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Comment by ivan_gammel | Hacker News Reader

This sequence of events left a strange aftertaste: first striking observation was that there was no enough information about what’s going on and there is still not enough. Everything could be narrowed down to a few sources in Telegram giving very brief updates. The reporting by traditional media had a lot of „not independently confirmed“ details. This was very strange, given that everything was happening in a densely populated area - Rostov, Voronezh, Lipetsk and Tula are big cities, M4 is an important highway with a lot of traffic. I would expect minute-by-minute coverage with a lot of pictures, maps, estimates of how much time they need to reach Moscow etc.

Second observation was that the regime did not exist in the moment: with few notable exceptions, we have not even seen faces of anyone from national security council. Some local actions of the governors, fortification of Moscow, pathetic speech of Putin in the morning and that’s it. The weakness of it in the face of a violent force was exposed.

Third observation was unexpectedly high visible support of Wagner by people. Many laughing at situation or agreeing with Prigozhin‘s demands, some bringing food and water to mercenaries in Rostov. All despite that PMC Wagner is a criminal organization famous for extra-judicial executions, war crimes etc. An organization led by an open nazi (Utkin) and assembled from prisoners, many of which were convicted for violent crimes. It is crazy how people can even think of collaborating with them.

And the outcome, a deal that says Putin is no longer in control without saying it. Could it be some conspiracy to purge elites while keeping the supreme leader in power? It does not look so. It looks like he for the first time in history was forced to eat the pill. Yet he is still a president and business is as usual. It is a very dangerous moment if we remember that Russia still has nuclear weapons and it is big enough that even without using them by falling apart it can destabilize the entire world.

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>first striking observation was that there was no enough information about what’s going on and there is still not enough.

I "ran" a bot/crawler hobby project that takes a russian-speaking telegram channel as an input and outputs the messages in a translated form, including text, images and video. During this situation I realized this became really relevant so I improved during the coup it to support multiple input channels and to keep a queue as post processing takes long for videos, and to provide audio transcriptions (Prigozhin himself likes to post audio clips)

I don't think its true that there was not much information. There actually was minute-by-minute updates by citizens, Wagner itself, establishment-oriented channels etc. You can read the backlog if you want: https://t.me/translatedrussianpropaganda

At the peak there was some real queue and I had to switch from running it on an ARM VM to my 12-core local system just to keep up. Whisper takes the longest to run, and given it translates spoken russian really well, I claim it was the first source of information in several occasions for people that don't speak Russian, for the few people that actually joined the channel (I didn't advertise it but on a small forum because I knew it might become a maintenance/fixing burden).

// This sequence of events left a strange aftertaste: first striking observation was that there was no enough information

I find this to be a universal fact of the war in Ukraine.

I speak Russian natively and most of my family (dad and both in-laws) grew up in Ukraine.

So you'd think that compared to an average Westerner I could be well I formed about what's happening.

Yet I find it completely impossible. An amalgam of Russian sources will present a totally different tactical and historical picture than that of Western and Ukrainian sources.

I can chose to believe the later based on emotion and prevalent sentiment of where I live but objectively I don't feel confident going in either direction.

It's crazy to me that someone can feel certainty here with access to only one of the sides' information.

Perhaps and even likely this has been the case in every war but it's the first one where I am so accutely aware of it.

It's not a new phenomenon. During the Chechenia war, On European TV, the poor Chechenia was invaded and civilians dying. My Russian friend was telling me on Russian TV it was all murderous Chechen terrorists attempting a coup.

On the verge of the second Iraq invasion, on European TV, there was doubt about claims of WMD but a hint of oil and USA agenda. American TV at my friends house was rallying that Saddam and his regime must be ended immediately.

> On the verge of the second Iraq invasion, on European TV, there was doubt about claims of WMD but a hint of oil and USA agenda. American TV at my friends house was rallying that Saddam and his regime must be ended immediately.

The two were not mutually exclusive.

pretention to adherence to international law is

Can you point exactly what you mean by international law? Because I think you're handwaving over something that does not exist, at least in the way you imply it does.

Interesting. So what crimes then would putin be guilty of over the Ukraine war?

> Interesting. So what crimes then would putin be guilty of over the Ukraine war?

If you're honestly interested on the topic, I welcome you to Google the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Putin.

Ahhhh gotcha. So you see the us invasion of Iraq as totally ok but the Russian invasion of Ukraine as against the law.

It is a little funny to see you question international law and then without missing a beat pivot to “check out the icc warrants.”

Just know that at a non-negligible portion of the us is waking up to the utter nonsense.

For future reference boys, you have to claim whataboutism before you reach this point in the conversation lol.

I didn’t bring up Iraq here and the thread is about russia so exactly how this is <insert social media buzzword here> is escaping me.

It's generally illegal to invade other countries that aren't about to invade you[1].

There's quite a few heads of state who should be hauled out for trial at the Hague for doing just that. None of them will be.

[1] Unless, of course, you're a permanent UNSC member. /s

I found this true in the early days, but I think there has been some settlement on basic facts.

The Russians have not conquered Kyiv, their invasion has stalled but they have caused enormous damage. Ukraine has not managed to expel the invading army, though they seem determined to do so.

It seems like Russian sources have largely taken the mask off. They are there to weaken the West and strengthen themselves and are fine with that coming at the expense of Ukraine. They continue to call Ukrainians bad names, but it feels less like a serious critique of Ukrainian nationhood and more of a rallying cry for their own benefit.

