Mutiny in Russia [i]

Hang the Traitor

Introduction

Today, June 24th, was a remarkable day. Perhaps a historic day. Things that happened will affect us all, without a doubt. I just don’t know in which way.

Meanwhile, it is fully confirmed that there is a coup going on in Russia. The public face of this coup is Prigozhin. Who is backing him? We will see. But not today. He certainly can’t do what he is doing on his own.

This is definitely not a ruse to suck the Ukrainians into the Russian defensive lines, as was done in Artemovsk. This is a real coup, ongoing for now.

I want to say right up front that I don’t know what exactly is going on, and I assume that no one else knows, apart from some government agencies. But we can all work together to bring the bits and pieces together. And so now we have done that. I asked you today three times to express your opinions about this issue in the comment section. And I read astonishing, insightful comments. Thank you for that. It helped me tremendously in preparing this article. We can say, more or less, this is a joint article!

If you missed the comments, feel free to go through them under the following links:

• Update 1

• Update 2

• Update 3

Dissatisfaction

For many months now, in fact since the beginning of the SMO, I heard from all kinds of sources that many military and intelligence leaders are totally disappointed with the format of the war in Ukraine. Many are demanding that Russia end the SMO and start a war. Why?

• Russia could have defeated Ukraine within a few months if it had mobilized before the SMO and rolled in doctrinally.

• The rationale is that this would have cost many casualties but it would have ended the suffering far quicker for all involved, both the Russians and the Ukrainians.

• It would not have given the West the opportunity to threaten the occupation of Western Ukraine.

• There are many more reasons.

Well, those who have read my blog since the beginning know that I’m fully pro-SMO. Why? Because of all the long term political, geopolitical, economical, and military considerations that are being achieved with the SMO. Not only “take Ukraine”, but defeat the West comprehensively, economically, and geopolitically so that it self-disintegrates, and ends the threat on Russia’s Western borders in this way.

Unfortunately, many decision makers are not capable of wrapping their brains around that. They only see Ukraine. And these people are very dissatisfied or disappointed, to put it mildly. Some of them put the blame directly on Putin. They can’t state that publicly, because the Russian people are supportive people. It would be a career suicide. For some even a real “suicide”. Others put the blame on Shoigu and Gerasimov, and other advisors in President Putin’s surroundings.

Now the solution seems to be very easy at first glance, right? Communication! Tell your people about what you are planning and all will understand it and follow the plan.

Unfortunately, in such a long-term strategic project, requiring the highest echelon of strategic planning, and that is shaping the new multipolar world order, that is fully impossible. Because if the plan would be leaked to the West, it would fail. Anyone can be weak or bribed. Especially if you are not at the top. I personally believe that the full plan is known only to Putin, Naryshkin, Patrushev, and PERHAPS Medvedev (I could be wrong about that). The whole plan should be only known to the top leadership. All lower levels should know only the bit that is assigned to each particular function. KGB procedure (other secret services of course as well). All except Medvedev have an intelligence background.

If your only task is to send your troops into suicide (Phase 1 of the SMO), this can become very frustrating and depressing.

Spies and Coups

Keep that in mind for the following discussions.

Let’s talk about the book “Art of War”, written by Sun Tzu. Written in the 5^th century BC in China.

My personal favorite chapter is the last one. Chapter 13. “Use of Spies”.

It is more than valid today. Not only in military considerations, but also in business. If you have no time to read the full book, I always recommend to read only this particular chapter.

Well, I will break it down into a few words/sentences which are relevant for this article.

Put as much effort as you can in recruiting spies in the enemy lines. It is cheaper than building big armies to fight the enemy head on. With a good spy network within the ranks of the enemy, you can avoid wars or win them with less effort because of intelligence and sabotage capabilities.

And Sun Tzu also gives recommendations on how to recruit them. You have to look for high-level people who are extremely dissatisfied for whatever reason. These are the weak spots. Promise them everything to turn them around and let them work for you.

Well, this is well known to all parties involved. Remember the military and intelligence decision makers and commanders who are dissatisfied with the SMO?

Oligarchs

Others have a good idea of what is to come. Oligarchs. Now I will write a few assumptions, which I wanted to write later this year but I must post now without going into detail (evidence, etc.).

