Is Russia About To Have A Coup?

So, Prigozhin halted the march of the Wagner Group into Moscow. He’d made startling progress because citizens along the way were cheering his advance.

Putin capitulated, and allowed Prigozhin safe passage to Belarus. Only hours earlier Putin had called him a traitor and threatened to crush him.

So, either Putin will have him assassinated once he reaches Belarus, or the underground resistance to Putin (who fled the country in terror) will increase. Interesting times.

Wife asked where Putin could go to find safe haven. I said Mar-A-Lago.

It occurs to me I probably have this whole thing backward. Prigozhin didn't negotiate a settlement with Putin.

Putin probably threatened someone (everyone) in Prigozhin's family with gruesome deaths, and Prigozhin was forced to call off his army and flee for his life.

Not that it will do any good. He'll "suffer a heart attack" or "fall out a sixth story window" or "fall down a flight of stairs" before the week is out.

Or maybe Putin will. He doesn't come out of this looking like a strong leader.

Quote :

Not that it will do any good. He'll "suffer a heart attack" or "fall out a sixth story window" or "fall down a flight of stairs" before the week is out.

Or his airplane will mysteriously fall out of the sky two months later. The body will never be identified.

The plane was hit by a missile, and nobody believes it was an accident. At least some of the Wagner troops have said they will be heading back to Moscow.

NoCoPilot wrote:

The body will never be identified.

100% wrong as usual. My record remains intact.

They're suspecting a bomb onboard brought it down -- there was no evidence of a surface-to-air missile.

But I have two questions. The plane was at cruising altitude, 28,000 feet which means it would have been traveling at about 600mph.

The footage shows the fuselage falling straight down. No forward progress at all, no angle to the fall. Straight down. Does that sound like a "bomb on board"?

And second, why was somebody filming the empty sky before a fuselage comes into view, falling straight down?

It occurs to me that Russia today is exactly what the USA will look like in a few years if Trump is re-elected.

One difference between Putin and Hitler is that, though both were popularly elected and overstayed their terms, in Germany's case, I think Hitler was broadly popular. Much of what he did was hidden from the populace, and Germany (as a nation) still felt aggrieved from the WWI sanctions.

Russians get much better news, and there are avenues for information these days outside of government control. I think the Russian people, except for a small percentage of right wing fascists, are horrified by Putin. He would not be re-elected, if a real election was held.

Putin's hold on power relies on extra-judicial assassinations, media crackdowns, fear and intimidation.

If 47 becomes Trump, he'll have to be more like Putin than Hitler, because of social media. It's not a rosy future to contemplate.

Putin's real plan

Vladimir Sorokin wrote:

"The ideology of Putinism is quite eclectic; in it, respect for the Soviet lies side by side with feudal ethics, Lenin sharing a bed with Tsarist Russia and Russian Orthodox Christianity."

I never really thought about it, but Putin's "ideology" actually is bizarre.

richard09 wrote:

I never really thought about it, but Putin's "ideology" actually is bizarre.

No, I don't think so.  Putin, like many self-made oligarchs (unlike hereditary dynasties) has only one overarching goal and that is to stay in power.

His government is a kleptocracy. The longer he stays in power the richer he gets. His road to staying in power involves three prongs of activity:

1. Appeal to the powerful oligarchs who miss the old Soviet Union
   
2. Hide what you're doing from the vast majority of the nobody populace
   
3. "Disappear" the people you can't buy or fool