The two sides do disagree on specific issues like who dropped which bomb where and who controls a given village but we seem to have moved on from the days when Russia was claiming total victory. Some of Ukraine's messages about the future are very optimistic, but it's always important to take forward looking statements with a grain of salt.

> Some of Ukraine's messages about the future are very optimistic, but it's always important to take forward looking statements with a grain of salt.

I don't understand what you tried to say. All statements about the future are statements of intent, not statements of fact. Grains of salt are not required when someone says something like "I'm going to join a gym and lose a couple of pounds." Ukraine puts out statements that are very optimistic about their future because that's their intention, and that's just it.

The name for what you are describing is "Fog of war". It happens in every war.

It's really hard for russians to believe anything but official russian party line. There is a real russian nazi bias of believing in "great russia" and "lesser" Ukrainians. Then all the news are filtered through that confirmation bias.

If you really want to stay objective, ground yourself in hard facts like

1. russia invaded Ukraine

2. russia bombed various cities to the ground

3. russia lost its originally invaded territories around Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson regions which amounts about half since 2022 invasion

4. russian military losses as reported by Ukraine are close enough to media confirmed by OSINT like oryx etc.

5. maps are hard truth which is mostly converge to the same from both sides

That said, nobody can convince anyone who wants to stay delusional. And ru propaganda machine (including online bots) is largely directed at constantly generating multiple conflicting lies to muddy the waters.

> Second observation was that the regime did not exist in the moment: with few notable exceptions, we have not even seen faces of anyone from national security council. Some local actions of the governors, fortification of Moscow, pathetic speech of Putin in the morning and that’s it. The weakness of it in the face of a violent force was exposed.

This is, in my experience, actually a good indication that the event was truly a surprise to the Russian government. Their media apparatus is very good at having a cohesive narrative and lots of talking points in place before planned information operations, and they're not typically great at responding to events on the ground as they unfold, usually needing a couple of days to assemble a media campaign in response to unexpected events. The lack of any coordinated information response is a tell that the Russian government didn't anticipate this whole shebang.

Anders Puck Nielsen talks about this in his video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jabKKr3pstU According to him the hallmarks of a Russian Flag operation are

1. Bad production quality and a clear message

2. Intense media coverage in Russia

3. Positive message about the Russian state

Literally none of these points were apparent here. It shows a weak Russian state, was covered only as so far as necessary and what the message would be was completely unclear. Don't hire mercenaries?

> The reporting by traditional media had a lot of „not independently confirmed“ details.

Because (US) foreign correspondence is a hollow shell of itself.

https://twitter.com/ChrisBuryNews/status/1672410476364300288...

> At @abc we had foreign bureaus in Beijing, Beirut, Berlin, Cairo, Frankfort, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Tel Aviv and Tokyo.

> Only London is left.

No, not because of this. I’m not from the Default Country and work with Russian sources directly. It would not be unusual to see this in any Western media (e.g.German or British) reporting on a subject in a foreign country. It was unusual to see it in local news.

My dad was in newspapers. He worked at all types, everywhere from medium sized cities in the south and Midwest to big cities on the east coast (up to and including the New York Times).

During that era (last quarter of the 20th century), every one of those papers (not just the NYT) had a significant foreign presence. That list above of ABC bureaus - the foreign bureaus for a national broadcast network - is not that much more longer than the list of foreign bureaus for an average newspaper with a circulation of 300k-500k. I recall one of my dad’s papers in the ‘80s having bureaus in Moscow, Bombay, Karachi, London, Jerusalem… surely also places like Rome, Paris and Tokyo. I think those are all gone now.

That’s a lot of news gathering that’s just gone.

> That’s a lot of news gathering that’s just gone.

Yeah, but now we can cut and paste tweets as independent sources so it's ok

And for a brief moment, the shareholders realized a lot of value.

The tech revolution took all the old media profits, there are no good income sources to support media at scale anymore.

Reuters and associated press have very good presence in most countries. Many American news reports use their reports.

A lot of that is because Reuters, AP, and Bloomberg have a pretty strong backbench of freelancer journalists globally, which helps them with sourcing international news.

Most news in general has been financialized because margins are very low, leading to everyone depending on wire services for 80-90% of all reporting. Take a look at articles on both CNN and Fox, both will source 80-90% of their articles from the same wire services and add a sprinkle of commentary+opinion.

During Soviet times, many Russians learned to be _incredibly_ supportive of large gangs of people with guns and tanks standing in their front yard. There can be a horde of Romulans invading and they’ll be lining the road with water bottles and flower garlands.

People there still remember family members being carted away in box trucks for asking when they can expect the next food shipment. Russia is, and mostly has always been, ruled by violent thugs that believe their monopoly on violence should be exercised swiftly, frequently, and harshly.

Look how any kind of perceived criticism (or perceived lack of jubilant support) has been treated at any time in their past. Any public display of loyalty, any vox-pop interview - completely meaningless.

Re: [The] first striking observation was that there was no[t] enough information...

I'd long ago realised that this was a significant indicator of a crisis situation in many contexts. These range from military attack to natural disaster to political or business unrest.

