I’m hearing more and more about Yevgeny Prigozhin, Putin’s Chef, and leader of the paramilitary group Wagner. As evil as Putin is, he’s not stupid. I honestly don’t believe Putin would resort to nukes. But, if Prigozhin takes power, all bets are off.
Prigozhin has been keeping his Wagner group just far enough out of the action that he won’t take any heat for the losses in Kherson. He’s building training camps on the Russian side of the border “to prepare local residents in case the war in Ukraine comes to Russian soil.” Does he really think Ukraine is going to invade Russia? Or is he preparing his own private army for something else?
Anyway, I think Mr. Prigozhin bears watching.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
RE: “Prigozhin has been keeping his Wagner group just far enough out of the action that he won’t take any heat for the losses in Kherson.”
Prigozhin won’t take any heat for losses in Kherson because — as WSJ notes — the Wagner forces have been fighting in Bakmut, near the city of Donetsk. In that area, Russian forces (including Wagner) have been stopping Ukrainian advances for more than a month and lately have been reclaiming small chunks of territory.
RE: “Mr. Prigozhin bears watching.”
He may indeed, but I doubt that Prigozhin poses a threat to Putin’s presidency, if that is the inference. Russia’s military industrial complex and supporting bureacracy are vastly larger than the Wagner group. It is hard to see how Prigozhin could leverage such a subordinate role to challenge the regime.
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Yeah, well, it’s a lot easier to win the small battles when the major armies are somewhere else, fighting over the real prize.
Kherson is the “gateway to Crimea.” Losing it was a major disaster. Yet Prigozhin chose to keep his troops out of that battle.
The Russian military industrial complex is taking a serious beating. If an enterprising militiaman were to bide his time, building up his army, giving them enough combat training to fight an already beaten, demoralized army, he might just pull off a coup.
Not saying it will happen. Just saying it’s something to watch.
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RE: “The Russian military industrial complex is taking a serious beating.”
Says who?
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“Says who?”
Uh, everyone who is not Russian propagandist.
But sure, they can keep fighting until the last North Korean shell and last Iranian drone!
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In other words you have no answer.
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“In other words you have no answer.”
I answered.
You just don’t like the answer because it is the truth you would rather deny.
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I don’t like your answer because it is vague and meaningless.
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Well, certainly not you.
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No, I don’t.
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Here’s some schadenfreude just for Russian propagandists:
Big liberation parties in Kherson — too many to post ’em all, so here’s just one:
Ukrainian soldiers counting the bombs the Russians left behind in their haste to get out of Kherson:
Ukrainian grandma kneels before her grandson after he liberated Kherson:
Ukrainian oma stole Russian ammunition and gave it to the liberating army with instructions to “beat the kacaps.”
And BTW, the Russians did blow up that dam on the way out. Or at least they tried to. They tried to do enough damage to keep the dam from generating power but not enough damage to flood the area and destroy the water supply for Crimea. They failed. Again.
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