One of the key points of the SMO was also to bring either all oligarchs in Russia back in line or to completely get rid of them. Oligarchy, fundamentally, is robbery of the wealth of the people. No, I’m not a communist. And I have nothing against accumulating some wealth like several million dollars etc. I would also like to achieve this one day. But having several billion, and making whole eco-systems dependent upon you, while there are millions of poor people in your country (ANY country) is robbery. There is a difference between rich and oligarchy.

Well, that process has begun already at the beginning of the SMO when the West seized or froze billions of Russian oligarch money. And guess who is an Oligarch? Prigozhin.

Prigozhin

Prigozhin was allowed to get very wealthy. Of course, as Julian and I described, this money had a price. It was to serve the nation. When the nation calls, you have to serve. That’s the price for your wealth, power, and money, Mr. Prigozhin.

From my point of view, he did that very well. You all remember my opinion piece and other comments about Prigozhin? I will stick with that. He served Russia. He led (motivational, not militarily) his people in the battle for Artemovsk. He deceived the enemy and motivated his fighters. He formed unity and brotherhood in Wagner. He became absorbed psychically…

If you are an executive somewhere in the middle of the hierarchy, you are basically “sandwiched”. Your bosses are telling you to achieve all the goals. Most of goals are very hard to achieve or impossible. Your people are doing their best, but they sometimes can’t physically achieve what is being asked of them. Your boss is grilling you and is expecting that you grill your people, right?

In reality (I speak from experience) if you have very hard tasks/objectives to achieve and you get grilled daily by your superiors, you tend to ally yourself with your employees to motivate them to achieve results which would otherwise be unachievable. At least you sometimes appear to ally with them and you keep putting all the blame on your superiors, in order to achieve the unachievable together with your team. This is a bad practice, but it is human, and I have observed that often in the real-world. I did it once myself.

Some of these executives lose themselves in this role and forget about their rank and status and don’t manage to ever come back into their assigned role. They don’t see the purpose any longer.

Well, I was talking about manufacturing some products and bringing them on time to the customer. When everything was late, I even ordered helicopters to fly the products across Europe to bring the parts to the customer on time.

Well, I guess this kind of allying yourself with “the people” to motivate them is absolutely NOTHING compared to the kind of allying with young people to let them run thousand-fold into their deaths, and to not refuse orders.

Prigozhin sent several thousand (he says 20-30 thousand) people into death and kept asking for more people to go. He was on the front lines with the people. He was not a commander but he took care of his people. No other Russian commander has done that (and should not do that, BTW).

I’m going to be straightforward. Prigozhin made a big mistake. We will discuss about reasons later. But what he did is not excusable. He will need to die for that. The best outcome would be (and I do NOT demand this) to hang him on the red square. Publicly. I know, that is impossible, but considering what he has done, an emphatic deterrence for copycats is needed. In fact, he will be killed. No question about that. But most likely because he resists arrest.

Well, I wrote that Prigozhin needs to hang on the Red Square, right? As a strategic deterrence. Maybe yes. Maybe not. But the fact that he totally screwed up everything doesn’t erase what he HAS done for his country. He has done heroic acts in Artemovsk and Soledar. No one can take that away from him. And that should be remembered as well. Today, I have already heard people saying, look, I told you so. There was no Maskirovka, etc. Yes there was. I stick with everything I wrote about him. There are plenty of confirmations for that.

Unfortunately, Prigozhin took the wrong turn. I have to assume that while he was allying himself with the people to motivate them, he created a perception in his head that this is HIS life-work. HIS people, etc. Then the Russian defense ministry came around and wanted to force Wagner to be subordinated as an official branch of the Russian army. His baby… being taken away from him? What would happen with him? Does anyone need him still? What to do? Dissatisfaction! And Sun Tzu’s chapter 13 is always around the corner! True for 2,500 years, and still true today. And in another 2,500 years as well!

Theories

I want to be straightforward. If something bad happens, I have the rule of thumb to wait two days and everything will be clearer and more understandable. But as I wrote already, we are talking about events that could perhaps be of historic nature. Hence I do this public brainstorming with you, dear community. Yes, before the 48 hours ends.

