Russia’s Prigozhin Goes Unhinged While US Military Steps Out

Heavy things are afoot. I had been busy writing my next unrelated report, when this major situation interrupted, forcing me to delay the regularly scheduled report in order to address the alarming developments.

Prigozhin appears to have initiated a coup attempt. Information is still developing constantly so nothing is definitive or confirmed. That’s why I wanted to focus more on the potential causes rather than the speculative and constantly-changing informational noise. But just for those who may be completely unaware of the happenings.

Prigozhin published the following video claiming that the Russian MOD has “bombed” a Wagner rear area with many Wagner dead. The video, however, shows no dead and only what looks like some minor staged burning leaves:

SEE VIDEO

Even Strelkov believes it’s fake:

On reflection, I completely reject and consider Prigozhin’s statement that the Russian Armed Forces launched a missile attack on the Wagner location this afternoon, and consider it a complete lie. If there was a blow, then only Wagner himself could deliver it (logically) (or rather, a staging). Reason: to eliminate the “Wagner” it is absolutely not necessary to inflict any blows on some camps. Enough to “bang” Prigogine himself. Well, maybe someone else from his inner circle along with him. And that’s it. And hitting ordinary soldiers and commanders is utter stupidity – even Shoigu and Gerasimov have enough sense for this. Now, if Prigozhin himself with his “council of commanders” were covered with a rocket, I would still believe it. And so it’s a lie. Dot.

Prigozhin followed up with this call to arms:

At first it all seemed a charade, until two prominent Russian generals including ‘Armageddon’ Surovikin released urgent pleas for Wagner to stand down:

Note the symbolic gun on Surovikin’s lap. Another top defense minister likewise released a video but I haven’t found a subtitled version yet.

According to the spokesman of the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Peskov, the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, received a report from the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, Igor Krasnov, about the initiation of criminal proceedings against the head of the PMC Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in connection with the attempt to organize an armed uprising.

One thing that’s important to note is the incident appears, on the surface, to have come out of the blue. But in reality, things have been developing for quite a while. Most notably, if you’ll recall that the Russian MOD a few weeks back issued a new ruling for all volunteers and PMCs to register under the yoke of the Russian MOD. On the surface, the justification was to give equal ‘benefits’ to all volunteers that Russian servicemen get for their service.

But clearly there was also an ulterior motive to get Wagner to sign their semi-independence away and conform entirely and de jure under the Russian MOD command structure.

Prigozhin very openly said “no”, and that he will not be signing any such contract. Since that point, the MOD has obviously been working out a plan on how to deal with and potentially ‘subdue’ Wagner should they fully go ‘rogue’ and refuse to be assimilated into the MOD directly.

Since then, there have been a variety of ‘rumors’ of things happening behind the scenes, most of which I admittedly didn’t pay attention to because they were not only from Ukrainian propaganda sources, but also appeared implausible. Rumors such as, for instance that two weeks ago, Shoigu had given orders for Russian troops to open fire on Wagner ‘on sight’. The most recent rumor from only a few days ago was that the MOD was already planning to arrest Prigozhin any day now.

This brings us to the next step in the causal chain. It is plausible that the MOD was planning to finally take action on Prigozhin because he recently released another series of increasingly inflammatory and accusatory videos, one of which I had already uploaded into my next report and was planning on discussing until this exigency took over today.

Watch the video below:

That video was completely unhinged and was the first time, in my opinion, where Prigozhin outright lied (and viciously as well). It was the first time where I truly began to question his motives in a more serious way because I simply could not mentally reconcile how it’s possible that he would make up such absolutely wild and objectively false claims. You can watch the video and judge for yourself.

But some examples are, he claimed that the Russian MOD is lying and the AFU have in fact broken through the Russian defenses and reached up to Tokmak. The problem is, the very next day (today) upwards of three separate Russian troop units in different cities of Sadove and Urazhnoe released videos proving that, not only do they control those cities which Prigozhin claimed the AFU had already swept through, but that the front was calm and there wasn’t even any fighting anywhere near them, let alone any fantasy breakthroughs of which he speaks.

Keep in mind, this is after already being caught in such lies multiple times which I’ve reported on recently. For instance, when Prigozhin said that Russian troops had lost Berkhovka at the NW corner of Bakhmut, only to be refuted the very next day by Russian 200th brigade troops inside Berkhovka proving they have not gone anywhere.

In yesterday’s video he also said the AFU occupies Piatykhatky which was proven wrong as well, as the AFU was driven out of there and the settlement gone into the ‘gray zone’. He goes on to argue that Ukraine’s counter-offensive thus far has been disastrous …for Russia. Does he live in an entirely different world?

And in the longer version of the video, he makes other disastrous claims which are likewise not only ludicrous but objectively wrong, and even treasonous. Either that or completely psychotically unhinged:

Prigozhin said that Ukraine has not bombed the Donbass for 8 years, and the Ministry of Defense is inventing facts to show itself in a good light:

• On the borders with Donbass, we hit them, they hit us. This happened all the long 8 years from 2014 to 2022. On February 24, there was nothing extraordinary

• After 2014, Donbass was plundered by people from the Presidential Administration, the FSB, and oligarchs. The generals sawed up the money allocated for the corps of the people’s militia “LDNR”. Generals received money for “dead souls”

• The Ministry of Defense deceives the public and talks about the insane aggression of Ukraine, as if they were going to attack us together with the entire NATO bloc. “SVO” was started for completely different reasons

• Zelensky, when he became president, was ready for any agreements. All that had to be done was to get off Olympus, go and negotiate

• Badly planned operation. For some reason, a bunch of idiots decided that they are so smart-assed that no one will understand what they are doing during the “exercises” and no one will stop them

Let’s go through a few of them. …

On that note, though, let’s explore a few possible options for what could actually be going on.

1. Prigozhin is working with AFU/SBU/CIA to backstab and destroy Russia, coordinating his actions with them.
2. Prigozhin is secretly working with Putin to remove the stodgily entrenched Russian command. Notice, not in a single one of his rants has Prigozhin accused Putin or so much as even mentioned his name. There’s a possibility that all this is theater to cause a “conciliatory deal” to be made which will result in the ‘stepping aside’ of Shoigu. Putin has previously “laterally promoted” (in actuality demotions) several big name siloviki in the past. For instance, Sergei Ivanov who was deputy prime minister and presidential chief of staff was “moved” to head some ‘ecological’ department. Could we see Shoigu used as a fig leaf to settle the impasse by “laterally” moving him to some other ostensibly ‘important’ (but actually irrelevant) position?
3. Everything is actually “as is” and whatever we see on the surface of the conflict pretty much represents what’s really happening.
4.  …  My other theory is that this entire debacle could be an elaborate Russian MOD coup over Wagner. In short, Wagner could have been “set up” by the Russian MOD in order to justify seizing total control of Wagner and absorbing it under the state administration.

…

One last thing to mention. There is still the possibility this is all some kind of elaborate psyop. Anything is possible because the situation is simply so ‘out of left field’. The reason it’s out of left field to me in particular is Prigozhin really did not appear to have any substantive justification for any of this. As I said, Russia was crushing the AFU and has recently been in the best position of the entire SMO. Why would something like this happen now, if it were legitimate? It simply defies belief that Prigozhin would be so incensed about all the “failings” of the MOD at the time of the MOD’s singularly greatest glory on the battlefield.

CONTINUE READING HERE

ER: This article also shows pictures of Russian military on the streets in various Russian locations.

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Published to The Liberty Beacon from EuropeReloaded.com