Prigozhin: 'we may lose not only Crimea, but everything'

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[paulgibbon]

Russian history in five words: "And then things got worse."

[lbailey]

As a ballet fan, I for one am looking forward to another opportunity to see a vintage recording of a performance of 'Swan Lake' on TV.

[brianquinn]

Vlad you are the manifestation of a gentle soul. I could listen to your lectures all day and proceed to become a gentle soul like yourself. ❤From Scotland.

[steffenrumpel]

That is odd ... Me sitting down with a fresh cup of coffee, opening the front page of an online news site, seeing the headlines of the most recent events, and without having actually read a single word of these articles, thinking to myself ... "Hmm, I wonder what Vlad has to say about that?".
You Sir have managed to leave quite the impression. Thank you for sharing your point of view on what is happening behind the scenes.

[BigBorner]

"What the heck is now going on over there? Oh, great - There is already something by Vlad" - Thank you for your wonderful Videos!

[uschurch]

The death of Stalin. A movie which on the surface is absurd, but it isn't actually a parody of soviet politics.

[LaimisMatas]

You're a breath of fresh air, Vlad.

LOVE YOU. 🟦🟨

[Oxyleya]

It's absurd how fast takes can get outdated in this war

[EUMikkel]

Its always nice to be let into your home and hear your thoughts, appreciate your energy and thoughts

[rick-potts]

I watched this last night, and I watched it again this morning. How quickly the world turns...

[atypicalprogrammer]

Things really escalated quickly. I watched this video 13 hours after it was published, and the mildly out-of-control situation looks more like some kind of rebellion.

I still think your analysis is great, the situation just changes very quickly and there are a lot of things we can't see from Western Europe.

[johna]

Vlad, I have a couple of books on the chaos theory. Once chaos is unleashed, the number of variables make predictions difficult as they tend to increase exponentially.

[RobbE]

Love your stuff Vlad. Wishin you the best!

[JeyEf]

I'm impressed with how Vlad manages to keep the conversation respectful. I can't see myself calling a rat like Prigozhin "Mr.".I guess that's why Vlad is able to speak on such complex subjects with such a calm tone.

[xpehkto]

At the moment you posted the video, FSB opened a criminal case against Prigozhin, so the escalation is ongoing.

[BloingDidoing]

Dont forget Shoigu put an ultimatum on Prigo "Surrender your troops till July 1st". I was actually expecting something like this to happen soon. Giving up his troops would most likely be a death warrant for Prigo. In a rebellion he has at least some chance of survival. As most of the russian army is busy in Ukraine, he might be able to strike a Moskau before they can be recalled. If he really has 25000 equipped and ready soldiers at hand, such a "Musarenstück" might actually be possible. Its a long shot, but we will see.
Also Prigos "its all the bad ministers fault!" is the typical reason given by rebells within a monarchical system. It was the same line when Isabella and Mortimer raised a rebellion against Edward II and so many more. Just check history. The rebells always state themselves as the rightful protectors of the decieved king and "only" want to fight the evil ministers and favorites. In a monarchical system, as a rebel, you do not question the right of the king, because once you are king, you dont want others to question your authority

[johncampbell]

Your last comment comparing Pregozhyn with Beria caught me by surprise. Beria was a serial sexual predator, especially of vulnerable young girls and women. He was also a superb predictor of Stalin's moods and desired and efficient in executing even horrendous crimes. It is disturb that a character such as Beria has a modern analogue.

[pnf]

Prigozhin The Realist: I was thinking of this myself over the last few days, as we have all wondered what the fate of Prigozhin, Putin and the war. What strikes me is that Prigozhin and his PMC Wanger is an appendage that is both a cancerous clump and a useful utility to Putin and Russia. That appendage has grown, not in mass so much, but rather in its incessant reminder that the subject is not well.
Prigozhin has, using another metaphor, created a bubble outside of Russia itself, as he is indeed transcontinental, and now reflects back as the essence of Russian imperialism and hegemony just how much the Russian Army is incapable of winning this war. He proved that only mercenaries like his PMC Wagner group can win ground in Ukraine, humiliating Shoigu.
But, it is this bubble outside of Russia that reflects back its most vicious desires to seize the resources of other nations and bring them to their knees with Russian power and cruelty -- that is the credentials Prigozhin has won for himself, as the motherland's most brutal general that will go to any lengths to steal the wealth of other nations: Diamond, Gold, Copper, Salt, Iron...doesn't matter, the PMC Wagner Group is now a transcontinental arms and minerals and metals dealer. Having untold wealth already inside and outside Russia, Progozhin is both a general and an oligarch, but one with both feet firmly inside and outside Russia. This gives him a voice that is unique, I just don't know how many Russians are listening to Prigozhin, versus Soloyev and the propaganda gang.

