The_Capt

Follow up…ok, I think I have got the only solution that makes any sense: Putin and Prig are in love but cannot admit it to each other or themselves. Only a rom-com scenario makes any sense in what we have seen - hear me out (and yes I am sober as I type this) Prig and Putin have known each other for years - him a working class ex-con trying to go straight, Putin a golden haired princess who is so lonely at the top. They have been sharing stolen glances and smiles for years but neither has the courage…their worlds are too far apart. Prig is desperate to get Putin to really see him, instead of a boom box outside in the rain he rolls up to Moscow with T90s and MLRS. It was a romantic gesture of the highest order. A demonstration of power and masculinity while being vulnerable at the same time. Putin, like a sexy fox, flees to St Petersburg to hold up with a couple girlfriends…he can’t cope with all this - it is too much too fast. He is into Prig but the man is both intoxicating and terrifying. Putin throws out threats but he really does not mean them, inside his heart is pounding - should he? He mustn’t. He is so confused right now. Should he call in airstrikes or run out on the M4 into his man’s arms? Prig is wailing into the night with an electric guitar (and AD systems), he is in love so hard it hurts. He bashes out With or Without You by U2…Russia holds it breath, the two star crossed lovers both in love and hate at the same time. They resent each other for making that love into something that threatens to consume them both. Finally Lushenko, a girlfriend to both from way back I the day talks them both off the ledge - “you are both love struck fools, stop now before you say something you cannot take back!” Prig realizes it first. Putin is a fox to be lured and must feel in control. Prig has come on too strong. He dials it back, goes back to the dorm and tells all the guys “he totally scored” but inside he is tortured by the waiting game. Putin has fooled himself that he is back in charge but deep inside knows it is too late. He says strong words but everyone at work knows the truth - FFS would they just do it already. Their love is self-destructive and wholly doomed but neither can look away - it is a storm that must happen….to be continued.

I really try to avoid getting pulled too deeply into conspiracies. In my experience humans, while capable of complex and intricate plans within plans involving many players, more often lean into far simpler and lazy calculus - despite what Hollywood and the Internet say. That said this whole thing right now feels like an exercise in 1) demonstrating that the Emperor is naked and 2) an intermission in a bigger play. Prig appears to have gotten way further than he or anyone else thought possible. Putin ran, demonstrated that he is not a god and his noodle is hanging out in the open for the world to see. So this entire next set of theatrics really feels like everyone is coming to terms with a new reality and figuring out what to do next. Putin is making the same duck sounds and his cronies look like they are at a wedding where they all know it won’t last the summer. Everyone is going through the motions because that is what they do but they cannot unsee what has happened. It has gotten weird and everyone looks like they have one eye on their gun and the other on a back door. All except Prig, who is still parked down south with still enough firepower to really mess up someone’s day and acting like there are exactly zero f#cks given when by all rights he should already be dead.

And vice versa. Maneuver and attrition are both sub-strategies of Annihilation according to Randal Bowdish, and that resonates. They are sides of a coin, as are the command methods that tend to be employed for each - Mission and Detail (sometimes called Task) Command. The art of warfare is the employment of these two methods in synchronicity, or more importantly at the right time and place. What we have seen in Ukraine (and not wanting to hijack this thread…go to Hot Thread for more) is a new hybrid form of attrition referred to as “corrosive warfare”. This is essentially a form of manoeuvre-by-ISR&Fires. An opponents entire operational system is rapidly attrited on key nodes along its entire length faster than it can be shored up. The end result looks like that system collapses under its own weight. However, this is really a hypothesis at this point and needs verification. Weirdly some of this is shifting C2 methods as well as we see an almost inverted C2 type approach at times in support of corrosive warfare…and Amazon-like distribution of violence-typo-order. We also see elements of Subversion strategies at play in warfare in combination with the others - forms of Reflexive Control. And even Deterrence at play. In short, warfare has a lot more going on than “Manoeuvre…yay!” Our failures in the west to really embrace it and widen the education of our officer corps is a key shortfall in the modern era…in my opinion.

