Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

I really should read my own blog.

People are complicated. Love is not.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Republicans in disarray!

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

We still have time to mess this up!

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickle?”

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Muggy Grey Dawn Open Thread: Nervous Laughter At Developments in Russia

Muggy Grey Dawn Open Thread: Nervous Laughter At Developments in Russia

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I’mma let Adam handle the Serious Information here, but as a temporary spillover so that the squeamish among us can discuss other matters over breakfast…


(Truly, this is one of the weirder timelines!)

Reader Interactions

191Comments

  3. 3.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    With Russia in disarray where will GOP senators spend the 4th of July?

  4. 4.

    Eduardo

    I have to study something for work this weekend and I don’t know how I will be able to concentrate.  This brings back memories of 1989 and 1991.  Great times!

  6. 6.

    bjacques

    Be a damn shame if Putin is forced to bomb the Rostov arsenal that’s full of stuff meant to be used in Ukraine. Damn shame.

    Looks like the cage-fight promoters decided Musk and Zuck weren’t a big enough draw.

    EDIT: And I hope President Biden is prepared to tap the Strategic Meme Reserve.

  11. 11.

    oldster

    Putin warning in his speech that this is a stab-in-the-back just like 1917.

    That’s right. Putin is saying that the communist revolution was a bad thing, and that he is Tsar Nicholas II.

    It shows you how his ambition all along has been to reassemble the empire — not the USSR, but the one before that. He wanted to reconstitute Tsarist Russia, with himself as the Tsar.

    I hope he is getting his wish.

  15. 15.

    JPL

    I’m having a hard time cheering for the mercenaries, but this could be good news for Ukraine.   The domestic unrest might convince Putin to end his war.

  17. 17.

    Anne Laurie

    @different-church-lady: Nuclear power in chaos always good for a laugh.

    We will all go together when we go…

    (Seriously: I have been a joking nihilist on this topic since my third-grade teacher, a nun of the Dominican order, told us there was no point in duck&cover drills, because any nuclear war would hit targets close enough that we wouldn’t live long enough to know what was happening. That would’ve been during or right after the Cuban missile crisis.)

  20. 20.

    oldster

    @JPL:

    To a first approximation, it has got to be good news for Ukraine.

    Consider that two regime-friendly KA-52 helicopters were just filmed bombing the fuel storage tanks in Voronezh in order to deprive Prigozhin’s convoy of gas to drive on Moscow. It’s a small event, but it’s an example.

    Not only does it deprive the ruzzian army of fuel for its war in Ukraine, but it also means two helicopters that are not shooting at Ukrainians.

    Ditto for the AN-26 troop transport, probably carrying regime paratroopers, that Wagner shot out of the sky. Fewer troops, fewer planes to fight the Ukrainians.

    Will all of the subsequent events keep on being good news? No telling. If nukes get launched, then we will all be sorry. But for the meanwhile, ruzzian infighting is very good news for Ukraine.

  21. 21.

    Geminid

    Regarding Michael Tracey:

    I would likd this mutiny to succeed if only so I can watch the Butter Goblin having a meltdown.

  22. 22.

    oldster

    @Anne Laurie:

    Know just what you mean, AL. During those years our family lived in DC, and it was a point of mixed pride that we would be directly at ground zero for the largest concentration of Soviet nukes. Maybe people in the Dakotas would have to worry about fallout and how to survive in the aftermath, but that was not an issue we would ever face.

    It gives you a grim satisfaction at a young age.

  24. 24.

    hells littlest angel

    Putin: “If Steiner attacks, I’m sure everything will be alright.”

  28. 28.

    JPL

    Zelensky message

    Everyone who chooses the path of evil destroys himself. Who sends columns of troops to destroy the lives of another country and cannot stop them from fleeing and betraying when life resists. Who terrorizes with missiles, and when they are shot down, humiliates himself to receive Shahed drones. Who despises people and throws hundreds of thousands into the war, in order to eventually barricade himself in the Moscow region from those whom he himself armed. For a long time, Russia used propaganda to mask its weakness and the stupidity of its government. And now there is so much chaos that no lie can hide it. And all this is one person, who again and again scares by the year 1917, although he is able to result in nothing else but this. Russia’s weakness is obvious. Full-scale weakness. And the longer Russia keeps its troops and mercenaries on our land, the more chaos, pain, and problems it will have for itself later. It is also obvious. Ukraine is able to protect Europe from the spread of Russian evil and chaos. We keep our resilience, unity and strength. All our commanders, all our soldiers know what to do. Glory to Ukraine!

  32. 32.

    Matt McIrvin

    @JPL:

    Everyone who chooses the path of evil destroys himself.

    I wish this were true. Putin just might be entering the “find out” phase though.

  33. 33.

    Spanky

    Say whut, WaPo?

    Wagner rebellion and Putin’s harsh response threaten Russian military morale

    Russian mIlitary morale? Wazzat?

  34. 34.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @oldster:

    Putin warning in his speech that this is a stab-in-the-back just like 1917.

    What a wildly ahistorical speech.  Granted that’s typical of Putin.  The similarities are striking, even if Putin has them backwards.  A military feared by the world gets its ass kicked because corruption destroyed its logistics and authoritarianism gave it wildly incompetent leaders.  The discontent was enough that a populace already aware they lived in a grindingly poor kleptocracy didn’t bother to intervene when a rebel group went after the normally popular head of state.

    I doubt Prigo is an idealist like Lenin.  I’m sure he’s just as bloodthirsty.

  35. 35.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @oldster: I live not all that far from both the Trident sub base here And going the other way down I-95 , NYC.
    I always figured I would sit on the front stoop with a wine bottle and bag of popcorn

  36. 36.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Al Jazeera has really good live coverage on their YouTube channel (here) as does the Australian news channel (here)

    Meanwhile, MSNBC is running a repeat of Morning Joe and CNN is trash.

