This would be hilarious if there wasn’t a chance of nukes ending up in even worse hands. What a shit show, hopefully this gives Ukraine some breathing room to go even harder on the offensive.
The thing people don’t realize about nukes is that you don’t just build them once and bob’s your uncle, you have a nuclear bomb forever. The material starts to decay and the potency of the bomb is then greatly diminished. Nukes must be maintained to keep them operational. In fact, I know westinghouse would buy old unspent weapon’s grade material, and then refine/dilute the material to convert into fuel rods for nuclear power plants. Given the war, I don’t know if that’s still the case.
But yeah, nukes take a lot of effort and resources to maintain as far as I understand it.
Which is ironic since that was Putin’s justification for invading Ukraine.
Interesting why would they leave if they don’t consider Wagner that much of a threat 🤔 Also what happens if Wagner actually manage to get into Moscow and their “enemies” are not there? Would they seize the media to broadcast for people to join them? What else can they even do in this scenario? Not sure what the game plan is here.
Putin has to say that Wagner isn’t that much of a threat to keep people calm and following his orders.
I would imagine that Prigozhin would do the same thing that any other person attempting a coup would do, seize control of government buildings and other important facilities and attempt to convince the public that he is in charge.
The best answer anyone can give to those questions are “I don’t know”. Anything else is a guess.
My guess is, if Wagner takes Moscow and Putin’s not there, Putin is done. Gorbachev wasn’t in Moscow when the last coup happened. But once a leader has lost control to this degree, it’s hard for anyone to respect them as a leader again.
If Wagner takes Moscow, it’s game over for Putler, His only option would be to split the country with him as the leader of the break away region.
Now, the million dollar question, what happens with the nukes? The long range balistic missiles would probably fall into Prigozhin’s hands, but what happens with the ones in Belarus? Which side will Lukashenko support? Will he let Putin use this tactical weapons against Wagner troops or hand them over to Prigozhin?
So many unknowns right now.
Perhaps Putin abandoning his people in Moscow to a rabid mercenary will push them to revolt and join Prigozhin, out of immediate fear if nothing else
And then we all woke up and realise the russian people are gonna do nothing.
It almost reads to me like he worries how much support he had in Moscow. If the Wagner group is 25k strong and 100s of kilometers away why flee? Unless there seems to be grumbles from the royal guard about killing their countrymen over 1 dude.
Damn, last I heard they were 500km away.
I’m going to sleep now, hope they don’t reach Moscow before I wake up. wink wink
These two reactions stood out to me.
First from exiled former oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky:
We need to help now, and then, if necessary, we will fight this one, too," Khodorkovsky, a former oil tycoon who fell foul of the Kremlin, wrote on social media. He said it was important to back “even the devil” if he decided to take on the Kremlin. "And yes, this is just the beginning.
Second from the Combat Organization of Anarcho-Communists:
In this fight between two cannibals, anarchists should stay away—let them bleed each other as much as possible. That way, they won’t be able to disturb people in the future.
The Public Council of the Federal Penitentiary Service confirmed the information of the VCHK-OGPU about the riot in the Vodnik pre-trial detention center. “Prisoners began synchronously knocking on the doors of the cells and screaming,” they said.https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1672575188850843648
Wagner is made up of a large number of ex convicts, I wonder how much sway Prigozhin has with the prisons’ population in Russia.
