Defense Ministry by force. Current and former U.S. officials said Mr. Prigozhin would not have launched his uprising unless he believed that others in positions of power would come to his aid.

If General Surovikin was involved in last weekend’s events, it would be the latest sign of the infighting that has characterized Russia’s military leadership since the start of Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine and could signal a wider fracture between supporters of Mr. Prigozhin and Mr. Putin’s two senior military advisers: Sergei K. Shoigu, the minister of defense, and Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, the chief of general staff. ....

 

This is being seen ever more frequently, though, I emphasize to MYSELF, this Prigozhin event provides so much fodder for the internet’s favorite activity, arguing about nonsense, since we don’t KNOW ANYTHING:

Quote

.... Independent experts and U.S. and allied officials said that Mr. Prigozhin seemed to believe that large parts of Russia’s army would rally to his side as his convoy moved on Moscow. ....

 

[Maithanet]

Here's a CNN article about what Prigozhin was really planning (based on WSJ reporting, but that has limited clicks). 

 

Quote

 

Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin planned to seize two of Russia top military officials when he launched a short-lived mutiny on Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing Western officials.

Prigozhin’s plot involved the capture of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and top army general Valery Gerasimov when the pair visited a region along the border of Ukraine, the WSJ wrote.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) learned of the plot two days before it was due to take place, forcing Prigozhin to change his plans at the last minute and launch a march towards Moscow instead, according to the report.

 

Planning to kidnap Shoigu and Gerasimov would have the advantage of not looking like a coup, and thus less likely to attract the wrath of Putin so strongly.  But the FSB got wind of it, so Prigozhin went with the plan of driving to Moscow as a show of force...which isn't much of a plan at all. 

The first half of that seems plausible at least.  If Wagner had been able to (relatively) bloodlessly storm an army base and capture Shoigu + Gerasimov, then that would be a mutiny, but it would only indirectly threaten Putin, and I could at least see a possibility of Wagner/Prigozhin getting Putin's forgiveness. 

[Zorral]

What stopped the US from doing so earlier?

US targets Wagner by sanctioning gold companies suspected of funding group
‘The US will continue to target the Wagner group’s revenue streams to degrade its expansion and violence,’ US treasury says

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/27/us-sanctions-gold-companies-connected-wagner-group

Edited June 28, 2023 by Zorral

[Zorral]

Hmmm.  If speculations are founded, this may not be boding well for Prigozhin.

According to retweets on Josh Marshall (Talking Points) feed the Moscow Times says sources told them:

"Senior  has not been seen since recording a video in the early hours of Saturday morning as the Wagner mutiny began, according to several people familiar with the matter"

The Guardian too:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/28/russian-general-wagner-mutiny-goes-missing