  37. 37.

    azlib

    @Anne Laurie: (Seriously: I have been a joking nihilist on this topic since my third-grade teacher, a nun of the Dominican order, told us there was no point in duck&cover drills, because any nuclear war would hit targets close enough that we wouldn’t live long enough to know what was happening. That would’ve been during or right after the Cuban missile crisis.)

    I was living in Montgomery County, Md during the crisis and I remember air raid (missile?) drills where we would go stand in the hallway away from windows in case of attack as if that would do any good. Good times.

  39. 39.

    hueyplong

    @azlib: Likely the Dakotas kids were sure they were the primary targets, seeing as how they were the home of some of our own nuclear silos.

    It was kind of a thing for each locale to pride itself on “priority” starus.

  44. 44.

    Chris Johnson

    From way downthread (I always post in dead threads like an idiot)

    This is PURELY speculation following some mentions upthread about how he was behind the Russian internet trolling: that’s been by far more effective than anything else.

    Why would it not be just as effective on the Russian people?

    So if that’s what it is, Prigozhin, the pissed off mercenary and shitbag, flipped. He and Wagner are actually on Ukraine’s side now, and this is shown not by them becoming good and battling heroically to defend Ukraine, but by pulling off a massive troll on Russia through claiming they’re going to war on the Russian military, so stay inside and don’t look.

    This is in line with all the times the same people declared massive MAGA protests in the USA which ended up being damp squibs, or when they declared a red wave that would wipe out Democrats and then it ended up being pretense. It’s a known tactic.

    What does this do to the Russian military? Make them totally paranoid and sink them in chaos, with no specific plan to exploit that. Prigozhin would not be leading the charge, he’d be safe in Ukraine or somewhere, orchestrating the trolling. There would be real consequences, but not in the form of a clear leader ousting Putin, not in the form of stability. (edit: or, if he’s actually there, that still does not mean stability: I could be dead wrong about the idea of the guy not actually being there)

    This isn’t a great scenario on a number of fronts. One, more chaos is nobody’s friend. Two, if Ukraine likes fighting this way, that doesn’t reflect well on them: here’s hoping if the guy flipped, they don’t adopt all his horrible tactics and people. I can see how this would be tempting and we might be seeing its effectiveness: Russia could implode in the chaos, they need this guy’s chaos engine on THEIR side.

    More will be revealed. I’m just saying if this guy is turning chaos war against the Russians because he’s mad at them, it’d look like this, and he’s not leading a charge because it’s not a real charge. It’s trying to get the Russian army to fight itself thinking it’s fighting Wagner. Nobody would be more provably capable of pulling that off than Prigozhin, but it’s a bad outcome.

    It seems like Zelensky’s speaking against chaos, and that’s good. I would rather this be intra-Russia conflict and not Prigozhin suddenly fighting for Zelensky: it should be an object lesson in how fucked up the chaos war strategy is.

    All the folks asking for Michael Tracey etc. to go fight for Putin might ask themselves who is actually running those people? Unless I miss my guess, they’ve been subcontracted out to Prigozhin this whole time. Let’s see what the obvious tankies do, what the Freedom Caucus do etc. because they may well think they are fighting for Russia but I think Prighozhin’s internet warfare is what directly commands them (except since it’s chaos war, it’s indirect, hands-off, and chaos-inducing).

  45. 45.

    JWR

    Guess who’s back on TV, hawkin’ slippers and pillows? Yep. He’s baaaack! And I’m talkin’ real TV, (CBS), not one of those sub-channels. I wonder if this means ol’ Mikey’s of no further use to the authorities?

  52. 52.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Anne Laurie: My second-grade teacher made a similar remark during a tornado drill in the mid-1970s: “When I was a kid we used to have air-raid drills, but nuclear weapons got so powerful that there’s no point.” I didn’t entirely understand what she was talking about at the time, but the school was very close to Dulles Airport which would likely have had a few big warheads assigned to it in an all-out exchange.

  53. 53.

    hueyplong

    An underappreciated side effect of what’s happening in Russia is the welcome silence of several GOPers, likely to continue until they get some marching orders.

  54. 54.

    Amir Khalid

    @bjacques:

    I can’t help now but wonder what Prigozhin the hot dog man put in his “hot dogs”. As for Russia bombing its own fuel depot — presumably serving its invasion force — to keep it out of Prigozhin’s hands, well, if I were a Russian soldier fighting in Ukraine I’d be pretty upset about that.

  55. 55.

    Geminid

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: Turkish journalist Ragip Soylu (@rajipsoylu) has been giving bulletins on events in Russia, and one in his own nation:

       Belarus leader Lukashenko’s plane landed in Turkey’s Bodrum last night. It is a popular holiday destination.

    It’s not clear yet whether Lukashenko was on the plane. The plane was reported to be heading into Russia after it took off from Belarus’s capital. Maybe there was new information received after it left, or maybe the initial direction was a head-fake.

    Bodrum is located on Turkiye’s southwest coast, and was known as Halicarnassus in ancient times. The Mausoleum there was known as one of the “Seven Wonders of the World.” Now Bodrum is known for the many wealthy Russians who have fled there.

  59. 59.

    MomSense

    @Anne Laurie:

    I’ve been pissed about since I found out in kindergarten.  I overheard my parents.

    Wednesday I was walking by a pizza place band they had a beautiful photo of Samantha Smith smiling in their window and it stopped me mid stride so I could stare at it.  I hadn’t thought of her in such a long time.

  60. 60.

    Rusty

    Drivers are also just getting much more aggressive.   I’ve driven a Fiat 500, which is tiny, for the last 10 years.  I’ve always driven defensively given its size, but other drivers have gotten noticeably more aggressive,  especially 4 door pickups and large SUVs.  Driver attitude is a serious issue.

  61. 61.

    MomSense

    @oldster:

    Ill be curious if Zelensky offers a ceasefire.

    ETA someone needs to front page a video of the dance Les cygnettes IYKYK

  62. 62.

