Another Failed Peter Pan Audition

Ukraine Is The Key

Help Ukraine beat Putin

Which weakens Iran

Which weakens Hamas and the Houthis

Which removes a fair part of Netanyahu's rationale for holding power

Which eases tensions across the board in the middle east

All of which tells Xi he'd better watch his ass.

Today's Brando

DOJ Indicts Russian Nationals in $10 Million Scheme to Spread Covert Propaganda to U.S. Audiences

Two Russian nationals employed by state-controlled media outlet RT are charged with conspiring to violate U.S. laws by secretly funding and directing pro-Russian content on social media platforms.

The Department of Justice has unsealed an indictment charging two Russian nationals, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, with conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and money laundering in a scheme to covertly influence U.S. audiences. Both Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva remain at large, according to the DOJ’s announcement today.

The indictment reveals that Kalashnikov, 31, and Afanasyeva, 27, who were employees of Russia's state-controlled media outlet RT, played pivotal roles in funneling nearly $10 million to a Tennessee-based online content creation company, referred to in court documents as U.S. Company-1. The content company, unbeknownst to its viewers, was funded and directed by RT to produce pro-Russian videos aimed at American social media users. This company is believed to be TENET Media, who touts right-wing hosts Lauren Southern, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and others, as part of their roster.

The indictment remarks, "On its website, U.S. Company-I describes itself as a 'network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues'" This phrase matches with the TENET's slogan, which appears on their website.

The indictment further states: "KALASHNIKOV, AFANASYEVA, Founder-I, and Founder-2 also worked together to deceive two U.S. online commentators ("Commentator- I" and "Commentator-2"), who respectively have over 2.4 million and 1.3 million YouTube subscribers. Founder-I and Founder- 2 contracted with Commentator-I and Commentator-2 to produce videos , using Commentator-1's and Commentator-2's own names and leveraging their existing audiences, for license and publication by U.S. Company-I."

These subscriber counts mentioned in the indictment match the number of YouTube subscribers for the accounts of Benny Johnson and Tim Pool, respectively.

"Russia has long sought to exploit our free and open society by secretly influencing public opinion in the United States," said Attorney General Merrick Garland. "The Department of Justice will not tolerate these covert efforts by foreign adversaries to manipulate our democracy."

The DOJ alleges that between October 2023 and August 2024, RT transferred nearly $10 million to U.S. Company-1 through a network of shell companies in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Mauritius. The funds were allegedly used to produce and distribute content designed to sow discord among Americans, amplifying domestic divisions on issues like immigration, inflation, and U.S. foreign policy.

“Russia’s influence operations, as orchestrated by RT, are sophisticated and deceptive,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. “The defendants in this case used fake personas, shell companies, and misleading information to push Russian propaganda to millions of Americans.”

Since its launch in November 2023, U.S. Company-1, believed to be TENET Media, has posted nearly 2,000 videos across platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and X, garnering over 16 million views on YouTube alone. The DOJ notes that while the content appeared to offer commentary on domestic issues, it was aligned with the Russian government's goal of weakening U.S. opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The defendants are also accused of deceiving two U.S.-based online commentators with large followings into producing content for U.S. Company-1 without disclosing RT’s involvement. The DOJ alleges that RT used a fictional persona named “Eduard Grigoriann” to conceal its role as the company’s true financial backer.

Within the indictment lies a troubling sequence involving directives from Elena Afanasyeva, alias "Helena Shudra," to manipulate content creation at U.S. Company-1, aiming to tailor videos to specific agendas. Notably, in early 2024, Afanasyeva orchestrated the creation of tailored content that included a video featuring a "well-known U.S. political commentator," who MeidasTouch can identify as Tucker Carlson, during an bizarre visit to a Russian grocery store in which Carlson said he was "radicalized" by how low the prices were in Moscow.

