Putin Begins The Purges

Nothing to see here! Please disperse!

The latest news is that General Surovikin, who was a vocal supporter of Wagner and praised by Prigozhin many times during the Bakhmut operation, may have been arrested for treason.

[UPDATE: he has apparently gone missing and has not been heard from for 2 days. This comes from a Permanent Opposition channel that has published many interesting information leaks, but also disinfo and is very anti-Kremlin. They now claim that things are looking bad for the general according to people around him. Still no contact. Original article follows below.]

Before the mutiny, Prigozhin wanted him to replace Shoigu, actually. First, the NYT reported that he had aided Wagner, and then, presumably the FSB swooped in.

Moscow Times:

Russian General Sergei Surovikin has been arrested, The Moscow Times' Russian service reported Wednesday, citing two sources close to the Defense Ministry who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Defense Ministry has yet to comment on the alleged arrest of Surovikin, who has not been seen in public since Saturday, when Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin launched an armed rebellion against Russia's military leadership.

"The situation with him was not 'OK.' For the authorities. I can't say anything more," one of the sources said.

According to the second source, the arrest was carried out "in the context of Prigozhin."

"Apparently, he [Surovikin] chose Prigozhin's side during the uprising, and they've gotten him by the balls," the source said.

When asked about the general's current whereabouts, the source replied: "We are not even commenting on this information through our internal channels."

This puts Zanon into a tight spot.

*Surovikin

My advice to Zanon going forward is this: just tell the truth. By constantly promoting absurd narratives, all you do is make Russians look dishonest. The truth can defend itself, propaganda can’t.

As for Surovikin, I half-expect him to be released soon and then for the Kremlin to deny that he was ever detained. Nothing happened, after all, right? Don’t believe your lying eyes! He may have been detained already when he made his statement denouncing Wagner, actually.

Speculation aside, we’ve learned quite a bit already.

But the people busy ritually denouncing everyone to the left and right of them and denying reality do not understand what happened. They simply can’t. But you and I, unfettered by ideology, morality, religion or propaganda can.

Look, with Prigozhin the logic of what went down is quite simple: if the Kremlin could have arrested or killed him, they would have. What does it mean then that they then dropped charges against him (formally) and “let” him move his intact army to Belarus?

Obviously, it means that either Prigozhin was too strong or the Kremlin was too weak to punish him.

There are, however, large Zanon bloggers and analysts out there arguing that Putin showed mercy to Prigozhin. This is the same argument that has been made to justify the bizarre conduct of the SMO and the Not-War so far. The Kremlin claims that it was too kind and merciful to take Kiev or to keep Snake Island or to pull Russian money out of the West or to take precautions against NATO encroachment or to fight the UAF seriously. Believe it or not, I don’t believe that the Kremlin is guided by mercy and compassion in its decision-making, but by other factors.

Shocking, I know.

I think that these morality arguments are absurd. No serious power elite in world history has been motivated by such concerns. And no one would ever take a political elite that claims to be operating under such principles seriously. We had good laugh at this ridiculous assertion in our latest podcast here:

Russia is not a “moral superpower” any more than the USSR was or the USSA is now.

No Russian patriot even asks for their government to be “moral”. They want their government to defend their people’s interests. Maybe this comes as a surprise to the peasants, but rational, even selfish pursuit of state interests is the foundational guiding principle of the nation-state system and all statecraft policies are evaluated on the criteria of whether or not a nation’s interests are being advanced effectively. Period. End of story. That which is good for Russia and makes the country and its people stronger is the only criteria by which something can be considered “moral” or not. That is the criteria I use as well, which earns me a lot of hate from all sides, from the Kremlin-supporters who are busy losing the Not-War, and from the NAFO people, who don’t want Russia to even exist.

And when politicians hide behind appeals to morality, you know that something foul is afoot. That a new psyop is being prepared to be unleashed on the populace. See, if you don’t support the official narrative of what happened before, during and after the mutiny, you want grandma to be killed. Trust the Science Shoigu!

Surovikin’s arrest makes perfect sense in the larger context of what down during the mutiny by the way. As I have written before previously, significant portions of the military passively sided with Wagner. Even people who hate Prigozhin and want him dead admit this:

All you have to do is use your own common sense to evaluate my claims to see why I am telling the obvious truth here.