The first indications of the atom bomb attack on Hiroshima were a) scattered reports of a "large explosion" and b) instant loss of all telegraph communications from a point some distance from the city centre inwards. Though the bomb struck early in day, it wasn't until that afternoon that an Imperial Japanese Army observation plane was able to fly over the city and surveil the damage, and the next day that the cause was known, after the United States informed Japan through diplomatic channels.

Similarly, when the HMS Sheffield was struck by Argentinian Exocet missiles during the Falklands War, the immediate effects were a loss of communications with the ship, and the first accurate information arrived, via heliocopter, along with the first casualties transported off the Sheffield.

In widespread natural disasters, particularly earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes, there is often some communications from major urban centres, but even those are limited and often outlying regions are entirely cut off. I recall when following a major Chilean earthquake, the US immediately offered satellite telephones, which could be used to report on conditions from remote communities.

In business or personal relationship usually characterised by open channels, "no news is bad news" is a useful heuristic.

For start-ups and business, there's an almost ridiculously predictable progression of blog (and more recently: social media) updates, initially exuberant, enthusiastic, and often technical, shifting to highly-managed public relations releases focusing on business and social factors, to ... silence. The latter often ends with a "next stage in our story" post, i.e., "we're shutting down".

And in political and military situations, what used to be a fat channel of communications (though not necessarily useful or accurate) is cut off as chains of command become unclear, leadership and spokespersons scramble for safety, and rumour and gossip spew forth. That last is its own interesting mix: the genuinely confused or misinformed, often, but also those trying to influence or exploit circumstances.

A few further thoughts...

That "official channels" bit has been the case, and a major failing of news organisations for over a century. Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz pointed this out in a 1920 New Republic article, "A Test of the News", commenting in large part on the New York Times's coverage (and failings) of the Russian Revolution. In particular was the issue of ideologically-tinged coverage, here anti-Communist principally. (Later the bias would run the other direction, particularly in the 1930s during the Holodomor.)

Lippmann and Merz note:

The analysis shows how seriously misled was the Times by its reliance upon the official purveyors of information. It indicates that statements of fact emanating from governments and the circles around governments as well as from the leaders of political movements cannot be taken as judgements of fact by an independent press. They indicate opinion, they are controlled by special purpose, and they are not trustworthy news. If, for example, the Russian Minister of War says that the armies of Russia were never stronger, that cannot be accepted by a newspaper as news that the armies of Russia are stronger than ever. The only news in the statement is that the Minister says they are stronger.

<https://archive.org/details/LippmannMerzATestoftheNews/page/...>

They continue to note the especially insidious nature of the anonymous source. The whole article is interesting reading, and bears strong parallels to events occurring today.

As do the practices Lippmann and criticise. Over a century later, news organisations still rely overwhelmingly on official (and unofficial) government spokespersons, and in the majority of cases treat such pronouncements as statements of fact, even where severe credibility issues are well known. Much of this is a result of availability heuristics (government mouthpieces are easy to find, and generally want to talk), reputation, and relationships established between journalists and sources. It is much more work to find truly independent, credible, and unmotivated witnesses.

And so, when things go pear-shaped, the official sources tend to become scarce.

Related to the disaster / comms failure dynamic I mentioned above: one rough proxy for determining how bad a widespread disaster in fact is is to look at where casualty reports have not yet been received. Again: capital and major cities typically preserve some communications capacity. Outlying regions are far more likely to be cut off, and by looking at the relative size and significance of locations that are making reports, as well as patterns of communications cessation, it's possible to make some inferences about total magnitude. Note that offical tallies of morbidity and mortality are based on received, credible, verified reports, which is to say, official statistics will almost always understate actual impacts, possibly for hours, days, or weeks, depending on overall severity. The 2004 Boxing Day Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami comes to mind, with full official counts taking months or years to finally settle.

Prisoners provided a decent chunk of recruitment for Ukrainian forces at the beginning of the war as well. Regardless of country, prison population represents a group, already familiar with weapons, violence, and audacity to use them, which can be reliably sourced for fighting or advancing other interests that require extreme measures. Even if Wagner is dissolved, its remnants will control the criminal underworld of Russia and will be a punitive instrument for any dissent.

Ukrainian prisoners were incorporated in Ukrainian armed forces, right? Different culture than in PMC, which kills traitors with a hammer.

PMC == "private military company"?

Yes

In the early days of the war back in 2014-15, it wasn't as professional due to the institutional collapse that comes with the changing of an entire political system which lead to questionable Militias being formed.

There was a lot of work on professionalizing the essentially greenfield Ukrainian Army by NATO members like Canada, US, UK, France, Germany, Türkiye, etc.

That said, a number of the unsavory militias from the 2014-15 period (such as the Azov Brigade and the Dudayev Battalion) still exist in a limited form, but largely neutered due to the efforts out to professionalize the Ukrainian Army.

The general level of professionalism has certainly not increased since February 2022. That is to be expected though. On the other hand, combat effectiveness has definitely increased.

Think about how many videos exist of generic Russian troops and tanks moving on the M4 and around the Ministry of Defense building in Rostov just on Twitter alone. Most of the time the only way to differentiate Wagner from regular troops is a little patch on their arms.

It’s very hard to verify the date a video was taken, even when there’s several of them online. Deception is always a concern and it takes time to gather enough experts to cross verify facts and find trustworthy sources on the ground.