This particular piece was strategically circulated within U.S. Company-1’s Producer Discord Channel, prompting internal concerns among the staff about the overtly promotional nature of the content. Producer-I, a staff member at U.S. Company-1, expressed reservations about posting the video, describing it as “overt shilling.” Despite these concerns, the directive from the higher-ups was clear, with Founder-2 instructing to proceed with publishing the video to align with the broader influence campaign, underscoring the depth of control exerted over the content output to serve specific propagandistic purposes. This episode exemplifies the sophisticated methods employed by RT’s operatives to exploit the credibility of well-known U.S. figures to further their propaganda efforts under the guise of regular social media content.

The indictment underscores RT's ongoing efforts to continue its influence operations in Western countries, despite formal bans and sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. According to the DOJ, RT’s editor-in-chief boasted about creating an "empire of covert projects" to shape public opinion in the West.

Both Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva face charges of conspiracy to violate FARA, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The FBI is leading the investigation into the case, and authorities are actively seeking the whereabouts of the defendants. This case is part of a broader effort by the U.S. government to counter foreign malign influence operations aimed at undermining American democracy.

Read the full indictment here.

The Russian Federation

.. is a centuries-old colonialist kleptocracy.

A bunch of this came as total news to me. I thought I knew a little something about Russia. I didn't.

When Putin crows about how rich Russia is, he's just bragging about having stolen practically everything they "own".

You think Manifest Destiny was bad - holy fuck. You ain't seen nuthin'.

Here's just a small taste, which doesn't make much of anything any clearer for me, except the part that points out that the thing was built by colonization and genocide.

Russia has been a flaming hot mess for 9 or 10 centuries. It may take another 9 or 10 to sort it out.

Say What Now?

What the actual fuck, Russia?

Invading Ukraine was, in itself, a war crime, and you assholes are committing thousands of other war crimes wrapped up in that one big war crime - and now you want us to believe we should do what, shudder at the thought of losing you as a partner in diplomacy?

You're like that a drunk jerk with a swastika neck tattoo who shows up at the wedding reception, dry humps the mother of the bride, ass-plants in the cake, punches the DJ because he won't play Deutschland Über Alles, and then claims that if he leaves, it'll spoil the party?

I realize this is something that has to be considered, and handled with some care because you never really know what a guy like Putin is up to. And we have to wonder if there's a signal here that we need to pick up - like maybe he understands what a tight spot he's in - or maybe somebody else on the inside is trying to signal that Putin's all but done in - I don't claim to know, but 

seriously - what the fuck are you guys even talking about?

Russia mulling downgrading ties with West, Kremlin says

• Kremlin says West is hostile
• No decision yet taken on downgrading ties

MOSCOW, June 27 (Reuters) - Russia is considering a possible downgrading of relations with the West due to the deeper involvement of the United States and its allies in the Ukraine war, but no decision had yet been taken, the Kremlin said on Thursday.

A downgrading of relations - or even breaking them off - would illustrate the gravity of the confrontation between Russia and the West over Ukraine after an escalation in tensions over the war in recent months.

Even during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Cold War is thought to have come closest to nuclear war, Russia did not sever relations with the United States, though Moscow did break off ties with Israel over the 1967 Middle East war.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Izvestia newspaper that ambassadors fulfilled a difficult but important job that allowed a channel of communication to operate in troubled times.

But Ryabkov also said that a possible downgrading of ties with the West was being studied.
When asked about the possibility of such a move, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that given the West's current approach to Russia it was one of several options that was being considered, though no decision had yet been made.

"The issue of lowering the level of diplomatic relations is a standard practice for states that face unfriendly or hostile manifestations," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"Due to the growing involvement of the West in the conflict over Ukraine, the Russian Federation cannot but consider various options for responding to such hostile Western intervention in the Ukrainian crisis."

President Vladimir Putin, who ordered thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, presents the war as part of a wider struggle with the U.S., which he says ignored Moscow's interests after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and then plotted to split Russia apart and seize its natural resources.

The West and Ukraine have cast the war as an imperial-style land-grab. Western leaders, who deny they want to destroy Russia, say that if Putin wins the war then autocracies across the world will be emboldened.

With Russia gaining the upper hand in the biggest land war in Europe since World War Two, the Ukraine crisis has escalated in recent months.

After the United States allowed Ukraine to strike Russia with some U.S. weapons, the Kremlin sent signals that it viewed this as a serious escalation.

Putin has ordered drills to practise deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, suggested Russia could station conventional missiles within striking distance of the United States and its allies, and sealed a mutual defence pact with North Korea.

The United States and its European allies still have embassies in Russia, and Russia has embassies in Washington and European capitals, though diplomats from both sides say they are experiencing the most hostile conditions in decades.

"Moscow has given up on repairing relations with the West," said Geoffrey Roberts, a historian of Josef Stalin and Soviet international relations at University College Cork.

"It would signal that Putin thinks he can usher in a Brave New Multipolar World, whilst at the same time keeping the West at arm's length," he said. "But maybe its a just a gesture, a protest, a sign of frustration with the West and/or a sop to Russian hardliners who want to escalate the war in Ukraine."

Ukraine

This is called an incitement to commit genocide. It's a war crime.

These guys will be dragged to The Hague, or they'll be cowering in sponsored exile as guests of sympathizing asshole regimes, or they'll be dead (likely by their own hand).

If the Kremlin’s intentions weren’t already clear enough, here is former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev saying today that the concept of an independent Ukrainian identity must "disappear for good" pic.twitter.com/hqnPvXq4oA

— Francis Scarr (@francis_scarr) March 4, 2024

Genocide:

A crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.

Genocidal Intent:

The mens rea (mental element) for the crime of genocide. "Intent to destroy" is one of the elements of the crime of genocide according to the 1948 Genocide Convention. 

Russian Normal

Nikolai Patrushev's new position?

Putin axes defense minister, replaces him with an economist

Russian leader Vladimir Putin is replacing his longtime defense minister Sergei Shoigu, 68, with an economist.

On Sunday, Putin named former deputy prime minister and economic development minister Andrey Belousov, 65, as his new defense chief.

"Today on the battlefield, the winner is the one who is more open to innovation," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said of Belousov's appointment, per state news agency TASS. "Therefore, it is natural that at the current stage, the president decided that the Russian Ministry of Defense should be headed by a civilian."

Shoigu, who served as defense minister since 2012, now runs Russia's Security Council instead, taking over from Putin ally Nikolai Patrushev. Details of Patrushev's new position, Peskov said, will be revealed "in the coming few days."

Besides leading the Security Council, Shoigu will represent Putin in the country's Military-Industrial Commission, which oversees the country's military industrial complex.

"He is deeply immersed in this work, he knows very well the pace of production of military-industrial products at specific enterprises and often visits these enterprises," Peskov said of Shoigu's new appointment, per TASS.

The sudden change in leadership on Sunday marks the first time Putin has shaken up his national security team since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

It also comes at a tenuous time for Russia's defense ministry. Last month, deputy defense minister and top Shoigu aide, Timur Ivanov was dismissed from his position after he was accused of bribery.

Shoigu himself was blamed by critics for Russia's lacklustre performance in its war on Ukraine.

The UK's defense ministry said in April that an estimated 450,000 Russian troops were wounded or killed over the course of the war. Back in February, the head of the UK's armed forces, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, said that 25% of Russia's vessels in the Black Sea had been sunk or damaged.

In June 2023, Wagner mercenary army chief Yevgeny Prigozhin led an aborted coup where he slammed Shoigu's leadership and called for his removal. Prigozhin died in a plane crash later in August.

Shoigu's departure, Peskov said on Sunday, "will in no way change the current coordinate system" of Russia's military strategy.

The replacement of Shoigu with an economist like Belousov comes as Russia reckons with its own transformation into a war economy.

On Sunday, Peskov told reporters that Belousov's appointment as defense minister was about "making the economy of the security bloc part of the country's economy."

"We are gradually approaching the situation of the mid-80s when the share of expenses for the security bloc in the economy was 7.4%. It's not critical, but it's extremely important," Peskov said, per CNN.