Consider the facts:

• Despite public disavowals, no commanders stood in Wagner’s way as they went for Rostov, past Voronezh, and then Moscow

• The only unit that stood in the way of Wagner was the Rosgvardia that was scrambled in haste and panic to stop their advance not far out from Moscow

• I have explained before that Rosgvardia used to basically be mall cops, or, more charitably, a standing internal military police army that is directly subordinate to Putin himself

• Zolotov, one of the old guard original “St. Petersburg Gang” members was put in charge of the Rosgvardia

• Zolotov, like Shoigu, is not a military man, but a former bodyguard to Putin and maybe even a former hitman/enforcer if rumors of his activities in the 90s are to be believed

• Rosgvardia is now being given heavy equipment and being transformed into a personal standing army of Putin and his close friends

• The army hates Shoigu and either stood aside for Wagner or may have actively helped them on their “Justice March”. Both actions are considered treason by the Kremlin, and for good reason. They understand what happened, even if the mushy-headed masses do not and so they are scrambling to assemble a new loyalist force

• Even the Chechens, who make a big show of being personally loyal to Putin’s circle, were MIA and waited only until after Prigozhin ended the march to show up in force to defend Putin

But the military angle to all of this does not tell the full story. We know that many in the Moscow elite showed their true colors during the action-packed 24 hour Moscow SMO. I wrote about it here:

Also, while Prigozhin, the leader of the mutiny was mercifully not arrested, it seems that the Kremlin’s charity has not yet extended their clemency to other officers and, soon, other members of the Moscow elite who either sided with Prigozhin, sat on the fence, or tried to flee Moscow during those fateful 24 hours.

You have to understand that most of the Moscow elite, including the Kremlin, are indistinguishable in their ideological worldview from their counterparts in the Western elite. So, as I have explained over and over again, the best source of information on palace intrigues comes from Russian pro-Western Liberals who are enmeshed in the secondary or tertiary echelons of the political elite. Also, parts of the Kremlin are very leaky, and love to share tidbits of gossip (or disinfo sometimes) with the Liberal, anti-Russian media. With all that in mind, here is a tell-all account of what went down among the Moscow elite during the SMO. If this account is to be believed, then the current power balance is shaky. Before we dive in though, let us review the facts that we already know before we analyze and evaluate the new information coming to light.

Consider: most, if not almost all of the Moscow elite was against the SMO. A few of the Kremlin’s chosen friends have made a windfall of profits and anyone involved in the military industrial complex in Russia or secured contracts to support the military are now billionaires, true. But this only breeds resentment among the other elites. This is because they are ideologically pro-Western and because their wallets took a huge hit from the sanctions and because their relative power within Russia has been diminished. Also, most importantly, they are now pariahs among their powerful Western friends and pressure is being put to bear on them by Western spooks to force Putin and his friends to surrender. Their kids, their money, their sympathies and their futures are in the West!

Keep all this in mind as we read the tell-all account of a Liberal Moscovite about what our social superiors got up to during Prigozhin’s march on Moscow:

Russia’s George Soros. This is how Vladimir Putin spoke about Yevgeny Prigozhin in an interview in 2018. The Kremlin has nothing to do with Prigozhin's projects, he assured us.

Five years later, in June 2023, the "Russian Soros" and his private army seized government facilities in southern Russia and marched on Moscow with weapons. Putin regarded this as an armed rebellion and betrayal. After the rebellion was over, the President of Russia admitted that Prigozhin and his mercenaries lived at the expense of the state.

Yes, Putin gave another speech where he said that Prigozhin was a criminal who became an oligarch and then a traitor. This was done to stress to the Russian people that his populist credentials were lacking. That his political ambitions were was dishonest.

Of course, we here at the blog knew all about Prigozhin’s political ambitions:

And about his role in Wagner:

But the Kremlin studiously ignored all this for years and decades. Why is it that they only now noticed that he was a convicted criminal and a crooked oligarch?

If you don’t know, Prigozin used to be a literal hot-dog salesman at the dilapidated migrant bazaar in the center of St. Petersburg after his release from prison. And yet, he was somehow then able to secure lucrative catering contracts with the Kremlin and then invited to high-end functions where he got to meet with all sorts of powerful people.

Were his hotdogs really that good?

If Prigozhin is a crooked oligarch who is a traitor to Russia, who then bears responsibility for hiring this criminal, introducing him to the world’s power elites, putting him in charge of Russia’s most effective fighting force, and effectively ceding control of the main theater of the Not-War to him?

I have explained many times that the Kremlin only seems to be comfortable doing business with crooks.

Is it because crooks have kompromat on them making them easier to manipulate? Is it because the Kremlin only ever seems to do business with ethnic lawyers? Is it because like attracts like?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Back to the story:

Russian propaganda, following Putin’s lead, insists that society rallied around the president during the uprising. This, of course, is not true. Suffice it to recall that on the way to the capital, no one tried to stop the column of PMC fighters, and almost no one took to the streets. Instead, the people took care of themselves first by withdrawing cash, stocking up on food and fuel.

There is now a video put out by the state media of Putin going out to meet his commoner supporters in Moscow. If Substack allowed embeds from Twitter and Telegram I’d post it right below this sentence, but, alas.

There is much to say about this and it is all of it amusing and will surely enrage my hate-readers even further.

First, Putin still officially believes that COVID is rampaging through Russia. As Slavsquat has reported on over and over again, Putin is one of the main proponents of the COVID narrative in Russia. This must be the first time that I have seen him meeting with regular people outside of an official venue where the participants all have to prove that they are fully vaxxed-up in years. It indicates that the mutiny was a) real and not a clever psyop to trick Kiev and b) a serious threat to his popularity.

Secondly, Putin has many body-doubles, and he has been caught appearing in three places at once before thanks to a scheduling error on the part of his secretaries. Saddam Hussein famously had many doubles making appearances on his behalf. So did Hillary Clinton and now, President Joe Brandon, who is commonly referred to simply as “The Bidens”. This practice goes back all the way to Winston Churchill at least and probably back further. It is a disconcerting reality for many to consider: that their elected officials could be swapped out at any time and no one but a few schizos on the internet would be wiser for it. There is actually a fun conspiracy theory in Russia that the original Putin has been cloned and swapped out. I think that the body-double explanation is far more plausible, but hey, I pretty much believe ALL conspiracy theories by default until they are proven to be false. A quick google search reveals many Russian Livejournal conspiracy blogs and even some Western media talking about this:

The point I am making isn’t that Putin has been cloned, but that it would be far easier and less risky to send a body-double to meet his supporters. Clones aside, I don’t understand why the masses believe that politicians routinely using body-doubles is a conspiracy theory.

Strelkov, who hates Prigozhin, calls for his death and called the Kremlin traitors months ago for letting Wagner have so much power and autonomy and predicted that it would lead to a coup and civil war! had this to say:

While a person vaguely resembling the president (and not at all requiring compliance with the two-week quarantine necessary to get an appointment with the president) walked around Derbent, Hero of Russia Yevgeny Prigozhin drove around Moscow, and then around St. Petersburg (where, apparently, now and located). No one is going to detain an eminent citizen who has recently been accused of rebellion. Although the whole country mourns at least 10 combat pilots killed through his fault.

Listen, citizens: Do we need to follow any of the laws in our country? Or is everything already possible?

He is referring to the official COVID bans on public gatherings, I believe, which, to my knowledge have not been lifted. Maybe Riley knows more about this, so go ask him. Also, Strelkov is referring to the rumors that Prigozhin is flying around Russia now and negotiation with the Kremlin as well as meeting with his supporters.

So much for his exile to Elbe.

We continue:

But what happened in the corridors of power and in the circles of the Russian elite during the days of the rebellion? What did the authorities think about Prigozhin before the rebellion, and was there sincere unity around the president during it? We talked to our acquaintances in Putin's entourage, in the Kremlin, in the government and state-owned companies. Here's what they said.

Before the rebellion. "He had a promotion request"

Prigozhin has been publicly critical of the Ministry of Defense since last fall, when the Russian army began to lose some of the territories captured in Ukraine. For example, in October, he said: “Many of those who are the so-called “cadre” military have learned nothing but how to click their heels, wear tsatsk and write beautiful reports.”

Gradually, Prigozhin's rhetoric became tougher and more targeted.

In February, he accused Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov of wanting to destroy the Wagner PMC, since the Defense Ministry allegedly did not give them ammunition. “Shoigu, Gerasimov! Where the fuck is the ammo?!” shouted the leader of the mercenaries. At the height of the war, a man without public office and official authority, but who had long been acquainted with Putin, almost daily accused the country's previously inviolable military leadership of inefficiency.

This was ignored by the Russian state media and by their affiliates in the Western “alternative” blogosphere. No wonder they didn’t know what was going on and spread active disinfo to their readers.

Why does Prigozhin allow himself this and why does Putin not rebuke him? We asked this question to officials and state managers of various levels in early June, when the Wagnerites left the front, but Prigozhin continued to behave defiantly.

Nobody had an exact answer. However, our most experienced interlocutors were sure that Putin did not sanction Prigozhin's "attacks" on the leadership of the Ministry of Defense. The president, of course, is aware of these attacks, but he does not "pull out" Prigozhin, since the Wagner PMC is fighting more successfully than the official army, they explained.

Just three weeks ago, an employee of the presidential administration involved in the work of the Security Council spoke of the future rebel as follows: “He is fighting effectively, people are dying there. He has the right to speak, these are emotions. Why not? We have freedom of speech."

That and Putin hailing Prigozhin as an official hero of Russia certainly have aged well.

Many praised Prighozin’s organizational skills. “He is definitely a man not banal and not stupid. No matter how much money, you need to have more brains, and he organized a huge job. But the closer we are to the world [he means should the Not-War end], the less such people will be needed,” a source close to the government predicted three weeks ago. He compared Prigozhin to the revolutionary terrorist Yakov Blyumkin, famous for the assassination of the German ambassador Mirbach, which led to the uprising of the Left SRs against the Bolsheviks.

“He (Prigozhin - Faridaily) filed a request for promotion, arguing that he successfully fulfills the instructions that he was given. These are his personal ambitions. And political, and official, and in business,” the head of one of the largest Russian state-owned companies explained Prigozhin’s behavior.

Criticism of the leader of the Russian mercenaries against the Ministry of Defense resonated with many. “Objectively, he is largely right. What I see coincides with his words - at least about the organization of work with the troops, logistical and managerial things,” said a high-ranking official who knows Putin well.

Another interlocutor close to the government pointed out that many people in power may agree with the essence of Prigozhin's claims, but few sympathize with him personally. “People send videos of him to each other as a joke, free entertainment. It resonates with many that he is talking about a dilapidated army, but this is not sympathy for him, he is still a bandit,” said the source.

Prigozhin is an outsider and the elites don’t take kindly to newcomers asking for a piece of the political pie. Russia’s political status quo is was stable, but it was also stagnant, and as you will see in the coming days and weeks and months, it is also brittle. There is no flexibility. Political upstarts have no avenues to rise up. They are told in no uncertain terms, “no”.

Those who persist are either exiled or shut down.

Contrast this with the West, where the system is quite good at co-opting rising internal threats. Or it used to be at least. Look at how inflexible the political elite showed itself to be with Trump. They went all out against him, effectively convincing a large swath of their captive populations that the system is broken beyond repair and no longer legitimate or worth engaging with. This is always a symptom of an ossified elite that is starting to lose control.

Prigozhin has incomparably fewer opportunities to influence Putin than Minister Shoigu, our interlocutors argued. “Shoigu is in touch with Putin several times a day. And that one (Prigozhin - Faridaily), although he has Putin's support, does not have the opportunity to speak with him once a week or even once a month,” said a source close to the Kremlin.

Mutiny. "Everyone is [up their own] a** and doomscrolling"

"Do you understand what's going on?" - "I have no idea".

This is what a typical exchange of messages with Russian officials and state managers looked like on Friday evening, when Prigozhin announced a march on Rostov. Some didn't answer at all.

At the time, it was not entirely clear how serious the situation was. But already on Saturday morning, one part of Prigozhin's men captured the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense in Rostov, and the other moved to Moscow. Putin recorded an emergency video message in which he accused the Wagnerites of a military rebellion and betrayal. The FSB and the Ministry of Defense demanded that they lay down their arms. In Moscow, Moscow and Voronezh regions a counter-terrorist operation regime as declared.

The main feeling on Saturday morning and afternoon among those who occupy high and middle positions in the Russian ruling class is a lack of understanding of what is happening and how this is possible.

(…)

“Even inside information is not brought to us. No one understands what is happening and what needs to be done,” a perplexed federal official said.

Since Friday evening, some civil officials, state managers and members of their families began to book tickets from Moscow, recalls a close acquaintance of one of the Russian oligarchs. According to him, "everyone was feverishly looking for tickets, at least to St. Petersburg," since it is not easy to fly out of Russia due to sanctions and available flight tickets quickly ran out. Three days later, State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin will de facto confirm that frightened officials were leaving the country.

Yes, and he said that a purge of traitors should now follow.

This is a betrayal - Volodin about those who left the country during the difficult period.

The Chairman of the State Duma asked the head of the Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption Vasily Piskarev (https://t.me/vasilii_piskarev) to analyze which of the officials and civil servants tried to leave the country during the “mutiny”.

💬 “We all condemn those who, at a difficult moment for the country, left it, left. It should be punishable,” said Viacheslav Volodin (https://t.me/vv_volodin).

Especially, as noted by the speaker of the State Duma, this applies to those who hold public office and work in corporations.

You tell me: does it look good for the Kremlin that they now have to purge people? Does Russia look united behind the President and the St. Petersburg Gang?

Rhetorical.

Some now say that actually the mutiny was pre-planned to justify a crackdown within the country. That it was a Prigozhin-Putin plot to eliminate dissidents. This is both an anti-Putin and an anti-Prigozhin talking point. I expect to see Liberals and Patriots both adopt it. Chances are though that only Patriots who did not support Prigozhin or have anything to do with the mutiny at all and who opposed it like Strelkov did to be the ones targeted in the purge. This is because, unlike the Liberals, who have money and friends with power in Moscow and the West, the Patriots do not. When the Liberals tried to overthrow Putin in 2010 and then again later with the failed Navalny actions, it was mostly the Nationalists who bore the brunt of the Kremlin’s ire. I half-expect Strelkov to get into trouble now, his FSB connections none-withstanding.

Like all things in the Slavlands, the behavior of the Russian government is always tragicomic.

Actually, I got my start blogging talking about how purges were sure to start and the treacherous political elite were going to be replaced, finally, because Russia could not resist NATO otherwise. I named Shoigu by name a year ago as someone who had to go. Check the archives. How naive I was. While I supported and still do support purges of the treacherous, Globalist Russian elite, I never would have dreamed that the people that the Russian patriots wanted to see get purged would now be doing the purging.

I can only shake my head and laugh as I wait and continue trusting in Yahweh’s plan to checkmate the Satanists using Russia as his iron rod continue to unfold. I can’t wait to see what fresh new 5D moral triumphs Yahweh has in store for the Russian people. Don’t know about you guys, but I really am getting tired of winning so much and so hard all the time!

We continue:

Two federal officials say that Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, apparently fearing accusations of disloyalty to subordinates, on Saturday afternoon demanded that employees return from vacations and business trips and be ready to go to work on Monday.

Siluanov is one of the WEF and WTO’s top guys in Russia implementing ESGs.

The Important Stories publication reported, citing data from tracking services, that the business jets of the oligarchs Arkady Rotenberg and Vladimir Potanin, as well as Industry Minister Denis Manturov, left Russia on June 24. And the plane of the son of Putin's close friend Yuri Kovalchuk flew from Moscow to St. Petersburg. An acquaintance of Manturov confirms that the minister flew to Turkey, as he "had been planning this weekend for a long time."

While some were flying or leaving Moscow, others were arming themselves. Either out of a heightened sense of patriotism, or out of fear that the security forces would not be able to resist the rebels, the leadership of one of the state-owned companies issued weapons to some employees.

“Our office is a secure facility in the center of Moscow. After Putin's appeal, we were gathered for a meeting and invited everyone who has combat experience or who served to patrol the street and lane where the office is located. Those who agreed were given weapons. All the work was organized by the security service, but not only they went out on patrol,” says the top manager of the state-owned company. According to him, the chief at the meeting said that "we will destroy the terrorists to the last bullet."

It is hard to understand, at this point, who fled and why. Did they flee because they were afraid of Putin? Of Prigozhin? Of the chaos in general?

And if you honestly think that one of the most powerful men in Russia, Kovalchuk, is going to be purged by the Putin patriots, well … stick around the blog for a bit, champ. I have such wonderful, horrible Slavland lore to share with you! It is all hidden behind the paywall. Enter the zone of horrors if you dare!

However, to say that existential horror reigned in all Russian federal departments and state-owned companies would be an exaggeration.

The Prigogzhin rebellion took place on Saturday. Many officials and state managers left the city the day before and were not required to return to work immediately. For example, during the mutiny, one of the employees of the presidential administration was landscaping the garden in the country, and his colleague from the government apparatus was walking with his children.

Among civil servants, employees of the political bloc of the Kremlin had to work hard on Saturday. From about 10 am, after Putin's address, governors, deputies, and senators began to receive phone calls from Staraya Ploshchad demanding they publicly support Putin. It was important for the Kremlin to create the illusion that the entire society was united around the president. Already after the rebellion, the assertion that the people were with the authorities, and not with the rebels, will be repeated by Putin himself and Russian official propaganda.

“We recorded a video with the president’s support even before they called us - first of all, we wanted to reassure people,” recalls our acquaintance in the leadership of one of the Russian regions. There were no other instructions from the Kremlin - the authorities of the region themselves agreed to be in touch with the plenipotentiary. At the initiative of the governor, officials found out how many people [were with] Prigozhin. It turned out not too many, and one could not be that afraid that unrest would begin in the regions, the source says.

Another interlocutor, close to the leadership of one of the regions near Moscow, says that the military and the National Guard did nothing until they were asked by civilian officials: “They took weapons storages and prisons under heavy guard only when civilians gave them this bright idea. That is, there was no plan at all, although there were people in the units - not everyone left for the war.”

After the rebellion. "Shoigu must shoot himself"

On Saturday evening, Prigozhin ordered his fighters back to the field camps, 200 kilometers short of Moscow, he claimed. With the mediation of Lukashenka, he managed to get the criminal case about the rebellion closed. Prigozhin and his fighters have moved to Belarus.

For Muscovites, Monday was declared a day off, but all Russian officials and state managers went to work. Including members of the government, who told on camera how the economy and social sphere survived the rebellion and that everything is under control. However, the tired faces of the prime minister and his deputies showed how much stress they had gone through.

What happened?

If we talk about the rebellion itself, then our interlocutors agree that Prigozhin has "lost his mind." “Sooner or later, a “newcomer” should come to him,” a person who is well acquainted with Putin sneers gloomily.

But perhaps more than the Prigozhin rebellion itself, the Russian civilian elite was frustrated by the way Putin, his security forces and the military behaved.

“I was very ashamed that this was possible in our country,” says a senior interlocutor in the executive branch, adding that he feels worse than after the start of the war. “Yes, this (the rebellion of Prigozhin and his PMC - Faridaily) is a betrayal, but how did it happen that they ended up in a peaceful city (Rostov - Faridaily) without any resistance? He ran away from Rostov (Shoigu - Faridaily), if he screwed everything up to such an extent, should simply shoot himself, if he has at least some honor!” he is indignant.

Anyone with half a brain knows that it was Shoigu and the Kremlin that bear the responsibility for the rebellion. The ruble stops where?

“Yes, these Prigozhin supporters should have been destroyed on the way from Rostov, covered with volley fire, so that no one would be discouraged - this is the duty of the state. Instead, they let them down on the brakes and let them go to Belarus! And most importantly, there is no one, everyone has disappeared from sight: Putin, Shoigu, everything,” another interlocutor close to the government angrily argues.

By capitulating to Wagner, the Kremlin looks weak in the eyes of its allies and supporters, who fear what will happen to them should a new faction come to power.

“Banana republic”, “circus”, “everyone has shit on their heads” – in such terms our interlocutors talk about their feelings from the reaction of the military and political leadership of the country to the rebellion. The representatives of the Russian elite, who had already adapted to everything after almost a year and a half of the war with Ukraine, were again powerfully shaken.

“Everyone in the elite understood that Putin had lost control over Prigozhin and the situation in general. It will be well remembered,” said Aleksandra Prokopenko, a guest expert at Carnegie Russia Eurasia who studies the Russian elite.

P.S. Four days after the “Prigozhin rebellion,” Putin traveled to Dagestan to discuss tourism. When asked how officials feel and behave now, the interlocutor in the government replied: “As always, it is as if nothing had happened :)”.

Fascinating.

Now, I know all of this is difficult to wrap your head around, but it seems that Prigozhin represents the “peace” faction. That is, the elite who are NOT making money off this Not-War and who want a return to the status quo. This is, effectively, a kind of reverse 1917 scenario actually. Back then, Kerensky, an agent of the British, launched a military coup, or, perhaps the correct technical term is “putsch” against the Tsar in February. Then Lenin, who was an active agent of the Germans at the time, led a counter-coup, or perhaps the correct technical term is “revolt” against Kerensky, with the goal of surrendering to Germany. So, in this scenario, Prigozhin is basically a Lenin, but he is effecting a Kerensky-style putsch.

As bad as the Not-War is going for Russia, I have argued that a Versailles-style “peace” would be even worse:

Frankly, I doubt that Russia will even be allowed to surrender at the pace that things are developing.

There appears to be some bad news coming in from the front as well. But we will cover it later when the fog of war lifts enough to see clearly.