I had originally intended to write this some 48 hours after the failed mutiny/coup/insurrection by Yevgeniy Prigozhin last Saturday, but then events started accelerating. It has been a very busy and interesting week, which has exposed a number of powerful dynamics at work behind the Banderastan War.

A Brief Recap

Based on the evidence gathered over the past several days, we can basically surmise that Prigozhin launched, essentially, a kind of armoured raid with a group of between 4,000 and 8,000 of his men. (The precise number of Wagnerites involved is, to my knowledge, yet to be determined.) He struck for the city of Rostov-on-Don, a large Russian metropolis of about a million people, located about 200Km away from the city of Donetsk in what is now Novorossiya, with the specific aim of taking over the Russian Southern Military District headquarters.

He then sent a column of men in trucks in a convoy toward Moscow, located over 1,000Km away, with the specific intention of forcing the Russian government to capitulate to his demands, fire Chief of the Russian General Staff Gen. Valeriy Gerasimov and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, and, in his words, “clean out” the Ministry of Defence of all the “traitors” and “liars” who were stopping him from prosecuting the war as fast and as hard as he wanted.

It goes without saying that Prigozhin FAILED SPECTACULARLY. Within 12 hours of his rebellion, he stood down the Wagner boys and told them to return to Rostov, surrendered himself to the Russian authorities, and ordered whatever troops of his were actually in Rostov itself, to depart.

Since then, the Neo-Tsar has issued a declaration stating clearly that those Wagner fighters who did not take part in the insurrection, will face no reprisal or punishment for Prigozhin’s actions. They will instead be given the opportunity to sign contracts with the regular Russian military. The Wagnerites who did join Prigozhin, will not face public prosecution, but will instead receive an amnesty, and will have the opportunity to go to Belarus with him – at the expense of the Russian government. Soldiers in either category will have the opportunity to return to civilian life, if they so choose, with full honours.

The Wagnerites who disgraced themselves and betrayed their country, will likely be redeployed at some point to Africa, where they will train African militaries, or stay in Belarus, where they will instruct the Belorussian one. Those who stayed loyal, and who choose to sign contracts with the Russian MoD, will have the opportunity to continue serving in units of the regular Russian military, with all of the pay and privileges that come with that service, as contract soldiers.

By any conceivable measure, this was the best of all possible endings. Russia’s government remains both strong and magnanimous. The Neo-Tsar remains all-popular. The Wagner boys, who did not sully themselves, remain heroes. And the Banderites in Queef are now quaking with the realisation that Wagner forces have deployed to Belarus, less than 100Km north of Queef itself, posing a direct threat to them.

Four Possible Motivations

Nonetheless, the major question remains:

What the hell sparked off this crazy non-rebellion in the first place?

There are, to my knowledge, at least 3 theories floating around out there at the moment.

1. Prigozhin Got High on His Own Supply

This theory operates on the basis that Prigozhin essentially fell in love with his own legend. His monstrously large ego led him to believe that, if he struck at the Russian Ministry of Defence, the Russian people, who looked to Wagner – before his mutiny – as heroes and defenders of the Fatherland, who fought, bled, and died to roll back the fascists of Banderastan.

We have known for quite some time now – months, actually – that Prigozhin was very frustrated by the slow pace of the war. He wanted to get on with things and crush Banderastan once and for all. He clearly had political ambitions, which tends to happen to a lot of Russian oligarchs who get rich off the Russian government itself – the cases of Mikhail Khodorkhovskiy and Boris Bezmenov, who, we must never forget, are/were of the (((Small Hat Crowd))), are instructive in this regard.

This theory has at least two sub-strands to it. Col. Douglas Macgregor probably best articulates the first, which is that Prigozhin’s frustration at the slow pace of the Russian war, and his belief in Wagner’s popular standing among the Russian people, led him to launch a rebellion:

The second is from Andrei Martyanov, aka “Grandpa Grumpuss”, as I call him, who looks at Prigozhin’s criminal background, and argues this idiotic stunt he pulled – and it WAS idiotic – is entirely in line with a man who was twice convicted of serious criminal behaviour:

Undoubtedly, there is considerable truth to this side of the story. It paints Prigozhin as a narcissistic fool, who completely overestimated the depth and strength of Russian society, institutions, and government, at every level. He fell in love with his own legend, thinking that, because Russians LOVE hard-charging hotheads who say and do outrageous things in defence of their country, he could get away with literal murder.

