Breaking news in the morning: Wagner chief Prigozhin has started a military revolt, is calling on all Russian soldiers and Russians to join him, has crossed the Russian border with his troops and wants to lead a “March for justice” to Moscow. He warns anyone who gets in his way to be considered an enemy and eliminated. Fighting is said to have already broken out near Rostov, Putin’s Russian guards have been mobilized to protect Moscow and the Kremlin, the FSB has brought charges against him for a „military coup“ and the Attorney General is asking for 20 years, but strangely enough not the death penalty. The German secret service made a fool of itself once again and the BND boss was probably a bit hasty and cheeky with his statement that there were „no cracks in the Putin system“ difernt to the analysis of the MI6, Poland and CIA.

This will probably once again be seen as proof within NATO that the Germans are still blind on the Russian eye because of Ostpolitik, continue to postpone the turning point, still do not want to meet the 2% NATO target and that the old „German question“ still exists.This was also evident when the Poles initially rejected the new German ambassador in Poland, because in his previous position as NATO intelligence chief he produced nothing but whitewashed assessments of the situation and misinformation about Russia on an assembly line.

Prigozhin’s uprising can now take different courses: he is crushed and sentenced as a traitor to the country (strangely enough, the Prosecutor General’s Office only asks for 20 years and not the death penalty), longer fights develop, Shoigu and Gerasimov are dismissed as scapegoats and Putin may appoint him as the new military commander before he can advance on Moscow and bring him back into the „Putin system“ or a revolution emerges as in the uprising of the soldiers‘ councils in 1917, if Russian soldiers and Russians also join the March for Justice and storm the Winter Palace. Khodorkovsky has now called for support of Prigozhin. The Russian opposition wants to drive out the devil with Beelzebub and then get rid of him. Probably a bit cheeky. To do this, the opposition in Russia would have to have many soldiers under their command, since this is not possible without weapons. How does the opposition, Navalny in prison, Khodorkovsky in exile want to organize this and won’t the soldiers follow Prigozhin or the Ruspartisans of the Russian neo-Nazi „White Alex“ who was already fighting in Belgograd? So far, Prigozhin’s demands are officilally not yet aimed directly at Putin, nor has he openly called for his overthrow, his story is that Shoigu attacked his troops in Ukraine and brought Putin to the Ukraine war with false information, since all he officially demands at the moment is the dismissal of Gerasimov and Shoigu and purging the „evil“ in the military leadership. He doesn’t appear to be directly attacking Putin himself, but it’s only a matter of time. It is still unclear how this will end and who will ultimately be accused of being a traitor to the fatherland and a stab in the back.

The question remains as to how the other silowiki position themselves. Does that mean a turning point in the Ukraine war? But Prigozhin in power would perhaps after a breather and gathering strength only want to wage the war more brutally, perhaps not just limit it to Ukraine. And Karaganov could become his new ideologue. Difficult to imagine these violent people as a trusting negotiating partner. According to Dr. Rahr Patrushev would declare a state of emergency today and Patrushev and the National Security Council would have „taken control“.

Furthermore, Dr. Rahr just wrote Global Review:

„Patruschev directs the country via secret services. Putin has gone into hiding, Prigozhin has large weapons, he seems to control the Rostov military district. Moscow’s troops are in the Ukraine, only the Kadyrovskys can oppose Prigozhin’s march; can Prigozhin be liquidated or arrested? Rather, the Russian military will start a munity. An imminently dangerous situation for Russia. Much blood will flow.”

But doesn’t the FSB and the Patrushevs still have their own special units like the KGB used to have, the Spetsnaz, OMON or special forces like those used in Kazakhstan? Or are they all in Ukraine and would have to be deducted? Should Shoigu and Gerrasimov withdraw Russian troops from Ukraine to protect themselves? Would Putin allow this? Could Ben Hodges still win the whiskey bet with Global Review that Crimea would fall by August, then perhaps Donbass and Putin too, or would the situation then arise that Merkel’s former military adviser General Vad fears that Putin like a rat in the corner would escalate nuclear or otherwise, maybe even threaten with a new Cuban Missile Crisis? So far, these have only been seen as empty threats, Putin and Medjedev have also remained very vague, and tactical nuclear strikes have also been rejected by Russia’s partner China, but the Russian ideologue of the Asian Pivot Karaganov is now much more precise, not only demanding tactical nuclear strikes in Ukraine, but strategic nuclear strikes, specifically against Boston and Posen and one does not know whether one is dealing with the Madman theory of Kissinger and Nixon, which Reagan used by Colin S. Gray’s „Victory is possible“, the NSC directive of limited nuclear wars and by the second „silent“ Cuban Missile Crisis which was unnoticed by the public: the Ample Archer NATO maneuver in 1983, or whether they are genuine madmen who, like Karaganov, believe that the USA and NATO would not strategically strike back if Boston and Poznan were to be cremated with nuclear weapons because they themselves didn’t want to destroy themselves. Actually Kissinger’s „brinkmanpship“ rethought on the atomic abyss, especially since the Cuban Missile Crisis at the time ended in a happy ending. And even before that, there are other military options according to the Russian military doctrine “escalate to de-escalate”.

Especially since Gazprom and other oligarchs wanted to set up their own mercenary armies to break Wagner’s monopoly. Whereby in the case of Gazprom this again means a mercenary army for Patrushev jr. linked to Gazprombank, while Medjedev operates more through Sberbank and is vice chief of the National Security Council, Putin the chief and Patruschev sr. the General sectretary. But do these mercenary groups already exist or are they still in the proces of being set up, could there be a counterweight or has Prigozhin now deliberately started his military revolt, because they don’t exist yet and he didn’t want to wait for any competition and counter-forces – similar to the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan? Some people even speak of the persepctive of warlordism in Russia. But how loyal are Prigozhin’s mercenary troops to him and could they or parts of them not be bought out or could a Brutus be found for a Judas wage and liquidate him or depose him or just arrest him, maybe then replace him as the new Wagner chief by Putin’s mercy and on his payroll? This is probably why Prigozhin calls on the Russian soldiers and the Russians to join him, to start a march to Moscow like Mussolini did to Rome and to start a mass movement. Apparently a race between hedgehogs and rabbits.

Hard to say whether that is true, as there is also the option that Kadyrov could join forces with Prigoschin, although FSB-Patrushev sr. would be quite happy to see his son as Putin’s successor, who as a civilian economist, linked to Gazprombank and Agrobank and the „Resource Empire“ and linked to his father as a former FSB chief and head of the National Security Council and would be an interface with the siloviki and could be offered to the West as a negotiating partner for a supposed change as a civil alibi cloak and innovent civilian window dressing.

For now, Dr. Rahr thinks that the situation is like this: “Putin is raging. Wagner controls Rostov – the command center for the war in Ukraine. Shoigu horrified“.

If somebody was thinking in terms of a conspiracy theory, he could think that the CIA and MI 6 have bought the Wagner mercenaries for better pay. Possibly Putin and Shoigu will spread this rumor to discredit Prigozhin as a traitor and foreign agent. Especially since the Rus-Partisans of the Russian neo-Nazi “White Alex” had already advanced to Russia with the help of the Ukrainians and the CIA and occupied Belgograd. It is also not forgotten that Lenin received funds from the Reichswehr and was put on the train to Russia to weaken or overthrow the tsar through revolution or destabilization in order to pacify the eastern front so that the German army could concentrate on the western front. In addition, the German general staff around Hindenbug and Ludendorff calculated that the Bolsheviks would last 3 months at best, but drag Russia into chaos and during the civil war that they would soon be history, but the result was 70 years of Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact, Korean and Vietnam War as well as other proxy wars of the Cold War. As ex-NATO General Domröse likes to call it: “unintended effects”. It could be similar with Prishogin, but in all probability he has not been sold by the West and otherwise one would just underestimate, as with Western support for Islamists up to Osama Bin Laden during the Cold War until 9 11. that Prigozhin, like Lenin and the communists, have their own Aganda and that in the case of Prigozhin, decades of Russian fascism could result, including the danger of a world war.

Well, but before the March of Justice Putin paid Prigoshin and fed the beast.. To quote Goethe: I can’t get rid of the spirits I called up. If you rely on mercenaries, criminals, felons, murderers and other anti-social aucillary troops, you don’t need to be surprised that they aren’t loyal and just go into business for themselves. That was already the case with Adolf Hitler, whom the Reichswehr and his commanding officer Meyer sent to the DAP, from which he then founded his own startup, the NSDAP, and then had a meteoric takeoff. Let’s wait and see whether Prigozhin’s March for Justice is more like the Hitler coup in 1923 or Mussolini’s march on Rome – one a failure, the other a success. But with Hitler it was the not strategic, more symbolic Feldherrenhalle, which he occupied with a few desperados and poorly armed, chaotic and drunk SA troops and ex-soldiers and retired general Ludendorf then quickly retreated, but Prigoschin has a battle-hardened troops and he controls the command center for the Ukraine war in Rostov, but it could be that as his troops are mercenaries they can be bought and that they could be lacking in loyalty. That could be his Achilles‘ heel if he didn’t promise them hoped-for looted property and future riches in the event of a successful coup. At least that is the hope of some siloviki, but it is questionable whether it will come to that, especially since, according to Rahr, “the specter of civil war is currently hanging over the country”.