Agreed. The situation there is absolutely unbelievable for me. Too much nonesense happening.

There is more to this than what meets the eye...

What if this is all an elaborate ruse to redeploy Wagner to Ukraine's northern border?

Prigozhin is pissed off at Russia's Ministry of Defense. He thinks they suck. Russian MoD is pissed off at Wagner. They really wish Prighozin would forget his social media passwords and STFU. Prigozhin "mutinies" by taking Rostov-on-Don. A couple of MoD choppers were supposedly shot down, but for the large part, very few casualties. Putin looks angry. Claims to have been "stabbed in the back". Lukashenko of Belarus "brokers a peaceful resolution", and Pregozhin and his Wagnerites agree to go to Belarus.

... in exile? I doubt it.

This looks like a winning situation for everyone concerned. Russian MoD finally get the Wagnerites out of their hair. Wagner ends up in Belarus for a much-needed resupply of equipment and perhaps some Belarusan soldiers / convicts. Putin saves face. Lukashenko looks competent.

What if Wagner subsequently decides to re-enter the fray, but this time from Ukraine's northern border? Kyiv and Lviv are closer to Belarus than they are to Russia.

Hmmm....

Yeah, and we’re going to need a Top Hour option on Lemmy. This Top Day cycle clearly exceeds world event pace by at least an order of magnitude.

I'm convinced Prigozhin believed he was a dead man already and decided to go out with a bang. The chances of success were just too slim, it just feels like a final gambit.

strong vibes of "Your loved ones are in my custody Back off now or ..."

The only way this makes any sense is if there's an active coup against Putin, Lukashenko is in on it, and convinced him to pause while the Kremlin takes out Putin, to avoid him having to fight other Russians.

Maybe he's in a lose lose situation. Chose the balcony exit.

Monday off

Yeah it's hard to see how this benfits both parties. They'll never trust each other again, so now they'll both be plotting against each other...

The only thing I can think of is he actually thought he was going to be killed and now thinks he won't? Ideologically he said a lot about wasted resources and lives and generals with no experience or planning, yadda yadda but until we see a true shake up of military leadership, nothing will change. It doesn't matter if it's shoigu or Putin himself, there is no experienced leadership for a war like this so nothing will change

Memes

I wonder the same thing. No shot he gets a free pass to march on Moscow and call for the execution of military leadership. If I had to guess I'd say they're taking this as an opportunity to rest their troops, but who knows. This whole thing has been nuts

Prigozhin has done audio only before, but you are right. I believe the channel was the Concordgroup official one.

This would be interesting if its actually deepfake it would be the first case used in conflict. I wonder what would be the implications to it if Ukraine perhaps send a deepfake audio of both sides to mess up Russia's command.

they must have seen the popcorn sales numbers skyrocketing.

I thought he said they (Wagner) are returning to Ukraine. I don't know if I believe it, but that's what I thought he said.

I get the feeling Putin probably rounded up Prig's family as well. I thought his daughter was in St Petersburg.