    Doug R

    @Gemina13:

    Right now both of them are doing the calculus of how much prison time vs dying in Russia.

    Snowden is young enough to take a 20 year stretch. Tara Reade hasn’t done much that isn’t covered by the 1st amendment except all those scams she was pulling earlier so she might do a short stretch as well.

  63. 63.

    Geminid

    @Chris Johnson: I don’t mess with YouTube so I cannot comment on this video. But it seems me that there is definitely some sort of power struggle going on. The response from Moscow does not look faked, and neither did the denunciation of the origins of the Ukraine invasion that Prigozhin made the day before his mutiny.

    And this is all happening right when Ukraine is poised to up the tempo of its offensive, so it’s terrible timing from the Russian government’s point of view.

    If I were a Russian citizen though, I might see a swift defeat in Ukraine as a good thing, and Prigozhin’s mutiny has the potential to bring about that result.

  64. 64.

    CliosFanBoy

    @hueyplong: ​
      Yeah, growing up in Dayton, Ohio, we had Wright-Patterson to the NE (then a huge SAC base) and the Miamisburg Mound to the SW, where they build nuclear warheads.

  66. 66.

    Betty Cracker

    According to this Daily Beast report, Putin’s address freaked out Russian citizens in Moscow, for whom this is all getting a little too real:

    Tania Krasnova, a single mother of two in Nizhny Novgorod, put her cup of coffee on the table in consternation. Telegram was full of videos of tanks in Moscow, headlines were saying “Wagner Soldiers Have Captured Voronezh” just 300 miles from the capital. “I thought: that was quick, they were in Rostov just a few hours ago.”

    It was when she saw Putin’s furious face on the television talking about a “betrayal” and an “armed rebellion” that she realized this was serious. Oh, this is not just some joke, she thought…

    Olga, a retired doctor in Saint Petersburg also said it was Putin’s unexpected TV appearance that cut through. It was the words, “Prigozhin stabbed Russia in the back,” that hit home for her. For years, Yevgeny Prigozhin had been one of Putin’s closest allies, operating the notorious Wagner mercenary group, which carried it out the president’s darkest missions. On Saturday, Putin announced to the world that Prigozhin—and 25,000 of his battle-hardened men—had decisively turned on their master.

    “I think Putin freaked most people out, his own words made more Russians concerned than all these videos of tanks in Rostov, since before his speech many thought it was a show, a staged performance for some weird reason,” Olga told The Daily Beast. “I am going to see if there is any buckwheat left in my grocery store on the block—that would be a sign.”

    Apparently Russians stock up on buckwheat when things are falling apart. I only have my own frame of reference, but this has a 1989 feel.

  67. 67.

    Chris Johnson

    @Geminid: Prigozhin could be full-on attacking Russia and trying to seize power, but doing it in exactly the way he used repeatedly (with varying results) to have Trump seize power in America. I don’t think there’s any likelihood Prigozhin ISN’T attacking his masters, but it’s very interesting to figure out which methods he’s using. If it’s a giant troll, it could still work (I think that worked on us in 2016!) but it makes the aftermath really weird.

    Prigozhin’s posturing is very much like what one would do if one was intending to succeed in a coup and have Russia accept you as the REAL leaders. He sounds the right nationalist notes.

    Russia is trying desperately to cut Prigozhin off social media.

  69. 69.

    Another Scott

    @Chris Johnson: Yeah chaos is chaotic – hard to know what happens next.

    I keep thinking of the WWI parallels…  “We totally would have won, but we were stabbed in the back!!11”  That can lead to much worse disasters a decade or two later.

    Whatever happens, the past isn’t past, and we have to fight the monsters every day.  Because they’re always looking for something to excite the lizard brain to gain power.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  70. 70.

    Betty Cracker

    CNN says Turkish President Erdoğan spoke to Putin and offered his “full support.” WTF.

  71. 71.

    Another Scott

    🍿🍿🍿 Ukrainian drone commander who fought Wagner forces in Bakhmut and Soledar appears to be thoroughly enjoying the insurrection unfolding across the border. pic.twitter.com/rSqGdrVlrT

    — Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) June 24, 2023

    [ snort! ]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  72. 72.

    jonas

    @Betty Cracker: ​
      Erdogan is a piece of shit, but my read is that — possibly in coordination with other NATO members — he is trying to assure Putin that NATO has nothing to do with what Prighozin is up to. I’m sure there are a lot of backchannel conversations going on with the Russians saying the same thing. The last thing we need is Putin using this as an excuse to escalate the war further.

  75. 75.

    Ken

    @Betty Cracker: I’m getting a peculiar “here in this diner outside Dayton” vibe from that report. Maybe it’s just the weird detail of Tania putting down her coffee cup. However it does make me wonder how the Daily Beast’s reporter so quickly located these Russian citizens who were willing to talk about this.

  76. 76.

    Betty Cracker

    What a relief that the orange fart cloud is cheating at golf on a self-branded course in New Jersey instead of commanding the U.S. military right now. Whew!

  80. 80.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Doug R:

    Right now both of them are doing the calculus of how much prison time vs dying in Russia.

    Snowden is young enough to take a 20 year stretch. Tara Reade hasn’t done much that isn’t covered by the 1st amendment except all those scams she was pulling earlier so she might do a short stretch as well.

    I don’t get it. Why would they be any more at risk than native Russians? After a coup or during a civil war, why would either side give a fuck about them?

  81. 81.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Betty Cracker: ​

    What a relief that the orange fart cloud is cheating at golf on a self-branded course in New Jersey instead of commanding the U.S. military right now. Whew!

    @Maxim: ​
     

    Fourthed, fifthed, nthed

    Aleph-naught’th
    Cardinality of the continuum’th

    (Might as well get geeky about it!)

