MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘Yevgeny Prigozhin’

Coup Coo

Posted by M. C. on June 29, 2023

It looks like the neocons, the CIA, and Britain’s MI6 did, too, if they helped nudge the event to fruition with assurances and cash — say, some of that $6.2 billion the Pentagon happened to find recently via an “accounting error.” 

James Howard Kunstler

“At exactly the point of the AFU’s weakest moment and near-collapse on the battlefield he chose to strike Russia in the back as if obviously driven by a hidden hand.”— Simplicius on Substack

 You’d think that the hapless DC neocons, Antony Blinken and his boss, Victoria Nuland, plus the gang at Spook Central, would have learned a lesson about the diminishing returns of color revolutions: namely, that these bold pranks blow back… and not in a good way.

    The New York Times informs us that US Intel was well aware weeks beforehand of the developing coup attempt by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his personal army, the Wagner Group. Congressional leaders were briefed a day prior to its roll-out. Well, golly, can you suppose for a New York minute that Russia’s intel agency didn’t know all about it, too?

    A vast array of explanations for this bizarre wartime vaudeville can be found in every corner of the Internet. I’ll go with this one: Prigozhin came to bethink himself a Napoleonic figure. Just as Bonaparte wowed revolution-weary France with his military exploits against her enemies, and seized leadership of the nation, Prigozhin’s mercenary army carried the brunt of the action in Ukraine this year, culminating in the heroic victory at Bakhmut. Priggy regarded the Russian Ministry of Defense as oafish, and by extension, his long-time friend and mentor, Vlad Putin, indecisive about it. The moment was ripe to seize power! As a recent US president might have said: he misoverestimated.

    It looks like the neocons, the CIA, and Britain’s MI6 did, too, if they helped nudge the event to fruition with assurances and cash — say, some of that $6.2 billion the Pentagon happened to find recently via an “accounting error.” What better time to destabilize Russia than during Ukraine’s vaunted spring offensive (which, let’s face it, was not going too well)? In fact, Ukraine’s whole NATO-assisted project from the get-go looked like a bust. The Bakhmut “meat-grinder” was just the latest fiasco. But then, the irascible, disgruntled, and grandiose field marshal Priggy seemed like the perfect instrument to jazz things up for the demoralized West.

     Pretty darn quick, on the road from Rostov-on-Don to Moscow, Priggy learned the hard way that he had no support in the government, the military, or among the Russian public. The coup fizzled before sundown the very day it started. Some say, any way you cut it, the result is Vlad Putin left looking weak and vulnerable. I don’t think so. His speech to the Russian people that day appeared, if anything, resolute. And the way he seemed to spit out the words “a stab in the back,” you couldn’t think he was play-acting. By evening, with the whole psychodrama concluded, the people of St. Petersburg crowded the quay along the Neva River and busted into patriotic song.

     Let’s address one nagging question: why did Mr. Putin allow the Wagner Group private army to play the leading role countering the Ukraine offensive? Answer: because he was saving and building-up the regular Russian army to strength in the further event that NATO might finally jump into Ukraine with all its multi-national feet when all else fails.

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Who Are Yevgeny Prigozhin And Wagner?

Posted by M. C. on June 26, 2023

Hundreds of Wagner troops faced off against U.S. forces in Syria during the Trump administration and were thoroughly decimated in a matter of minutes.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/who-are-yevgeny-prigozhin-and-wagner

MOSCOW, RUSSIA - 2023/06/24: One of the offices of the Wagner Group in Moscow. Media reports state that some of the group's offices in St. Petersburg and Moscow were raided. On June 23, Prigozhin, the group's chief, accused Russian government troops and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of purposefully shelling his mercenaries on the frontline with Ukraine. Then, Prigozhin announced he was going to Moscow with his mercenaries to hold the culprits accountable. Russia's President Putin mobilized the Russian troops to put down what he called an "armed rebellion." As of 10pm Moscow time, Wagner Group's chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin said his troops marching toward Moscow would turn around. The announcement followed shortly after Belarus' President Lukashenko said in a press release that he negotiated a deal with Prigozhin to de-escalate tensions. On June 23, Prigozhin, the group's chief, accused Russian government troops and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of purposefully shelling his mercenaries on the frontline with Ukraine. Then, Prigozhin announced he was going to Moscow with his mercenaries to hold the culprits accountable. Russia's President Putin mobilized the Russian troops to put down what he called an "armed rebellion." As of 10pm Moscow time, Wagner Group's chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin said his troops marching toward Moscow would turn around. The announcement followed shortly after Belarus' President Lukashenko said in a press release that he negotiated a deal with Prigozhin to de-escalate tensions.
Vlad Karkov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Yevgeny Prigozhin is the owner of Russia’s notorious Wagner paramilitary group, an organization that is designated as a Transnational Criminal Organization and is frequently accused of committing war crimes.

Prigozhin served nearly a decade in prison after being convicted of “assault, robbery, and fraud” in 1981, according to Insider.

After being released from prison, he made his living selling hot dogs on street corners and eventually started a catering business, where he eventually met Russian President Vladimir Putin — then a low-level government official.

His company, Concord Catering, in the mid-to-late 1990s started receiving contracts from the Russian government.

According to a Wall Street Journal documentary, the Russian government laundered money to Prigozhin through his catering company, which he eventually used to start Wagner — initially a small group of only a few hundred former Russian soldiers that were hired to do Russia’s bidding in Ukraine in 2014.

Having Wagner do Russia’s bidding gave the Russian government plausible deniability as the group engaged in dirty work.

Russian government contracts to Concord Catering have reportedly been estimated to be well into the billions of dollars.

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Wagner Forces Surround Russia’s Southern Military District Headquarters in Rostov: Russian Media

Posted by M. C. on June 24, 2023

Instability in Russia is not a good thing. Will China help?

https://www.dailywire.com/news/wagner-forces-surround-russias-southern-military-district-headquarters-in-rostov-russian-media

By  Ryan Saavedra

Wagner
Screenshot: Twitter Video

Russian state-controlled media confirmed Saturday morning local time that Wagner paramilitary forces have surrounded the Russian military’s Southern Military District headquarters.

Photographs from TASS said that PMC Wagner fighters and tanks were standing “outside the Southern Military District headquarters” in Rostov-on-Don.

The New York Times later reported that the governor in the region asked residents not to leave their homes and to stay away from the area. He confirmed that the military forces belonged to Wagner.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of Russia’s feared Wagner paramilitary group, announced in a statement Saturday morning that his forces were moving into the Russian city.

“As of now, we’ve crossed the state borders in all areas,” Prigozhin said, according to Newsweek. “Border guards came towards us and hugged our fighters. Now, we’re entering Rostov. Units of the Ministry of Defense, in fact, the conscripts who were thrown to block our path, moved away.”

The rapidly changing situation in the region comes after Prigozhin accused Russia’s Ministry of Defense of attacking and killing his troops that were in Ukraine fighting against Ukrainian forces.

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