And, make no mistake, Prigozhin’s forces are guilty of precisely that. I have yet to see fully confirmed reports on the subject, but it appears the Russian Aerospace Forces (Воздушно-Космические Силы), essentially an amalgamation of their air force, paratroopers, and space forces – lost at least 12 and as many as 20 pilots from helicopters and aircraft shot out of the sky by Wagner-controlled Pantsir and Buk systems last weekend. Those men died because one man launched a rebellion against the lawful, elected government of Russian.

(Let’s have no truck with this silly Western bloviating about the “illegitimate” government of Russia. I was there in 2020, when the Russian government held a referendum on their new Constitution. Western whore-media focused almost exclusively on the provisions that would allow Putin to serve another 12 years as President – but they completely overlooked the fact that supermajorities of the Russian population backed Constitutional amendments defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman, and which banned dual-citizens from holding high offices in the Russian government. Make no mistake – Russia’s government is a popularly elected one, and Russia is today a far more functional republic than Amerikhastan is.)

2. The Hell of War

This theory holds that Prigozhin essentially came somewhat unstuck after spending so much time in close proximity with his men, seeing them fighting, bleeding, and dying in Soledar and Artyomovsk (what used to be Bakhmut under the Banderites). Many of us have seen the unhinged rant where Prigozhin stands amid a field of dead Wagner soldiers and screams into the camera about who the Russian MoD denied him the ammunition needed to allow his men to push through.

The theory holds that Prigozhin became incensed, after seeing so many of his boys die in the hellish meatgrinder that was Bakhmut – which resulted in substantial casualties on BOTH sides, let us be under no illusions about that – and after either seeing or being told that the Russian MoD was not supplying him with enough ammunition to achieve a real breakthrough and take the city. He then decided to launch a “march of justice” toward Moscow, to demand the removal of the men he held responsible for the deaths of his lads – Shoigu and Gerasimov.

There is some support for this idea, because Prigozhin made some truly insane statements just before he launched his abortive putsch. The video above goes into some of them – he essentially accused the Russian government, specifically the Ministry of Defence, of leading Russia into an unwinnable war on false pretences. He also stated, in public – in direct defiance of Russia’s misinformation laws concerning the SMO – that Ukrainian forces were in fact destroying Russian ones, and were meeting with substantial success in their (Khlearly Khatastrophic) Khreat Khokholite Khumvee Khounteroffensive.

Of the major theories extant on the subject, I find this to be the least credible. for the simple reason that all of his statements were easily proven to be lies, and that Prigozhin’s statements during the events of the mutiny themselves, revealed a man fully in control of his faculties and who fully understood exactly what he was doing.

3. Western Wazzockery

The theory espoused by the right-thinking members of the US intelligence community – the likes of Ray McGovern, Larry Johnson, Dr. Phil Giraldi, and a few other former spooks with their heads screwed on correctly – is that Prigozhin received tacit and then overt support from the West to launch his failed mutiny.

There is, in fact, considerable evidence for this line of thought:

The fact that the CIA briefed the Gang of Eight in Congress on Prigozhin’s planned uprising two days prior means that the CIA had information from a human source. It could have been a recruited CIA asset or someone recruited and controlled by a foreign intelligence organization. But someone close to Prigozhin was blabbing. Or maybe it was Prigozhin himself.

I find it noteworthy that the Biden Administration went to extraordinary lengths to insist it knew nothing about the coup and certainly did not encourage it or support it. Oh no. Biden, Blinken and Nuland do not want Putin overthrown by force. Perish the thought.

I think this leak to Pancevski provides additional confirmation that Prigozhin was acting in concert with Western intelligence operatives. What remains unknown is whether Prigozhin was genuinely cooperating with the West or pretending to spy for the West while actually being controlled by Russian authorities. I continue to believe it is the latter. If Prigozhin committed treason then Putin’s decision to go unscathed into exile in Belarus sends the message that you can go after Putin and live. That is not being magnanimous, that is madness.

My read of the Wall Street Journal article is that it is the latest iteration of the West’s covert action to shape public opinion as well as damage control.

We know now, for a near certainty – because both Russian and Western sources have confirmed it – that Prigozhin almost certainly met with Ukrainian agents in Africa at some point last year. We also have it on good authority that he gave away Russian positions to the West, as Mr. Johnson pointed out – though, as he also points out, that was a lot like selling snow to Eskimos in January, because almost the entire Western ISR overwatch complex is looking at Russian positions across Banderastan, and Western military unintelligence already knows where all of the big Russian troop concentrations are.

