[hutzlibu]

My estimation: short term it will fail.

Long term it will lead to substantial power movement.

Most of the young nationalistic russians are Wagner fans and despise the ordinary military, they view as corrupt and incompetent (which might be very true).

But they have been the fuel of the war. If Wagner is no more, or just a soulless hulk, this fuel is gone and moral will drop significantly.

And the current options for Prigoshin are

a) become a marty

b) submit to "justice" and public trial (but he knows this will likely not happen, but rather bullet or poison)

c) defect to Ukraine

He already made clear statements, that the war was wrong from the beginning, there was never a threat from Ukraine and the evil military commanders gave Putin wrong information. This sounds to me like building a bridge.

In either case, for the russian empire it is a desaster. And if it becomes a true desaster, there are chances it will become a disaster for everyone, as russian think tanks openly discussed the possibility of "preemptive counter nuclear strike". If they are about to die, they are willing to take everyone with them.

Mostly this is surely bluffing, as they made that statement, while they the internal power struggle was already ongoing as a message to the west: "don't exploit our weakness, we still have nukes". But partly I think it is a legit threat of cornered bullies.

[jacquesm]

> defect to Ukraine

I don't see that happening.

[hutzlibu]

Me currently neither. But this seems to be his only choice, where he would go on living. I am sure, there are secret negotiations taking place behind the scenes.

But he knows, that he will confirm in the eye of the russian public, that he is a traitor then. But officially he already is and his loyal forces can never take Moscow.

[jacquesm]

It gets pretty weird, apparently there is now some kind of deal where he gets to abscond to Belarus and Wagner soldiers will be placed under regular Russian command.

[hutzlibu]

Yes, I totally did not see that coming.

I still would be surprised, if Prigoshin would die of natural causes.

In either case it shows how weak Putin is, that he has to let him go, after they did an armed uprising.

[jacquesm]

Agreed they both come out of this much weaker than they were going in.

[jacquesm]

Either he or Putin will be dead in the next few weeks, my money is on Putin surviving for the time being. But he's going to come out much weaker.

[Balgair]

Vova will have to purge whatever is left after this coup.

Doing so will make an already paper-tiger of an army/bureaucracy even worse off, as paranoia and shows of loyalty will be paramount, not effective fighting ability. Think North Korea, but even more so.

Whatever command structure of the army is left will have even worse of a time in Ukraine and, especially, in Crimea.

Vova is running out of cards to play, Wagner having now taken some double-digit percent of his remaining deck.

When Ukraine pushes into Crimea, the chances of nukes going off goes up a lot now.