In many ways JasonC is not wrong (as much a it pains me to admit it). I never really got the western cult of manoeuvre once I got out of my 30s and really looked at how many times it was effectively used. I am more convinced that during the Cold War, and definitely after the Cold War, Manoeuvre warfare doctrine was more about military funding and procurement than actual battlefield experience. A small high speed low drag (read cheap) force able to “out tempo” on an opponents “schwerpunkt” sounds really good…but how many times did we actually do it? Everyone points to Gulf War ‘91 but after that air campaign of complete supremacy I am not sure this is a good data point. I think manoeuvre warfare can work but it is part of a larger tactical system that includes attrition (and now corrosion) warfare, layered over even more obscure stuff like subversive warfare. A good book I read quite sometime ago on the myths around the Blitzkrieg was The Blitzkrieg Legend by Karl Hans Frieser - https://www.amazon.ca/Blitzkrieg-Legend-1940-Campaign-West/dp/1591142954/ref=asc_df_1591142954/?tag=googleshopc0c-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292929366843&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18155534866616673969&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9000683&hvtargid=pla-459632923113&psc=1 He challenges the entire notion of a German grand plan and makes a solid argument that a lot of May-Jun 1940 was accidental or at least a surprise to a large part of the German military.

As for the theory that Prig backed down because “he didn’t think he could win”. Other than a few aircraft dumb enough to follow orders (and die) the RA did pretty much sweet-FA as a rogue armed rebellion took control of its freakin theatre HQ in a war and pretty much it’s entire LOC interior line. I have serious doubts as to the strength of available forces to protect Moscow and would need to see some actual numbers and dispositions. For example they were parking dump trucks and digging holes but were there any mines laid? Defensive positions constructed? What indirect fire was available for the defence of Moscow…cause Wagner sure had some. ”Russian sources claimed that the three other Wagner columns that moved towards Moscow had 375, 100, and 212 pieces of equipment respectively, the majority of which were non-armored trucks, cars, and buses.[13] Russian milbloggers claimed on June 24 that the columns moving towards Moscow were comprised of 4,000 personnel with 40 to 50 pieces of equipment, including MRAPs, T-90M main battle tanks, BMP infantry fighting vehicles, Pantsir air defense systems, and Grad MLRS systems.[14] CNN reported on June 24 that US and Western intelligence officials observed Wagner amassing equipment and ammunition for the rebellion for several weeks, indicating that the columns likely comprised Wagner‘s greatest available strength.” https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-25-2023 So it remains unclear to me that Prig backed down due to MoD or Putin hard power. The guy made the longest Russian military advance of this entire war. He did not face RA resistance while he did it, nor did he face resistance from the people. It does not look like he back down because he figured that he could not take Moscow; it looks more like he backed down because he was dangerously close to actually doing it.

Here is a question - who is actually in charge of Russia right now? We are seeing a lot of bits and pieces poke through (and I am with Steve on the idea that this whole affair likely is not over), but all they tell me is that no one person seems to be in control of a notoriously tightly controlled autocracy. Putin does not seem in control as he called for “off with their heads” and now it looks like gentle retirement and re-rolling. I mean does Prig still get his government pension benefits too? Rumours of Shoigu under FSB investigation (ordered by who?), Gerasimov is a ghost. ISW is reporting some Ultras are openly calling for revolution and have somehow avoided trips out windows. The RA is still going through the motions but how long does that last? I can’t shake the feeling like the wheel of state in Russia right now is spinning without any hands on it.

