This is the News!

[JayzusB.Christ]

Feck me pink,  I hadn't even thought of the parallels with Kazan and the Apocalypse War. Both brave moves by Wagner (sorry).

I can't quite work out where this leaves Putin. Weakened by the loss of Wagner or strengthened by the rooting out of bad apples? More popular with his people or less? Oh, those Russians.

[The Legendary Shark]

I can't quite work out where this leaves Putin. Weakened by the loss of Wagner or strengthened by the rooting out of bad apples? More popular with his people or less? Oh, those Russians.

WTF Just Happened in Russia? with Rolo Slavskiy.

[Funt Solo]

Warning: James Corbett wears a tin foil hat. (And, in the linked video, has an avowed pro-Russian, anonymous interviewee who makes broad hints that he's a secret agent come in from the cold and then bangs on about THE WEST wanting all Russians to be eaten by sharks. I'd say you couldn't make it up, but they have. The main problem with the 'cast, though, is that they don't say much of anything - just broadly hint at shadowy forces and play make believe about being secret agents. As Rogue Trooper would say, it would: "make every one of your whore mothers weep!"*.)

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Jayzus - my guess (and it has to be just that) is that we got really close to a military coup there. The missing piece of the puzzle is why Pregozhin didn't go all the way to Moscow? Did it become clear that it was going to be a stand-up fight? Did his tank-carriers run out of fuel? Was the dug-up motorway too much of a barrier? Did Putin threaten to nuke him? Almost nothing would surprise me. Russian politics is opaque.

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*Just quoting Rogue Trooper here, Rebellion - just in case you think I'm engaging in some form of hate speech, or something. Nothing of the sort. Just quoting your comic. That you published. And advertised to kids. "Hey kids - I'm Swearo-Thargo, Tharg's niece, and you can all get fucked!"

[JayzusB.Christ]

Cheers Funt.  Just not sure where it leaves Putin now.  I heard of Russians cheering the Wagner group on as they drove towards Moscow, but who knows, with the fog of war being what it is.

Obviously Putin is very bad news, but i shudder to think of the consequences of a savage mercenary like Pregozhin having access to the red button. The devil we know is appalling but possibly still better.

[The Legendary Shark]

Rolo Slavskiy is not the most balanced commentator, one only has to look at his blog to realize that. He's all, "I'm right and if you don't agree with me you're just dumb," (a tactic not exclusive to him...). He doesn't mention things like the US-funded Ukrainian biolabs, Operation Aerodynamic, or general Western interference, for example, and doesn't believe Putin's claims that the war is to de-Nazify Ukraine; though all these things (and more) likely play a part to some degree or another.

What he does bring to the discussion, however, is the idea that competing Russian oligarchs also have a part to play. Is his view that this is the sole cause of the rebellion/mutiny correct? Almost certainly not, just as the sole cause cannot be attributed to any one thing. Is his view that competing oligarchs complicate Russian politics a part of the picture? Well, given that deeply wealthy people cause problems for most other governments, I should say yes, yes this is indeed part of the picture - but not, I would guess, to the extent he suggests. The idea that the Wagner Group got fed up of paying bribes to the oligarchs in charge of the Russian MoD in order to receive vital war supplies seems outlandish on the surface, but who knows? It's all very complicated and likely nobody has all the answers.

As for the tiger shark that killed Vladimir Popov at Hurghada, I'm sure there are some w*nkers who would say that this was a Good Thing - but the fact that the shark is to be mummified and put on display in a museum is, at best, in poor taste. One wonders whether this would be happening had the human being killed been Jewish, for example.

[The Legendary Shark]

Apologies - I should have said Israeli, not Jewish. My bad.

[Funt Solo]

Touching moment chimp sees outdoors for the first time

[The Legendary Shark]

Another perspective on the Wagner thing - Vanessa Beeley Interview.

[Funt Solo]

Vanessa Beeley is a British activist and blogger known for sharing conspiracy theories and disinformation...

Some of Beeley's controversial views include a belief that the human rights NGO Human Rights Watch is a "fake" group, that the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris was a false flag operation...

Occam's Razor suggests this person might be full of shit and not worth listening to.

[Funt Solo]

This Auzzie guy, Perun, does deep-dives focused on defence-economics. You can either listen to his blah, or play a drinking game for every time he says "Private Conscriptavich" or "thunder run" in one of his videos. Anyway, his latest 'cast covers the recent mutiny in Russia:

Wagner's Mutiny - what it means for Putin's Russia (and Coups 101)


For lighter, frothier news, check out:

Sex life of rare 'leopard-print' frog revealed
Barbie movie gets Vietnam ban over South China Sea map

[The Legendary Shark]

Wagner's Mutiny - what it means for Putin's Russia (and Coups 101)

Another interesting perspective, thank you.

[The Legendary Shark]

A couple of articles from Global Research:

"Moscow Maidan", "Attempted Coup d'Etat" against Putin? There Never Was A Plan, The M-4 Rostov-Moscow Highway

Did America Really Know About 'Wagner' Rebellion Before It Happened?

[Hawkmumbler]

Did America Really Know About 'Wagner' Rebellion Before It Happened?

I should probably have had greater foresight but clearly not enough coffee has parsed my lips just yet today to have predicted this but DO NOT CLICK ON ANY LINKS CITED AS 'EVIDENCE' in this article.

I clicked through to one and immediately got a malware abort message, nice to see GR doing their editorial duty there.

[The Legendary Shark]

Which link?

[Hawkmumbler]

As highlighted below; lowest most paragraph.

On a geopolitical level, the "rebellion" proved to be even more damaging to US interests, as the fast-growing multipolar world overwhelmingly sided with Moscow and its leadership. The "rebellion" itself was dealt with swiftly, proving that the Russian society and establishment are anything but "full of cracks" and that the Eurasian giant's enemies can only hope to achieve success by fanning up its internal issues, as they're powerless against Moscow in terms of external attacks. And yet, even attempts to escalate these divisions are failing miserably (and even backfiring). Meanwhile, the US and its "leadership" are once again embarrassing themselves precisely in front of one of the premier multipolar powers.