BREAKING: Russian civil war?
Hello folks.
Well, we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to revel in "interesting times".
At the moment, it seems as if a full-fledged civil war has broken out in Russia between Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner PMC and the regular Russian army.
This was kicked off by Prigozhin publishing a video in which he claims that the reasons for the war in Ukraine were all fabricated, done so to fatten the pockets of oligarchs and burnish the credentials of Sergei Shoygu, the defense minister. In the video, he didn't put any of the blame on Vladimir Putin. But, of course, the subtext is that Putin was tricked by his military and oligarchs. In other words, he was a fool.
Soon after that, Prigozhin claimed that his troops had been shelled by Russian units, and several had died. He then "declared war" on the defense ministry.
We know very little concrete. But two top Russian generals have made videos urging Wagner soldiers to not march on Moscow, and to arrest Prigozhin. Also, the FSB, successor to the KGB, has accused Prigozhin of insurrection, and opened legal proceedings.
As of now, Putin's whereabouts are unknown. But it's hard to fathom that Prigozhin would take this course of action without support from others in the security establishment.
The next 24-48 hours will be critical. Due to its misbegotten war, Russian authorities don't have the necessary elements to quickly deal with this threat. And, as I said, it beggars belief that Prigozhin made his bid without confirming support.
This video dropped three months ago, and it pretty clearly lays out what a Russian civil war might look like. We're only hours into this crisis, and several shoes have yet to drop.
Hubris will get you in the end, every time. One of them winning, Prigozhin or Putin, isn't the only option on the table. Other oligarchs have built up private armies. And then you have restive ethnic republics. There are countless ways this could turn out.
It's a good thing that we have someone like Joe Biden navigating these waters. I expect he won't get much sleep for the next few days.