Russia in chaos

That's a headline I never expected.

Here's the Guardian "front page":

The Russian president has accused Yevgeny Prigozhin of “treason” after the warlord launched an uprising against Russia’s army, taking over at least one major Russian city as social media footage showed his mercenaries at the main headquarters of Russia’s southern military command.

In an emergency televised address on Saturday morning, Vladimir Putin said “the fate of our people is being decided”, accusing the Wagner group headed by Prigozhin of “armed mutiny” and vowing to “neutralise” the uprising.

[...]

Images circulating widely online showed what appeared to be Wagner troops with tanks and armoured vehicles surrounding government buildings in Rostov, where Prigozhin appears to have taken over a Russian army base.

[...]

Wagner forces also claimed to have shot down several Russian military helicopters during fighting in the city. Video footage showed an anti-air missile being fired at a Russian Ka-52 helicopter, which deployed flares. Photographs also showed that at least one Mi-8 helicopter had crashed in the region, presumably after being targeted with anti-aircraft fire.

[...]

Several Russian media outlets also reported that Wagner fighters had taken control of all military facilities in the city of Voronezh, about 310 miles south of Moscow.

Commenting on Putin’s speech, Prigozhin said: “No one is going to turn themselves in at the request of the president ... we don’t want the country to continue to live in corruption and lies,” he added. “We are patriots, and those who are against us are the ones who gathered around the bastards.” Prigozhin has been accused by the FSB of armed mutiny.

[...]

In a virtual declaration of war against his rivals in the Russian military, Prigozhin said he controlled 25,000 fighters and that together “we are going to figure out why the chaos is happening in the country”.

“Anyone who wants should join. We need to end this mess,” he said.

[...]

Zelenskiy blamed Russia’s “obvious” weakness for the uprising and said Russia was itself to blame for arming the Wagner troops that had now turned against the military.

[...]

The foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, urged Russians to rally around the president, while the head of the Russian Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill, led a prayer for Putin. Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya who is a powerful ally of Putin, called Prigozhin a traitor and said he was sending Chechen troops to squash the mutiny.

[...]

Police also raided a Wagner headquarters in St Petersburg and claimed to have found billions of roubles in cash in a lorry nearby. Prigozhin, writing through his press service, confirmed the money belonged to Wagner, claiming it was to be used for salaries and other expenses.

Moscow began to evacuate museums, parks and other cultural centres on Saturday, as the government appeared to be taking extreme steps to keep crowds of people off the streets. Video showed crowds being led out of the Pushkin Museum, Sokolniki Park and other tourist destinations.

[...]

As of Saturday afternoon, Prigozhin looks isolated, with several former military allies denouncing his rebellion. But his troops appeared to have taken Rostov without any military resistance and questions will now rise over the military’s loyalty.

  Guardian

Rostov-on-Don is the largest city in southern Russia and is the capital of the Rostov region that adjoins parts of eastern Ukraine where the war is raging.

The city – just 60 miles (100km) from Ukraine’s border – is home to the Russian southern military district command, whose 58th Combined Arms Army is fighting against Kyiv’s counteroffensive in southern Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) thinktank.

Rostov also houses the command centre for the Russian joint group of forces in Ukraine as a whole and is therefore a critical logistical hub for the Russian army.

Any threat to the Russian military’s presence there is likely to have ramifications on some critical aspects of the war effort, the ISW says.

[...]

Despite claiming to be in control of Rostov’s military sites, Prigozhin has said his operation will not impede Russia’s war effort.

[...]

Prigozhin was seen telling military officials that his mercenaries would “not interfere with them commanding troops” but that their orders in Ukraine were leading to huge losses.

“We came here to stop the disgrace in the country that we live in,” Prigozhin said, before adding: “We are saving Russia.”

  Guardian

Putin’s defiant rhetoric promising to deal firmly with this treachery comes after weeks of silence over the growing confrontation between Prigozhin and Russia’s regular military.

[...]

Putin compared Prigozhin’s actions to the “intrigues” that he said brought down the Russian army, and then the state itself, in 1917. He’s not wrong – this is not unlike the way Russian army units left the front en masse during that military collapse.

[...]

The situation is still fast-moving. In any standoff between Russia’s security forces and Wagner troops, a lot can hinge on what happens at a local level. Wagner has a longstanding close relationship with Russia’s military intelligence special forces, including shared bases and facilities. It’s hard to know which way those forces will jump – or any of the other units that have been deployed to block a possible move by Wagner’s main force further into Russia and towards Moscow.

[...]

While it’s good news for Kyiv that some of Russia’s forces will be temporarily distracted, nobody should imagine that this development will lessen the threat to Ukraine and to Europe. Prigozhin’s argument is not with the war – it’s with how, and why, it is fought. This is a confrontation between some of the worst people in the world, in a dispute over how to destroy Ukraine the most efficiently.

Ukraine will be watching for an opportunity to turn Russia’s internal chaos into advantage on the frontline.

[...]

Russia has moved to restrict internet access to reduce the reach of Prigozhin’s announcements. There’s a delicious irony in the Russian authorities complaining about Wagner’s domination of the media narrative after all the years when Prigozhin was commissioned by Russia to run “troll farms” to do just that.

[...]

The suggestion that Russia cannot be defeated, and therefore it is better not to try and instead “negotiated settlement” is the only way forward, has been comprehensively torpedoed by this internal strife. But this is a temporary setback for Russia – and urgently increased support for Ukraine has the potential to bring about a permanent solution.

A distracted, weakened Russia is good news for everybody else. Prigozhin’s challenge to Moscow is a confrontation between a psychopath leading a gang of murderous criminals and a mafia boss sitting in the Kremlin and dividing Russia’s riches between his cronies.

  Guardian

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine has craved internal instability in Russia as a result of the conflict.

  Guardian

In fact, I think they were expecting it.

In a comment to Ukraine’s state news agency Suspilne, Ukraine’s military intelligence spokesperson, Andriy Yusov, said that Wagner’s actions in Russia were a “continuation of intra-Russian conflicts” that are a consequence of the military aggression against Ukraine.

“This is a sign of the collapse of the ruling regime, and such processes will intensify,’’ he added.

While Putin is forced to watch his back, many believe the Russian turmoil will give Ukraine an opportunity to step up its counteroffensive – which, Zelenskiy has admitted, is going “slower than desired” – and boost the morale of its troops grappling with bloody and uncertain battles on the frontlines.

[...]

Zelenskiy said: “Anyone who chooses the path of evil destroys himself. [...] [Putin] 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.”

What a hot mess. Good luck to Ukraine. 

And poor Russia deserves better. I still believe the US help to bring down Gorbachev was a terrible mistake. Gorbachev understood the need to move slowly in turning Russia into a more democratic land. In their hurry to take control and claim a win for democracy, US fools, led by Bill Clinton, backed incompetent drunkard Boris Yeltsin to be Russian president, insuring the return to power of an iron fisted autocrat like Putin.

Alexander Vindman is probably the most reliable American source for updated information now.

UPDATE 11:49 am:

UPDATE 02:26 pm:

So...what did Prigozhin get?  The right to direct Putin's military?  Kick out some of the military's commanders?  He got something.  What is it?

UPDATE 02:45 pm:

UPDATE 06/26/2023: