Things are certainly getting interesting in Russia. The tension between Viktorovich Prigozhin and his private mercenary Wagner Group and the Russian Defense Ministry seems to have reached a boiling point. This tension has been ongoing for some time with Prigozhin accusing the regular Russian military of incompetence while his Warner Group has often been a major factor in whatever success Russia has had in its ongoing war in Ukraine, all the while sustaining heavy casualties.
After the Russian military allegedly attacked one of Prigozhin’s camps resulting in the deaths of a number of his troops, Prigozhin vowed revenge and ostensibly called for armed insurrection against the Russian military. In addition, Prigozhin has come right out and said over social media that Putin has been lying to the Russian people about the Ukraine war. Moscow apparently took the possibility of a coup seriously as the Kremlin was surrounded by military vehicles when Pregozhin vowed to march on Moscow!
Mysteriously, as suddenly as this all started, it seemed to end abruptly after a deal supposedly brokered by pro-Moscow, Belarus President Lukashenko. Apparently, in exchange for Putin dropping any charges against Pregozhin, he will exile himself to Belarus and some of his troops will sign up for the regular Russian military. Quite frankly, there are so many liars in this mix it is hard to tell what the hell is really going on. You can’t believe Putin (recall him saying was not planning to invade Ukraine?). You can’t believe Pregozhin. You can’t believe Lukashenko. You can’t believe the Russian state media. This is kind of like listening to Donald Trump, Majorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Paul Gosar all try to explain why it was perfectly OK for Trump to cache extremely sensitive US nuclear secrets in the bathroom at Mar a Lago!!
Years ago, I lived in a house with a pool. Some cute little ducks took up residence in our yard and due to California laws regarding migrating waterfowl, we could not remove them. They were very cute until they spent weeks swimming around our pool, pooping their little hearts out and causing the pool to turn so green and filled with algae that it was impossible to see beneath the surface. That’s kind of like what is going on now in Russia. You see all these characters swimming around on top of a slimy pool filled with shit so it’s impossible to understand what is really going on below the surface! I would guess that whatever is going on, it is far from over!
All this instability in Russia is a good thing for Ukraine. The chaos can only help their counteroffensive against the Russian military. On the surface, one might think that the downfall of Putin would ultimately be a good thing for the world, however, it raises the question about who would succeed him in a country brimming with nuclear weapons! That should give us all pause.
I also wonder what all the Putin-leaning members of Congress who have been questioning the war in Ukraine and parroting Putin’s remarks about how his war against Ukraine is justified. My guess is they will either remain silent or come up with one of their crazy conspiracy theories to blame someone other than Putin for creating this entire mess. It will certainly be interesting to see how this all plays out!
While this plays out half-way around the world, there are those in this country that seem to be trying to stage a coup of sorts. Crazy Lauren Boebert is having a contest with Crazy Majorie Taylor Greene to see who can introduce the most articles of impeachment against the greatest number of current members of the administration including President Biden, the head of the FBI, Christopher Wray, and others. These efforts are very transparent efforts by these two women to throw red meat to the MAGA faithful and generate sound bites to be used in fund raising. This is not governance – this is political theater more akin to the clown show at the circus. The circus in Russia has nothing on the circus here in the US. Although I think the circuses in Russia still use dancing bears! We seem to be partial to dancing bimbos!
