There have been too many different topics on this Wagner marches to Rsotov-on-don situation. I’d like to centralize discussion here. Lets post updates all in this thread.
Context: Wagner is a Private Military Company (aka PMC) that has been helping out the Russian military, especially in the push to capture Bakhmut. Despite fighting on the Russian/Kremlin side thus far, tensions have escalated over the past months. This week, Wagner was ordered to integrate properly into the military and this was apparently the last straw. By integrating into the military proper, it would effectively remove Yevgeny Prigozhin from his position of power over Wagner.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Wagner, started the day with a very public statement (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/wagner-chief-declares-war-on-putin-after-russia-launches-missile-strike-on-his-troops/ar-AA1cX3TG), accusing the Russian military of shooting a missile at his troops. Prizgozhin has singled out Shoigu (the Russian Minister of Defense) in these public talks, and began to march his ~20,000+ Wagner troops into Russia.
https://lemmy.world/post/500076
During this march, allegedly 2 Helicopters have been shot down (https://lemmy.world/post/497656). And within this past hour, Wagner troops seem to have surrounded key buildings in Rostov-on-don, the Headquarters of the Southern Russian Military.
https://lemmy.world/post/502058
That should get us all caught up on the current events until right now. Now instead of us posting in 15 different topics, lets try to centralize the news into this topic and get a better set of discussions going.
EDIT: I will be changing this post, and the title, as events occur. To help keep everyone up-to-date on the latest developments.
Update: https://lemmy.world/comment/494242
This post shows that the Wagner group has moved as far north as Voronezh. This is suggesting that Wagner really is making a move towards Moscow.
He seems to be rather explicitly trying to exonerate Putin in this by saying the general lied to Putin and the people. The whole thing seems like a scheme by Putin to blame everything on someone else and have an easy out for why Russia “lost”.
It’s a tactic as old as rebellion too, though.
“I’m a loyal follower of his majesty, it’s the good king’s advisors poisoning his mind!”
And then you ride that wave of legitimacy and popular policy (We’re gonna stop sending your kids to die for no reason!) into, well, something. Either power, force a compromise, or a horrible death. Seems like that last one was coming from all sides so why not gamble?
Either way I do not believe this is some 4D chess move by Putin. He could leave Ukraine today, throw a parade claiming victory, and I imagine the average Russian would just be glad it’s over.
The people of Russia, by and large, worship Putin. The only way to ensure the people are on your side is to tell them that you’re acting on Putin’s behalf, or for the benefit of Putin.
You’ve probably seen some of the videos that various Russian soldiers or soldiers’ wives have made over the past year, talking about how they don’t have enough ammo or their loved ones are missing or whatever. Those videos are usually addressed to Putin, with the people trying to tell Putin about the problems they’re having. They think the only reason things are bad is because Putin doesn’t know that his underlings are running things poorly, and as soon as Putin finds out he’ll make things right.
I recall reading an article some months back discussing a hypothetical scenario for how exactly Russia would “break apart”, and even then the author was expecting that Putin would remain as the figurehead Tsar that everyone paid lip-service fealty to. All of the regional governors would claim legitimacy in their role by saying they were serving Putin. They’d claim that those awful nasty other governors were betraying Putin, and that’s why they had to seize territory from them.
Putin’s probably not going to lose that role until he dies. Maybe not even then.
Honestly this is what I expect to eventually happen. the Russian government will just not tell anyone he died and use stick footage/deepfakes to make it look like he’s giving speeches and things