American in Exile #6 – Prigozhin’s Last Outburst (we think) [Video]

Evgeniy Prigozhin caused quite a stir in Russia and the world today. It is lucky that he did not create a deadly situation in-country, as Russia prosecutes a critical proxy war against the West in Ukraine.

In the middle of the long-hyped “Ukrainian Counteroffensive”, the owner of Wagner PMC took it upon himself to try to get rid of Sergey Shoigu, the Russian Minister of Defense, by apparently taking his forces to Rostov-on-Don to find and get rid of Minister Shoigu.

Apparently that didn’t happen, but what did happen is a a shocking story that we will likely have to carefully unfold and analyze over the next several days. But here is one way of looking at it:

A man who has a whole slew of “released convicts”, fighters to the death and who have a death before surrender code, and a lot of military hardware, went renegade in a nation already at war, apparently intending nothing less than a coup d’etat, even to the point of overthrowing President Putin.

RT even reports that, “during the mutiny, however, the private military outfit reportedly downed multiple aircraft and repeatedly skirmished with Russian forces.” A rather terse note, but an absolutely loaded one. People very likely died because of this man’s decisions – people he was entrusted to fight side-by-side with.

As the stories and reports kept coming in, Mr. Prigozhin’s irrationality appeared more and more evident, but so did something else.

That “something” was the opinion of the people who his forces encountered, in Rostov and other places. While reports of specifics on this matter are scanty, it is all but certain we will see more and more evidence of the mindset of the Russian people thus:

We want no civil war. What you are doing is unacceptable and we do not accept it or welcome it. What the hell are you doing??

Russia has seen other such troubles. The last big event of this Prigozhin event’s scale was probably the 1993 standoff outside the Russian White House. But there have been other times. The year 2000 Chechen suicide bombing near the Tverskaya Metro Station in Moscow that killed seven and injured at least another fifty people. Other such events of terrorism. The Beslan school siege. There are others. In these events and others, the way the Russian people respond to them is certainly with awareness of the great tragedy of such events, but the resulting paranoia that has been the hallmark of the 9-11 attacks in the United States never really took hold in Russia.

And here, the people just simply seemed not interested in having such a drama unfold, one that could have become extremely deadly – and for what purpose, exactly?

At the time of this writing, early morning Sunday the 25th of June, all is quiet. All is almost always quiet at this hour in Moscow. It appears that the attention will be refocused on the war in Ukraine, but questions will remain: What is to become of Mr. Prigozhin himself? How will he be held to account, as what he did was definitely treasonous? What is to become of Wagner PMC? How will this event affect the morale of the Russian regular military and its commanders, who had been more than indulgent to the brat fits Mr. Prigozhin was famous for?

We have more questions than answers at this point. It does not seem wise or fair to speculate on what any of this means, politically or geopolitically, at this time. But it should be provoking some very serious questions.

FURTHER NOTE: At the time of this writing, RT reports that Mr. Prigozhin will go to Belarus. My bet is he will never be allowed in the Russian Federation again.