Russia did not face an imminent security threat to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary outfit
...but don't blame me, I'm just a mercenary and they offered money.
this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
43 points (100.0% liked)
World News
39005 readers
1835 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
"I've made enough money at this point."
Sure does seem from recent statements like he's seeing writing on the wall regarding the war in Ukraine and is trying to ensure he's got his ass covered in the event Putin isn't around to protect him.
This is huge. If this video reaches the Russian population it could lead to the end of the war. Prigozhin is not someone to be taken lightly.
The Russian Defense Ministry is deceiving the public and the president.
This particular wording is interesting. Prigozhin doesn't blame Putin. He blames the Defense Ministry. This might be a way out of this war for Putin.
The reality of the situation is that Russia doesn't work the same way as Western countries. Or most countries for that matter. The structure of power in Russia is completely different for historical reasons (you can learn more here https://youtu.be/f8ZqBLcIvw0).
The short version is that in most countries members of lower classes of the society compete with members of the higher classes for rights, privileges, etc. In Russia members of the same class compete with each other to please the higher classes for privileges, etc.
The situation in Russia right now is that there are three major military forces: regular army, Wagner group and Putin's private army.
Regular army and Wagner are in the same class and they compete with each other. Regular army is highly corrupt, inefficient and pretty much rotten to the core after decades of mismanagement. Yet it still poses some threat to Putin. Wagner group is a small and efficient (compared to regular army) force. It won't be able to take an open fight with a regular army due to man power, but it's string enough to hold a punch here and there.
Prigozhin shits on regular army to win points in the eyes of Putin. Putin then uses Prigozhin's critique to put dump the faces of generals into their shit and to control them. Regular army doesn't like this though and is now planning counter offensive against Prigozhin. And this is something people in the West rarely hear about.
So, the latest news of this in-class fighting! Prigozhin has a contract to supply regular army with food rations and he is using these profits to execute military operations across the world in the interest of Russian Federation. Sometime ago Shoigu took over army control. He also has legislative powers. So he decided to increase daily spend per person. Sounds like free money for Prigozhin? Of course not! Once the spending was increased, a lot of oligarchs started to get into Prigozhin's supply chain. And he didn't like it. So he wrote an official letter to Shoigu that he won't be complicit in corruption, that it undermines his ability to fund his operations and that Russian MoD should find another food supplier. Big thick fuck you to Shoigu!
But that was the first play. Right now Shoigu is pushing another bill to force independent military groups to become part of regular army or, at least, be controlled by the army. Now that will hurt Wagner group a lot. The question is what will Putin do about it as he's not interested in losing Prigozhin.
I knew that Prigozhin hates Shoigu, but I didn't have the perspective you gave.
Prigozhin doesn't involve Putin in its rants, and it makes perfect sense with what you are saying. But could he go at war with the regular Russian army like he's saying? He's talking about "tens and tens of thousands" of loss on his side, and calling about overthrowing corrupt leaders? That's crazy.
I don't know his real capabilities, but I don't think he can go to war. And there's no need. The whole point of the power system in Russia is to serve your Tzar better than your peers.
Btw, here's the letter from Prigozhin to Shoigu I mentioned, it's in Russian, obviously:
https://cdn.jpg.wtf/futurico/74/73/1686494576-747304f253e4b429f2200447d9928b24.jpeg
https://cdn.jpg.wtf/futurico/6b/95/1686494601-6b950ef5df7d7fe5eb0b96f7480f8bc2.jpeg
That seems to me more a way in for him in the ministry of Defense. Scapegoating current defense minister and replacing him...
Interesting. I'm not sure how well Putin can play the "they deceived me card", considering it may make him look weak. But punishing the "deceivers" may make him look strong. Who knows? I guess it depends on what the Russian people want to believe.
Well, at this point Putin knows is fucked. He won't be able to sustain the war effort in Ukraine very long and the embargo on the country will have long lasting economic consequences. The rest of the World won't let it go... unless he stops the war.
He is also under arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court. It's his best chance of not spending the rest of his life in prison.
Is he fucked though? A lot of generals and other army higher ups got killed, a lot of oligarchs jumped out of the windows, almost everyone who posed any threat to Putin is now gone. At the same time those who showed support got suddenly rich. The amount of Russian billionaires has increased five fold during the first year of the war.
If anything, this war has helped Putin to clean up government and olygarchy, and ensure that his rule is unchallenged. Putin is not fucked, he's golden.
tl;dr:
Russia did not face an imminent security threat to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia's Wagner mercenary outfit, said in a bombshell video posted on social media Friday. Prigozhin's comments were at odds with the casus belli given by President Vladimir Putin when he ordered troops into Ukraine last February, although the private army chief avoided personally attacking the Russian leader. Putin has cited NATO expansion near Russia's borders as one of the main justifications for invading neighboring Ukraine. Prigozhin also accused Kremlin-linked oligarchs of seeking to plunder Ukraine's resources after its military capture and appointment of a puppet regime in Kyiv. Some analysts have interpreted Prigozhin's latest comments as a sign of his growing political ambitions.
I am a bot in training. Suggestions?
Good bot.
I wonder what his angle is. All I can assume is that things are very bleak on the battlefield and he's choosing his men over Putin.
Maybe he senses the imminent end of putin and want's to be a possibility for an executive seat on the next government.
I hear that worked great for Benedict Arnold.
Someone's about to fall out of a window.
What a hypocritical, barbaric shithole country Russia is; if a regular Russian citizen said the same shit, they would be charged, arrested, and sent to prison. Meanwhile, this wealthy ugly piece of shit can say whatever he wants with no consequence.
Russian propaganda translator:
"Our killing and displacement of thousands of innocent sovereign people, the loss of misinformed Russian men, sabotaging the Russian economy, destroy all ties with the West, crazy-making propaganda, and intimidating the world with nuclear war was unjustified from the beginning. I acknowledge that we knew that from the start and lied to everyone about it to see if we could still get away with it, but now that it's not working, we need to come up with ways to back track it and save face. Since I was the first Russian leader to acknowledge it, I should be in charge."
Now give me the power.
I am very tired of being forced to read what this person has to say.
Also, every other article has a goddamned photo of the goddamned putler parasite.
We get it, we know what the parasite looks like. Stop it already.
And the same goes for his goddamned orange cock holster.