My initial thought is “wow, this scenario is high risk”. A bunch of armed troops are hard enough to control at the best of times. In the middle of a coup/whatever where friend and foe get blurry really fast things can get completely out of control extremely easily. What was weird about this one as it was unfolding was how little shooting was going on, maybe that was a hint that this was largely a show. However, if some third party faction/dark lord is in the background pulling all the strings this stunt was really high risk. To my mind there has to be easier ways to ease Putin out while trying to keep one’s head down. It may be some time before we get enough information to understand what just happened - let alone who was behind it. All we do know right now is that an enormous amount of uncertainty has just been injected into the entire Russian enterprise. Even the sudden ending of this thing created more uncertainty. Recall that uncertainty is toxic and induces a human reaction, normally driven by fear. What we do not know is who is fully benefiting from this uncertainty. But what we do know is that we just witnessed a major fissure widen to a chasm within the Russian macro-social framework. We have been talking about Russian instability and wear and tear for some time, this has to be a major milestone on the path to system failure. At a minimum, I do not think the myth of endless Russian iron resolve survived the weekend. And for those fighting Russia, for those fighting for Russia, the full impacts are yet to be seen. My sense is that we will need to stop seeing Prig and Wagner as a cause of Russian uncertainty but instead a symptom of a deeper uncertainty that really has the potential to fly out of control at a moments notice. Russia came within inches of a full blown civil war in the last 72 hours. They somehow crazy glued a patch to hold it together, for now. But we and they cannot unsee what just happened.

Go back to attacking. The RA has been further cognitively and conatively shaped. Every RA unit has to be asking the same as us “what the hell happened?” While wondering who is actually in charge. Good time to put some pressure on.

That is a helluva theory. “A force capable of dislodging him from Rostov”. That is an urban area of 1.1 million. If he decided to dig in even with a few thousand he could have Fallujah-ed it likely for weeks. He had enough troops to insurgency things for months while controlling the freakin RA logistical backfield. Wagner not only had the means, they had the position…they were dominating the RAs interior lines largely unopposed. I do not think it was threat of military force that backed him down, he already crossed that threshold when they started shooting down RUAF assets. The guy had the southern theatre HQ and likely the critical node in the RA C4ISR backbone - even threatening to blow that all to hell would get people thinking twice. Whelp, I guess in ten years we can have a Hot Thread reunion and all go “remember that weekend in Jun 23?”

Maybe, but what faction? This may be the missing piece. One thing is damn sure, Russia is not more stable than it was last Wed, in fact likely quite the opposite. Putin has been shown to have feet of clay to the world…and he ran. This might just be the opening moves in a larger game, but whoever is behind this just had their bishop do a thunder run that nearly tossed the entire board. As to Wagner in Belarus - so now his base of power is 350km from Moscow instead of 1000…how is this a good thing for Putin? Also didn’t Prig publicly call this entire war BS and outed the actual numbers of dead? Not sure how he walks back from that and leads a northern offensive conveniently wearing down the forces he has left so he becomes more vulnerable….but it has been a freakin weird day, so there is that.

None of this makes a lick of sense. Wagner owned the M4 up to 200kms of Moscow. They basically were holding Rostov. And now “sorry, just a temper tantrum? Got a bit Hangry before lunch”. Prig retires to Belarus, Wagner basically dissolved and Putin goes back to meetings for the summer Corn Festival?

The big IF is whether or not they can box Putin up in a post-regime. The guy has billions and powerful friends as well as enemies. Another spin. What is this whole theatre is to give Russia an excuse to pull out of Ukraine? Putin’s sidelined, “for the good and internal security of the Federation”, “we taught them a lesson but now we must heal” or whatever horsesh#t they come up with. Russia really needed an excuse to get the hell out and somehow not fall apart in the process, those whose, stunt could have set the conditions for that…but again Putin would have to be removed from the picture for this to work.

You think they Gorbachev-ed him? Will need to see it to believe it. Putin is way too dangerous to keep alive and in Russia - too many connections and strings. Prig (of whoever) will be watching over their shoulder for years. Unless Putin dies of natural causes quickly and quietly after the transfer of power. I do not think we have seen endgame in this. Prig and Wagner do not dissolve without a lot of executions and prison terms being handed out. Wagner is a rabid dog capable of taking on the Boss anytime they want as they are now. RA was pretty damned squishy on this one, and everyone will remember who leaned where. There is not re-set “back to normal business” here, or at least not with rational human beings. (So for Russia we are a hard “maybe”) Has anyone sold this “new deal” to Gerasimov and Shoigu yet? Do they know they are being retired (which would normally mean “dead” unless Prig wants powerful enemies who want payback floating around). Regardless, this severely weakens the RA who still have a third party military force on their LOCs while trying to fend off a highly empowered opponent. Russian forces in Ukraine have to be wondering “who are we fighting for? And why?” by this point, this cannot be good for morale. In fact after this debacle the central question is “who is actually in charge in Russia?” On Thursday it was Putin. Yesterday and this morning it was Prig. This afternoon is it Lukashenko? Someone else?