This whole incident was actually quite accessible this time around - a lot less fog of war than usual. Google Maps showed blockages on the M4 and Prigozhin sent out audio messages via official channels.

Well, that’s the thing: there’s not that many evidence from specific points. Imagine having relatives in Efremov or Novocherkassk, knowing that sometimes there’s fighting between Wagner and army or FSB, and not being able to tell if there’s any risk for your family. Tracking such a big force on your own turf should have been an easy task for MVD or FSB. Maybe even for some big newspapers. Visual ID, plates etc. At least some Wagner vehicles were easily recognizable.

I would expect minute-by-minute coverage with a lot of pictures, maps, estimates of how much time they need to reach Moscow etc.

This existed, it just didn't exist in the traditional media. Look in the right discord servers and there were new videos being posted every 5 minutes as the convoy was moving around.

telegram also had a lot of min by min posts I spent way too late last night watching

https://t.me/milinfolive

I do work with many types of sources - a habit developed in times when I was doing this professionally for some state actors. The coverage in social media made the impression of continuous data stream, but information density was really low if you filter it.

Starting about a year ago, western news sources markedly reduced coverage. There coverage wasn't that great anyway - mostly people hanging around Moscow, Berlin, or Kiev and reporting what they heard. The few outlets that continued a higher pace of coverage mostly stopped around January of this year. And what coverage they have is mostly from them looking at Telegram and other social media.

On the face of it, you might say "pick your poison" when choosing between Russian and Ukrainian social media sources, but the pro-Russian sources hae been consistently counter factual, stating things like the number of Patriot systems destroyed as much higher than the number of systems in theater. There are some quality pro-Ukraine sources that I've found provide consistently good info.

If you want neutral, the Austrian MOD comes out with an english language analysis once in a while which is good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvJgRrpkaaU

> Third observation

Why would people not support Wagner over the regular army, and specifically over Shoigu and Gerasimov that he alleges to target? I can explain. None of the reasoning below is meant to excuse or praise Wagner or the rest of Russian actors in the region, but nevertheless, it's valuable to understand people's perspective.

This stuff about Utkin's Nazism, with Prigozhin himself son of a Jewish man, is completely peripheral and not in any way more salient than fringe National Socialist elements and Azov symbolic on the Ukrainian side that Russians make much hay of (in spite of Zelensky, too, being Jewish). The accusation just doesn't bite when there's a Slav on Slav war going on, it's only good for propaganda and twitter point-scoring, neither side there is seriously making decisions with relation to WWII political compass.

War crimes? This whole – unrecognized – war is a crime if we're serious about it, and regular Russian military is neck deep in war crimes, and it wasn't (far as anyone knows) Wagner that had terrorized Bucha, obliterated Mariupol or blew up the Kahovka dam, to name just three high-profile atrocities. Executions? The most recent case was them executing a defector (and a repeat criminal offender, from Ukraine, who had been serving a term for aggravated murder prior to his recruitment and defection). I don't think it's surprising when people in a rather harsh society shrug about such things (not to whatabout, but how many Americans would approve or at least not object to Snowden's execution?).

On the other hand, there are very salient reasons Russians support Wagner.

1. They just have a compelling, powerful image. It is known that they've succeeded in a few areas where regular forces have failed; Prigozhin is somewhat good at moving speeches; and they've been effective at exaggerating the difference and appropriating credit. Reminder that Prigozhin is a man of many talents and careers, one among those being management of the so-called Internet Research Agency [1]; catering business, paramilitary operations and illustration of children's books [2] aside, he's been in charge of propaganda for a long time now.

2. Adding to that, they just have an outsized presence in people's minds, there are catchy edgy music videos [3] and decently made movies [4] of their production (with military history buffs praising that movie), many affiliated Telegram channels, they're just very online, including Prigozhin personally – unlike Russian Ministry of Defense that's infamously behind the times, secretive, prone to embarrassing transparent lies, "boomer-like". It's another Russian self-own, in a sense, because the MoD grasped at Wagnerite meme magic to rescue the perception of the campaign, and became overshadowed as a result.

3. The war is not genuinely popular, especially now that it's clearly close to being lost. Surveys to the effect that 70% of Russians support the war omit details that this support is often in the form "we'll be exterminated if we surrender" [5], it's not driven by some positive expectation of Imperial greatness but by fear, very much like 1945 Germany but exacerbated by connectivity [6]; there was an awful lot of chauvinistic smugness early on, but not now. Prigozhin articulates criticism of the status quo (Ukraine never planned to attack, the operation was a mistake, it needlessly made Ukraine into a real threat, eroded Russian prestige, brought NATO closer to the heart of Russia than it'd have been otherwise etc.) [7] that resonates with people vastly more than coping output of the official organs.

