Rybar - one of Russian ‘military-blogger-industrialists’ (if not the ‘top Russian military-blogger-industrialist’) - is still claiming the 'transport' aircraft shot down by Wagner was an 'Il-18' (thus prompting many in the West to deduct that the aircraft in question was an Il-20 reconnaissance version, or even an Il-22 airborne command post):
I, for my part, are very grateful for all your work about “Prigozhin’s drama”, then changed to “Wagner’s comedy”. Sure, all the affair don’t worth the effort, but who may know.
And The Bizantine politics of the ruZZian elites are both a box full of surprises and a matrioska who have another and another into...
On the bright side, I hope this FINALLY breaks people's obsession with mercenaries. Nation states have to maintain a monopoly on military force. If you talk to American veterans, for example, almost all of us hate Blackwater mercs and think they're scum. The likes of Erik Prince or Evgeny Prigozhin do not need be running around with private armies.
No sane person wanted dissolution of the soviet union. Except for people who were to break their chains. Hence the US approach was quite "sane" back than: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_Kiev_speech.
The risk with russian nuclear rocket arsenal is that it wasn't repaired since 2014. This was Ukrainian specialists from Antonov who handled this before.
Close to 200 millions of people wanted the dissolution of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. In what way would it be sane for any western European at the time to not want the dissolution of an enormous empire on their doorstep, that was constantly and relentlessly, for 50 years, arming itself for the nuclear war against them? No, everyone who didn't want the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact was an insane fool, lacking education, knowledge, and intelligence. That speech by Bush was a disgrace and showed, yet again, that the US never ever learns anything.
Well it's just blind stupid luck that the cold war didn't result in the total extermination of the human race. It amazes me that there are so many people idiotic enough to want that risk again.
Any proofs? Of what? That we came close to nuclear obliteration multiple times and in at least one case it literally came down to one dude deciding to trust his gut and not push the red button? Are you serious????
The cold war was already there. Idk whether it's a miracle as from guaranteed mutual destruction pov it's low risk. Because not so many people come to power in order to destroy the world for no reason. While if there are such people in power then destruction of the world is almost inevitable anyways. Leaders seem to be reasonably rational even when not good.
That's why it seems to me more like a train dilemma track where you have a guaranteed abuse and mass murder of small third world millions vs very low probability of a major nuclear disaster for big first world millions.
Well of course obviously I would choose abuse over the entire human race being obliterated in a nuclear war. This is why I'm convinced that the EU is a giant suicide pact, a ton of western people actually want to die and take the rest of the world with you.
Why? What is so stable and trustworthy about the current Russian government that somehow a coup becomes a threat to humanity? There are many scenarios of the future. However, absolutely the least probable is the one where there is a peaceful transition of power. Sooner or later, there is almost certainly going to be a successful coup, as there is no succession planning in this Russia.
Well, for starters, I can ride the Moscow metro without running into violent drug addicts, which is more than I can say about any American city. Russians also don't brainwash kids to think they're the wrong gender and cut off their breasts and genitals. It's just a normal white-majority country. Like the USA used to be.
However, I'm digressing. I am against destabilizing any nuclear power, even ones that I don't like. Because I'm not an insane lunatic who puts ideology over the survival of the human race.
I can ride any metro in Europe and won't run into violent drug addicts. In case of a nuclear war, at least 7.5B people will be fine. The human race won't cry after you, and it won't cry after me. Russia is not a normal country, there is nothing normal about it. It is a mafia state and is on its way to becoming a failed state, or North Korea. I will honestly never understand proudly racist people like you.
I like Russians a hell of a lot better than I like people from western Europe. I have never had even one Russian tell me the war in Iraq was a good thing. Sometimes it seems like every single person in the EU is on George Bush's dick and blows him at every opportunity.
