I woke up this morning and learned that an attempted coup was underway against Vladimir Putin, staged by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group. Since I have no expertise whatsoever on internal Russian politics, I won’t be commenting on the situation myself (Putin’s speech is here).
I don’t generally post photos of myself, but I’ll make an exception in this case, due to the t-shirt I was wearing at the beach the day before yesterday:
The rain finally quit for a while, and the sun came out (sort of), enough for me to go down and put my feet into the surf.
That’s Matteo Salvini on my shirt, which was marketed back when he was Interior Minister, before he was betrayed by Giuseppe Conte and the 5-Star Movement. Dymphna gave me the shirt for Christmas in 2018 (her last Christmas). It’s the first time I’ve worn it to the beach. Actually, it’s the first time I’ve been to the beach in seventeen years. It was good to feel the sand between my toes.
I doubt that one American in 10,000 would recognize the image of Matteo Salvini. When someone asks who that is on my shirt, and I tell them, they’ve never even heard of him. So I launch into an explanation, but by the time I get to phrases such as “interior minister” and “coalition government” and “closed the ports to migrant-rescue vessels”, their eyes glaze over and I can tell they are only pretending to pay attention, just to be polite.
Mine is a specialized line of work.
Never mind Russia, imagine what 25000 disgruntled and very determined special forces soldiers could do in Western Europe. The rats in power would abandon ship and flee before they even entered EU territory.
Imagine what they could do in the US; specifically Mordor-on-the-Potomac.
Granted, logistics would mean they likely wouldn’t do much before grinding to a halt but I would settle for a repeat of the British march on Washington and burning of it, especially if the rats could be sealed inside before being put to the torch.
From the Daily Mail;
“ Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin will be exiled to Belarus and face no charges for his group’s failed mutiny against Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin has said, after he gave a sensational order to his army to halt their march on Moscow and retreat.”
My guess is that Putin and his loyalists grabbed some members of Prigozhin‘s closest family and threatened to do some unspeakable things to them unless he stopped his army’s advance on the capital. The military coup was abruptly brought to a halt, which lends credence to such a scenario. Putin obviously found Prigozhin’s Achilles heel and used it for all it was worth. There is also no question that threats of such a nature tend to have the desired effect. It’s a tried and tested method that have been successfully used throughout history.
Dail mail is smart to read Russian sentiments and tenor of mind, but they fail to analyze the betrayal of British rulers as why they surrender their country to islam peacefully and stupidly, and still they think they have an empire because Britain is still considered part of the Commonwealth.
Britain where the sun on parts that are still British , shines only 2 hours.
I live in Russia and have absolutely no idea about domestic politics. It is a neo-feudal state divided among the shadow beneficiary oligarchs. What kind of leverage someone has is a deep mystery.
Some people have not yet huddled in fear, like cats under sofas and are trying to lead a normal life. The Wagner putsch found me in a hotel on the way to the Crimea – my husband and I were going to visit my mother, relax and solve some family problems. 3000 kilometers and two nights in roadside motels. In the morning, while I was packing at the hotel of our first stop, my husband began to read the news on the Internet and was horrified. The highway that we were supposed to take that day and go south was blocked and the cars turned back. Yesterday we began to think what to do – go home or wait at the hotel, but soon this M4 highway began to be bombed from planes. And we thought that this was all for a long time and decided to return to our outback.
1000 km there, 1000 km back – stupidly burned gasoline.
Well, except that they enjoyed the views of the Volga republics.
It’s incredibly beautiful there. Especially in Mordovia. And yes … They have some kind of Italian-Spanish longing for a good sausage. Products of incredible quality and taste. And great beer.
This is “import substitution”.
Yours is, indeed, a specialized line of work. You must know that, you’re our Gandolf of sorts. Glad to see you’re out and about, we need to keep you in service for a bit longer.
Never mind the T-shirt, just glad you dipped your toes in the surf- far too long since I did.