  82. 82.

    jonas

    @Another Scott: ​
      I’m not sure how the “stabbed in the back” metaphor works in Russian history — it was how Germans talked about the fact that they had agreed to a ceasefire in November 1918, only to have spineless (((politicians))) accept humiliating terms of defeat a year later in Paris. If anything is playing out here with echoes of WWI, it’s that the Communist revolution didn’t really take off with Lenin in St. Petersburg, but with widespread mutinies in the Russian army.

  85. 85.

    Martin

    @different-church-lady: This permanently flipped into comedy the day the former head of the Russian space agency had his dick blown off at a birthday party.

    Once the universe puts a laugh track on something, you can’t keep calling it a drama.

    Besides, it’s not like any of us had any real assurance the old guy wasn’t going to start yeeting nukes over the border any day now. On the upside, if this gives Ukraine a window to take control of Zaporizhzhia, it may well avert a nuclear disaster.

  88. 88.

    Martin

    @MomSense: It’s been a real banger, I’ll say that.

    Was playing a game with my son last night and he asked ‘is this one of those weeks when decades happen?’ Oh yeah, it sure as shit is.

  89. 89.

    Chris Johnson

    @jonas:  No no, the Russian asset who tried to claim that Biden groped her.

    Defected to Russia, recently.

  91. 91.

    Soprano2

    Capehart on MSNBC is full-on “what’s happening in Russia “. I’ve been away from NPR since Thursday so I was “WFT is happening?”

  93. 93.

    Chris Johnson

    So what it’s going to be: Prigozhin’s facing loss of power relative to the Russian Army, so he is striking back using Internet Research Agency tactics, combined with whatever he’s got militarily. This is why they’ve cut him off from social media in Russia: it’s literal Jan 6 except as a coup in Russia. I have no idea if it will work but it weakens Russia. I have no idea if Prigozhin will end up looking like QAnon Shaman, except dead, but this is him seriously attempting a coup on Russia using his own methods, which have worked better than actual military action.

    I’d like to see Russia weakened, but I’d also like to see ‘chaos warfare’ categorically discredited. This is literally the guy who’s been deconstructing the whole rest of the world for years, with methods that work dismayingly well. The thing is this is the inevitable outcome: the chaos comes home to roost. You cannot trust him not to just continue doing his chaos shit, but expansionist again the instant he gets power. He is trying to be expansionist back INTO Russia again. I want to see this chaos strategy come to grief.

  94. 94.

    jonas

    As they say, if you come for the king, you best not miss. Looking at this not, as Tom Nichols suggests, a bona fide coup, but but rather an internecine conflict within a mob family, it appears Prigozhin decided to square up against the boss’s wartime consigliere Shiogu and force Putin to choose between them. Putin has decided to stay loyal to Shiogu (for now, I guess) and take out Prigozhin, which I’m not sure he was expecting. I would bet that Putin is able to eventually dispatch Prigozhin and his Wagnerites, but who really knows? How much harm is he able to inflict on the Kremlin and the army if he thinks he now has nothing to lose?

    The scary thing about this is that Russia isn’t a country or a government, it’s a massive international criminal syndicate with Putin at its head. Anyone in power is loyal only to Putin, but then only themselves if something goes wrong. Honor among thieves and all that. Where the tipping point is between “I’m better off with Putin right now” and “Get the fuck out of here and strip the building of wiring on my way out” is never clear. These things tend to start off slowly, then all at once.

  95. 95.

    Betty Cracker

    Former US Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker is on CNN, and he said he thinks Prigozhin is toast but that this will also bring Putin down eventually. He made the point that morale was already terrible among Russian troops in Ukraine and that he doesn’t see how they keep fighting there knowing that it’s a lost cause. He expects the Ukrainians will take advantage of this situation to get the Russians out. Damn, I hope he’s right!

  97. 97.

    arielibra

    @hueyplong: In South Jersey we understood from a young age that DC/Philly/NY would be targets and we would die some days later of radiation sickness. Fun times!

  98. 98.

    Martin

    So, reading that Putin has called in Kadyrov to stop Wagner, and they might be reaching Rostov around the time Wagner is reaching Moscow.

    This is too much of a tease. We need injuries.

  99. 99.

    kalakal

    If this started as some elaborate cunning plan cooked up by the Russians to sucker Ukraine into rushing into an overhasty assault by giving the illusion of Russian forces being torn apart in an internal power struggle its now gone well beyond that and taken on a reality all of its own.

    There’s no way Putrid and Prigo can kiss and make up at this point, one of them has to destroy the other.

  102. 102.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Anne Laurie: ​I have been a joking nihilist on this topic since my third-grade teacher, a nun of the Dominican order, told us there was no point in duck&cover drills, because any nuclear war would hit targets close enough that we wouldn’t live long enough to know what was happening. That would’ve been during or right after the Cuban missile crisis.

    And Sister Sadistica was correct! ;^D

    Just FTR, “duck & cover” seemed to make a modest amount of sense for an unexpectedly brief period of time when nuclear weapons’ yields were still in the Little Man/Fat Boy ;^D range and the only intercontinental delivery systems were half-fast ;^D propeller-driven bombers of the B-29 ilk. That interval started when the USA first had evidence the Soviets had tested a nuke (autumn 1949) and ended when both stupidpowers had multimegaton thermonuclear bombs compact enough to drop on the Bad Guys’ homeland (US 1954, USSR 1955) and the means to deliver them at intercontinental range (US B-36 1949, USSR Tu-95 1956).

    During that time our family lived in a brick row house about 1.5 miles outside the Baltimore city limits, and for the last few years I attended a 1920s-era brick elementary school a quarter mile farther out. If Uncle Joe had put a 20kT A-bomb smackdab at Baltimore and Charles Sts (the generally accepted center of town) and Mom (or my teachers) had had enough warning to shut the windows, draw the blinds & get us all under the desks (or into the basement), I think most of us would’ve survived the blast and immediate aftereffects. Substitute a multimegaton H-bomb and we would all have been reading the final instruction on that old (fake) Civil Defense poster of the 1960s: Then kiss your ass goodbye.