There are quite a few black people on my campus. Pushkin Institute, which is, interestingly, named after the father of Russian literature who was himself part black. But in the end, there are simply not enough black people in Russia for there to be animosity between the two groups. The fact that you just threw out the name of a group of people that there is stereotypically racism toward in some western countries suggests that you've never been to Russia or Moscow yourself :)
Disappointed? Yes. Wasted time? Surely not... Regret? Yes, especially this procession of death that is about to be unleashed among the (unlucky) participants in the coup. Russians? Ehhhh... and I already smelled spring flowers. Thank you for your effort.
I can't say for sure, but right now: 'smells like staged'.
Putin and Prigozhin are 'close buddies'.
Mind: Putin's PRBS-machinery is under total control, and exercising total control. All essential 'visual data', everything we've got to see was 'social media data' - including videos and photos - can be manipulated.
Of course, one has to deploy Wagner on the streets of Rostov, shot up a few trucks on the M4 highway, declare the Anti-Terror Emergency, dig a few ditches across the highway, deploy some Rosgvardia to 'construct roadblocks' etc. But, the rest is, actually, easy to manipulate.
Purpose?
Putin is ex-FSB. Thus, 'when in doubt, back to mama'. That's why this smells like one of 'usual spy games'. See: discovering 'traitors in own ranks'.
Yesterday late night I was thinking the same. The commanders of the Rosvagardia and VSRF that "switch sides" we're really decived to adhere to a completely inoculed coup. This was like a vaccine for the regime.
For the other sude, really don't know because this takes all the atraction, but, maybe they as compliment want to the UAF to hurry up some of the reserve brigades
It was a internal show to "clean" the VSRF loyalties and to provoke a deliberately and controlled Ukranian rush yo commit some of it reserves, un a hope yo find a demoralized enemy and thinned lines.
Tom, your conviction that Putin and his apparat is utterly clueless when it comes to Ukraine, yet is capable of coordinating media maskirovka on a scale which would've been a stretch for Vladislav Surkov seems a bit puzzling. Also if it was a ruse to smoke out disloyal elements, it seemingly didn't smoke out that many. Which means either Putin is sitting secure (actually doubtful) or perhaps the real "go" signal never went.
You're mixing two entirely different things. It's one thing to fight a PR-war, and an entirely different one to fight an actual war.
Putin was always a master of PRBS: he's got no political program at all, but he knows how to rule with the help of media, how to run smear campaigns, how to lie, then lie yet more and come away with it, and jhow to run propaganda wars.... heck, he rose to power by blowing up 300 Russian civilian in sleep, and won elections as 'thanks'.
Maybe. There is definitely a flavour of Surkovian theatre about Wagner and the whole "March for Justice" BS. I just don't think Putin is the master of puppets he used to be. He's an enervated old man lurking in some Wolfschaanze and wearing a black tie as he stares down the barrel of another 1905. As you said, what happened until two days ago was maskirovka - Prigozhin's - and we could still be in that phase.
Страну покинул один из богатейших российских олигархов, владелец Норникеля Владимир Потанин. Несколько часов назад его самолет Gulfstream G650 вылетел из подмосковного аэропорта “Внуково” в Стамбул (Турция). Ориентировочное время прибытия 21:27.
Учитывая обстоятельства, в Норильске Потанина можно не ждать. Вопрос в том, вернется ли он когда-нибудь в Россию.
Писали в одном из русских пабликов... В чем важность этой персоны?
Do you mean to say that you now believe it was all theater? That there was no actual coup attempt?
I don't find the notion credible in the least. Putin never would've purposefully made himself look as weak as he did this Midsommer, and in any case such convoluted schemes are far beyond Russia's (or anyone's) ability to orchestrate.
Maybe Putin was desperate to find who was loyal and who not, I would rate as possible but unlikely. It all hinges on whether Pudding cares if he looks weak or not.
I'm leaning exactly towards that line of thoughts.
Prigozhin is just another mafia boss. No political aspirations at all.
Thus, a 'useful fool' for Pudding to find out who might side with Prigozhin 'in such a situation' - and who not. Would explain the 'instant amnesty', too...
If that is the case putain is clearly in a worsening position. To pull this sort of stunt just to determine who will stand against you risks enough people doing so that you get your desired information and the "fake" coup becomes a real one. Even if it doesn't / didn't happen this time looking this weak internally isn't strengthening his position.
Thanks for your analysis nonetheless. One question: They shot down, as mentioned above, 3 Mi-8 MTPR helicopters. In one of your previous articles you mentioned that there were 2 shot down in May. As far as I could google, there were only 20 of those at the beginning of the war.
Does this have an impact on the Russian ability to distract Ukrainian air defence capabilities?
Even more so because, AFAIK, there were some 12 of Mi-8MTRPs around, and two were already shot down. So, along that calculation 'only 7 left to go'....
Why were these specialised helicopters buzzing around the Wagner columns at all?
Clearly their anti-aircraft defence jamming does not work against their own weapons. Probably an impossible goal but would be excellent if Ukraine could find out why and duplicate it.
Well they are hoovering over Russian territory to listen into Ukrainian airspace. So may guess is, that that was a bad coincidence and they just shot anything down, that appeared on their radar.
Russia missed out on the intellectual revolutions of both the middle ages and the enlightenment. So most really have no logical framework to gauge what's true and isn't true. The people in Rostov celebrated Prigozhin yesterday, and will celebrate Putin today.
This is also an entirely personalist society, i.e. the boss decides everything, and whether or not the boss is a fool is irrelevant. So truth only comes from who happens to gain power.
That's why they regularly fall for things like Absolutism and Marxism.
Studied them my entire adult life, and still amazed at how dumb--and how devious--they can be.
Thank you for your information that is always useful. We may conclude that Prigozhin`s plot completely failed because Shoigu add Gerasimov were not dismissed, Prigozhin himself lost his money and went in exile and his troops lost their leader and would be dismissed. But in reality we don`t know what was the aim of this affair and the real consequences of it except for the end of Wagner company as a semi-independant military force in the conflict. As to the possible losses of Russian aircraft during the "march for justice" maybe they are not so important if the real aim of the plot is achieved.
West does not understand anything in the falseness of rus. Does anyone think that it was Luka who issued the protection letter to Prigozhin? Don't laugh. Both are don't independent figures, and do what they are told. It's just that the supervisory board of the joint-stock company "KGB/FSB" is conducting an operation to replace the general director, who did not live up to expectations, as carefully as possible.
Some Ukrainian journalists think that in fact "Private military company Wagner" is not "private" and never was but is the division of Russian military intelligence GRU (called also Aquarium), the rival of the FSB. So the whole affair of Prigozhin was directed against FSB. Bearing in mind that in the past Putler never communicated with anybody who blackmailed him using military assault his conduct was rather unusual and evidently caused by fear for loosing personal security or even power.
He is no "useful fool" because he is at least partly incorporated in the Russian system of the "Big Brother". To be a "useful fool" one must act independently and sincerely of one`s own will. In other words "useful fools" support vile actions as a result of misunderstanding. There is no independent actions in Putler`s Russia and as usual there is no individual will. The person is ordered to do or not to do something, that`s all. I know that it is difficult for a European even to imagine such things but so it was in the Soviet Union for many years and Russian people are accustomed to this way of life. Because of the absence of free will in Russia Russian people believe that Maidans in Kyiv were organized and ruled by USA and the Ukrainian Army consists of "Polish women", "negroes from the USA" and the like. So to make such a career as Prigozhin has and to make such immense sums of money in Africa he definitely must have had support from Lubianka, GRU or both. Those who got money thanks to Lubianka, GRU or both and do not agree with the orders and claims of these structures are killed as Berezovsky or imprisoned as Khodorkovsky.
Do we even know *for sure* that any aircraft were shot down within Russia in the past 36 hours (e.g. we definitely saw aviation buzzing around Russia, presumably actual real-time footage, but what evidence is there of no-fooling combat action)?
I am with Noshab. All we see above are a couple of pictures with text that could have been photoshopped together in 5 minutes. The Russians could have packs of these ready to go for all occasions. How do we know anything was actually shot down? Do we have any video that's been checked for doctoring and more or less reliably dated? Ukrainian Telegram channels indeed corrected themselves all of 5 mins after posting that plane video and indeed said it was from last year. What evidence is there to the contrary? Let's face it, if this was all a loyalty-checking farce, fake aircraft shotdowns would fit the story a lot better than real ones.
I, for my part, are very grateful for all your work about “Prigozhin’s drama”, then changed to “Wagner’s comedy”. Sure, all the affair don’t worth the effort, but who may know.
And The Bizantine politics of the ruZZian elites are both a box full of surprises and a matrioska who have another and another into...
Maybe the definition is a box full of evil.
On the bright side, I hope this FINALLY breaks people's obsession with mercenaries. Nation states have to maintain a monopoly on military force. If you talk to American veterans, for example, almost all of us hate Blackwater mercs and think they're scum. The likes of Erik Prince or Evgeny Prigozhin do not need be running around with private armies.
Amen.
ok, but how then we get a coup in russia? and don't tell me about russian opposition, they are even more useless, than un.
No sane person wants a coup in Russia, or any other nuclear power.
No sane person wanted dissolution of the soviet union. Except for people who were to break their chains. Hence the US approach was quite "sane" back than: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_Kiev_speech.
The risk with russian nuclear rocket arsenal is that it wasn't repaired since 2014. This was Ukrainian specialists from Antonov who handled this before.
Close to 200 millions of people wanted the dissolution of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. In what way would it be sane for any western European at the time to not want the dissolution of an enormous empire on their doorstep, that was constantly and relentlessly, for 50 years, arming itself for the nuclear war against them? No, everyone who didn't want the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact was an insane fool, lacking education, knowledge, and intelligence. That speech by Bush was a disgrace and showed, yet again, that the US never ever learns anything.
Well it's just blind stupid luck that the cold war didn't result in the total extermination of the human race. It amazes me that there are so many people idiotic enough to want that risk again.
Any proofs?
Any proofs? Of what? That we came close to nuclear obliteration multiple times and in at least one case it literally came down to one dude deciding to trust his gut and not push the red button? Are you serious????
The cold war was already there. Idk whether it's a miracle as from guaranteed mutual destruction pov it's low risk. Because not so many people come to power in order to destroy the world for no reason. While if there are such people in power then destruction of the world is almost inevitable anyways. Leaders seem to be reasonably rational even when not good.
That's why it seems to me more like a train dilemma track where you have a guaranteed abuse and mass murder of small third world millions vs very low probability of a major nuclear disaster for big first world millions.
What would you choose?
Well of course obviously I would choose abuse over the entire human race being obliterated in a nuclear war. This is why I'm convinced that the EU is a giant suicide pact, a ton of western people actually want to die and take the rest of the world with you.
Why? What is so stable and trustworthy about the current Russian government that somehow a coup becomes a threat to humanity? There are many scenarios of the future. However, absolutely the least probable is the one where there is a peaceful transition of power. Sooner or later, there is almost certainly going to be a successful coup, as there is no succession planning in this Russia.
Well, for starters, I can ride the Moscow metro without running into violent drug addicts, which is more than I can say about any American city. Russians also don't brainwash kids to think they're the wrong gender and cut off their breasts and genitals. It's just a normal white-majority country. Like the USA used to be.
However, I'm digressing. I am against destabilizing any nuclear power, even ones that I don't like. Because I'm not an insane lunatic who puts ideology over the survival of the human race.
Good luck wearing yellow and blue in the Moscow metro!
Ask any Russian, how many violent drug addicts ride Moscow subway every day.
Well, I've been riding Russian public transportation for about 3 hours a day for the past year. How about you?
I can ride any metro in Europe and won't run into violent drug addicts. In case of a nuclear war, at least 7.5B people will be fine. The human race won't cry after you, and it won't cry after me. Russia is not a normal country, there is nothing normal about it. It is a mafia state and is on its way to becoming a failed state, or North Korea. I will honestly never understand proudly racist people like you.
I like Russians a hell of a lot better than I like people from western Europe. I have never had even one Russian tell me the war in Iraq was a good thing. Sometimes it seems like every single person in the EU is on George Bush's dick and blows him at every opportunity.
Good luck being a black person in Moscow; express your opinion; being a minority or whatever. You are full of shit. You have never been to Moscow
There are quite a few black people on my campus. Pushkin Institute, which is, interestingly, named after the father of Russian literature who was himself part black. But in the end, there are simply not enough black people in Russia for there to be animosity between the two groups. The fact that you just threw out the name of a group of people that there is stereotypically racism toward in some western countries suggests that you've never been to Russia or Moscow yourself :)
Disappointed? Yes. Wasted time? Surely not... Regret? Yes, especially this procession of death that is about to be unleashed among the (unlucky) participants in the coup. Russians? Ehhhh... and I already smelled spring flowers. Thank you for your effort.
To make sure: I was far from 'falling for it because of few Twitter/Telegram-messages'.
Rather than that, it was something like this:
- the amount of messages in the Wagner-associated social media....
- activation of the Rosgvardia in Moscow and Rostov....
- the language used by the Keystone Cops in Moscow and the likes....
- declaration of the National Anti-Terrorism law, and activation of the related Committee....
- Surovikin's appearance....
- confirmed (beyond any doubt) shot down Ka-52, Mi-8, and that An-24/26.... not to talk about SA-10s and SA-13s shooting at helicopters....
That's what 'convinced' me.
With hindsight: half of that could've been captured on videos already days/weeks/months ago...that's what's making me mad about myself.
I'm sorry to have fallen for it and thus helped waste everybody's day.
Do you think tge "uprising" was real or do you think it was staged ?
I can't say for sure, but right now: 'smells like staged'.
Putin and Prigozhin are 'close buddies'.
Mind: Putin's PRBS-machinery is under total control, and exercising total control. All essential 'visual data', everything we've got to see was 'social media data' - including videos and photos - can be manipulated.
Of course, one has to deploy Wagner on the streets of Rostov, shot up a few trucks on the M4 highway, declare the Anti-Terror Emergency, dig a few ditches across the highway, deploy some Rosgvardia to 'construct roadblocks' etc. But, the rest is, actually, easy to manipulate.
Purpose?
Putin is ex-FSB. Thus, 'when in doubt, back to mama'. That's why this smells like one of 'usual spy games'. See: discovering 'traitors in own ranks'.
Yesterday late night I was thinking the same. The commanders of the Rosvagardia and VSRF that "switch sides" we're really decived to adhere to a completely inoculed coup. This was like a vaccine for the regime.
For the other sude, really don't know because this takes all the atraction, but, maybe they as compliment want to the UAF to hurry up some of the reserve brigades
Sorry, it went out cut.
It was a internal show to "clean" the VSRF loyalties and to provoke a deliberately and controlled Ukranian rush yo commit some of it reserves, un a hope yo find a demoralized enemy and thinned lines.
Tom, your conviction that Putin and his apparat is utterly clueless when it comes to Ukraine, yet is capable of coordinating media maskirovka on a scale which would've been a stretch for Vladislav Surkov seems a bit puzzling. Also if it was a ruse to smoke out disloyal elements, it seemingly didn't smoke out that many. Which means either Putin is sitting secure (actually doubtful) or perhaps the real "go" signal never went.
You're mixing two entirely different things. It's one thing to fight a PR-war, and an entirely different one to fight an actual war.
Putin was always a master of PRBS: he's got no political program at all, but he knows how to rule with the help of media, how to run smear campaigns, how to lie, then lie yet more and come away with it, and jhow to run propaganda wars.... heck, he rose to power by blowing up 300 Russian civilian in sleep, and won elections as 'thanks'.
Maybe. There is definitely a flavour of Surkovian theatre about Wagner and the whole "March for Justice" BS. I just don't think Putin is the master of puppets he used to be. He's an enervated old man lurking in some Wolfschaanze and wearing a black tie as he stares down the barrel of another 1905. As you said, what happened until two days ago was maskirovka - Prigozhin's - and we could still be in that phase.
