Incredible.
For now it is "only" an armed rebellion, I guess. And depending on how it unfolds it could be a lot of things.
I think that this sort of thing is not very frequent in contemporary, or even modern, history, but it is very reminiscent of Roman history.
Putin calling him a traitor is a death sentence. If he didn't already plan to, now his only option seems to be to move against Putin.
In don't see how they can both stay in power for much longer. One of them has to go.
Internal power struggles are a sign of weakness. Putin does not like to appear weak.
Now while it certainly has staged elements, the power struggle between Wagner and the regular army is very real.
But the outcome hopefully will actually lead to ending the war (blaming it on the Wagner traitors). Or worst case, all out nuclear war.
Nonetheless, if Russia ceases their aggression after this then it wouldn't have been defeated by Ukraine. You'd basically end up with non-patriots having caused the loss, as such you'll have a group of people to blame.
[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fjBVFL0k_-0 [1] https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/16725113220832706...
It is kind of elementary school level of logic if you ask me, but it is the logic/argument Prigozhin is using.
I am definitely not blaming anyone for calling it "possible coup" or "coup" or even "an attempt to start civil war". The original intent was to explain that coup in quotation marks is also alright term to use.
Edit: every single time I write "wagner are technically illegal in Russia" I get downvoted in HN. It is pattern at this point. So, guys, if that was reason for downvote, yep they are illegal per Russian law.
I suppose you could call it a mutiny in the sense that Wagner is being told by the state that it is now explicitly under the command of Shoigu, and Prighozin is refusing, which has led to what is now happening: an attempt to put down a rebellion and a mutiny.
His videos are consistently insisting he is just defending and not hostile to Russia. Which is of course how he should position himself.
But Putin essentially gave him the death sentence so one or the other has to go.
This feels more like a civil war. It might not last long of course. We’ll see.
(Wagner is not a person. Or am I misreading: who does "himself" refer to?)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group
>He is alleged to have founded the Wagner Group, with his own call-sign reportedly being Wagner
> Personally, if this was a coup, I’d say Wagner would have taken control of important infrastructure by now ... Or been killed/arrested himself.
To anyone who isn't familiar with Wagner Group, that seems to be describing Wagner as an individual person who can be "killed or arrested himself".
My uninformed read is that what he's enraged about (a Russian strike on a Wagner encampment) actually took place, and he knows he's now a dead man walking anyway, so he's going to see what he can do with the time he has left.
"Putin made the wrong choice, all the worse for him. Soon we will have a new president."
https://twitter.com/ChengWeiLai2/status/1672527502223511559#...
But let's be clear, the crowd breaking into the Capitol wasn't the entirety of the coup attempt, and even to write that part down as just a disorganised mob is incorrect.
What was going on is better understood as an autogolpe -- a self-coup. It had several prongs -- violent, parliamentary (in the congressional sense of the word) and judicial. So, fake electors, lawsuits, attempt to persuade Pence not to count, interfering with results in several states, and the physical insurrection.
The aim was to create a scenario where the handover just didn't happen, through all these interlocking parts.
But the crowd could only ever have created the circumstances that delayed certification (and might have pulled that off, had Pence got in the car).
It was much more co-ordinated than we have yet seen documented in courts, but that time is coming.
But some people had advance plans to create pressure in the knowledge that it might lead to disorder, and then exploit the uncertainty in the moment. It could really all have happened, and it hinges on small moments of bravery that are well documented now but that many of those involved seem hesitant to admit to in public, which shows you that the landscape of threat still exists.
(I appreciate that I said "exploit the uncertainty" but I meant more the sort of news media confusion, unclear facts on the ground sort of uncertainty -- fast moving events)
Firstly: the Capitol violence wasn't a coup (or putsch) in and of itself. They had no organised plans to seize direct power. It was an armed mob assault, and everyone there knew what their job was: to stop the count. Some of them even went home when they realised they'd achieved it.
Second: it wasn't really stochastic in an important sense.
Stochastic terrorism is what I understand you to be alluding to by analogy. That is usually considered to be e.g. regular lone-wolf or small attacks that are implicitly encouraged by not being condemned. There is no organising thread or support network (unlike e.g. Al Qaeda and the Taliban).
The people encouraging that stuff don't know what specific outcomes there will be to exploit, but they have reason to suspect an increase in exploitable outcomes and they do nothing to stop it (or better, they are sort of notably half-hearted and equivocal in stopping it).
But in this case, the rally was long-planned and there was plenty of evidence online about who it was attracting. And all the other threads in the autogolpe I mentioned are planned and organised by a small group of people. This is widely understood -- the challenge is proving it in a court.
And it's not "stochastic" if you stand in front of that known crowd of people who have turned up to "stop the steal", and you tell them to "fight like hell". There's no defence that it is metaphorical, especially given everything we know he'd been advised. He (repeatedly) tried to get armed supporters allowed into the main crowd. "They're not here to hurt me!"
Almost nobody stands up in front of a mob and issues direct, unambiguous commands. You do that with a team or an army. Not with a mob. That's not the true power of that situation. You stand up in front of a mob, you use dogwhistles and the mob does what you want. Because that means you can try plausible deniability, which might keep you personally out of jail to do it all over again.
Trump is disordered but he is cunning; he knew he had an armed crowd out there, and he riled them up. And Giuliani literally has form for inciting a riot (of police officers!) so he knew what was going to happen too. They had to have an idea what the specific immediate time-sensitive outcome would be, and it is one they desired. That is not "stochastic". It's directed.
(Edited considerably, haven't had coffee yet)
But he's a madman whose organisation has committed atrocities in several countries; if he is Russia's hope for an end to Putin, that is not a good scenario.