russia. one of them is prigozhin telling russia and telling the world that putin s war in ukraine is not for the reasons that he said it was. he said, this war wasn t needed to return russian citizens to our bosom nor to demilitarize or de-nazi fy ukraine. the war was needed so a bunch of animals could simply exult in glory. someone telling the truth like that from his perch in russia seems indelible. the fact that putin fled moscow when wagner troops were marching on moscow is indelible and the other thing that seems indelible here is the question that is, the fact that it s left unresolved what happened to the mutineering forces prigozhin appears maybe to have brought with him to belarus. those who participated in the armed revolt are at large and we don t know what happens to this
arrested and prosecuted not just for holding up signs that say no to war but literally for holding up blank signs that say nothing when regular russian citizens are facing years in prison for making a drawing against the war or even making lists of russian casualties from the war, here is prigozhin, putin s guy running this private military contractor company, talking to social media like every day, showing corpses of russian fighters, screaming expletives against russian military leadership calling them criminals and worse. calling for them to be killed saying the russian elite is corrupt and the war is a lie. why are they letting prigozhin do that? well, friday apparently he hit the end of this rope. he announced in effect a mutiny. wagner fighters versus russia. wagner fighters took over a military outpost in russia that is key to supplying russian forces in ukraine. they took it over without firing a shot.
don t necessarily claim as your national military. for example, there is a bit after civil war under way in sudan right now. might be weird or at least sort of difficult for the russian government to explain why it was deploying regular russian military troops to assist one of the sides fighting in the civil war in sudan. it is much less controversial for the russian government if instead this random, for profit, private army turns up there, the wagner group. so they turned up to promote russian interests in the sudanese civil war with the russian government able to say oh, we ve got nothing to do with it. they ve done the same thing in sudan, libya, mali, syria. wherever russia wants to exert armed military influence, but they don t want to explain that s what they re doing with their regular military. also of course ukraine. prigozhin s wagner group had a lot of attention for battle field successes in ukraine but
lukashenko s country to live out his days? what? i don t know. nobody seems to know what exactly is going to happen to him there or to his wagner group fighters. are they all going to belarus with him? putin gave a speech to the nation from an undisclosed location in which he appeared enraged and said this was all betrayal and treason and there would be no mercy. he just as quickly appears to have backed off that and now gave a speech today saying it s fine. those guys can all just stay in belarus. so obviously there are many questions now. did putin almost just get toppled in russia? i mean a hostile force, a hostile, heavily armed force got within 150 miles of moscow with apparently no resistance whatsoever. so that doesn t seem good even if it was only a dry run, only a dress rehearsal. and what the heck is going on
they were greeted warmly by the russian citizens of that town in which the military garrison is located. and then wagner troops started to advance toward moscow saying out loud that s where they were going. columns of wagner troops going hundreds of miles in a straight shot right at moscow. they got to within 150 miles of moscow. the whole world was bracing for a military coup in red square. putin himself purportedly fled. he left moscow as wagner fighters were closing in. and then prigozhin and his wagner fighters turned around. because apparently, lukashenko, the dufus dictator of belarus was the one who made the call. he made a call to prigozhin to offer a very strange off ramp to this very strange crisis. the end result is that prigozhin has gone to belarus to