    (But note that by the time the Rooskies had a more-or-less reliable delivery system, they had the big bombs too. So there was never a time when ducking & covering would actually have done much if any good. But that’s hindsight.)

  103. 103.

    Suzanne

    @Chris Johnson:

    No no, the Russian asset who tried to claim that Biden groped her.

    Defected to Russia, recently.

    Is it defecting if we’re like, “Bye Felicia”?

  108. 108.

    Another Scott

    @Betty Cracker: A sensible leader would realize that having a mercenary army (even run by your “chef”) is dangerous.  Having such “chef” making constant verbal attacks on your military leadership is dangerous.  Letting him do so for months and months and months is extremely dangerous.

    I don’t know what VVP thought was going to be the end-game with Prigo, but him letting this go on so long shows that he’s weak and indecisive and isn’t in control.  It’s not going to end well for him, even if he somehow manages to stop Prigo’s plans (whatever they are).

    Xi Jinping says China is closely monitoring situation in Russia, notes Vladivostok is historical Chinese territory pic.twitter.com/K3xC4YncFS

    — Sputnik (@Sputnik_Not) June 24, 2023

    [ womp, womp ]

    (via DarthPutinKGB)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  112. 112.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Gemina13:

    Wonder how soon we’ll see Tara Reade and Edward Snowden fleeing Russia? 

    Haha!  But for where?  The traitorous trash can’t come back here.

  113. 113.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    So I’m looking at the charlie-foxtrot in progress and wondering: if Putin decides he needs to pull troops back from the Ukrainian battlefront to shore up defenses back on the home front, is it strategically better for Zelenskyy and company to let them retreat in good order, or to force the retreating Russians to shoot their way back out?

  114. 114.

    Ken

    @mrmoshpotato: Oh, I dunno. If they were willing to name names, and help trace the money, and be a witness at the trials, all in exchange for a reduced sentence — I could see letting them back in.

  115. 115.

    Ken

    The “DarthPutinKGB” twitter account is lit. My favorie: “Kiev in 3 days has become Moscow in 3 days.”  Though “Perhaps I should’ve realised this was all a bad idea the moment Trump said it was genius” is a very close second.

    He’s also got re-tweets to people who claim Putin has fled Moscow, but as one of them says he headed to St. Petersburg and another that his plane was turned back at the Kazakhstan border, I’m taking those with a grain of salt.

  116. 116.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ken: Ok, agreed.  Turn state’s evidence and SPILL THE FUCKING BEANS, TRAITORS!

    Oh, and by “reduced sentence,” I assume that means life with no parole for Eddie instead of hanging.

  119. 119.

    Martin

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: If Wagner is getting Russian military commanders to side with him, you’re at least temporarily going to have a command vacuum. That seems like an awfully good opportunity to, uh, motivate those forces to consider heading home. Even if the only obvious decision is to retreat, who is giving that order? And that’s what the troops on the front will be thinking – has that order been given and we missed it, etc. I don’t think if you’re Ukraine you wait for Russia to get their shit together to order an orderly retreat – you force that issue.

    Part of this might also depend on how the situation in Rostov is framed. Is Wagner seeing control of Rostov as them finally having the supply chain they need to move onto Moscow? Redirecting what should be supporting the Russians in Ukraine away from them? If so, that tells the troops on the front that they’re cut off. They might have food and bullets today, but not tomorrow. You want to wait until your supplies are out to make that decision?

  120. 120.

    Martin

    @Ken: I’ve seen pretty reliable reporting that Putin’s plane did leave for St Petersburg. That doesn’t mean he’s on it, though.

  121. 121.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: Erdogan and Putin are old frenemies, and have a good, transactional working relationship. Erdogan’s support here furthers that relationship.

    When Turkish journalist Ragip Soylu tweeted this news, there were some interesting responses. Some pointed out that when elements of the Turkish military attempted a coup, Putin was one of the 1st world leaders to state is support for Erdogan. So this is returning a favor.

    Others pointed out that Turkiye and the Wagner Froup have a history. When the Wagner-led forces of Libyan Feneral Hifter(sp?) were about to take Tripoli and vanquish the internationally recognized government, Turkiye intervened with air and naval assets, and killed a lot of Wagner troops in the process. Turkiye and Wagner troops have also fought in Syria.

  122. 122.

    Another Scott

    @Martin: While he may not be on that flight, VVP is supposed to attend the BRICS conference in South Africa (elsewhere dates are given as August 22-24). Presumably he wants this kerfuffle to be over before then (but he still has to decide whether he wants to risk getting arrested and sent to the Hague).

    Interesting times.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  123. 123.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Chris Johnson: except it’s not Jan 6 but in Russia. Wagner is a fairly large group of mercenaries, sure some are pulled out of the prisons but many are trained, battle hardened troops who, now that they have tied their fate to Prigozhin have nothing left to lose. They either succeed or they end up in front of a firing squad. Which probably makes them very motivated to succeed…

  124. 124.

    Alison Rose

    Love this from Andriy Yermak — photo of him with Ukraine military leaders. “Together with Zaluzhny, Shaptala, Neizhpapa, Oleschuk and Khorenk. President Zelenskyi’s team. The Russians will have chambers 🔥”

    Разом із Залужним, Шапталою, Неїжпапою, Олещуком та Хоренком.

    Команда Президента Зеленського. У росіян буде палати🔥 pic.twitter.com/rittT3sA9L
    — Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) June 24, 2023

  125. 125.

    Chris Johnson

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Wagner is also the internet warfare guys. I’ve linked to Dylan Burns who’s reporting from inside Ukraine, and his deal is he absolutely cannot find any evidence there even is a column of Wagner military heading to Moscow, or anywhere. He’d like to believe it, but nothing he’s seen indicates that massive group of battle hardened mercs.

    Hence, me comparing it to Jan 6. Prigozhin clearly wants to give the IMPRESSION that he’s leading a column of hardened mercenaries to conquer his enemies the traitors of the Russian Army for the glory of the true Russia etc etc… and Prigozhin is using Ukranian language for places like Bakhmut… and something’s happening… but we can’t trust what Wagner says, even if we like what it’s saying.

  126. 126.

    Chris Johnson

    Again, I don’t want Prigozhin to succeed, I just want Putin to fail :)

    Wagner conquering Russia is actually not a good outcome. I don’t think they will, but I do think this weakens Russia in many ways. They now have the great Russian propaganda-warriors against them, vying for power, and so they’ve killed Wagner access to social media inside Russia.

  127. 127.

    cain

    @Geminid: Assuming Trump, the dude would have been bragging by now about if he was in charge this would never would have happened and he would have provided assistance.

  129. 129.

    cain

    @hueyplong: Isn’t the guy doing the coup also running the troll farms? I’d think they are waiting on marching orders from him not Putin.

  130. 130.

    Mike in Pasadena

    Most ex military personnel know mercenary armies are difficult to control which is why Dubya’s Blackwater goons were a real concern to many of us. Putin has a poverty of imagination.

  131. 131.

    RaflW

    @David Koch:
    “With Russia in disarray where will GOP senators spend the 4th of July?”

    Texassistan is lovely in July. Only 103º in the shade! Perfect.

  132. 132.

    Ishiyama

    The Kerensky government yielded to British pressure to keep Russia in the war. That’s why Lenin was able to wield popular support to overthrow it.

  134. 134.

    Chris Johnson

    @cain: The second-order trolls won’t know which to answer to, him or Putin. It’s gonna be very interesting to see which way they jump, because in practical terms Mommy and Daddy are fighting, and the second-order trolls can’t really comprehend such a thing.

    It’s going to be hard for some of these guys to let go of Putin, and equally hard to let go of Wagner. And the system through which they get talking points and learn what to think, is controlled by Wagner, not Putin. Which would be why Russia’s cut off Wagner’s internet access and controlled web searches etc etc etc: they have to restrain their own monster now.

  136. 136.

    MomSense

    @Another Scott:

    Dream scenario is that Jack Smith wraps up his successful prosecution of Trump and Co. and returns to The Hague to prosecute Putin.  This is assuming Putin lives to be prosecuted.
    Also too Prigo in charge is not a good thing.  A failed nuclear state is a problem.

  138. 138.

    Martin

    Looks like the Oka river is the firebreak. Road is being dug up, bridges prepared to be dropped. Sounds like things are about to both slow down and speed up.

  139. 139.

    Fair Economist

    @Chris Johnson: You are overcomplicating things. This is looking like a pretty standard coup*. Initially that seemed absurd because of the difference in scale between Wagner and the Russian military and the size of Russia but Prigozhin has obviously done his homework and has at least some supporters in the military. Plus he has accurately assessed the regime has little real support among the military or populace. Possibly he was pressured by a purge threat, because it’s still pretty chancy for him, but it’s still the same basic situation as in a gazillion coup attempts before.

    * Including the implicit offer to call it off for a promotion, which is pretty common too.

  140. 140.

    jonas

    @MomSense: ​
      Read this morning that Smith has filed a request to push the trial start date back to December now (Cannon had initially set it for August). More flipped witnesses to depose, perhaps?

  141. 141.

    oldster

    @caphilldcne:

    Granted, the silos were targeted. And the USSR had up to 45,000 warheads at one point, so every state was going to get a taste. (Esp. given that congressional appropriations were designed so that every state got a taste of the weapons industry.)

    But let me put it to you the other way: which piece of the Continental US do you think would have been most distant from the nearest target point? No part of the Washington-Boston corridor would have been more than 20 miles from *some* ground zero. But some parts of the Dakotas might have been 50 miles from a silo. I don’t know where the furthest-from-a-burst point would have been, but I’d still lean towards Montana, Wyoming, or the Dakotas.

  142. 142.

    Fair Economist

    @Frankensteinbeck: I think you are correct, and I think this means the air force is sitting this out. Putin *should* have been able to smash this (imagine a few thousand Ukrainians convoying to Moscow). The fact that he hasn’t means the military is not following orders. This is Prigozhin’s loyalists vs. Shoigu’s, and all the rest of Russia doesn’t seem to care. And why should they? Replacing one kleptocratic sociopath with another makes little difference to anyone but their cronies.

  143. 143.

    MomSense

    @jonas:

    Hard to say. Defense just got its first tranche of discovery so there are lots of possibilities.

    I also think more indictments are coming.

  145. 145.

    MomSense

    @Mr. Bemused Senior:

    Well I’m in the wrong Portland but I did recently start using edibles and I’ve had some crazy dreams this month. Hold up – I started edibles this month and some crazy shit has gone down!!

  146. 146.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @jonas: This was always going to happen.  An August trial date was never feasible.  Cannon has not done many criminal trials, but, for each one, she set a very early trail date and it was pushed back.  Nothing to see here.

  147. 147.

    Mike in NC

    Everywhere I go I see signs that read, “Mercenaries wanted. No experience necessary”.

  148. 148.

    Geminid

    @cain:

     

    @Frankensteinbeck: Prigozhin was responsible for the notorious St. Petersburg troll farm that propagated anti-Clinton disinformation during the 2016 election. I believe he was indicted here for his role.

  150. 150.

    RaflW

    @Betty Cracker: My thought this morning, when I glanced at the left-open tab for the MTG-Boebert girlfight was that Biden’s experienced, steady leadership will — one hopes — be well noticed by Americans, in stark contrast to the hair-pulling and gibberish-babbling Republicans.

  152. 152.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Frankensteinbeck: exactly. Prigozhin is not a good guy, if his actions help Ukraine in the short term, good. But they also have the potential to destabilize the entire region especially if the parts of Russian influence that have large resistance movements take this as an opportunity to overthrow their Russian puppet heads of state.