Вчера паблики Украины писали, что с Москвы в Питер улетел самолёт с "красной кнопкой".
As obvious from the outcome: 'irrelevant'.
Страну покинул один из богатейших российских олигархов, владелец Норникеля Владимир Потанин. Несколько часов назад его самолет Gulfstream G650 вылетел из подмосковного аэропорта “Внуково” в Стамбул (Турция). Ориентировочное время прибытия 21:27.
Учитывая обстоятельства, в Норильске Потанина можно не ждать. Вопрос в том, вернется ли он когда-нибудь в Россию.
Писали в одном из русских пабликов... В чем важность этой персоны?
Putin is still in power; Shoygu and Gerasimov in their positions; the Russian troops in Ukraine didn't stop fighting for a minute.
So, why should behavior of some Russian oligarch be of any kind of importance?
Sorry, that's simply irrelevant.
ЧВК «Вагнер» до сих пор контролирует военные аэродромы Ростовской области
При этом Росавтодор до сих пор держит перекрытой трассу М-4 «Дон» в Московской и Тульской областях.
Ложь - серия 2?
Do you mean to say that you now believe it was all theater? That there was no actual coup attempt?
I don't find the notion credible in the least. Putin never would've purposefully made himself look as weak as he did this Midsommer, and in any case such convoluted schemes are far beyond Russia's (or anyone's) ability to orchestrate.
Maybe Putin was desperate to find who was loyal and who not, I would rate as possible but unlikely. It all hinges on whether Pudding cares if he looks weak or not.
I'm leaning exactly towards that line of thoughts.
Prigozhin is just another mafia boss. No political aspirations at all.
Thus, a 'useful fool' for Pudding to find out who might side with Prigozhin 'in such a situation' - and who not. Would explain the 'instant amnesty', too...
If that is the case putain is clearly in a worsening position. To pull this sort of stunt just to determine who will stand against you risks enough people doing so that you get your desired information and the "fake" coup becomes a real one. Even if it doesn't / didn't happen this time looking this weak internally isn't strengthening his position.
How strong is Puddings position and control over all the different militarys anyway?
These "3,000 Chechens" who went to Rostov, did Pudding order that or was it a unilateral action? Surely Pudding would have sent the Rosgvardiya
He does not trust Rosguardia. Kadyrov is his protege, while the Chechens are known to obey Kadyrov and neglect laws.
Hi Tom,
Thanks for your analysis nonetheless. One question: They shot down, as mentioned above, 3 Mi-8 MTPR helicopters. In one of your previous articles you mentioned that there were 2 shot down in May. As far as I could google, there were only 20 of those at the beginning of the war.
Does this have an impact on the Russian ability to distract Ukrainian air defence capabilities?
Of course it does.
Even more so because, AFAIK, there were some 12 of Mi-8MTRPs around, and two were already shot down. So, along that calculation 'only 7 left to go'....
Couple of points.
Why were these specialised helicopters buzzing around the Wagner columns at all?
Clearly their anti-aircraft defence jamming does not work against their own weapons. Probably an impossible goal but would be excellent if Ukraine could find out why and duplicate it.
Well they are hoovering over Russian territory to listen into Ukrainian airspace. So may guess is, that that was a bad coincidence and they just shot anything down, that appeared on their radar.
Impressive, monitoring a front line that is 250 km away.
Russia missed out on the intellectual revolutions of both the middle ages and the enlightenment. So most really have no logical framework to gauge what's true and isn't true. The people in Rostov celebrated Prigozhin yesterday, and will celebrate Putin today.
This is also an entirely personalist society, i.e. the boss decides everything, and whether or not the boss is a fool is irrelevant. So truth only comes from who happens to gain power.
That's why they regularly fall for things like Absolutism and Marxism.
Studied them my entire adult life, and still amazed at how dumb--and how devious--they can be.
