billbindc

Wagner will be in Moscow today:

It's after 7am in Moscow. If we don't have a statement by the time I wake up in 8 hours or so, I'm with you on this.

I do agree that there will be negotiations...there probably already are conversations happening. But Putin's continued absence has me wondering what's going on with him. He may simply not have the ability to make a deal that other factions would accept.

Will it? The Russian state looks paralyzed right now and Rosgardia/OMON troops are simply letting Wagner drive around them despite direct orders to stop them violently if necessary. This is a demobilized state. There's no reason to expect that to change.

What I'm asking folks and getting no answer on is what happens if Putin can't find anyone to fight Wagner?

That's the logistical and command hub of the entire southern front in Ukraine for the Russian MoD. An enormous wrench thrown in to the machinery already.

What are your expected logistical effects on the war if Wagner takes and holds up things at Rostov for a week or two?

Really glad I went out drinking last night. This is getting fascinating.

Rumor mill now is that two Wagner convoys heading towards Rostov and the Interior Ministry troops let them through. Wagner Telegram just post "It Begins". If that all checks, it's a bigger thing than we yet know and it has support in Moscow. The move to Rostov is intelligent too. Prigozhin likely thinks the units there will be swayed to his side. If he can get that ball rolling who knows where it stops.

Well...another of my old saws is that autocracies look unshakeable right up until the moment they fall apart. Clearly Prigozhin sees an opportunity or simply has no choice. What I'm waiting to see is if/when any regular army units publicly defect to his side. If that happens, pretty much anything is possible.

Looks like Moscow somehow missed the import of the Wagner troops all calling home to say goodbye to their loved ones. Capt...any thoughts on what the end of Wagner will mean for Russian military abilities?

Looks like a coup attempt to me. I suspect Prigozhin loses this badly but we'll see. The war for the Russians, as I've been saying for a while now, is in Moscow.

Excellent synopsis of where things stand in Russia.

I mean that those days are over...for Russia in Ukraine. It's a real big boy pants time war and gnawing around the edges just won't cut it. I think the answer to your question comes down to isolation and time. Too much of the former in Putin's inner circle and too little of the latter left to them. They thought they were going to take care of all family business before they went off the stage.

Yep. The ISR application in the GWOT was against an adversary that could continue it's level of operations even when it went off grid almost completely. That's the core strength of a low tech, wide spread insurgency. Russia is playing in a completely different game. It must organize very large forces, logistical trains, GLOC's etc. That simply requires the mass generation of sigint and satellite product that can be analyzed in a globally meaningful way. The grey zone days are over.

It's important to note that any intelligence breakthrough that led to knowing the when/where/elimination of important Russian assets would not be something you would dole out in penny packets. There would be too much of a risk that the opponent would be able to change operationally to counteract the advantage before the advantage was most useful. The best roll out would be all at once while he was under the most pressure...i.e. while trying to fend off a counter offensive. We won't know for a decade or more for certain but I don't think Prigozhin would expose himself that obviously given the tentative nature of his relationship to windows and gravity at the moment.

There's no political angle to Prigozhin's statements that I can suss out. He's burning bridges with his FSB heavy supports and he's effectively saying the war is lost and the boss is either deluded or too incompetent to know that he's being lied to. It's that rarest of Russian and Prigozhin statements...an actual cri de couer. I think we are at the crisis point and Prigozhin is honestly terrified of what will happen when the moment breaks.

I very much doubt that NATO starts hitting targets in an obvious way in Russia. I would expect that material support for Ukraine doing it would be supplied and caviling about limitations would end. I would also expect something more like a complete trade embargo, ATACMS, F-16's and a general commitment towards the long term containment and destruction of the Putin regime. India and Turkey would swing pretty decisively into the anti-Russia camp and China would no longer have any appetite to bail Russia out. I think it would also completely destroy any chance that US or NATO interest/support for Ukraine wanes over time. Countries like Israel would probably come off the sidelines and Iran would have a rethink about what they are getting into. Blowing up the Zaporizhzhia power plant in effect converts Russia into a bigger, more idiotic DPRK. The world will act accordingly.

I was drinking beer and sleeping. Apologies. I've been banging this drum for a bit now. I think it's highly likely Russia blows up the power plant. The dam was the signal that all bets are off and everything is on the table. Peskov will blame it on Ukraine and there will be further escalation. I don't think the US invokes Article 5 but aid to Ukraine will ramp up quite considerably thereafter without fear that China will match it.

Speaking of War Gonzo, don't forget to vote:

This brings us back to the surrendering issue. Russian soldiers certainly know that rape, torture and murder are part and parcel with their operations in Ukraine. I would argue that they certainly know that Ukrainians hate them and that Ukrainians have every reason to destroy them and show no mercy. That Ukrainians are often willing is besides the point that the Russian military has internalized their own malignancy.

Good to see that the intense diplomatic efforts that led to the coalition supporting Ukraine have not eased up. It looks like the White House sees a chance to weaken Indian, Chinese and Brazilian neutrality towards the conflict. https://www.ft.com/content/c30f3bcb-19d7-4f93-87e5-129f28a18172

Remember too that it's quite difficult anonymously surrender in this war. Russia has far more understanding of who is where and what their disposition is than any historical Russian army before it (in the Russian context, mind you). It is very clear that the regime won't hesitate to take measures against what it terms defeatism and it has to be on the mind of every mobik that surrender (perhaps on video on CNN and the BBC) might be quite a bad thing for the family back home. The fight and the men in it are (relatively speaking) in a fish bowl making surrender a much more difficult proposition.

In essence this case was the Pentagon going overboard in strict accounting. That was almost certainly in order to inure the DoD from anti-aid voices in Congress who would have jumped on any discrepancy or perceived looseness in standards. Accounting was political from the start.

Pentagon accounting is infamous for absurd error and no significant accountability. That this issue was corrected is entirely down to the fact that appropriations for Ukraine are going to get tougher so the White House is looking carefully at any place where funding can be made more efficient.