Wagner mercenaries were on Thursday reported to be trying to head back into Russia after threatening retaliation over the suspected killing of their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash on the orders of Vladimir Putin. “The convoys are likely heading towards the border with Russia,” the centre said. “There’s a lot talk right now about what the Wagner Group will do,” he said.
I wish them the best of luck. Not that they have any chance of success but the more damage they cause to the Russian army, the better
Was there actually anything stopping them before, other than some traffic cops with a grenade launcher, and some excavator operators frantically digging up the motorway?
No, but they chickened out and now Putin has had a month to set up defenses
Military equipment in Russia protecting Putin is military equipment that can’t be used to attack Ukraine, so this is still a win.
Especially if Wagner manages to destroy some or a lot of them.
And if they don’t, their own equipment is destroyed which also belongs to Russia.
Putin lost his corn flakes.
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Wagner group doesn’t have any air assets, the Air Force probably could annihilate them on the way to Moscow. Not much cover in Russia
Well that did not work so well the first time. No idea if they still have any anti air capacity though.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/26/wagner-group-shot-down-seven-russian-aircraft-coup-attempt/
not anymore, they had to give up all heavy equipment
Wagner did manage to take down quite a few Russian air units in a short period of time before.
Whether that was due to lack of organization and command among the Russian military because of the surprise of Wagner’s actions is up for debate, but I guess we might get to see how that turns out this time around.
https://www.businessinsider.com/wagner-prigozhin-took-down-7-russia-helicopters-plane-rebellion-ukraine-2023-6?op=1
They have decent aa, they were brutal on Russian jets.
Anti-aircraft is different than air assets I get it that both are AA but I meant an air assets not anti-aircraft. 👍
Same could have been said for their day trip. And that saw several helicopters and a couple of fixed wing aircraft getting knocked out the sky.
You forget that Russia had some garbage trucks lined up as well 🧱
We call them tactical landfill launchers.
I wonder if Putin will try destroying the roads to Moscow again.
And run away to hide in St. Petersburg
FSB as an organization needs to die to the man before anything good can happen in Russia.
Not all personnel. Top 1 - 3, maybe.
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Maybe. It depends if they keep control afterwards… or better, on who keeps control afterwards.
Wouldn’t they have a better chance if Biden funded them?
I hope that you realize at some level how batshit insane that idea is.
Oops, All Taliban!™️
Perhaps, but that sounds like it would backfire pretty much immediately.
Yeah we’ve already tried shit like that 20 or 30 times, we do eventually learn our lesson.
Considering they’re arguably even worse than Putin, we probably don’t want them to actually have a chance at being successful, it’s just that any forces Russia has to use to stop them are forces they aren’t using in Ukraine. Giving them funding would be a seriously bad move.
If Biden funds them Biden funds a direct attack on Russia, due to the increased pressure Russia will take that as an attack from the US and will escalate. We want to deescalate everything we can because we don’t know if putin will use his nukes, and if he does the world ends. Putin will not win a war with the us though, so he may not care about the end of the world.
nukes were never on the table. putin’s goal number one is holding power in russia, and it’s no fun when it’s all shiny glass or when you’re dead. the reason behind invasion? believe it or not, also holding more power within russia. over two decades of putin’s presidency, he carefully molded his electoral base to consist of nationalists, and every time he invaded another country his ratings went up (2008, georgia, 2014, donbas, 2022, ukraine, at least initially) because even if your elections are faked, you need it to be believable and you need to have some real support. that’s even how he got presidency in the first place, by initiating second chechen war
in this situation, what options putin does have?
the only survivable option for putin seems to keep intensity at this level or lower, try to limit western aid, and try to slowly grind through to whatever propaganda objective he wants. remember all these russian threats, that if west provides whatever equipment, they will use nuukes! it seems that everyone called bluff on this one, multiple times. conversely, the more favourable scenario for ukraine is escalation. more info here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWKGYnO0Jf4 https://yt.artemislena.eu/watch?v=fWKGYnO0Jf4
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