Foreign Affairs
Related: About this forumHead of Wagner: "Russia already has won, but will eventually lose, but will then win again."
https://www.thedailybeast.com/wagner-boss-yevgeny-prigozhin-claims-russias-mission-accomplished-in-ukraine...
For the authorities and for society as a whole, it is necessary today to put a decisive end to the [special military operation.] The ideal scenario is to announce the end of the [special military operation], to inform everyone that Russia has achieved the results that it planned, and in a sense we have actually achieved them. We have ground down a huge number of fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and we can report that the tasks of the [special military operation] have been completed, he wrote.
He claimed that in theory, Russia had already put a decisive end to the war by wiping out a huge chunk of Ukraines male population, sending refugees fleeing, and seizing territory. Omitted, of course, was that the same could be said about Russia on the first two points.
And bizarrely, amidst all of his pontificating, Prigozhin appeared to admit that Ukrainian territories seized by Russia arent actually with Moscow forever, as the Kremlin has so often claimed.
Ukraine stands to lose if the war comes to a standstill, he said, because those territories, that are today under the control of the Russian Federation, can stay at the disposal of the Russian Federation for years.
...
In that case, he said, global changes in Russian society could lead to an all-out revolution as pro-war patriots seek revenge against bureaucrats and figures who were either critical of the war or reluctant to use harsher battlefield methods.
This is meant as a threat against Putin's faction in the russian government. The pro-war extremists in Russia are literally demanding genocide against Ukrainians, which Putin and his people are against: They want to conquer, not destroy.
He appeared to shrug off further losses and even a battering of the Russian military, saying Russia would simply lick its wounds if defeated in a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Let's look at the achievements of the Special Military Operation:
* The Ukraine-Russia relationship has gone from "I'm mad at you." to "I'm gonna kill your ass." Any hope for Russia to secretly control Ukraine via soft power, as they did in the past, is simply gone for approximately the rest of the 21st century.
* Two neighbours of Russia have entered NATO.
* Ukraine is moving politically away from Russia and towards NATO and EU.
* Russia's dream of founding their own international economic union, a mirror to the EU and the Eurozone, to take control over the economies of Central Asia via soft power, is dead. There will never be a russian counterpart to the economic juggernaut that is the EU and the Eurozone.
* The russian economy is in tatters.
* The russian people have been transformed from the passive complacency of letting the government do whatever it wants into a polarized and politically active society, with actual political opinions strongly in favor of Putin and strongly against Putin.
* The russian military is depleted, most of its modern gear is destroyed. Many specialists and the most experienced soldiers are already dead.
* Russia's neighbours have learned that Russia isn't a benevolent super-power, but is actually weak and hostile towards them.
* Russia's economy is now at the mercy of China, their second-biggest geopolitical rival after the West.
Tetrachloride
(7,847 posts)gordianot
(15,240 posts)Irish_Dem
(47,131 posts)China had spent years loaning out $billion to counties around the world for huge infrastructure projects
which would use Chinese companies to manage the projects. China would have a way to exert control
over these countries and also fund Chinese construction companies.
But between Covid and then Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the world economy is hurting, and many of these
countries cannot pay back the loans. China will have to write off these huge amounts of debt or sink
more money into it.
Domestically the Chinese economy is in trouble. Municipal debt is ridiculously high, China keeps funding towns and cities
to build infrastructure they don't need. The Chinese people are refusing to spend any money, so domestic consumption is way down.
LastLiberal in PalmSprings
(12,586 posts)turd."
Beastly Boy
(9,375 posts)Prigozhin is simultaneously lamenting the incompetence of Putin's "siloviki", the top echelon of bureaucrats who are currently in power and control the government on Putin's behalf, and appealing to the growing base of extreme nationalists that Putin's propaganda cultivated and empowered since the war began. The apparently insane narrative Prigozhin is putting forward doesn't make any sense in terms of logic, but is totally consistent in terms of promoting his agenda.
Unlike Navalny, the only other Russian who dared to openly challenge Putin from the left and is now literally rotting in jail, Prigozhin, and it is now evident from his rhetoric, is challenging Putin from the right. Unlike Navalny, however, he has a well trained armed force to rival that of Russia's now completely compromised army, to protect him and to threaten Putin.
He senses Putin's weakness, and it looks like he is getting ready to make his move and challenge his former boss.
CanonRay
(14,104 posts)1) Continue on as they have been, or
2) Replace Putin with Prighozin, who'd be even worse than Putin.