The Lifeboat News
[ Message Archive | The Lifeboat News ]

    Comment by RSH on MoA Archived Message

    Posted by t on July 2, 2023, 3:30 pm, in reply to "Crooke: The Prigozhin Convoy: ‘Everything Changes; Everything Remains the Same’"

    Crooke is wrong as is usually the case on Prigozhin. Examples:

    Prigozhin moves to Belarus to build a Wagner off-shoot that can defend the Belarus southern border, and position itself adjacent to Kiev; the Wagner cadre is absolved of mutiny and, with a tweak to its legal status, largely continues ‘business as usual’.

    It is not yet established that Prigozhin will be "building a Wagner off-shoot". Lukashenko has indeed asked Wagner to train his troops, and there is allegedly evidence that planes belonging to the MoD and used by Wagner are delivering either personnel or materiel to Belarus. So all we know for now is that a small number of Wagner will be used to train Belarus' army. This is in line with the Russian desire to integrate the Belarus military with the Russian army, so it makes sense that Wagner would be permitted to do that by Russia.

    As for "defending the Belarus southern border" and "position itself adjacent to Kiev", this is of course complete nonsense, which is the result of Crooke knowing zip about military matters. Wagner in its best day at full strength would not add significantly to either task without being supported by regular Russian (or in this case, Belarussian) military.

    Putin was, however, less generous, when treating the “the enemies of Russia – the neo-Nazis in Kiev, their Western patrons and other national traitors” who would have benefitted, had the coup succeeded: “They miscalculated” (implying clearly, they had ‘calculated’ aforehand.)

    Again, the same logical error committed by everyone who thinks the CIA was behind it. He misrepresents Putin's remark which was about how the West RESPONDED to the stunt with the idea the West PLANNED the stunt. There remains absolutely zero evidence of that. You'd think Crooke would be a little more conversant with logical reasoning.

    The head of the Russian National Guard, Gen. Viktor Zolotov, speaking after President Putin on Friday, seemed to think so: He noted with “certainty” that Prigozhin’s mutiny “was inspired by Western special services - whose foreign ‘inspiration’ had become overlaid by Prigozhin's own inflated ambitions”.

    General Zolotov only said that whether Western agents may, or may not, have been directly involved in conducting the operation is being fully investigated.

    So they're investigating something they've already decided is true. I doubt that. Note also the vague term "inspired". Either the West concocted the plan or they didn't - "inspiration" is bullshit.

    The reality is that Western intelligence would have been aware of the stunt almost as soon as Russian security services. So any actions which occurred after that by the West can be misinterpreted as "foreknowledge" or "complicity", which is exactly the error Crooke commits.

    I'm unimpressed by this article. It says nothing we don't already know. As for how "huge" it is, I still believe it will be non-news in a week, like much else during this war that has been blown up out of proportion and then forgotten. Moskva, anyone?

    Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jul 1 2023 22:21 utc | 172

    Message Thread: