Lets sum things up.
- Putin's plane fled to Moscow hours before (both of his planes in fact, they fled to St. Petersburg). Now, there isn't confirmation he was on them but c'mon, both of Putin's personal planes going to St Petersburg as Wagner is marching on Moscow? He was on those planes, Lol.
- He caved to the demands of a ~10,000 mercenary group who illegally took control of a Russian city, threatened to kill the MoD, essentially labelled Putin as an enemy, shot down multiple Russian aircraft and then was labelled by Russian State as performing illegal activities and committing treason.
- By caving to Prigozhin's demands, Putin is removing his MoD which has been there for over a decade, Shoigu is a very close ally and trusted companion of Putin, who has survived every single Putin purge, is being removed because Prigozhin forced him to.
- Putin tried to stop them by destroying Russia's own infrastructure (blew up oil depots, destroyed roads).
- Wagner destroyed valuable equipment and personnel, key pilots for the war effort in Ukraine.
- Required Russia's vassal state (Belarus) to negotiate a truce on his behalf.
- Riot Police & TD stood aside and did nothing as an enemy force marched its way in.
- He caved as they got close to Moscow and couldn't stop them before then.
- As a result of all of this, the Russian public is now more aware that the invasion is going badly because Wagner was using that as the justification for this coup. In reality, we know that it's because Prigozhin was about to be forced to hand over Wagner to the MoD on July 1st.
Putin looks weak in almost every way, to his public, to his military leadership, to his Oligarchs, to his allied countries and to his enemy countries, to anyone thinking about their odds against Putin. All he has shown is that Prigozhin can make demands and threats whenever he wants to and get whatever he wants now with a relatively minor show of force.
Prigozhin before this was a nobody in Russia's political sphere, he has zero political sway, he had zero Oligarch support, he wasn't even allowed to be shown on Russian State TV. Prigozhin Imo still has no interest in Politics still, he is a businessman first and foremost and he didn't want to lose his money maker (Wagner) to Russia's MoD, I really don't think he gives a shit about Ukraine as much as people think he does, he isn't driven by ideology.
Putin has survived this long because he led through fear and oppression. He made everyone in Russia think that you can't stand up to him otherwise he will kill you. There he has had no real opposition in politics or anywhere else. Until now, for the first time in Putin's history, he has a real threat to his leadership, someone who can force him to do what they want.
The only person who has ever came close to that was Navalny, who was a political rival, not someone who literally used military force, not somebody who threatened violence against Putin and his allies, not someone who even got a single thing out of Putin. And as a result of his perfectly legal and harmless opposition to Putin, he was poisoned and is now rotting away in a Russian Gulag for the rest of his life.
There is no way that Putin possibly comes out of this looking good.
As a result, I don't see any way Putin can let this slide.
Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 24 June 2023