Well, now we have dissatisfied:

• Prigozhin

• Oligarchs

• Political leaders

• Military leaders

• Intelligence leaders

Sun Tzu is currently having a “chapter 13” party with cocktails 😊

Okay, I think now that I have done a proper analysis to explain the circumstances. But what is the conclusion? Who did what? And why? I DON’T know. It will take some time to get a clear picture. But here are a few assumptions of the people I read:

• CIA/MI6

  Scott Ritter is suggesting that the CIA and MI6 is behind it. It is not entirely impossible, considering the number of dissatisfied people, that could have been deceived by promising harsh moves against Ukraine after a coup. Provided this is the case and it fails, run! If Russia finds out that the West tried a coup to eliminate Russia’s President… I stop here. It is possible but I pray that it is not the case.

• Internal coup

  As already explained, many people in the Russian military, political, and intelligence leadership are not happy with the SMO. Including Prigozhin. This coup could be an internally coordinated effort by enemies of President Putin. They would, as I said, never call his name. The goal would be to end the SMO and start a war. Not taking into consideration geopolitical and economic realities. Make no mistake. If this scenario is what is going on, then the danger is real, and it could succeed if Prigozhin has allies WITHIN Moscow or even WITHIN the Kremlin.

• Prigozhin broken

  Prigozhin could simply have had a mental breakdown when he heard that Wagner (his baby) would be taken away from him and incorporated into the Russian army. He could have started to make a chain of very bad decisions which led to what we see today. If this is the case, this will end very quickly because no one in Moscow will support him (as opposed to the scenario above). In fact, it would end quickly and tragically.

• Sacrifice

  Prigozhin could do a last sacrifice for Russia. Either willingly or unwillingly. By marching to Moscow and not taking any casualties or very low ones, he could be eventually either arrested or killed, or both. The whole process would be a welcome trigger for the Russian government (this will happen anyway now) to purge all its structures. Moreover, to also conduct a big spy hunt all over Russia. As many people pointed out correctly, all spy networks will now light up like a Christmas tree. The format of the SMO could be changed to an “Anti-Terror Operation”. With all the additional rights that are coming with that. Mobilizations could be triggered as a result as well, and they could be well communicated to the public.

  If there is no big material damage and loss of human life, it is possible that this was a last sacrifice by him (planned or not planned). If there are big battles, many dead and wounded and lot of destroyed vehicles and infrastructure, then this was not planned, but only a “side-effect”.

Of course, a combination of the single listed points is also possible. Moreover, I won’t assign any probabilities to the scenarios. Everything is too dynamic at this point. We need to wait several more hours/days to get a clearer picture.

One last consideration, before we come to the consequences. People who are arguing that Prigozhin is a double agent, hence working for Ukraine or the West, should take the following into consideration. Prigozhin did everything he can to ensure that all military operations could continue without disruptions. He could easily do big harm to the SMO in Rostov. He didn’t. At least not yet. I know, the counter-argument is, of course, that if he did that he would instantly lose popular support, or his soldiers wouldn’t follow him. But I wanted to list some pros and cons here.

Potential consequences

Geopolitical

Russia’s BRICS and SCO partners are watching very closely. That’s why this needs to end ASAP. Nevertheless, since the top leadership of these countries know the big strategy and the secrecy policies (since they are doing it, without a doubt, in a similar way), I guess there could be some understanding. That does not, however, apply to applicants to BRICS like Saudi-Arabia etc.

In general, China could be the biggest winner here.

Military and Economical

I have decided to not comment on this, yet. There are so many possible scenarios for everything that it wouldn’t make sense to describe any particular direction yet.

Conclusion

I have now given you further background, in addition to my former analysis. And I have compiled several possible scenarios that I learned during the day today. From you, the community, and from two podcasts that I heard.

It is far too early to make any conclusions. We need to discuss this topic further, and observe the events on the ground closely. Again, feel free to discuss in the comment section. I read everything but I can’t always answer because this weekend I will not be at the computer at all… Prigozhin destroyed my weekend! Hang him! (Okay… I’m being cynical again, sorry 😊)

[i] Edited by Piquet (EditPiquet@gmail.com)