Russian Tensions
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66005256
Wagner chief vows to topple Russian military leadersThe head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has vowed to “go all the way” to topple Russia’s military leadership, hours after the Kremlin accused him of “armed rebellion”.
Yevgeny Prigozhin said his Wagner fighters had crossed the border from Ukraine into Russia, entering the city of Rostov-on-Don.
Mr Prigozhin said his men would destroy anyone who stood in their way.
The local governor urged citizens there to keep calm and stay indoors.
Mr Prigozhin claimed that his forces had shot down a Russian military helicopter that “opened fire on a civilian convoy”. He did not give a location and the assertion could not be immediately verified.
The Wagner Group is a private army of mercenaries that has been fighting alongside the regular Russian army in Ukraine.
Tension has been growing between them over how the war has been fought, with Mr Prigozhin launching vocal criticisms of Russia’s military leadership in recent months.
On Friday, the 62-year-old mercenary leader accused the military of launching a deadly missile strike on his troops and vowed to punish them. He did not provide evidence.
Authorities have denied the strike and demanded he halt his “illegal actioSputnik is reporting this as attempted coup:
Some of the comments are interesting with some taking an anti-Putin and pro-Prigozhin position.
It looks like an army rebellion. They are saying that some Russian young soldiers did not make resistance to his army, These soldiers are mercenaries and some are hired from Latin America and they were paramilitaries from Colombia and Venezuela, and the American are also hiring mercenaries from Colombia
In his emergency televised speech today Putin seems to be likening Prigozhin’s action to the overthrow of the pro-war Kerensky provisional government in November 1917 or to the overthrow of the tsar in March that year:
“Therefore, any actions that split our nation are essentially a betrayal of our people, of our comrades-in-arms who are now fighting at the frontline. This is a knife in the back of our country and our people.
A blow like this was dealt to Russia in 1917, when the country was fighting in World War I. But the victory was stolen from it: intrigues, squabbles and politicking behind the backs of the army and the nation turned into the greatest turmoil, the destruction of the army and the collapse of the state, and the loss of vast territories, ultimately leading to the tragedy of the civil war.”http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/71496
This was the argument of the Russia Whites (and also of the German nationalists who argued that Germany would have won had its army not been stabbed in the back).
Putin is clearly a raving Russian nationalist. What sort of other person could really believe that Russia would have won the war on the eastern front if there hadn’t have been a revolution against the Tsar in Russia in 1917?
Which makes it the more odd that so many Stalinists (such as our late scotch friend) and Trotskyists should be supporting Russia in the current war.
Stopping the war and slaughter on the eastern front was about the only good thing the Bolsheviks did. (Ok, they also smashed the power of the Russian Orthodox Church — which Putin has restored.)
(such as our late scotch friend)
Scotch Eggs, Scotch Whisky, Scotch Ale, Scotch Bonnet Peppers and Scotch pies are acceptable, but friends are always Scottish
…such as our late scotch friend
My understanding is that the people of Scotland prefer the descriptions Scottish or Scots, using the term Scotch to refer to whisky.
But what do I know? I’m just a bloody kraut! 🙂
More on the stab-in-the-back myth as to why Germany lost WW1 which Putin has adopted to explain why Russia didn’t win it either.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth
A writer in the Guardian has also picked up Putin’s reference to 1917:
“Putin compared Prigozhin’s actions to the “intrigues” that he said brought down the Russian army, and then the state itself, in 1917. He’s not wrong – this is not unlike the way Russian army units left the front en masse during that military collapse.”
I don’t think that’s the parallel. I would have thought it’s more like the Kornilov attempted coup in September 1917:
Mongomery once said: “The first rule of war is don’t march on Moscow”. I have a feeling the Wagner group may face the same fate.
Looks as if he has been taking advice from the Grand Old Duke of York as well as from Montgomery;
Which makes it the more odd that so many Stalinists (such as our late scotch friend) and Trotskyists should be supporting Russia in the current war.
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Trotskyists as the Anarchists they have many tendencies. There are some trotskyists who do not support any side of this war, and there are some Leninists that do not support this war either such as some Left communists groupsThe soviets were able to defeat a professional German army because it was 30 Russians soldiers against one German soldier and they executed many peasants that they did not want to fight, the Soviet army was not superior to the German army.
This time Russia does not have so many soldiers, and millions of workers do not want to die this time, therefore Montgomery expression is not applicable this time, there is a wide discontent among the Russian against Putin and some want Putin to be overthrown, probably the rebel will not defeat Putin, but the workers might do that.
In 1965 I saw Generals, commanders and soldiers taking side with the workers, and they gave weapons to the peoples
As a mercenary army they can be hired by any western power, and they can be used against Putin. As my grand father used to say, you can never predict anything anything on politics or baseball. The western power want to finish the job that they started in 1989, and there are too many natural resources in Ukraine that they need and they can be taken away from Russia. Time has changed and Russia is not the Soviet Union any more In 1989 Russia was for sale when state capitalism collapsed
It looked like the Ukrainian conflict would drag out to some kind of indecisive end with Russia having the edge militarily and the country being more or less partitioned along the lines that it is now. The Ukrainian counter-offensive was not really making that much progress, and sooner or later, the Zelensky regime would have to come to its senses and negotiate. The sooner the war ends the better it would be for everyone. Ukraine is a complete mess and has experienced rapid depopulation. It’s gonna take years to recover.
This Wagner business has kind of complicated things. A destabilized Putin regime might ironically prolong this stupid war and increase the risk of it escalating if the temptation grows to resort to tactical nuclear weapons. Gawd help us all then…
This Wagner business has kind of complicated things. A destabilized Putin regime might ironically prolong this stupid war and increase the risk of it escalating if the temptation grows to resort to tactical nuclear weapons. Gawd help us all then…
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Wagner is hiring all kind of paramilitary and unemployed peoples from South and Central America and they can set up a big army of mercenaries soldiersBlackwater who has changed its name several time is also doing the same things, they sent soldiers to Iraq and they have also sent soldiers to Ukraine.
This type of army is very convenient for the western power because they are cheaper, they do not have to provide the same benefits as they must do with the state soldiers, the are not shown on the statistic of dead soldiers, and they can be deployed to any place without any congressional approval, and they have accumulated enough profits to buy their own military weapons, and some private corporations can hire them to have their own private army against workers, it is much better than a police force because they have military training, and they can provide their own weapons
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/11/pentagons-4-billion-mercenary-unit-fighting-drug-war/335143/ Powerful drug dealers can hire them too, the Mexican cartels have military weapons, small submarines, and military jeeps, the next step would be to acquire tanks
I think those who thought of Prigozhin and his soldiers as a replay of Lenin and the Bolsheviks or even Kornilov and the White Russians are a bit mistaken.
If there is any precedent at all then it is Ernst Röhm and the brown shirts.
If I was Prigizhin and his mates I would keep an eye out for long knives (and also avoid drinking tea in restaurants)
Actually “Another Ernst Roehm . . . same fate awaits” was one of the comments on Sputnik here:
Not quite. But Minsk must be better than Siberia.
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