[Goose]

https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status...17376?s=20

Nothing here sounds like a Putin master strategy

Agree. It would appear that Prigozhin simply overplayed his hand. When the rest of the army/population didn't actively join with him, he realized that by sheer force of numbers he has no chance. I will be totally convinced of that if Prigozhin falls out of a window repeatedly sometime in the near future :-). If he doesn't, it implies that Putin considers him still useful in some sense. That doesn't mean it was a "master plan" however, it just means that the less than optimal (from Putin's point of view) solution included keeping Prigozhin around, "just in case".

We also have the previous two posts that assert Prigozhin won and that his minions are taking over the "important" posts in the military. I am going to be very surprised if that happens, but we shall see. Putin has always attempted to play off different interests against each other and prevent anyone from obtaining too much power. It seems hard to believe he would allow such a concentration of power at this point. He would have been better off fighting Prigozhin straight up instead of giving him the controlling postings in the Russian military.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66006880 takes the view that Prigozhin is a spent force. Note that they also still report only one helicopter being shot down by Wagner. I think a lot of the "data" reported out there is still pretty weakly supported. No one person witnessed the entire breadth of the "incident" and everybody is relying on others for many of their "facts". IMO a lot of the "facts" will turn out to be wrong, as has often happened in this war.

https://www.theatlantic.com/internationa...er/674522/

One quote I like a lot:

Prigozhin, after all, is not exactly a military genius or a diplomat; he’s a violent, arrogant, emotional man who may well have embarked on this scheme huffing from a vat of his own overconfidence.

So maybe he isn't a military genius? One of his men dead for every 48 cm of advance. 7 to 9 months behind schedule in the capture of Bakhmut. IMO the Atlantic can be a bit erratic in it's reporting/analysis quality, but IMO it got at least this correct.

[Goose]

https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status...17376?s=20

Nothing here sounds like a Putin master strategy

Agree. It would appear that Prigozhin simply overplayed his hand. When the rest of the army/population didn't actively join with him, he realized that by sheer force of numbers he has no chance. I will be totally convinced of that if Prigozhin falls out of a window repeatedly sometime in the near future :-). If he doesn't, it implies that Putin considers him still useful in some sense. That doesn't mean it was a "master plan" however, it just means that the less than optimal (from Putin's point of view) solution included keeping Prigozhin around, "just in case".

We also have the previous two posts that assert Prigozhin won and that his minions are taking over the "important" posts in the military. I am going to be very surprised if that happens, but we shall see. Putin has always attempted to play off different interests against each other and prevent anyone from obtaining too much power. It seems hard to believe he would allow such a concentration of power at this point. He would have been better off fighting Prigozhin straight up instead of giving him the controlling postings in the Russian military.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66006880 takes the view that Prigozhin is a spent force. Note that they also still report only one helicopter being shot down by Wagner. I think a lot of the "data" reported out there is still pretty weakly supported. No one person witnessed the entire breadth of the "incident" and everybody is relying on others for many of their "facts". IMO a lot of the "facts" will turn out to be wrong, as has often happened in this war.

https://www.theatlantic.com/internationa...er/674522/

One quote I like a lot:

Prigozhin, after all, is not exactly a military genius or a diplomat; he’s a violent, arrogant, emotional man who may well have embarked on this scheme huffing from a vat of his own overconfidence.

So maybe he isn't a military genius? One of his men dead for every 48 cm of advance. 7 to 9 months behind schedule in the capture of Bakhmut. IMO the Atlantic can be a bit erratic in it's reporting/analysis quality, but IMO it got at least this correct.