4. People really, truly hate and look down on Shoigu, even people in the regular army. Thus they did not open fire at Wagner forces, and there's such a volatile situation that soldiers at the frontline are often not given arms, due to fear of mutiny. It is known at this point, in large part thanks to Wagner propaganda, that Shoigu is a corrupt bureaucratic oaf not qualified for his job, who appopriates vast sums and even diverts military resources for his pampered daughter, who only became a Minister due to his ties within Russian elite (he's one of the most powerful members of the gang, jumping between top-level posts for three decades). He's a lightning rod for all aspects of dissatisfaction with the way the war has gone for Russia (which might be part of why Putin keeps him around). And he's specifically hated by the unorganized but powerful undercurrent of ethnic Russian nationalism, due to being perceived as a strongly identifying Tuvan Buddhist [8] feudal lord with a private army [9] who is completely beyond any reproach and glibly sends tens of thousands of Russians (plus of course other peoples) to the meatgrinder, in meat waves, for zero benefit. Shoigu is understood as "noviop" [10], a member of semi-artificial Soviet post-ethnic people, and the deeper one's ethno-nationalism, the less support he gets, with people really concerned about Slavic race and so on charging him with slaughter of Slavs on both sides. In contrast, Prigozhin plays up his Russophilic and Slavophilic attitude, has his son serving in Wagner, cries crocodile tears about the loss of lives, and very pointedly, repeatedly drives the connection, in very simple language: "the "Tuvan degenerate" Shoigu denies us materiel – thousands of our Russian boys are getting killed by the enemy". With Ukrainians apparently unbeatable and, frankly, acting in their right, the conclusion about ways to stop boys from being killed becomes obvious enough. Like Kadyrov, his fellow warlord, he conspicuously does not accuse the Supreme Leader of any wrongdoing, but the implication about actions he believes are legitimate for Putin to take are clear.

In short, it's best to understand the situation not so much as Wagner group being popular with Russians on its own merits, but as Russia having arrived at the metastable condition where any cohesive military unit that seems competent and starts a mutiny against the Ministry of Defense can expect nontrivial cooperation from the masses and other forces. This is, I believe, is exactly why Prigozhin is acting in such a bizarre manner: he is making clear to Putin that he could easily move around and destabilize the war effort, all to secure his own survival – in the way that popular field commanders of "Novorossiya" failed to do, and got eliminated on Kremlin orders as potential competitors for control.

Wagner is theoretically easy to destroy, but has enough momentum to topple the Army and potentially send the whole regime into tailspin, with how unpopular Shoigu is; yet Putin is too invested in his little mafia family to throw Shoigu to the dogs; and if he keeps covering for Shoigu, the whole "good Czar, bad boyars" scheme implodes. So the equilibrium is letting Prigozhin go, with his force. At least for now.

I wonder when Prigozhin has started working on this.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency

2. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/06/01/wagner-head-prigoz...

3. https://www.reddit.com/r/N_N_N/comments/xn4ky5/mc_wagner_rel...

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1EXVrACxnk

5. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/06/03/the-only-thing-worse...

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#Wartime_conseq...

7. https://t.me/Prigozhin_hat/3790

8. https://nationalpost.com/news/world/the-pounds-12m-polite-pa...

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_(company)

10. https://twitter.com/devarbol/status/1534020945660321792

> So the equilibrium is letting Prigozhin go, with his force

He's letting him go but not with his force. They will try to take advantage and integrate Utkin's PMC into the MoD forces where this is possible.

thank you for your detailed explanation, and all the sources you provided. I feel less confused now.

This is mostly romantic western propaganda. We (the NATO) are the good ones, which is not part of your essay, and the bad ones are the Russians. This is reflected in the sources as well, which are exclusively pro-west ones as far as I can see.

Just as an example: Currently in our media Russians blew up the Kahovka dam. At no time anyone asks why they'd do that. It is detrimental to Russias strategy in the same way Russia does not profit from blowing up Nord Stream. The only reason for blowing up the dam would be to stop Ukraine forces at that flank, however the Russians were in control of the dam and they could have just opened it. Again this is similar to Nord Stream.

Could Russians have done it still? Sure, not all actions need to make sense, but it wouldn't be my first guess.

> With Ukrainians apparently unbeatable [...]

Not sure as meant as quote or not, but this does not hold water at all. Even Ukrainian officials say that the offensive isn't up to par currently. And by now we saw enough broken Leopards to say that the deliveries didn't have their desired effect either. Why are we in this war again?

> Could Russians have done it still? Sure, not all actions need to make sense, but it wouldn't be my first guess.

So what is your first guess. Because I think it makes plenty of sense that Russia would blow up the dam, but even if we accepted your premise that it doesn’t, then for what actor does it make more sense to blow up the dam than Russia?

You may be the one who needs to take a step back and question if you’ve been consuming propaganda.

Especially considering Russia was the only one with the plausible means to do so, and a reasonable motive to rig the dam for demolition even if not to blow it up immediately (which I agree, was a dumb decision, probably an error either in communication or execution).

> So what is your first guess. Because I think it makes plenty of sense that Russia would blow up the dam, but even if we accepted your premise that it doesn’t, then for what actor does it make more sense to blow up the dam than Russia?

Russia had the means to block the flank at will. It does block that part for a week, sure, but after that Russia has no control over it anymore.

> [...] and question if you’ve been consuming propaganda.

That is beside the point. We all only/mostly consume propaganda. It's when you think that one side tells the truth, that you're being manipulated.

'WE' are not in this war anon

I cite Western sources solely because I presume most people here don't read Russian. I had to look it up.

My personal hypothesis about the dam is that it was negligence and perhaps a misguided attempt to "partially demolish it". The main piece of evidence against Ukrainian/Western action is the resolution of Russian Government "On the specifics of application in the territories of the Donetsk People's Republic, Luhansk People's Republic, Zaporizhzhia region and Kherson region of the provisions of the legislation of the Russian Federation in the field of industrial safety of hazardous production facilities and safety of hydraulic structures", issued a week prior to the catastrophe[1], that says among many other similar things:

> d) technical investigation of the causes of accidents at hazardous production facilities and accidents at hydraulic structures shall be carried out by commissions headed by representatives of the authorized bodies.