It is important to note here that Col. Macgregor disagrees strongly with the notion that Western aid and enticement persuaded Prigozhin to turn traitor. He argues that Prigozhin is constantly surrounded by FSB agents of some sort or another, and that any treason would have been immediately spotted and summarily dealt with.

4. Moscow Maskirovka

This leads us to the fourth, and most convoluted, yet intriguing, theory of all – that this was simply some giant maskirovka, which is to say, a deception operation.

This theory argues that Putin was in on the whole thing from the beginning. He knew all about the coup attempt – or mutiny, if you prefer – and let it play out to see where it would go. He knew Prigozhin would attempt an attack on the Russian capital, with insufficient forces to actually accomplish anything, and he wanted to see where things would go. He wanted to know who would support him, and who would betray him.

There is a lot of circumstantial evidence to support this argument.

First is the fact that Prigozhin HAD to know that a force of 4-8K would simply not be enough to make a thousand-kilometre march on Moscow – which can easily call on TENS OF THOUSANDS of troops for its own defence, from both the regular Russian military and the Rosgvardiya (Russian National Guard).

Second, the exceptional leniency shown by the Russian government to what are, let’s face it, traitors, is surprising, even to observers like me who know a little something about how Russians think and act.

Third, and very importantly, is the fact that Russia was able to move large numbers of troops, under basically direct Russian control, over the border to Belarus in the wake of this whole crazy affair, thereby opening up a real threat to Queef itself, at least in the minds of the Banderites, who are not exactly known for their ability to think strategically at this point.

Fourth, Prigozhin’s mutiny exposed a large number of panicky Russian bureaucrats and administrators, who sought to flee to Turkey or Georgia when they learned of Prigozhin’s attempted march on Moscow. Those people have been condemned in the strongest possible terms by the Russian Duma (legislature), with some members of both the lower and upper houses of the Russian parliament calling for those people to be arrested.

Fifth, as Larry Johnson points out above, the Texeira documents, leaked earlier this year, show that Prigozhin did, in fact, meet with British and Ukrainian intelligence assets in Africa. Russian military intelligence clearly knew about it, and let it play out – they wanted to allow the West to overplay their hand and expose their own agents and connections within Russia.

The Didactic Element

Personally, I believe the first theory is the most likely, with some influence from the third. To understand why, we must first understand what the Wagner organisation is – or rather, was.

I discount the Maskirovka theory for the simple reason that, if you actually look at what the Neo-Tsar did and said that day, it is very clear he was absolutely FURIOUS at what had happened. We now know, from the direct testimonies of both Belorussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko and Prigozhin himself, that Putin thought the latter simply would not be open to reason. He therefore gave “Дядя Саша”, as it were, permission to hammer out a possible solution with Prigozhin.

The element that sealed Prigozhin’s fate, was the total failure of his assumption that Russian society would rally to his cause. This simply did not happen. Moreover, he did not secure any support amongst his own men.

As Alexander Mercouris has pointed out, apparently only ONE officer, out of the entire Wagner structure, agreed to go along with Prigozhin’s crazy plan. Of the rank-and-file of Wagner, the vast majority flatly refused to participate once they understood what was happening – most of them were actually completely in the dark until it actually started. Of those that did follow Prigozhin, they were apparently duped and lied to, being told that they would go to Rostov to redeploy to other sectors of the front – and once they realised what was actually happening, many of them refused to attack their fellow Russians.

Moreover, as Mr. Mercouris also has pointed out, every single civil institution in Russia stood solidly behind President Putin. The moment things got serious, the military, the intelligence services, the civil services, the foreign ministry, the regional governors, the heads of the various Russian autonomous republics, and plenty of foreign leaders, all expressed support for Putin. You will find plenty of videos of the ordinary people of Rostov, giving the Wagner lads in the city a serious telling-off, all over Russian Telegram.

Not one element of Russian society agreed with what Prigozhin attempted. And once he figured that out, he realised very quickly that he was in serious trouble. He launched a mutiny on the assumption that the Russian population, in general, shared his antipathy toward Shoigu and Gerasimov, and that he would then be able to parade around as the “great saviour of Russia” in its hour of need, rescuing the Motherland from the parasites and fools – as he saw them – who were stopping the Russian people from achieving a bitterly-fought and hard-won victory over her enemies.

