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Putin vows to defend Russia against armed rebellion led by mercenary chief: 'They will answer for it'
Fox News ^ | June 24, 2023 | Sarah Rumpf-Whitten

Posted on 06/24/2023 2:41:06 AM PDT by McGruff

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To: MeganC
Go ping your troll buddy MoonlightMouse.

I think he’s hanging out with Dominusobiscum.

141 posted on 06/25/2023 9:07:58 AM PDT by Allegra (Stop the Zeepers from Censoring FReepers)
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To: MeganC

You’re irrelevance is amusing. Life must not be the same since they kicked you off The View. Daddy John McCain was so proud if you back then.


142 posted on 06/25/2023 10:08:51 AM PDT by Wilderness Conservative (Nature is the ultimate conservative)
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To: All

Now, we know how vulnerable Russia is as an entity.

No military, no economy, no way to engage in war without leaving Moscow proper very vulnerable.

Keep sending the money, a drop in the bucket of 200 billion to allow Ukraine take take parts of Ukraine back.


143 posted on 06/25/2023 1:18:20 PM PDT by rbmillerjr (Trump's lies about Cuomo being better than DeSantis on Covid is DISQUALIFYING....)
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To: Wilderness Conservative

“You’re” should be ‘your’.

Dumbass.


144 posted on 06/25/2023 1:51:57 PM PDT by MeganC (There is nothing feminine about feminism. )
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To: Allegra

Maybe they’re sipping vodka and eating blinis in Minsk.


145 posted on 06/25/2023 1:54:23 PM PDT by MeganC (There is nothing feminine about feminism. )
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Comment #146 Removed by Moderator

To: Wilderness Conservative

“It’s obvious what the C stands for.”

You’re extremely observant. Not many people realize that my middle name is Calista.


147 posted on 06/25/2023 6:27:29 PM PDT by MeganC (There is nothing feminine about feminism. )
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To: DUMBGRUNT; marcusmaximus; Paul R.; Bruce Campbells Chin; PIF; familyop; MercyFlush; tet68; ...

Ukraine ping

DUMBGRUNT: [Becoming a top chef requires being a top manager; warfare is all about logistics, and he could get by with some OJT.
Strategy and tactics, hire the right people.

Do the clothes make the man or is this just another Potemkin village in the Ukraine?]


Logistics is basically accounting (awright, we’ll just call it operations research). Anyone who’s good with numbers can do logistics. Prigozhin’s half MOT on his dad’s side, which means he was halfway there just by being born. What a good war leader needs isn’t accounting skills, which are necessary without being sufficient - it’s the ability to see where the ball is going before it gets there, and cut it off at the pass. Based on the way he was steadily increasing his national political profile through his videos, I’d say he’s been inching towards this objective from the day the SMO launched.

Normally, in peacetime, Putin would have forbidden him from doing the videos for fear of building up a credible rival. But Putin needed surrogates to whip up enthusiasm for the war. He needed someone who sounded credible to say that the war, while difficult, was winnable, as counterpoint to the obviously unbelievable rah-rah accounts peddled by the tame Russian media, belied by the fact that, by now, just about every Russian likely knows someone who’s been injured or killed in the SMO. The downside for Putin isn’t just that Prigozhin has achieved fame among ordinary Russians - he’s possibly won the respect of a good chunk of the Russian military, many of whom could join him or simply stand aside if he chooses to make another run at the Kremlin.

Prigozhin had the misfortune to low-born in a country that almost only rewards aristocrats. That he snagged a ride on Putin’s bandwagon speaks either to his operational skills or his ability to flatter his social betters. The thing about courtiers is that all are pretty good at schmoozing. It appears that Prigozhin is that rare animal who’s good at something other than schmoozing.

There’s this idea that Wagner is just a security company. In reality, it’s basically an army division, except it reports directly to Putin*. It’s certainly never fought under any flag other than Russia’s. The mercenary tag is just for plausible deniability.

The difference between Prigozhin’s division and regular army divisions? He seems to command a loyalty from his subordinates that no other Russian military commander does. Not because of some ornamental cult of personality (typically wasteful eyewash that breeds antipathy rather than any real allegiance), but because (1) he makes sure they’re taken care of and (2) he wins. And that rep, on the basis of which Caesar’s men similarly followed him across the Rubicon, has made its way to regular army units. That makes him a very dangerous man, and necessarily #1 on Putin’s hit list.

* Having army units report directly to the leader isn’t that unusual. The Saudi National Guard reports directly to the Saudi King, quite separately from the regular army. More famously, the SS reported directly to Hitler, bypassing the Wehrmacht’s command structure. Wagner is one of a handful of Praetorian Guard units - the idea being that army chiefs who collude to depose Putin will have to fight Putin’s personal guard. There’s more than one Praetorian Guard so as to prevent any single unit commander from getting any ideas.

** Kamil Galeev sketches out Prigozhin’s biography at this Twitter roll-up:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1672399934471954433.html


148 posted on 06/25/2023 8:21:40 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room)
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To: MeganC

Calistas have daddy issues like your namesake who’s banging Harrison Ford.


149 posted on 06/26/2023 1:31:42 PM PDT by Wilderness Conservative (Nature is the ultimate conservative)
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To: McGruff

Not sure what Prigozhin’s end game was here. I’m not buying he really wanted to overthrow the Ruskie government.

Remember Russia has around 6,000 nuclear warheads. A full blow civil war and you’ll be able to pick one up on Ebay.


150 posted on 06/26/2023 1:43:39 PM PDT by CodeJockey
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To: Wilderness Conservative

I’ve met Harrison Ford. She can have him.


151 posted on 06/26/2023 4:48:22 PM PDT by MeganC (There is nothing feminine about feminism. )
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To: MeganC

I deleted your private message without reading it, take your troll business elsewhere. Some of us here have jobs and lives.


152 posted on 06/26/2023 6:12:58 PM PDT by Wilderness Conservative (Nature is the ultimate conservative)
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To: Wilderness Conservative

Your loss. I sent you a nice message.


153 posted on 06/26/2023 6:29:58 PM PDT by MeganC (There is nothing feminine about feminism. )
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