Coup!

Well, that de-escalated quickly!

Past 36 hours were certainly interesting, and had the potential to start a civil war for sure. Question to me is, what were the drivers for such an action? I so far have four possible scenarios.

First, Prigozhin went full bat-shit crazy and wanted to stage a military coup. He would have to genuinely believe that vast numbers of Russian armed forces would back him and join him in overthrowing Putin. For a person who never publicly stated anything other than his full support of Putin and Motherland, this seems unlikely, but possible. As a fly in your ointment has said earlier, it is inconceivable that Prigozhin did not have his hand on the pulse of the nation, so to speak, and completely misjudged what support he could count on. Same with Peachy’s comment about Hitler’s man who rose up against Hitler. I’m not even going into the discussion of Putin = Hitler.

So, possible but improbable, in my opinion.

Second, this was a genuine march for justice against Russian Ministry of Defence to right whatever wrongs, whether real or perceived, were committed by the high ranking generals. Prigozhin had specifically called out Shoigu and Gerasimov for a while now, citing lack of artillery shells, etc. This theory is supported by a very low level of engagement between Wagners and the rest of military and police units, rapid advance towards Moscow, rather than any attempts to secure the rears, and so on. Pure altruism.

Prigozhin being a convicted felon and a businessman, I doubt that he suddenly found a soul, so very low probability.

Third option is in line with stagmal’s theory of Prigozhin fears of being sidelined, parts of his private army being absorbed into Russian armed forces, loss of influence because he lost his muscle, and the like. Kadyrov alluded to this in his latest statement,which I picked up from the Zerohedge article

I thought that some people can be trusted. That they sincerely love their Motherland as real patriots to the marrow of their bones. But it turned out that for the sake of personal ambitions, profit and because of arrogance, people can not give a damn about affection and love for the Fatherland.

As a convicted felon and a businessman, Prigozhin would certainly understand that he had no chance to secure his place in the power structure through such an action. It would have been better for business for him to allow his people to make their choices, let some sign contracts with the army, and take the rest back to Africa to make money being mercenaries, which is what Wagner really is. Unless, of course, Prigozhin is a psycho, then all reason is out of the window.

Probable, in my opinion, somewhat likely.

Fourth, the most bizarre scenario is that the whole coup was a tightly controlled psyop with very few people being in on this scheme. Goal was to separate the wheat from the chaff, oust the 5th column both in official ranks and in those forming public opinion (various bloggers, massedia, etc.). Supporting this theory are the following facts. Wagners would have had to travel a long distance to reach Rostov-on-Don, as it is some 50 km away from the former (pre-2022) Ukrainian border, and another couple of hundred km away from the new border. Highly improbable that a large military force with tanks, armoured vehicles, heavy machine guns moving away from the front would not have been detected and engaged while they are all on a highway away from densely populated areas. Especially when Prigozhin himself was publishing his intentions regularly. Furthermore, any army needs supplies, ammo, you name it. Other than posting some armed guards outside of a couple of buildings, not one military facility or ammo storage was taken, not one city was fully secured, not one military unit was disarmed. Yes, there were losses from the Russian air force, 6 or 7 airframes were lost, one airborne traffic control centre Il-22, IIRC, and the rest helicopters, with only one attack helicopter, Ka-52. The rest of helicopters were support. Probably the result of some nervous soldiers with an itchy finger, shoot first and ask questions later. 15 lives lost, 2 in Ka-52, rest in Il-22. No reports of casualties from Wagners. Finally, in his speech on Saturday morning Putin condemned traitors, but did not name any names. And by Saturday evening, the whole thing was over, case against Prigozhin was dropped, and he was allowed to escape to Belarus, Russia’s staunchest ally. This is truly bizzaro world, if true.

So, it is a conspiracy theory at this stage, but given how conspiracies are going these days, could it turn out to be true?

So at this stage I’m with stagmal, scenario 3, then 4, then 1, then 2, arranged in order from more to less probable.

Then there are reports that Marjorie Taylor Greene, a congresswoman from Georgia claiming that USA was behind the whole thing, but I think I’ll wait for Sy Hersch to do his investigation report on that one!