Russia Vs. America; Here we go again kids!

I Think people might be overplaying the "Putin has been weakened" line, though. Many dictators (Mugabe, Maduro, Mao, etc.) have faced worse things than this and lived through it to continue their rule.
None of them were conducting a full scale invasion of a neighbour that was haemorrhaging badly and proving them to be a paper tiger in the process though. Plus his reaction swinging from "all traitors will be annihilated" to "all is forgiven" to "actually no it isn't I'm very cranky" in the space of 3 days doesn't exactly make him look robust imo. Putin prides himself as a dictator who brooks no dissent, yet he's allowing the leader of a mutiny to slink off after orchestrating an open rebellion?

We'll see how it plays out long term, but yeah I'd say short term he's been substantially weakened.
 
Old mate Prigo seems to be in a spot of bother....

Seems that he was actually hoping to catch Gerasimov and Shoigu in Rostov, but FSB got word of it and removed them. From there Prigo was cuffing it and bit off more than he could chew. He's now a completely spent force and is rethinking his possibly very short future.

I Think people might be overplaying the "Putin has been weakened" line, though. Many dictators (Mugabe, Maduro, Mao, etc.) have faced worse things than this and lived through it to continue their rule.

Once a started, there was no option to turn back. Team Wagner or team Putin has to go. Putin isn't known for being a forgiver.
 
lol...
IMG_6654.jpeg
 
None of them were conducting a full scale invasion of a neighbour that was haemorrhaging badly and proving them to be a paper tiger in the process though. Plus his reaction swinging from "all traitors will be annihilated" to "all is forgiven" to "actually no it isn't I'm very cranky" in the space of 3 days doesn't exactly make him look robust imo. Putin prides himself as a dictator who brooks no dissent, yet he's allowing the leader of a mutiny to slink off after orchestrating an open rebellion?

We'll see how it plays out long term, but yeah I'd say short term he's been substantially weakened.

I don't disagree with any of that, however Maduro did deal with Colombia massing on his border ("massing" doing some work in that sentence, granted), he had low-level insurgencies and mass public uprisings. Deng dealt with getting his arse kicked in Vietnam and Mao dealt with the failure of the Great Leap Forward by literally launching a civil war of sorts, and he died on the throne.

The way I see it is that Putin still holds all the levers of power, including how matters are framed and what the next couple of months look like (except for the war, but that was a factor pre-24 June). I won't disagree that he's taken a pretty hefty hit, but most sentences I see elsewhere discussing that fact continue on as if his decline is inevitable. I just don't see that; there's a lot to say for muddling through by making some pretty hair-raising public examples out of a few people, including Prigo himself.

This is a good episode, worth a listen - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/in-moscows-shadows/id1510124746
 
Cool, will give it a go.

While we're sharing, this bloke is excellent and has done a heap of presentations on Ukraine, Russia, NATO, Europe in a factual, unbiased, objective manner (has been cited by the Australian Institute of International Affiars). Manages to make often fairly dry content engaging and interesting:


TLDW;

 
Never really liked sleepy Joe but he is slowly making me like him.
Cluster bombs for the Ukraine, hoo fucken raa.
Cop that you commie bastards
 
Don't you mean fascist oligarchy? Oh wait a minute, which side were you slandering? Shit! Me too. Ummmm...maybe Bill Clinton has the answer?
 
Don't you mean fascist oligarchy? Oh wait a minute, which side were you slandering? Shit! Me too. Ummmm...maybe Bill Clinton has the answer?
Yeah, they may be fascist pigs now but they will always be commie bastards to me. Pooties mob I'm talking about.
 
Back
Top