[markdpricemusic]

Very interesting reflections on the abominable and metamorphic Mr. P. I think you are spot on about his function as a kind of ''safety valve'', diverting resentment and blame from pressing directly upon Putin. And your words on his desire for ''legitimation'' sturck a deep chord. Almost all people who use violence ( politically or simply criminally) - once they rise above a certain level of effectiveness/ ''success '' - have a very real need to meld into the establishment.

[briseboy]

1. It's absolutely wonderful to have access, to come into the presence of intellectually more developed minds. This is the primary gift Vlad gives us.
His recognition of Putin as trader - influence trader, and Putin's use of that strategy throughout his pst-soviet life, allows us to see the structure, and now flaws of that essentially organized criminal architecture governing Russia.

Vlad has mentioned that Putin does not purge, but moves subordinates through other subordinates' agrement as it advances their own profit and status. This, in fact is what opened the way for Prigozhin's rise and international activities. (Prigozhinbought Utkin's Wagner. He also owns a piece of Convoy, the far smaller military/security company we see in Crimea - not attending to corporate accounting, i can give no information on that armed company. His profits arise from both mining interests and the violent control of such resources in African nations where Wagner's little green men were brought in by corrupt indigenous violent governors)

2. To fill in on tthe now accelerating Prigozhin events, Kyiv Post in English has several short pieces, including a youtube egnlish translation of much of Prigozhin' s Telegram diatribe, where he directly counters the FSB, K GRU and other Kremlin- based Maskirovka Machines.

He claims Shoigu in Rostov-on-Don ordered a russian missile strike on Wagner base[s] in areas rear of the present battle lines.

The FSB, a much more greatly mandated organization than FBI, for example, opened investigation into Prigozhin's near-direct attack on Putin's above governance style, and his departure from the disinformation norm to speak truth about the war being one of choice and attacking "fellow russians" of Donetsk and
Luhansk oblasts.

So, you can see that he is not a friend of Ukraine as only minorities of those oblasts desired separation from Ukraine. That info is available from decades now of polling.
This is, as Vlad says, a battle of formalizations of power. Putin had long milked oligarchs as soon as he established FSB and other policing controls, way back in the 1990s, in St Pete.

Yet, when observed through the structural lens, i repeat, that, like Japan's Yakuza gangs who developed in the power vacuum niche, they first in villages when the daimyo/emperor samurai feudal class breakdown developed by 200 years ago, the Silovik control period came due to soviet collapse, absent dissolution of KGB and other internal & external counterintel and policing agencies.
In fact Rosgvardia ( oddly, it shares border and internal mandate with FSB) was put into place to be directly under Putin's command, by the legislature. This is also separate from MoD, and its GRU
(which you will note, allied with
Prigozhin's astute Agentstvo Internet Issledovanii - a well- funded troll group targeting the crazed "share-too-much" facebook and twitter and related social bubble phenomena of the US, intellectually ridiculously into by most of Europe's population.

So, Prigozhin, with his own organized profitable criminal background ( he also ran prostitution ring and thus his venture into advertising Wagner recruitment via porn sites is NOT AT ALL an oddity. He is a violent entrepreneur with functional management skills, and clear strategic skills.

A couple days ago when i mentioned Shoigu as blustering at last to counter Prigozhin, i was mistaken. It was not bluster to unleash missiles to attempt to eliminate Wagner force generativity.
Gerasimov is the true war college military mind, and though shoigu is chief quartermaster of all, those two are surely MoD and we can infer the russian military effort was thoroughly compromised through this dispute.

At least Prigozhin has some regard for his known cold killer pros, and even his cognitive "brothers" among the prison recruits.
We ALL develop neural/hormonal love substrates for our familiars, and it is heartening for someone who has encountered horrible wealthy psychopaths and their eager followers right here, to see that even the most inimical and violent still share some basic evolved prosociality, if it be only as ephemeral as the black scorpion groups i once uncovered mating and sharing space ( i cannot say that much for the billionaire and entourage that destroyed both young dreams and refined artists here in a region of the US).

Our social primate sociality is not more admirable or advanced than many of the far less intraspecifically lethal creatures i've met since early childhood, so anthropocentric delusionals might cease to regard even fellows in professional killing and torture companies, as morally inferior.

Hobbes WAS wrong, at the deepest evolutionary level.
He, like ourselves, merely objected to our worst, without intimate access to mitigating qualities, however transient and ephemeral they be in each of our lives.

Prigozhin is not really acting. This is he, human, if flawed.

Our brains, if we use them as they are shaped by hundreds and thousands of millennia, to learn social contextuality to apply lessons gained from others, however foreign or atrocious they may at first seem, to OURSELVES.

There is much more for EACH of us to learn, and we are EACH more in need of learning than we know. As the apocryphal tale of Socrates and the young man who asked for wisdom goes: Soc gestured to the youth to come to the pool, then held the flailing youth under water, finally loosening his grip, saying " when you need wisdom as you need air, you MAY find it."