> a) The provisions of Part Six of Article 10 of the Federal Law "On Safety of Hydraulic Structures" shall not apply until 1 September, 2023;

> 8. Until March 1, 2024 the information on hydraulic structures, located in the territories of the Donetsk People's Republic, Lugansk People's Republic, Zaporozhye Region and Kherson Region and put into operation until June 1, 2023, may be submitted for their inclusion in the Russian register of hydraulic structures without submission of the declaration of safety of hydraulic structures.

> *10. Until January 1, 2028 the technical investigation of accidents at hazardous production facilities and accidents at hydraulic structures, which occurred as a result of military actions, sabotage and terrorist acts, shall not be carried out.*

I'm way past trying to reason about qui bono. Sometimes it works (Nord Stream), sometimes Russia is just a magical place where stuff happens.

1. https://www.garant.ru/products/ipo/prime/doc/406865902/

> I cite Western sources solely because I presume most people here don't read Russian. I had to look it up.

Source 4. and 7. are Russian. It also wasn't about the language, but affiliation.

> My personal hypothesis about the dam is that it was negligence and perhaps a misguided attempt to "partially demolish it".

Why?

> The main piece of evidence against Ukrainian/Western action is the resolution of Russian Government "On the specifics of application in the territories of the Donetsk People's Republic, Luhansk People's Republic, Zaporizhzhia region and Kherson region of the provisions of the legislation of the Russian Federation in the field of industrial safety of hazardous production facilities and safety of hydraulic structures", issued a week prior to the catastrophe[1], that says among many other similar things: [...]

This proves exactly nothing, except that Russians knew about this attack vector. Especially because according to them it was attacked weeks prior. Could be a lie, but they indeed reported it weeks prior.

> I'm way past trying to reason about qui bono. Sometimes it works (Nord Stream), sometimes Russia is just a magical place where stuff happens.

Did you forget that Russia was behind Nord Stream as well for weeks? Past cui bono is la-la-land.

>> My personal hypothesis about the dam is that it was negligence and perhaps a misguided attempt to "partially demolish it".

>Why?

I would agree with that, because it is consistent with the general state of affairs in Russian army and government structures responsible for Ukraine. They lack intellectual capacity to evaluate all the consequences of their actions or inaction. Even if they had it, the responsible people may have not communicated it to the peers - only to the command vertical, where the message could have been lost or did not reach decision makers in time.

"Third observation was unexpectedly high visible support of Wagner by people."

Maybe because Prigoshin was saying that the war was started for no real reason and people liked to listen to truth for a change [0]?

[0] https://t.me/concordgroup_official/1279

> It is crazy how people can even think of collaborating with them.

It is not crazy, if you take into account that the genocidal war is very popular among Russians, and the only complain they have is that it is not going according to their expectations. They blame the top military officials for that and think that wagner will be more efficient in killing Ukrainians.

Well, the thing is people who supported this raid are not exactly the same as those who support the war. I would understand if they were the same.

Another option (which I'm partial to) is something like "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".

Not everyone is on top of who's part of the mercenary company and some people could just see this as "a change", so they would offer some support.

Not making a statement of "how things really are" here, just saying that sometimes an explanation might be "jeez, finally there's some change, maybe something will happen out of this" and not "let me go support these genocidal mercenaries".

Yeah I agree. Prigozhin going after the war and saying it was always unjustified yesterday was an olive branch to at least a sizable minority of Russians who are not as GP says supporting a genocidal war.

He knows the regime is weak and pulled all the levers he could to make it look weaker and get himself more support. He's not tricking anyone, others know what he is but by suddenly speaking against the war he's signalled clearly they have the same immediate goals. I'd imagine that also went through some conscripted or otherwise unenthusiastic soldiers heads when they decided not to confront his mercenaries.

I think Putin expected Russian soldiers to resist when he gave a tough speech last night. They all watched except the air force.

What published (linkable) basis have you used for these claims?

Hardliners in Russia want Putin out and wished Russia had "went fallujah" on Ukraine... Russia still has that option...

What does that even mean? They tried to go 'fallujah' on Kyiv, it failed miserably. Back during Fallujah, if the locals were loaded with Javelins, things might have turned out differently for them as well.

>Third observation was unexpectedly high visible support of Wagner by people. Many laughing at situation or agreeing with Prigozhin‘s demands, some bringing food and water to mercenaries in Rostov. All despite that PMC Wagner is a criminal organization famous for extra-judicial executions, war crimes etc. An organization led by an open nazi (Utkin) and assembled from prisoners, many of which were convicted for violent crimes. It is crazy how people can even think of collaborating with them.

This raises an interesting question for me.

The invasion of Ukraine enjoys popular support inside Russia - around 70%. The justification continuously put forward regarding why such a large proportion of the Russian population supports the invasion is that they've been brain-washed by state media into believing that Ukraine requires "de-Nazification".

That the Wagner group enjoys such popular support, while their Nazi sympathies are also common knowledge^ makes this justification questionable.

My best, admittedly totally speculative, guess right now is that the Russian populace has a far better/non-brainwashed understanding of the geopolitical situation than what is commonly suggested, and that while everyone is happy to go along with the de-Nazification pretence, in reality the populace harbours the same ambitions for a return of Russian imperial power that the Russian leadership does, and also holds similar moralistic perspective.

^I believe this to be the case, but I'm not certain. At the very least there doesn't seem a state sponsored campaign to hide it

> That the Wagner group enjoys such popular support, while their Nazi sympathies are also common knowledge^ makes this justification questionable.

I remember reading somewhere, that "Nazism" means something rather different in Russian culture than in Western culture. In the West, you say "Nazi" and the first thing most people think of is the Nazi mass murder of Jews, the Holocaust–that's what the school curriculum focuses on. But in Russia, you say "Nazi" and the first thing most people think of is the Nazi mass murder of Russians–that's what the Russian school curriculum focuses on. In the West, "Nazi=homicidal anti-semitism"; in Russia, "Nazi=homicidal Russophobia".

But, given that, what sense do they make of a group of Russian "Nazis" who support the Kremlin and fight its wars? It is a bit like if you met a group of neo-Nazis, and discovered they were all openly and proudly Jewish. If something doesn't make sense, people often just choose to pay no attention to it.

Similarly, the Russian accusations that Ukraine is a "neo-Nazi regime" seem ludicrous to Western ears – "Zelenskyy is of Jewish descent, his great grandparents died in the Holocaust, how can he be a Nazi?" But to most Russians, for whom the primary meaning of "Nazi" is not "antisemite" but "Russophobe", the idea that "Ukrainian nationalism=Nazism" makes more sense, and Zelenskyy's Jewishness appears irrelevant.

> But in Russia, you say "Nazi" and the first thing most people think of is the Nazi mass murder of Russians–that's what the Russian school curriculum focuses on. In the West, "Nazi=homicidal anti-semitism"; in Russia, "Nazi=homicidal Russophobia".

In Canada there is a monument to a Nazi SS division [1], because it was made up of Ukrainian volunteers fighting the Soviets, post-Holodomor that was seen as the lesser of two evils.

So with that small bit of trivia in mind, your explanation really does make sense and I'm surprised I haven't seen it put or thought of it that way. I reckon that context is probably also relevant to the "nazi-ism" of Ukrainian paramilitary (and now formal military) units like Azov Brigade? (although being close to totally ignorant on the subject, for all I know said groups are equally antisemitic).

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorials_in_Canada_to_Nazis...

Similarly, here in Australia there have been some news stories in recent weeks concerning pro-fascist sentiments among Croatian Australians: https://www.smh.com.au/national/healing-wounds-the-jewish-an...

Whether we are talking about Ukrainian nationalists, or Croatian nationalists, or Finns, or whoever else – if the Nazis are the only people willing to be your allies, what do you do?

And in India: Subhas Chandra Bose, one of the leaders of the Indian independence movement, chose to ally himself with Hitler and Imperial Japan. Many Indians today still view him as a hero, and do not think his willingness to fight with the Axis condemns him. At the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Japan, where Japan's war criminals are deified, there is a statute honouring the Indian judge Radhabinod Pal, who was the only judge at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial to acquit all the defendants. Through the memories of Bose and Pal, the governments of India and Japan have found something to bond over–their shared sympathy for the losing side in the Second World War.

"if the Nazis are the only people willing to be your allies"

Hmm, I wonder why. Maybe because of this [0]:

"An UVO brochure from 1929 stated: "Terror will be not only a means of self-defense, but also a form of agitation, which will affect friend and foe alike, regardless of whether they desire it or not."

The UVO organized a number of assassination attempts on some of the most renowned Polish and Ukrainian politicians, some of which were successful."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Military_Organizatio...

"Ukrainian volunteers fighting the Soviets"

That's not the only thing they were doing. [0]

"like Azov Brigade"

I'd recommend a book by a Canadian journalist collaborating with Bellingcat on the subject of Azov and other Ukrainian nationalists. [1]

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Waffen_Grenadier_Divisi...

[1] http://cup.columbia.edu/book/from-the-fires-of-war/978383821...

The Russian understanding of Nazism, like elsewhere, also includes aspects of racial purity, anti-Semitism, and ultra-nationalism, and a focus on "degeneracy" as the source of a nation's decline ("weak men make hard times").

Of course, the optics of being seen as a Nazi are very bad, so even Nazis are constantly pointing fingers and saying "no, THAT person is the true Nazi." But the facts aren't on their side, so we have no obligation to humor them when they say absurd things like "Zelenskyy is the true Nazi", when the man, aside from being Jewish, also isn't espousing Nazi ideology.

That is what I have heard as well. Let’s be real, antisemitism never fell totally out of favor in Eastern Europe. I never bought for a second that Putin or any of the higher ups were worried about it. This also explains how a Jewish man can be called a Nazi with a straight face by Russian media and leaders. For many Russians, Nazi means Western European aligned organizations that kill Russians.

> "Zelenskyy is of Jewish descent, his great grandparents died in the Holocaust, how can he be a Nazi?"

This level of kindergarten logic from a grown ass men never cease to amaze me.

>> In March 2015, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced that the Azov Regiment would be among the first units to be trained by United States Army troops in the Operation Fearless Guardian training mission.[282][283] US training however was withdrawn on 12 June 2015, as the US House of Representatives passed an amendment blocking any aid (including arms and training) to the regiment due to its neo-Nazi background.[284][285] *However, the amendment was later removed in November 2015,[284]*

> around 70%

I am deeply suspicious of these kinds of numbers. I just don't see any practical way of getting an honest sample.

