“Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” — Proverbs 16:18
Boy, looks like Yevgeny Prigozhin got way out over his Wagner skis, hey? You need a real big stick to poke the bear, and it seems as though he couldn’t find one when he reached into his fatigues for something to wave at Vladimir Putin. I haven’t seen a bootlegger’s turn that snappy since “The Rockford Files.”
Watching bloodthirsty fascists bumping dickheads over the best way to fuck up someone else’s country is not my idea of light entertainment, especially when I have no idea how much of it is performance art.
Some smart folks say Prigozhin is a dead man walking, a bad dog who snapped at his master and got shipped off to a farm in Belarus where he’ll have the run of the back 40, happily chasing bunny rabbits all day.
Others say Prigozhin caught Pooty-poot with his Stalinist drawers down, the inept Russian army overcommitted and outmaneuvered, and forced him to cut a deal using Belarus boss-fella Aleksandr Lukashenko — who seems to be a bro-brah of both belligerents — as a go-between.
The guys to watch, it seems, are Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. Prigozhin would like to have their jobs, their stature — and, not incidentally, their nuts for a necklace.
And since Shoigu and Gerasimov are fucking up in spectacular fashion what was supposed to be a cakewalk in Ukraine, maybe Vlad the Impaler is using Prigozhin as an adjunct to the Kremlin’s HR department.
If one or both of them suddenly decides to retire to spend more time in their dachas with the family, Putin gets another KGB merit badge from the media, and Prigozhin starts to look less like Steve Buscemi and more like Steve McQueen.
Doesn’t mean Putin won’t croak him too, of course. Talk about your toxic work environments.
Mad Blog Media 
Just trying to figure out Russian politics and backroom wheeling and dealing gives me a brain cramp. I do know that the world, mostly African nations and Ukraine, would be much better off if all of Wagner and pootie just dropped dead.
That would be a good thing for pretty much anyone who doesn’t care for random rocket launches into their AO.
That sort of nonsense has a negative impact on property values. And I bet State Farm and Allstate are considering refusing new policies in that neighborhood.
I’m wondering which one of them blinked first when they had this big game of chicken. Like you, I suspect one or both of these boneheads are not long for this world. Question is, which one.
A bit of prose here from Brian Klaas at The Atlantic.
I like Tom Nichols, also of The Atlantic, on stuff like this too.
Likewise, Phillips Payson O’Brien is usually worth a read.
That O’Brien piece made me think, and he is on to something. Vlad, are the generals giving you trouble? I will give you a reason to sack them. Just keep the money and supplies coming. And the Russian army is a paper tiger. So, they hint at the nuke card.
But, I should have known that article would be a good one, heh?
Them O’Brien fellers is sharp.
Tom knows his shit.
Don’t most people know their shit? I know mine. It’s brown and gooey and smells like, well like shit. Sometimes when I have squirrel there’s little hairs in it.
Sorry, I just had to be a smart ass today.
I wonder. Do I smell rotten caviar? It’s almost as if the Wagner episode was played out per a prearranged cookbook recipe. How many casualties were there? Perhaps the idea was to make clear that the Russian defense leadership was lacking, but maybe also, the act was to display that even Prigozhin bows to the tenants of Putin’s authority. Yes, it may seem that Putin has lost face, but to the Russian people it may be viewed differently.
Besides the general conscripted soldier, I wonder who else in Russian is losing out during their Ukraine fiasco. Somebody(s) in the country is paying for it while those chummed up with the defense industry is shopping for new dachas.
It seems like I’m shilling awful hard for The Atlantic today, but Anne Applebaum has a good piece noting the difficulty of trying to suss out just what the hell is going on in Russia these days. She notes:
I continue to read but haven’t seen it yet. What happens to all of Prigozhin’s loyal soldiers that were involved in the rebellion? It’s indicated that those who chose not to take part will sign contracts (their lives away?) and be drawn into the Russian army under the command of Shoigu. Will those who were loyal to Prigoshin be taken out (in?) and executed? Or is everything all ok and they can just gone on with their lives as citizens? I guess maybe in Russia you can’t trust anything. Kind of like the way it used to be.
If only they could all manage to take each other out and the Russian army decide to go home and leave everything but their spare uniforms in Ukraine, but that ain’t gonna happen no matter how much we want it to.
Never understood the mania for power. Don’t these cult-of-personality types ever take a day off?
No. The ordinary person keeps reaching for wealth and power, therefore they can never have enough. Pootie and dumpster are ordinary people. I would say even less than that.
– Now “exiled” in Belarus, Yevgeny Prigozhin will fall from a window pushed by –
A. Vladimir Putin
B. Sergei Shoigu ( I’m goin’ with Sergio )
C. Alexander Lukashenko
D. Simultaneously by all of the above.
– Since the demise of Prigozhin will take place in The Republic of Belarus, Putin will wash his hands and say, “NOT ME.” “I had nothing to do with it.” Then find a scapegoat. Путин говорит работа лося и белки.
E. A voluptuous Russian beauty that specializes in seducing lustful men (and women too when needed) and while they are in climatic ecstasy, injecting them with a barely traceable chemical that paralyzes them. While in this state of stupor, the mentioned open window comes into play and gravity does the rest of the dirty work.
If I was in the life insurance business, I would not be in a hurry to sell Prigozhin a policy.