A year ago, Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin challenged the Kremlin with a mutiny

13 comments

1. He played Russian roulette with a semi-automatic.

2. Such a shame that he chikened out in the end

3. Biggest blueball of the century.

4. Oh my god, it’s been one whole year already?! Not to mention an extra leap day cause 2024

   No… it… it can’t be, right…? It hasn’t been a whole year since, right…?

5. We all know how uprisings against Putin’s regime end! Everyone who opposes him… is long dead.

6. Im not sure I should say this here but Im gonna do it anyways.

   I personally believe Prigozhin mayyyyyy still be alive

   So I live in Mexico and up until a few months I took a long way from my school to my house, and at some point I had to walk through one of the richer neighborhoods of the city, one day it was maybe max a month after Prigozhin’s death, I was crossing the street and I arrive at some kind of bridge, I was looking down but in the corner of my eye I see an old man, so I let him pass before me, so when hes about to pass he tells me “thank you” in an unfamiliar accent, so I look up, and I see him, and if he wasn’t Prigozhin at least he looked a lot like him, his ears, his head and his body type were all matching.

   After that however I never saw him again, but I read in an article that he may be hiding in Venezuela, but that was 1 article almost a year ago, I don’t think any new information has appeared after that.

7. Russian here.

   It was definitely one of the weirdest mutinies in history, but I don’t think he could have succeeded anyway.

   First, he didn’t have any political support from any of the ruling elite. You need to remember he had 13 years’ imprisonment under articles of “theft”, “robbery”, “fraud” and “involving a minor in the commission of a crime. Then he worked for Putin organizing mercenaries in Africa. So while being a Putin loyalist he was a complete outsider to the ruling circle, and they sure wouldn’t want to let him in. Especially if they are already satisfied with Putin’s system, there is zero reason to let in an outsider bandit and a mercenary.

   Second, he never had any political program for his coup attempt. It wasn’t “I’ll be the new president”, it was “I’ll march towards Moscow to let Putin know my dissatisfaction with undersupplying Wagner”. And the reason Wagner started getting undersupplied is the same as always – they were getting too powerful and too influential.

   The whole of Putin’s rule has been “divide and conquer” – making sure that different government departments compete against each other without having any of them dominant. Regular military vs Wagner was one of those things. And as you can see, when Wagner was done and only the regular military was left, what did Putin do? That’s right, he removed the minister of defense Shoigu (despite him being one of Putin’s closest allies), and cleansed all Shoigu’s people from the MoD. Same principle again – no one can be allowed to get too powerful.

   So essentially Prigozhin was marching on Moscow alone, without any political support, or a political program that could attract more supporters – and not being a politician himself. He was relying on the Z-circles, but those were also getting repressed by Putin to stop them from growing too powerful. Even if he took the Kremlin or the White House, I don’t think he would be able to do anything.

8. Pringles is out there. I want to believe

9. I can understand the chickening part since he didnt know if he was going to win or something but im not sure how he thought hed still be kept alive after what he did. He shouldve defected to China or stayed at the Middle East or something.

10. Then he and 9 other people got blown up 2 months later by Putin. Kinda suprised he got that much time and stayed in Russia.

11. What a wonderful day. The thrilling will be difficult to explain to may sons

12. 2 months later he was dead

13. How did he ever get into a plane again