Yevgeny prigozhin

Monday

Mark Galeotti

No, Russia is not on the verge of a coup

However much Western leaders inveigh against Russian disinformation (which, yes, is a real issue), we should never pretend this is not a two-way street. The sudden spate of news stories reporting that a conveniently anonymous "European intelligence agency" claims that the Kremlin fears a coup looks suspiciously more like a psy-op meant to generate paranoia in the Russian elite than a serious assessment. The claim is that Putin’s personal security has been dramatically stepped up, not simply to protect him from increasingly frequent and far-ranging Ukrainian drone strikes but, in particular, because since the beginning of March, the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin himself have been concerned about the risk of a plot or coup attempt targeting the Russian President.

coup

Wednesday

Curtis Yarvin

My DC bunker

Washington, DC My office this week has been the Starbucks on Capitol Hill. Any random subscriber to my Substack can get a half-hour with me if they book a slot. I do this a lot when I travel and oddly, given the rot of this rotting world, I rarely come away with the feeling that here were 30 precious minutes I’ll never see again. I often want to spend an hour or two. And no one yet has killed or even attacked me. A leftist policy wonk did show up without an appointment, but he just wanted to talk about Ezra Klein. One of this week’s characters was a Russia expert at a foreign policy thinktank, who seems to really know his stuff. He filled in important nuances ofthe Prigozhin coup. Yevgeny Prigozhin never meant to overthrow Vladimir Putin, he said.

curtis yarvin dc

Tuesday

Frank Lavin

Why Biden should let Ukraine strike Russian targets during the lame-duck period

On the back of President Trump’s victory November 5, the end of the election season will open an interesting eleven-week window. President Biden will assume lame-duck status and be freed from any concern that a more aggressive posture toward Russia might hurt Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. Biden might also be considering the implication of handing over Ukraine policy to an individual who has repeatedly signaled his pro-Putin views. Both of these factors argue for Biden breaking from his self-imposed restrictions and supporting Ukraine striking targets in Russian territory during this lame-duck period. Imagine a moderately successful Ukraine attack now, after the November 5 election, on a moderately relevant target, such as a railroad terminal fifty miles inside of Russia.

Kyiv

Monday

Chuck DeVore

Russian failure is a lesson for America

We may never understand the series of events and decisions that led Yevgeny Prigozhin to stage an armed rebellion against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s administration with his Wagner Group private military company, or PMC. Prigozhin was opposed to the planned forcible incorporation of Wagner into the Russian armed forces. He also came to be a sharp critic of the fabricated rationale for Russia’s war on Ukraine and the sloppy way it was being waged by its generals, who are more focused on politics than on defeating Kyiv.

russian military
Oliver Wiseman

Stop trying to make Bidenomics happen

The president is hitting the road this week to kickstart a big push to sell his economic track record. The nation, barely recovered from the excitement of the first “Investing in America” tour earlier this year, will be treated to another few weeks of cabinet members in hardhats talking about green jobs. A memo from White House advisors Anita Dunn and Mike Donilon warns that Biden, cabinet members and other administrators “will continue fanning out across the country to take the case for Bidenomics and the president’s Investing in America agenda directly to the American people.” (Take shelter!) On Wednesday Biden will give what the White House is billing as a “major speech” touting his economic policies.

Yevgeny Prigozhin influencer
Katherine Dee

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the world’s strangest influencer

How did Yevgeny Prigozhin, the hot dog vendor-cum-leader of the Wagner private military company, become addicted to the allure of likes, retweets and digital validation? From the outside looking in, the warlord posts like a rich kid splayed over his dad’s Porsche — except rather than a swanky car, Prigozhin brags of the travails of the world’s deadliest private military, replete with tanks and artillery.   The early war days of PMC Wagner’s social media presence could be compared to that of ISIS or other paramilitary groups: the posts had a clear agenda, including intimidation, like the “hammer of revenge” video they circulated over Telegram, which documented the brutal murder of Yevgeny Nuzhin, a former Wagner Group member.

Saturday

The Spectator

Prigozhin turns back, halting ‘coup’ attempt

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, has tonight halted his march on Moscow, in return for assurances from the Kremlin on his men’s safety. Alexander Lukashenko, Belarusian president, brokered the agreement. Prigozhin has just released the following statement on Telegram: We marched out on June 23 on the Justice March. In one day, we got within 200 kilometers of Moscow. During this time we did not spill a single drop of blood of our fighters. Now comes the moment when blood may be spilled. Therefore, understanding the responsibility that Russian blood will be spilled on one side, we are turning our columns around and retreating in the opposite direction to the field camps.

prigozhin

Friday

John Pietro

Wagner Group leader claims Russian forces attacked his troops

The leader of Russia’s Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed Friday that Russian forces targeted his private military company, with “many victims.” The attack occurred after Prigozhin produced a video where he lambasted the Russian military brass for peddling falsehoods about the war to the Russian public and to President Putin. “The ministry of defense is trying to deceive the public and the president and spin the story that there was insane levels of aggression from the Ukrainian side,” said Prigozhin according to The Guardian, “and that they were going to attack us together with the whole NATO block.” “When Zelensky became president,” he added, “he was ready for agreements. All that needed to be done was to get off Mount Olympus and negotiate with him.

yevgeny prigozhin

Friday

Rory MacLean

Back in the USSR

A perfect summer day in the wild woods west of Moscow. Around us, slender birch saplings lean together, lean apart, like elegant dancers swaying to the music of the wind. Buckets in hand, Dmitri Denisovich and I walk between shimmering streaks of brightness and patches of shade, collecting mushrooms. Every Russian knows the names of at least a dozen forest mushrooms. Adults and children alike are said to be able to follow their rich musty fragrances into the darkest glades, recognizing the tastiest, rarest and most poisonous fungi. ‘Lisichki!’ cries Dmitri, spotting a cluster of yellow ‘little vixen’ chanterelles. ‘My favorite.’ In eastern Europe, all the food is on the table; in the West, it’s all in the cupboard.

russian food