  153. 153.

    caphilldcne

    @MomSense: it certainly would have been bleak. I actually find it a bit unbelievable that having gotten through the Cold War that proliferation is expanding and we are actually going backwards on weather nukes might be used in some circumstances. Plus the nuclear control treaties now almost completely unraveled. There was actually a bit more stability then. No thanks to Trump and GW Bush and  Putin basically proving it’s better to have nukes if you are a small rogue nation.

  154. 154.

    Ruckus

    @Baud:

    Florida may be too warm for him. Of course he seems to be having a bit of warmth right where he is….

    Would Florida even want him? Seems they already have one loser leader who can’t speak American….

  155. 155.

    kalakal

    On a happy note just saw 2 more of the monarchs emerge from their chrysalids at the kalakal monarch shelter. An amazing and beautiful spectacle. 8 to go.

    I was getting a bit worried that they’d become diseased but now I have hope for the remainder.

    On a unhappy note Mrs kalakal found a load of water on the driver side floor of her 2018 RAV4 on thursday.

    Took it to the dealer – drains from from moonroof blocked – $1800 to repair – due to cunning design flaw you basically have to take the roof apart.

    Dealer rang this morning – mould has gotten into the padding and frame

    $9,000 to fix!!! A pall of gloom has descended upon kalakal towers.

    At least the butterflies brought some light

  156. 156.

    caphilldcne

    @oldster: it’s certainly true there’s a lot of space out there but I think the entire northern tier would have likely suffered from radiation poisoning. In the US I might have considered places like central Pennsylvania or maybe West Virginia (mountainous but farmable) the place to be if you could survive the initial fallout. Northern tier spaces are hard to farm. Of course after reading the Road (RIP Cormac McCarthy) i decided it probably wouldn’t make a difference where you were at.

  157. 157.

    kalakal

    @Ruckus: He’ll be lined up as a guest speaker for Moms for Hitler Liberty within minutes of landing. Already he has learned to say “Woke”

  160. 160.

    Mike in NC

    @kalakal:  Wife and I test drove Toyota RAV4s in 2004 but found them cramped and noisy. Settled on a couple of Honda CR-Vs instead. Later traded mine in for a 2014 model which I’m still driving. Wife kept hers until last year and now drives a 2020 HR-V that had very low mileage.

  161. 161.

    OverTwistWillie

    I think there is some mixing of stabbed in the back narratives:

    Russian forces in WW1 fared okay against Austro-Hungarian and Turkish forces. On the Baltic front, where they faced the Germans, not so much.

    There is a Russian narrative that this was the fault of the German nobility and officer class, particularly Prussian Baltic nobles, and by extension the royal household.

  163. 163.

    kalakal

    @Mike in NC: wife had a 1998 RAV4 until 2 years ago. She loved it, nothing ever went wrong. Only sold it because it was a manual transmission and her knees were giving up ( she had a replacement 18 months). The new ( to us) RAV seemed fine until this. The really annoying thing is we didn’t even want the moonroof, they’re pointless in Florida

  164. 164.

    Another Scott

    @kalakal: My 2004 VW Jetta wagon had that issue too, and there was a recall.  I just had some dripping from the ceiling in my case, no big deal.

    The fix was to cut off the end of the rubber drain hose (visible in the door frame when the door was open) to remove the pinched part and let it drain freely.  :-/  I’m surprised that all the manufacturers didn’t learn that long ago…

    Condolences on the huge cost.  :-(

    Good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  165. 165.

    Martin

    Reports that Ukraine has crossed the Dnipro in Kherson and is ferrying tanks over.

    And reports that Wagner has seized two air bases south of Moscow.

    Interesting times.

  166. 166.

    OverTwistWillie

    @Another Scott:

    “Tire guy” (Trent Telenko) points out they chewed up the security apparatus units loyal to the regime in Donbas.

    What’s left around Moscow are manned by the politically connected, and not at all interested in getting killed there or anywhere else.

  168. 168.

    Ksmiami

    @kalakal: sell the car, or find a good body guy and get competitive quotes- it would be insane to spend that kind of money repairing an older vehicle.

  169. 169.

    Anoniminous

    @Another Scott: ​ That plus the fact at least 85% of the Russian Army is effectively being pinned by the Ukrainian Army thus cannot move to counter Wagner’s Operational Maneuvers.​

  173. 173.

    Kent

    @oldster:

    Know just what you mean, AL. During those years our family lived in DC, and it was a point of mixed pride that we would be directly at ground zero for the largest concentration of Soviet nukes. Maybe people in the Dakotas would have to worry about fallout and how to survive in the aftermath, but that was not an issue we would ever face.

    It gives you a grim satisfaction at a young age.

    The Dakotas have a lot of Minutemen missile silos which would be obvious 1st strike targets.

  174. 174.

    Kent

    @Geminid:@Frankensteinbeck: Prigozhin was responsible for the notorious St. Petersburg troll farm that propagated anti-Clinton disinformation during the 2016 election. I believe he was indicted here for his role.

    RUSSIA was responsible.

    It is absolutely the case that Prigozhin was simply implementing Russian policy at the direction and funding of his superiors.

  175. 175.

    Another Scott

    I and my team are following events in Russia and Ukraine closely. Here’s what I can share right now.

    1/ Putin’s weakness has been exposed. He could survive, but power in Russia will be forever scrambled after this weekend.— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) June 24, 2023

    2/ Prigozhin believes he has the Russian people on his side. But the force he is moving toward Moscow is small. No way to know if there will be military conflict and whether Prigozhin is right. Putin still controls the media. He hold on the Russian mind is still strong.

    [ there is no 3/ ]

    4/ Yes, Prigozhin seems to have soured on the Ukraine invasion. That’s good news. But he is equally, if not more dangerous than Putin. Americans shouldn’t instinctively root for Prigozhin. A civil war inside Russia is potentially cataclysmic.

    5/ Thus, the United States needs to let this play out and not appear as if we are meddling or taking sides. Our first priority is protecting US citizens and our friends in Ukraine.

