If by any chance you’ve had a busy weekend and then slept all the way to Wednesday, Russian Terrorists One threatened to kill Russian Terrorists Two. They started an armed coup in Russia, blew up six Russian helicopters and one Russian military jet, killed 13 Russian pilots, talked to a Belarusian terrorist and decided to accept his offer of relocation. If by any chance you find this pathetic and idiotic – you are correct. After all, we are talking about Putin’s Russia, so all of the boxes check out.
Do pardon my sarcasm, though. Honestly, even though all of it does remind one of a circus, I do not find this mess all that funny. So, let’s talk about the Wagner chief’s 24 hours of chaos in Russia and Putin’s absolutely miserable and deplorable response to the armed mutiny.
First and foremost, I would like to stress:
- Ukraine has repeatedly warned that a significant protest potential has accumulated within Russia itself and an internal resistance movement against the regime has been brewing for a long time. We saw it clearly on Saturday, when the armed forces of Russia not only didn’t stop the coup, but some either refused to fight or declared their willingness to join the Wagner group in their mission.
- The blame for the excessively armed Wagner group lies directly with Putin. He personally raised this monster and endowed Yevgeny Prigozhin, a convicted criminal, with enormous influence as well as with roughly $1-billion for his services over the years.
- Wagner’s activities are a direct consequence of the Kremlin’s war, as this group was armed and prepared for aggression against not only Ukraine, but the world too. I’ve written extensively about these convicted murderers, rapists and paedophiles with life sentences in Russia, getting a “free pass” after just half a year of combat on our soil, then getting a passport and travelling the world as tourists. Putin has sealed all of the records of the released criminals in the Wagner group, so there’s no way you’ll know if that Russian tourist in your city has tortured, raped or killed his fellow Russian citizens before being paid to do the same in Ukraine. I’m not even mentioning Wagner’s part in diabolical conflicts around the world, especially here, on the African continent.
- Putin’s regime has demonstrated the depth of its degradation. The myth of “Putin’s stability” has been badly damaged – it sometimes seems like a failed state (with 7,000 nuclear warheads) in which anything can happen. This past weekend was 100% proof of that.
The Wagner group took over two big Russian regions within hours on Saturday with no resistance offered. They shot down helicopters and a plane. Putin offered a circus-level routine… A couple of hours later, “the big, strong leader” forgave everyone in the hopes they would leave him alone.
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Moscow and the surrounding region were sealed off, all roads to the capital were blocked with trucks, aviation was deployed and Russia started bombing the Wagner column. They dismantled bridges, with reports of one being exploded, and dug up the road surface with excavators. Police, Kadyrovtsy (Chechen security forces), and the Russian Guard were mobilised.
Prigozhin’s rebellion lasted less than a day, but it terrified Putin and his propagandists, who lost their minds in those few hours. All of this, surely, will not pass without consequences for the power system built by Putin. The “strong Russian leader” declared amnesty for Prigozhin, the murderer of 13 Russian pilots, just a few hours after calling him a “traitor” and vowing to hold him accountable for everything.
The problem of Russia needs to be addressed by the international community as soon as possible because the Russian government not only provokes global crises, but is unable to cope with its own degradation.
Ukrainians know what Russian terrorism means. In just two nights, on 23 and 24 June, 62 cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles were launched across Ukraine. Thirteen were launched on the night of the 23rd and 49 on the 24th. These numbers only account for the missiles and do not include drones, artillery, guided aerial bombs or banned incendiary projectiles.
Sixty-two cruise missiles. In two nights. It’s been 16 months of this unprovoked madness.
Here are photos from Kyiv, taken on Monday. This is the night in Kyiv. Five people didn’t see the morning, and we are still clearing the rubble; we don’t know if there are others there who did not survive.
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The world must stop Russian terrorism. It’s time to permanently close Putin’s circus. DM
Citizens of South Africa are carrying a burden of international shame that seems never ending and gets heavier every year. First we had the Mbeki era where thousands of our countrymen died because he refused to allow the use of anti-retrovirals to combat aids. Then we were subjected to the disgusting spectacle of Jacon Zuma handing the country’s wealth to a family from India in return for favours and untold amounts of money. And now we have a president who supports a monster in Russia who invades a peaceful neighbouring state to bomb and kill its citizens. And, in a display of supreme arrogance, president Ramaphosa tells the country that anyone who thinks the ANC will be beaten in the 2024 elections is “silly”. He needs to be proved wrong as a matter of urgency.
I think the author is incorrect to characterize Putin as a communist as he with others led by Yegveny Primakov resigned from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and joined the All Russia Party of Yeltsin. Putin is a Russian nationalist with the Tsarist imperial designs of a capitalist Russian empire along the lines of Peter the Great. I was interesting that before Spief they quoted the Tsar, Peter the Great, in barring journalists from attending the annual charade of Putin in St Petersburg. The communist party in Russia polls less than 2%. The second mistake is to refer to a rebellion as a coup. The Wagner Group is a mercenary group that is not part of the regular military but though financed by the Kremlin like the American private military companies such as Black Rock. Having clarified these two important issue that need to be put into their proper context, one has to deal with the issues raised in the article.
The international community is not governments only but the peoples of the world including the very Russian people who were cheering the thug Prigozhin on his way to another thug called Putin. We have autocratic governments that do not represent their people but the thugs who have usurped power like in Russia and Belarus. You have a government of the ANC that does not represent the views of the majority of South Africans on the criminal invasion of Ukraine by the Russian thugs. We support Ukraine and those who are supporting it militarily to defend themselves.