Russia invades Ukraine

[Trojan97]

Absolutely wild that there is still no word from Putin. Apparently he is scheduled to speak "soon".

[FlamesAddiction]

They need to hire this guy.

[holden]

Putin live address now. Sky News you tube

[Hemi-Cuda]

Best case scenario is probably Prigozhin causing significant damage within Russia and undermining Putin's power before ultimately being eliminated. I'm fully on Team Chaos tonight

[Trojan97]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1672501714253934593

[Itse]

Prigozhin btw is deeply connected with the Internet Research Agency, a very significant Russian troll factory. The information space inside Russia could get really wild.

Is Prigozhin worse or better than Putin is kind of impossible to say at this point. As a person he's probably the absolute worst kind; ruthless, greedy, corrupt, power hungry. The upside with Prigozhin is that if he ends up as the power to be in Russia, everyone outside of Russia already knows this is guy is a ruthless warlord. He's not going to fool any foreign politicians. (Well, except for the really dumb ones like Trump.)

The worst part about Putin is his nationalism, which is what drove him to attack Ukraine. Paradoxically, if Prigozhin has less morals than Putin, he might be less dangerous in practice to most of the world, because he wouldn't be so driven to imperialistic endeavours.

I can imagine perfectly realistic scenarios where Prigozhin wins and it improves the overall situation in multiple ways.

Let's for example say that Prigozhin ultimately thinks this is a dumb war. He's more selfish than Putin, and is really more interested in being rich and powerful than anything else. I would say this is plausible.

He wins the war, sets himself up as "the man keeping Russia together" by controlling the military, forces Putin to retire (or creates a suicide), picks a successor or even let's an election for the puppet president to happen, has that president end the war (so the decision is not publicly on him), then sits back and enjoys his position as the real power in the country but out of the limelight until his death, not even bothering with day to day politics because laws and rules don't apply to him anyway, causing the country to become somewhat more actually democratic. Not because he cares about democracy, but because a divided multi-party political system with constantly changing leadership stops anyone rising up to challenge him.

I could paint the worst case scenarios too, but I'm deciding not to.

[DeluxeMoustache]

^ Prighozin is working with finite resources as well.

If he believes this is a dumb (unwinnable) war, he won’t necessarily have resources to battle Ukraine supported by the west indefinitely

[Jacks]

Prigozhin is a trash person but you got to admit he has some balls.
Millions of Russian men are too afraid to even speak against the government and here he is invading Russia. I just hope he dies with Putin, but who knows what new nightmare will assume control.

[Pointman]

Prigozhin is half-jew. He also was raised and started business with his Jewish step-father (as his Jewish father died early). Prigozhin is many things, but he's not nazi/fascist at all.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/mercen...-civilization/

[Jacks]

Good to see you around Pointman, hope all is good with you and your family.

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by Jacks

Good to see you around Pointman, hope all is good with you and your family.

It is all fine, we live in Israel, my wife and kids are on the beach right now. I'm watching events with much interest of course, but I am not in any kind of danger.

[Street Pharmacist]

Thank God Biden won the 2020 election

[FormerPresJamesTaylor]

Nazi? Probably not. Fascist? Probably yes. Regardless of those labels he's a terrible person and if a bullet was put through his head the world would be a better place. Hopefully that happens after he and his Wagner Group kill a bunch of other Russian War Mongers.

[Cheese]

seems like preps may be underway for movement in Belarus.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1672610013951475712

https://twitter.com/user/status/1672536930725117952

https://twitter.com/user/status/1672519133299195905

https://twitter.com/user/status/1672547347803381761

https://twitter.com/user/status/1672579632778952708

[Slava]

This is fascinating. The chaos is disconcerting, but at the same time this is going to be incredibly interesting to see how it all plays out.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Slava

This is fascinating. The chaos is disconcerting, but at the same time this is going to be incredibly interesting to see how it all plays out.

Sure, "interesting" as long as nukes don't get involved.

[JohnnyB]

If Prigozhin seizes power, we could well just see another Suharto, Amin, Franco, Pot, Pinochet, Musolini etc.

Civil War is also not peace. The last time civil war happened in Russia cost as many as 10 million lives. We could cheer on the end of war in Ukraine by something that leads into a much larger and more severe humanitarian crisis with far more civilian lives lost and another brutal dictator in power.

That's not even mentioning the question of what happens with all the nuclear weapons during that kind of turmoil.

I hope we see this lead towards the end of war in Ukraine, but I'm not cheering on a civil war or the rise of a new brutal dictator coming straight off the battlefield into power.

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by FormerPresJamesTaylor

Nazi? Probably not. Fascist? Probably yes. Regardless of those labels he's a terrible person and if a bullet was put through his head the world would be a better place. Hopefully that happens after he and his Wagner Group kill a bunch of other Russian War Mongers.

Fascism is an ideology. Prigozhin is all about money and power, he has no ideology. He is also not a spring chicken being 62 years old, so I don't expect him to become a long-term ruler of Russia (or whatever remains of it).

Regardless, I remember how 16 months ago the whole world was hoping for someone, anyone to stop Putin. If it's former convict with long record of war crimes... Well, I guess I can't be too picky.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

If Prigozhin seizes power, we could well just see another Suharto, Amin, Franco, Pot, Pinochet, Musolini etc.

Civil War is also not peace. The last time civil war happened in Russia cost as many as 10 million lives. We could cheer on the end of war in Ukraine by something that leads into a much larger and more severe humanitarian crisis with far more civilian lives lost and another brutal dictator in power.

That's not even mentioning the question of what happens with all the nuclear weapons during that kind of turmoil.

I hope we see this lead towards the end of war in Ukraine, but I'm not cheering on a civil war or the rise of a new brutal dictator coming straight off the battlefield into power.

Agreed with this. And a civil war within Russia is a terrifying and unpredictable concept.

Beyond the fact that Russia has vast nuclear weapons and chemical weapons stockpiles.

I wouldn't be surprised if Wagner moves on Moscow, that the Russian military will use every means necessary to stop them.

Wagner doesn't care about civilian casualties nor does Putin, nor his generals.

A collapsed warring Russia become not only a international basket case, but it could become like a collection of barbarian states.

As much as we hate Putin, nature abhors a vacuum and if he is deposed we are likely to get worse "Hard men" in charge.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Sure, "interesting" as long as nukes don't get involved.

I think that goes without saying though.