    6/ But this moment will have serious international implications. Every nation that has sided with Moscow or remained on the sidelines of the Ukraine War will now reassess. Even if Putin survives, he will be badly weakened as will his effort in Ukraine.

    #6 is important, of course.

    (via RepDonBeyer)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  176. 176.

    Alison Rose

    @Princess Leia: Huh?

    ETA ah, hmm…not with a bang, but a whimper, I guess

    President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus was in talks on Saturday with the head of the Wagner private military group, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, according to a statement released by the Belarusian state news agency. The statement noted that Lukashenko was acting with the approval of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

    Lukashenko said Prigozhin had agreed to stop the movement of his forces inside the Russian Federation and take other steps to de-escalate the crisis.

    In an audio statement, Yevgeny Prigozhin said he and his Wagner forces were “turning around our columns and returning to field camps according to plan.”

  178. 178.

    Another Scott

    @Alison Rose:

    No one's going to take Wagner seriously now 😂

    — Dmitri (@wartranslated) June 24, 2023

    I wonder if the convicts and mercenaries agree that it’s over… Plus, Prigo seems to have a habit of saying all kinds of things that vary over time…

    We’ll see!

    Slava Ukraini!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  180. 180.

    Chris Johnson

    @Alison Rose: If the whole thing was a big troll, it worked. A journalist in Ukraine, Dylan Burns, was really frustrated that he never found anything he considered plausible video of this column said to be storming towards Moscow.

    I think it was a Jan 6, but for Russia, and orchestrated by the same people who did it here. I don’t know if there ever was a column. There’s just all the threats and all the reports and all the saber-rattling.

    It caused Russia to flip out, lots of leaders to literally flee, and it made it impossible to miss the weakness in Putin’s position: put him in a no-win situation.

    I wonder if there was ever a column of military vehicles at all.

    Putin’s the one who leaned into that style of warfare. I hope it’s well established that chaos warfare is bad news. It will come and get you in turn and there’s no real defense against it but healthy educated informed citizenry: and that’s no fun for oligarchs and tyrants.

  182. 182.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Baud: “This proves Biden’s plan in starting the Ukraine war was regime change in Russia.”

    Was likely not Biden’s plan. It was my dream.

  183. 183.

    Geminid

    @Kent: I understood that Prigozhin ran that operation under the direction of the Russian government. But it was the role of Prigozhin in troll farms that was raised and I responded accordingly.

  185. 185.

    Steeplejack

    @jonas:

    BREAKING: Don’t interpret this as the govt asking for trial delay; it is really asking for a real and firm trial date (as the August date was a placeholder that couldn’t hold given CIPA litigation/​clearance issues). December is a realistic and speedy trial date.
    https://t.co/U9W80cD4wp

    — Andrew Weissmann 🌻 (@AWeissmann_) June 24, 2023

  186. 186.

    Chris T.

    @kalakal:

    Took it to the dealer – drains from from moonroof blocked – $1800 to repair – due to cunning design flaw you basically have to take the roof apart.

    Had this problem with a 2014 Lexus; local place was able to fix it without removing the roof, by cutting out part of the plastic drain and inserting a replacement.  Not super-cheap but way less than what you’ve been quoted. We didn’t have any mold though as I noticed the problem quickly enough…

  189. 189.

    kalakal

    @NotMax: out of warranty.

    At the moment thinking is insurance will cover it and we’ll trade it in.

    An expensive period at kalakal towers, we’re getting the kitchen done, could have done without this

  190. 190.

    Another Scott

    Thoughtful giant tweet in a single post:

    My thoughts, and brief summary on the situation:

    The recent events have sparked contemplation on whether Prigozhin will endure the aftermath or succumb to its consequences. However, there is no doubt that this rebellion carries far-reaching implications.

    From both external and… pic.twitter.com/65KRIjYvsY

    — Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) June 24, 2023

    I’ll save you a click. ;-)

    My thoughts, and brief summary on the situation:

    The recent events have sparked contemplation on whether Prigozhin will endure the aftermath or succumb to its consequences. However, there is no doubt that this rebellion carries far-reaching implications.

    From both external and internal perspectives, Putin’s image has weakened, reminiscent of the Japanese emperor during the Sengoku period. Similar to a symbolic figure, the emperor held nominal power while warring samurai clans vied for control over Japan.

    Though Putin still wields undeniable power, it is evident that he has lost control over the situation, resulting in a significant crack in his perceived ability to exert authority and manage internal affairs. Additionally, Putin had to rely on the intervention of a foreign leader (Belarus) to resolve the internal conflict.

    These events highlight the potential use of military force against Putin’s government as a means to coerce acceptance of terms, although the details of the arrangement between Prigozhin and Putin-Lukashenko remain undisclosed. If a replacement occurs within the top military command, it would only reinforce such behavior.

    Furthermore, this upheaval exposes the inherent weakness within the system itself. Numerous senior officers responsible for decision-making chose to abstain from issuing orders or making decisive moves, opting to wait for the outcome.

    The relatively swift movement of Wagner forces from Ukraine to Moscow within a span of less than a day, coupled with the chaotic attempts to destroy bridges and hastily dig ditches near Moscow, have laid bare the unpreparedness of the system to face a genuine threat.

    It has been intriguing to witness the involvement of various groups, including the Club of Angered Patriots led by Strelkov, the Rusich neo-Nazi military unit, and the Kadyrovites, aligning themselves with different factions within the conflict. This development reveals a landscape that hints at the potential for a future civil war,

    While the immediate repercussions of the current events will become apparent in the coming weeks, it is crucial to recognize that we are merely at the inception of something far more significant. The unfolding situation carries profound implications that extend beyond the present moment.

    3:04 PM · Jun 24, 2023 · 690.9K Views

    The next Friedman Unit may tell the tale…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  191. 191.

    The Lodger

    @arielibra: Growing up in Wilmington, DE we were told our area was a likely target. Chemical Capital of the World, don’tcha know.

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