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The Phoenix's avatar

Aleks ...

I have a different decision tree just wanted to share it

1. Real (Prigozhin really did it)

A. GRU Has Pre-Knowledge

B. GRU Has NO Pre-Knowledge

2. Maskirovka (Deception w/ Prigozhin & GRU)

A. With CIA/MI6 Involvement

B. With NO CIA/MI6 Involvement

I don’t break out 1. with/without foreign interference because it only changes the severity but not the kind of crime - still treason.

For each we need to know Why?

For 1A & 2: Whether it was Maskirovka or Real with Pre-knowledge, what did GRU want to achieve

- Ferret out traitors?

- Move troops?

- Give Putin more powers?

For 1: What did Prigozhin think he was going to achieve?

- Overthrow Shoigu & Gerasimov?

- Overthrow Putin?

- Nothing in particular? (i.e. he was just “winging” it/lost his mind)

For 1A & 2, We also need to answer these questions (and some answers I can come up with)

- What did Russia/Putin gain?

- First and Third are a possibility in the goals above. Second didn’t happen and is a very short term gain negated by western ISR very quickly

- What did they lose?

- Prestige on the international stage and/or diminished trust

- Showing how they deal with a coup or insurrection

- What were the risks?

- Could have turned serious

- More bloodshed

For 2, same gain/loss/risks can be done but from Prigozhin’s point of view. How much you think he is motivated by patriotism vs money vs ego will drive it.

I’ll leave out which of the branches I think more likely ... but you can probably guess from my comments on the previous article 😉

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Feral Finster's avatar

The idea that Russia, which has been comically inept at P.R. since the start of the war, when it tried to manage P.R. at all, would undertake an incredibly elaborate months-long ruse, all to undermine the idea of its own stability and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, is way too much.

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