Representatives for Russia's defense ministry didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.

Today I Learned

• Russia's murder rate is up 900% in the last year
• The ruling clique is shrinking as Putin's helpers are valued for loyalty instead of competence
• Any succession plan that begins to gain inertia is disrupted or snuffed out
• Russia's ambitions have never been in line with its capabilities
• One fairly likely outcome is that Russia becomes a vassal state to China

Enemies

Sending beans, bullets, and bandaids to Ukraine now means we won't be sending body bags to Poland later.

Sign Up, Rooskies

When Autocrats Get Nervous

Generally, there are 2 main reasons for a country to get belligerent.

1. Feeling big and bad, they start throwing their weight around to take advantage of their strength
2. Feeling not so big and bad, they start throwing their weight around to cover up their weakness

Putin's aggression towards Ukraine seems to have been a manifestation of #1 above - mistaken to be sure, because he was apparently unaware of the enormous corruption that has been hollowing out the Russian military (as well as the economy) for 30 years. Which is tragically laughable given the fact that Putin is about as corrupt as they come, but somehow he trusted the colonels and generals (who were busily selling all the tank engines on the black market) when they told him everything was peachy, and don't worry, boss - we'll knock over Kyiv in about a week?

China's been getting all frisky too. We've been thinking their aggressive posturing is because of their strength as well, but we're becoming aware of some very serious problems there. ie: work force demographics due to a dramatic decline in their population growth, they've way over-built both commercial and residential spaces, and they're seeing a near collapse in consumer spending and capital investment.

So, sometimes the assholes are assholes because they need territory or population or resources.

Sometimes the assholes are assholes because they need to hide their asshole-ishness behind some make-believe shit.

And - of course - sometimes the assholes are assholes just because they're assholes.

Blasting Bullhorns and Water Cannons, Chinese Ships Wall Off the Sea

The Chinese military base on Mischief Reef, off the Philippine island of Palawan, loomed in front of our boat, obvious even in the predawn dark.

Radar domes, used for military surveillance, floated like nimbus clouds. Lights pointed to a runway made for fighter jets, backed by warehouses perfect for surface-to-air missiles. More than 900 miles from the Chinese mainland, in an area of the South China Sea that an international tribunal has unequivocally determined does not belong to China, cellphones pinged with a message: “Welcome to China.”

The world’s most brazen maritime militarization is gaining muscle in waters through which one-third of global ocean trade passes. Here, on underwater reefs that are known as the Dangerous Ground, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, or P.L.A., has fortified an archipelago of forward operating bases that have branded these waters as China’s despite having no international legal grounding. China’s coast guard, navy and a fleet of fishing trawlers harnessed into a militia are confronting other vessels, civilian and military alike.

The mounting Chinese military presence in waters that were long dominated by the U.S. fleet is sharpening the possibility of a showdown between superpowers at a moment when relations between them have greatly worsened. And as Beijing challenges a Western-driven security order that stood for nearly eight decades, regional countries are increasingly questioning the strength of the American commitment to the Pacific.

While the United States makes no territorial claims to the South China Sea, it maintains defense pacts with Asian partners, including the Philippines, that could compel American soldiers to these waters. Just as anxiety over nearby Taiwan has focused attention on the deteriorating relations between Washington and Beijing, the South China Sea provides yet another stage for a contest in which neither side wants to betray weakness. Complicating matters, Chinese diplomats and military officers are engaging less at a time when open communication could help defuse tensions.

China’s arming of the South China Sea has also forced Southeast Asian fishermen — from nations like the Philippines that Chinese diplomats have referred to as “small countries” — to abandon the fishing grounds they have depended on for generations. It is putting tremendous pressure on those governments.

“I told the Chinese, ‘Your leadership talks about shared prosperity, but what you are doing cannot make it more plain that you think we are just stupid people who can be fooled and bullied,’” said Clarita Carlos, who until January served as the national security adviser of the Philippines. “The interconnected oceans should be our common heritage, and we should be working with marine scientists from every nation to fight the real enemy: climate change.”