Can I go even five minutes without seeing someone repeating the "slavic slave races" trope?
Not all slavs. Those in Ukraine for instance are putting up an impressive resistance to slavery.
"not all slavs..." - enough, I will hear no more Hebrew nonsense
wut
No way to apoligize. We all wasted a day, monitoring a lot of info online.
No way we could know this rebellion might end up so quickly and with so little loses for russia.
We can conclude that 3 REB helicopters and other staff is better then nothing.
Also, important point, if Ukraine can get their anti-aircraft closer to front line - they might shot a lot
Thank you for your information that is always useful. We may conclude that Prigozhin`s plot completely failed because Shoigu add Gerasimov were not dismissed, Prigozhin himself lost his money and went in exile and his troops lost their leader and would be dismissed. But in reality we don`t know what was the aim of this affair and the real consequences of it except for the end of Wagner company as a semi-independant military force in the conflict. As to the possible losses of Russian aircraft during the "march for justice" maybe they are not so important if the real aim of the plot is achieved.
They are claiming this is old video from last year. I don`t see any reason for them to lie about the type of the plane.
Who is 'they', i.e. who is claiming that?
So my comment to your previous post was incorrect. My apologies.
Thank you for your highly professional work!
West does not understand anything in the falseness of rus. Does anyone think that it was Luka who issued the protection letter to Prigozhin? Don't laugh. Both are don't independent figures, and do what they are told. It's just that the supervisory board of the joint-stock company "KGB/FSB" is conducting an operation to replace the general director, who did not live up to expectations, as carefully as possible.
....or, and more likely, that advisory board is purging traitors in own ranks.
Some Ukrainian journalists think that in fact "Private military company Wagner" is not "private" and never was but is the division of Russian military intelligence GRU (called also Aquarium), the rival of the FSB. So the whole affair of Prigozhin was directed against FSB. Bearing in mind that in the past Putler never communicated with anybody who blackmailed him using military assault his conduct was rather unusual and evidently caused by fear for loosing personal security or even power.
....and Prigozhin has no political aspirations. Thus, 'useful fool'.
He is no "useful fool" because he is at least partly incorporated in the Russian system of the "Big Brother". To be a "useful fool" one must act independently and sincerely of one`s own will. In other words "useful fools" support vile actions as a result of misunderstanding. There is no independent actions in Putler`s Russia and as usual there is no individual will. The person is ordered to do or not to do something, that`s all. I know that it is difficult for a European even to imagine such things but so it was in the Soviet Union for many years and Russian people are accustomed to this way of life. Because of the absence of free will in Russia Russian people believe that Maidans in Kyiv were organized and ruled by USA and the Ukrainian Army consists of "Polish women", "negroes from the USA" and the like. So to make such a career as Prigozhin has and to make such immense sums of money in Africa he definitely must have had support from Lubianka, GRU or both. Those who got money thanks to Lubianka, GRU or both and do not agree with the orders and claims of these structures are killed as Berezovsky or imprisoned as Khodorkovsky.
As a Ukrainian, I agree with your thoughts. It's interesting, which journalists are you talking about?
And follow up - give it 72 hours. Situation still might develop. Or not.
Do we even know *for sure* that any aircraft were shot down within Russia in the past 36 hours (e.g. we definitely saw aviation buzzing around Russia, presumably actual real-time footage, but what evidence is there of no-fooling combat action)?
Yes, one of Ka-52-crews KIA yesterday is meanwhile known:
https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1672889982543974401
I am with Noshab. All we see above are a couple of pictures with text that could have been photoshopped together in 5 minutes. The Russians could have packs of these ready to go for all occasions. How do we know anything was actually shot down? Do we have any video that's been checked for doctoring and more or less reliably dated? Ukrainian Telegram channels indeed corrected themselves all of 5 mins after posting that plane video and indeed said it was from last year. What evidence is there to the contrary? Let's face it, if this was all a loyalty-checking farce, fake aircraft shotdowns would fit the story a lot better than real ones.