re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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According to one of Meduza’s sources close to the Kremlin, the Russian authorities began negotiations with Prigozhin on the evening of June 23, when he announced the start of his “march of justice.”

The military leadership, the Kremlin’s employees, and government officials attempted to negotiate with Prigozhin — though it was challenging to know exactly what should even be negotiated, given his actions.

Prigozhin’s demands were vague and strange. He wanted Shoigu gone, autonomy over Wagner’s affairs, and more funding. After an armed rebellion, however, there was no longer a place in the system [for Prigozhin.] In any case, he would end up worse off, even if they guaranteed that he’d be safe and [that Wagner Group] would be preserved in some capacity. He didn’t want to lose anything.

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According to Meduza’s sources close to the Kremlin, by mid-day on June 24, Prigozhin attempted to contact the Kremlin himself. He reportedly even “tried to call Putin, but the president didn’t want to speak with him.”

Meduza’s sources believe that Prigozhin probably realized that “he’d gone too far” and “prospects for his column to continue to advance were dim.” At that point, his fighters were already approaching the Oka River, where the Russian army and the National Guard had set up their first line of defense. Despite Prigozhin’s claims that “half the army” was ready to join him, Wagner received no additional support from soldiers in the first hours of the uprising.

The Kremlin most likely realized that Prigozhin’s calculations had changed, and then decided to avoid a “bloody confrontation” with Wagner. The final round of negotiations reportedly included the Kremlin’s chief of staff Anton Vaino, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, and the Russian ambassador to Belarus Boris Gryzlov — while Lukashenko took the lead role. According to one source close to the Kremlin, Prigozhin insisted that negotiations include top officials. Given Putin’s reluctance to engage with Prigozhin, negotiators were left with few options.

“Prigozhin needed a trusted third party to exit and save face. That’s where Lukashenko came in. He enjoys publicity — that’s why he agreed,” said Meduza’s source. It clearly benefits Lukashenko, who knows how to benefit from the publicity of becoming the one “saving Russia from bloodshed, or worse — a potential civil war,” said the source.

Meduza’s sources add that Prigozhin ultimately ended up losing out from the rebellion. “He’s been expelled from Russia. The president won’t forgive this,” one source explained. While the exact details of Prigozhin’s future still have to be worked out, he “won’t have the same kind of influences and resources as he did before.” There may also be changes to personnel in the Russia’s defense ministry, “though this would be due to the ministry’s internal issues, rather than Prigozhin’s demands.”

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Russian paratroopers executing other Russian soldiers who supported the coup attemp that didn’t happen

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Yeah, gonna be a lot of that. But how Russian is that to execute the only troops you have that are worth a shite.

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1/11 Thoughts following the Prigozhin drama: A British acquaintance wrote to ask what I made of it—now that the dust has settled, or seems to have. My response: Begin by considering what occurred in the abstract—i.e., by leaving out all proper names.


2/ There’s a country run by a leader who seeks to project strength and control at every turn. Suddenly, a warlord, who owes everything to the leader’s patronage, drives into one of its major southern cities unopposed, accompanied by heavily-armed fighters.


3/ He and his retinue take control of that city’s streets and then travel northward, up a major highway toward the country’s capital, through another city and into a nearby province. Highways to the capital are closed in part. The city goes into high alert


4/ To stop the armed revolt, the all-powerful leader calls in a second warlord, against whose people he once waged a brutal war. All the while, the country’s much-vaunted army and fearsome security services seem to be at sea.


5/ The strongman denounces the offending warlord for fomenting rebellion, even revolution, against the state and denounces him as a traitor. The county’s intelligence service has by then already formally charges the rebel with treason.


6/ The drama ends when the president of a neighboring country, a supplicant to the strongman, parachutes in and negotiates a deal that defuses the crisis.

7/ That crisis, mind you, led the governor of the province in which the southern city is located to order its residents to stay indoors for safety. And it reportedly prompted panic buying in the country’s capital and the escape of some of its fat cats in their private jets.

8/ In the end, the warlord, having denounced system that made him fabulously wealthy as corrupt, and a major war it is waging as fraudulent, receives, per the terms of the deal, an amnesty and exile in the mediating president’s country. The treason charge? Magically rescinded.

9/ The strongman’s spinmeisters paint the denouement of this drama as an example of his calm and skill. But that’s rather like putting lipstick on a pig: The damage done to his invincible aura is undeniable.

10/ What remains unclear is how serious the damage will prove to be and what, if any, political consequences will flow from it. Now, forget for a moment that all of this happened in Russia recently, over the course of a couple of days.

11/ Then ask yourself if, by any reasonable standard, any strongman’s performance during such a crisis would merit accolades—or whether the fact that it was even allowed to occur would tarnish his image, no matter what his public relations crew will proclaim, far and wide.

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russia has a BIG problem...
a few russian units switched sides and joined wagner in this little game.. here they are.

1) Military unit 11659: Command of the 22nd Separate Guards Special Purpose Brigade (RosGvardia),
Commandant Company, 2nd Special Communications Detachment. 2)
411th Detachment of the 22nd Separate Guards Special Purpose Brigade, Stepnoy village, Rostov-on-Don. 3) Practically the entire 108th Bataysk GRU Spetsnaz Detachment with all of their Typhoon military vehicles. 4) Unit 14254: 387th Object "C" of the 12th Main Defence Ministry Directorate (nuclear) in the military town of Voronezh-45. Switched sides/surrendered without any resistance. 5) Border guards at Bugaevka checkpoint in Voronezh. 6) Entire FSB Federal Border Service of the regional command center for Voronezh region of the Central Military District. 7) FSB Border Service at Chertkovo customs & border checkpoint. 8) Unit 7437: RosGvardia Spetsnaz motorized regiment. 9) Unit 3677: RosGvardia Separate Battalion in Voronezh. 10) Unit 63453: Separate Tank Brigade in Boguchar, Voronezh (MoD)

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