Dictatorships tend to be extremely popular. Saddam Hussein, for instance, was elected with 99% approval! These dictators must be good at something.....

70% supporting the war is way way of. Active supporters are likely in 20-25% range, majority would definitely be happy with any reasonable peace deal.

> in reality the populace harbours the same ambitions for a return of Russian imperial power that the Russian leadership does, and also holds similar moralistic perspective

Or people are terrified that if they appear to not be supporting the war they would end up in the gulags or, ironically, get sent to the frontlines with a gun pointed at their back.

> the Russian populace has a far better/non-brainwashed understanding of the geopolitical situation than what is commonly suggested

I think this is probably true in a very limited, bone-deep way. They sense the power dynamics, feel the desire to be on top. What's needed is a rationalization for the conscious mind, to ease the path for it to come to the same conclusion, to endorse the actions you already wanted to take. Propaganda does just fine with that.

With that said, I think there are pretty large areas of detailed fact re: the state of the invasion, the economy, etc, where they are in fact deceived. All we can say about that is that it's extremely difficult to stand up under a constant barrage of one perspective when that one comes to your door and the other is restricted enough that you at least have to go out of your way for it. Especially if it's been that way your whole life.

"The invasion of Ukraine enjoys popular support inside Russia - around 70%"

How can you get this number? Today in Russia any question by a pollster sounds like "Do you support the war or do you want to get fined for "discreditation of the army"?". I remember quite different reaction to the Western polls in Crimea showing that huge majority support reunification with Russia -- "No, no, you can't believe any polls conducted in a non-free country, people there are just afraid to say they hate Russia and want back to the Ukraine".

"while their Nazi sympathies are also common knowledge"

I don't know anyone who knows that and supports Wagner.

> The invasion of Ukraine enjoys popular support inside Russia - around 70%.

You should not take this number seriously. It has been greatly exaggerated by russian propaganda. At the same time there is no independent reliable polling in russia at this time. Also, Russians are reluctant to share their real views due to harsh criminal+administrative penalties for "spreading fakes about the army". The war vividly exposed all the corruption, grift, lawlessness, inefficiencies in russia on a huge scale. But people are anemic and resined to their fate. 20 years of putin took the wind out of their sails.

> The reporting by traditional media had a lot of „not independently confirmed“ details. This was very strange, given that everything was happening in a densely populated area - Rostov, Voronezh, Lipetsk and Tula are big cities, M4 is an important highway with a lot of traffic. I would expect minute-by-minute coverage with a lot of pictures, maps, estimates of how much time they need to reach Moscow etc.

1. Russia does not have journalists.

2. When people see a military putsch, they don't normally stop to film it. They run for their lives instead.

> with few notable exceptions, we have not even seen faces of anyone from national security council. Some local actions of the governors, fortification of Moscow, pathetic speech of Putin in the morning and that’s it.

3. Everybody was waiting to see who will win, and join the winning side

> All despite that PMC Wagner is a criminal organization famous for extra-judicial executions, war crimes etc. An organization led by an open nazi (Utkin) and assembled from prisoners, many of which were convicted for violent crimes. It is crazy how people can even think of collaborating with them.

4. I'm surprised this coming as a surprise to anybody. They would've gotten the same treatment in much of the world.

> Russia still has nuclear weapons and it is big enough that even without using them by falling apart it can destabilize the entire world.

Russia will be 100 times less of a treat to the world, if it crashes, and breaks apart.

>Russia does not have journalists.

This is factually incorrect and probably ideologically charged statement. Freedom of press in Russia is significantly restricted but good journalism is far from being dead. Sometimes you have to read between the lines or understand the affiliations to filter the content, but it still can provide you a lot of valuable information.

> Could it be some conspiracy to purge elites while keeping the supreme leader in power?

Why do you think it’s not this?

While I don’t know how truly “weakened” Putin has become, this seems like it could have easily been a trap to find any who would side with them.

Are any of your observations based on reporting from MSM - the same propaganda machine that spread the Ghost of Kiev fable and other ludicrous Ukraine fables? If this was in fact a treasonous act by Prigozhin then a gruesome death is awaiting him. He, and his co-conspirators, will be made examples of. Secondly, their families will also be targeted to instill additional fear into anyone else thinking about it.

I'm inclined to believe that this entire drama was manufactured by the MSM working with US Intelligence to spread the fallacy that there is chaos on the Russian side. Prigozhin may have been upset that he wasn't getting the support his men needed and may have retreated in protest. And even that is pure speculation.

Prigozhin isn't an idiot and if he purportedly did what the MSM is parroting then he failed spectacularly and sending Putin a j/k, bff? SMS isn't going to cut it. If Prigozhin is alive a week from now, then this was just more manufactured bullshit from the MSM.

I worked in the media analysis field before and know very well how to handle my sources of information. For me the term MSM does not make sense: everyone has affiliations and agenda, whether it is NYT, RT or some random guy in Telegram or Discord. Working with NYT or RT or Bild is easier, because you know how their distortion bubble looks and where extra fact checking is necessary. Publications in anonymous social media accounts are worse - there must be zero trust by default.

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