I do believe that Prigozhin did, at some level, turn traitor. He found Western support for his attempt, and figured that he would have adequate support and funding to launch a mutiny against the Russian government that would allow him to fulfill his own overweening political ambitions. I think his ego got the better of him, and he bought into lies sold to him by the West, fully and completely. In so doing, he became, at some level, a traitor, and his mutiny turned into an outright coup attempt.

Keep in mind that, if he had succeeded, he would have toppled two very senior Russian officials – thereby making the Russian government, for all intents and purposes, answerable to HIM. That is a coup, gentlemen, no matter HOW one might try to explain it away otherwise.

Prigozhin is extremely fortunate to be alive. I suspect that, if he does not keep his big ugly mouth shut, he will suddenly find himself kicking his oxygen addiction.

We also cannot discount the fact that Prigozhin launched this crazy expedition as a rather desperate way to secure his own influence and wealth. There are very good reasons why, which we will go into next.

What Wagner Really Is

Both Alexander Mercouris and Maj. Scott Ritter have pointed out, separately, that Wagner is NOT a Private Military Contractor (PMC) in the sense of its American equivalent, Blackwater (or Akademi, or whatever the hell they call themselves these days). Wager is NOT a fully private company, created and maintained by private businessmen.

It is a creation of the Russian state, and NO ONE should ever be under any illusions ever again about that fact.

As Mr. Mercouris tells it, Wagner was created by officials from two Russian intelligence agencies – the GRU, i.e. Russian military intelligence, and one other. Its forces currently number some 32,000 strong, even after the substantial casualties it suffered in Operation Meatgrinder. The “PMC” cover was a fig-leaf, designed to give the Russian MoD the ability to operate with Russian expeditionary forces, essentially, but without directly involving the Russian government, which by law cannot launch military operations elsewhere without the express authority of the President and the Duma.

Wagner was ALWAYS funded almost entirely by the Russian MoD, as Putin himself admitted just this week, to the tune of some 86 BILLION rubles over the past year alone – that’s about a billion dollars by today’s exchange rates, give or take. That doesn’t sound like much, compared to the thoroughly bloated and ridiculously poor-value-for-money American military budget, but I assure you, in Russia, where it amounts to about one-sixtieth of the entire pre-SMO Russian military expenditure, it is a HELL of a lot of money – about enough to buy a single Yasen’-class nuclear attack submarine.

As Col. Macgregor has repeatedly pointed out, Wagner is essentially a Russian Foreign Legion, of sorts. It exists to support the needs of the Russian state, to do military work where the Russian Armed Forces themselves cannot operate legally, and to provide Russian soldiers with a way to continue to serve the Russian government with substantially better pay and benefits than they experienced while within the regular military.

Prigozhin’s involvement with this organisation came from his catering business, which he launched using government contracts. His contract with the Russian MoD was extremely valuable to him – he got quite rich off it. When it expired in May of this year, he found himself in a tricky position. Because Wagner is not, BY LAW, allowed to operate on Russian soil, and the territories of Lugansk and Donetsk are, after all, now legally Russian soil, he faced a choice:

Either allow the Russian MoD to take over a company that he believed was rightfully his, or fight to retain control over his most lucrative and valuable asset.

In the end, Prigozhin followed the money. And, as is the wont of Russian oligarchs who get too big for their britches and challenge the Neo-Tsar, he found himself cast out into the cold, with essentially nothing.

That is why I entirely discount the notion that Prigozhin went mental. He did this for cold, calculated, monetary reasons. And he got a lot of Russian men killed in the process, for the sake of his tomfoolery. It is also quite possible that he is a traitor – though, if so, he is most likely one in the Stilicho sense, i.e. an unwitting one.

It is also why I largely, but not completely, discount the Maskirovka theory. I have no doubt that Russian military intelligence, which ultimately reports up to Sergei Naryshkin, and through him, up to Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the Russian National Security Council, knew perfectly well that Prigozhin had rebellious leanings, and wanted to let it play out.

But I do not believe for a moment that Putin and the Russian military administration willingly sacrificed Russian pilots to feed Prigozhin’s megalomania. I think they hoped for the best, but prepared for the worst – and then they realised, belatedly, that Prigozhin was even more of an idiot than they feared.

THAT is why those pilots died – because Prigozhin, realising his position within Wagner itself was quite tenuous, lost command over the few forces that followed him. In the ensuing “fog of war”, trigger-happy Wagner fighters shot down their own people, in what amounted to a tragic and terrible mistake.