Well what a weird day. I agree and am highly skeptical as well. Prig is a dead man if Putin remains in power. No way Putin can retain an iron authoritarian grip after this demonstration if Prig and Wagner are still alive and active. Unless this entire thing was a big clown show, which also makes no sense as the reputation damage alone is devastating. Parking Wagner anywhere near Ukraine is a non-starter for Putin, hell anywhere near Russia is a bad idea. Something else is going on here.

So if Putin ran to St Petersburg, anyone think it is weird he is running toward NATO borders? Aren’t we supposed to be the root of all evils?

I suspect events are past that now. If Prig can make it to Moscow in force and the RA continues to fold, I somehow doubt his loyalty to "The Boss" is so grand that he hands power back to him for a promotion to MoD. This is organized crime, when you take out the Don, you do it to become the Don or he just shoots you in the head later. I think we are quickly passing on off ramps.

Considering Wagner is reportedly in possession of tanks and AFVs "disarming" them sounds a bit more complicated than usual. Sounds like one more rumor as they swirl around.

Well it kinda looks like it has already started. This difference between now and the previous three times is that this collapse could be strategic. Unless Putin and Prog make nice-nice (less and less likely) or Putin can box this thing back up quickly (also kinda looking less likely) the damage this whole venture is causing is going to stick. The next question is “how bad?” How uncontrollable is the fall going to be? A little is fine as we will wind up with some new jerks to try and deal with but they likely will not want to continue the war. A lot is bad, potentially very bad. As in, it will not be contained to Russia, bad.

Ok, well it is the weekend so good time to watch the things unfold. I suspect if Putin cannot contain this by Sun, we could be in a new ballgame.

For Soviet stuff, start here: https://www.thelightningpress.com/fm_100-2_series_red_team_army/. No need to buy copies as they are all available online.

Just getting caught up. How sure are we that Wagner is in Voronezh? Or is this just rumour? If Wagner somehow can take Voronezh they will basically own the LOCs for the RA in the entire Ukrainian theatre. Beyond that, I would start looking for indicators of power brokers in the backfield. Talking heads gonna talk but real players are the ones in the background. And the there are those that are just waiting in the tall grass. In chess I would definitely call this entire move “check”, still not sure if Prig can do “checkmate”. But as we have said, things go slow…until they go fast.

Prig knows where to hit, give him that. Likely been thinking about this move for awhile. Ironic if he can quickly take a major city in a lightening strike…you know….after Feb 22…

What happened to Wagner having “its own airforce?” Well if he isn’t going to run, I am not sure how attacking Moscow with a few hundred troops is a better idea. We will have to see just how big this is or will become. From what we do know Wagner is not a few hundred members of a Freedom Legion. Even a few thousand with axes to grind and modern military equipment could make life very difficult in the RA backfield. If he has 25k as is being reported and can keep them onside, well that is likely large enough to cause a real stink and sustain it. The real question here is “what will the RA do?” Repercussions of this, if it does not get tied off quickly, are not small. The integrity of the Russian military is a start. Then we get factions who are already pissed off and angry who may join in - Russia is a really big country to try and secure at the best of times. Near abroad deciding to vote with their feet. China has good excuses to simply cut Putin loose if this gets noisy enough. I am pretty sure there are more…economic springs to mind.

Kinda weird that if he did not have the force strength that he would be “invading Russia”. I mean if he is on a suicide run with a few loyal troops why charge into Russia? They guy has access to transport aircraft, if he was light on forces why not go to Syria or Sudan and establish a fiefdom and play Wild Geese.