Ukraine Invasion: Part 41

[MagicFox]

Welcome to thread 41 with new guidance thrashed out with regular posters to keep us on track :-) Hope you all approve!

1. The agreed purpose of the thread is for the sharing of information and commentary on current events

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1. Discussion and debate is welcome, but please keep it respectful

Wagner are also the cause of instability in many developing countries too (they are thought to be behind the recent business in Sudan). If they fall apart it's a good thing.

Ideally Putin will suppress and eliminate Prigozhin, and then himself be toppled by his own people once they see how vulnerable Russia has become.

Can we dare to believe this really could be something huge?

Similar video of Vladimir Alekseyev, another Wagner friendly general has been released, against the same concrete wall.

Neither of them seem particularly happy to be there, almost as if someone with a large gun is standing just off camera...

It seems to be bleeding through into the mainstream media now, with live blogs popping up. I just can’t see Prigozhin being able to overthrow Putin at this stage.

@Igotjelly may be not this time but sharks can smell blood in the water

OK I've read up and am back in the room now!

I don't think that this is 'it' (hope to be proven wrong) but it's pretty major. Hopefully the time before the counter offensive was the end of the beginning, and this is now the beginning of the end (of Putin)

IF there is a Wagner column heading to Rostov, here’s traffic head south to the city NOW from occupied Donbas. You’d come down the M4. Russia drives on the right. Something slow is to the top of the image on the right side of the road, as you head south. Closer to the city there are stop sign icons for… roadworks? Roadblocks?

Rostov features in a lot of the posts I am seeing as Shoigu was there running the destruction of Wagner. Or not.

if you want to head to Moscow, it is ‘head North instead and just keep on going’.

https://twitter.com/saintjavelin/status/1672370387982614529 panic in the Kremlin as they can't get hold of Putin, any of them

@DdraigGoch · Today 00:16
I can certainly believe that Russian troops are incompetent (or possibly drunk) enough to shell their own side

The implication (but not confirmed) is that it was deliberate, since Prigozhin hasn't signed the contract.

@K4fkaesque

Neither of them seem particularly happy to be there, almost as if someone with a large gun is standing just off camera...

Yes the wall and nondescript desk surface look odd. Almost like an interrogation room or a very downmarket facility. One of them seems to have a weapon though. They do look as if they have been ‘advised’ to say something.

What's a psyop?

Psychological Operation.

Oh it's propaganda/false flag etc

Thanks @Igotjelly - so many questions tonight!

Wagner have also been busy in Mali:
www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/04/russian-mercenaries-wagner-group-linked-to-civilian-massacres-in-mali

He probably believes that. Drunken incompetence is more likely in my view.

Ok I'm going to bed, who knows what we'll wake up to, could be absolutely nothing, could be absolutely massive...

Night folks

From Telegraph live blog

`^The Moscow Times
AT MoscowTimes
·
14m

A Moscow Times reporter in central Moscow around 1 a.m. local time did not see a significant military or police presence near the Kremlin.^

I’m off to bed too. Will wake to see how real this all is. I suspect that it is, but that the Wagner plan does not go much deeper than head towards Rostov and/or the Mothership where Putin, or his double, is fast asleep.

There are posts online quoting a Telegram post that the first clash between advanced groups of the Wagner PMC, moving toward Moscow, and units of the Rosgvardia has occurred on the Rostov-Moscow highway.

The map in circulation with this corresponds to my red pin. It this is a column heading North it is NOT on the main highway, but on the old route to its East.

This is going to be terrible for the morale of Russian soldiers. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

The Americans certainly seem to be taking it seriously if CNN is anything to go by. WhiteHouse said to be monitoring the situation closely and engaging with allies as required.

Hope they're taking the tack of "never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake".

The WSJ is reporting that an arrest warrant has been issued for Prigozhin.

I'll take the night watch for a few hours.

Appreciate it, MissConductUS. I'll head to bed now to join the morning shift folk.