Meanwhile, Prigozhin lost it all. He bet it all on one pitch and toss of the dice, and now will have to start anew.

Putin’s Powerful Post-Putsch Position

It is important to understand precisely how strong the Neo-Tsar’s position is after all of this. Putin has come out of the whole thing VASTLY STRONGER than he has ever been.

And, annoying alliterative assays aside, the fact is that Russian society has closed ranks around him to an unprecedented degree.

Putin today is, to all intents and purposes, all-powerful, all-popular, and all-loved. You can go find videos of him in the streets of Derbent, Dagestan, from earlier in the week. He was absolutely mobbed by people, who begged him for selfies and handshakes – and he was more than happy to oblige.

Even so, he has not let it get to his head. His speech at the beginning of the mutiny showed a man in supreme command of his faculties – but also one who was absolutely FURIOUS at the betrayal of a political ally and, at some level at least, sort of a friend. His body and facial language showed a resolute, commanding, confident, controlled man – who nonetheless was holding back a barely-restrained fury.

His actions in the wake of the mutiny are also extremely revealing. He has been most merciful in his treatment of the Wagnerites who rebelled. He has effectively pardoned them, while preserving their combat power and strength. No doubt he did so because, canny politician that he is, he recognises full well that, for the vast majority of Russians, the Wagner boys themselves are heroes – even if the Wagner organisation, the brand, is now tainted and sullied.

In one stroke, Putin has assured himself of the loyalty of his government at every level, the fealty of the military, and the support of the population that elected him. He can have full confidence that he is winning the war against the collective West, and that he can continue doing precisely what he has been doing for the past several years – building coalitions, rebuilding Russia’s economy, and patiently moving toward the inevitable full confrontation with the West.

Conclusion – Faecal Storm INCOMING!

For all of that, though, Putin did get a serious wake-up call with the coup. He now understands there is a substantial segment of the Russian population, as well as his own military leadership, that wants him to get on with destroying Banderastan. They are sick to death of this “slowly quietly catchee monkey” approach to doing things. The Russian people want this war to end with a conclusive and absolute victory, and they will settle for absolutely nothing less.

In this respect, Putin stands out as a great oddity relative to the rest of Russia. Keep in mind, as I have been saying for a while now, that Putin is the MODERATE in the Kremlin. Almost no one else wants to seek compromise or dialogue with the West – and, worryingly, it seems that neither does Putin, any longer.

He now understands, at some level, thanks to Prigozhin, that the Russian people will look at any compromise with the West as a form of failure, because substantial portions of the Russian population fell for Prigozhin’s line that he was marching on Moscow to “seek justice”. Never mind that, when he called the whole thing off, he flatly contradicted himself in his original statements from Friday night and Saturday morning – the fact is that ordinary Russians feel he stands for their own frustrations at the slow pace of the war.

This all points to a very serious Russian offensive coming up, probably this autumn, once the Banderites have finished impaling their best forces on the extremely solid Russian defensive lines.

One must always remember that Putin is an extremely cautious, even overly legalistic, man. He NEVER does anything without a plan. If you observe Putin as carefully as I do – and I am by no means any sort of expert or pundit on Kremlinology, as it were – you will quickly realise that he is EXTRAORDINARILY calculating. He NEVER says or does anything by accident – you only have to read or watch his speeches to understand just how precise and careful he is in his wording and body language.

This is a man who analyses and watches constantly. But he is also highly risk-averse. That largely explains why he ordered the military to use an SMO to destroy the Ukrainian military initially – against the advice of his own generals. It also explains his extreme reluctance, initially, to launch a mobilisation drive in Russia, until it was almost too late and the need to do so forced itself upon him.

And it explains why Russia will not launch an offensive until Putin, and Putin alone, is convinced that Ukraine’s military strength is completely exhausted, its fighting power totally destroyed.

Only then will Russia attack – and when it does, the results will be devastating.

I expect we will see a fundamental reshaping of the entire European security architecture within the next year. Many of the governments that currently exist in Europe, will fall. Banderastan will completely cease to exist in its current form. Kharkov, Dniepropetrovsk, Zaporozh’ye, Kherson, Krivoy Rog, Nikolaev, and eventually Odessa will all be subsumed into Russia.

And all of this will happen because Prigozhin forced Putin’s hand.

The results will be violent, bloody, and devastating. They are also, like Thanos, inevitable.