“Instead,” she added, “the Chinese are building military bases on artificial islands and bringing guns to the sea.”

During a four-day sail through a collection of rocks, reefs and islets called the Spratlys that are within the Dangerous Ground, New York Times journalists saw the extent to which China’s projection of power has transformed this contested part of the Pacific Ocean. Not since the United States embarked on its own campaign of far-flung militarization more than a century ago, leading its armed forces toward a position of Pacific primacy, has the security landscape shifted so significantly.

A P.L.A. Navy tugboat lingering in the vicinity had failed to stop us, perhaps because of the early-morning hour. But as we approached the Chinese military base, the tugboat, about 2.5 times the size of our vessel, churned water to reach us, turning on its floodlights and blasting its horn repeatedly. Over the radio, we were told that we had intruded into Chinese territorial waters.

Our boat was Philippine-flagged, and an international tribunal convened by the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in 2016 that Mischief Reef was part of the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of the Philippines. China has ignored that ruling. In a radio exchange, we said we were allowed to sail through these waters.

The P.L.A. tugboat responded with more barrages of its horn, a sonic assault so piercing that we felt it in our bodies. Then, with its floodlights nearly blinding us, the P.L.A. tugboat rushed at our vessel, swiping within 20 meters of our much smaller boat. This was a clear breach of international maritime protocol, maritime experts said.

As dawn broke, we could see both the fortifications on Mischief Reef and an array of Chinese vessels closing in from different directions: half a dozen maritime militia boats and a recently commissioned navy corvette designed to carry anti-ship missiles. The navy tugboat stayed near, too.

On other occasions, Chinese coast guard and militia vessels have rammed, doused with water cannons and sunk civilian boats in the South China Sea. In 2019, for instance, 22 Filipino fishermen were left to float amid the wreckage of their boat for six hours after a Chinese militia vessel struck them.

Danger extends overhead. In May, a Chinese fighter jet sliced past the nose of a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance plane flying through international air space over the South China Sea, echoing an incident last December when a Chinese fighter came within 20 feet of an American plane.

Zhou Bo, a retired P.L.A. colonel who is now a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said that claimant nations and the United States — which conducts regular air and sea patrols in the South China Sea — should accept Beijing’s contention that this is Chinese turf.

“The U.S. should stop or decrease its operations there,” he said. “But since it is impossible, so the danger will grow. A stronger P.L.A. can only be more resolute in defending China’s sovereignty and national interests.”

Mr. Zhou added that he thought the risk of a conflict between the United States and China was higher in the South China Sea than in the Taiwan Strait, another theater of geopolitical friction.

Frictions in the South China Sea are greatest in places where Southeast Asian countries have defied the Chinese mandate that the waterway, scooped out on Chinese maps with a dashed line, belongs to Beijing. In waters close to Vietnam and Malaysia, Chinese vessels have disrupted attempts to explore and develop oil and natural gas fields. The Chinese coast guard has forcibly prevented its Indonesian counterpart from arresting Chinese fishermen operating well within Indonesian waters.

Chinese forces frequently harass Philippine coast guard boats trying to access a tiny contingent of Philippine marines stationed on Second Thomas Shoal, which, like nearby Mischief Reef, also lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. (Control over such a zone gives a country the rights to all resources within it, although foreign flagged boats are allowed free passage through most of the waters.)

In February, a Chinese coast guard ship directed a military-grade laser at a Philippine coast guard boat trying to resupply the marines at Second Thomas, temporarily blinding some sailors, according to the Philippine side. The Chinese coast guard has also unleashed high-intensity water cannons at the resupply boats, as recently as last month. In both cases, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that the Philippine vessels were violating Chinese territorial sovereignty, forcing the Chinese to intervene.

As we left Mischief Reef, with Chinese vessels still shadowing us, we saw just how lopsided the contest is at Second Thomas. In 1997, the Philippines, outmanned and underfunded, beached a World War II era navy ship on the shoal, creating a makeshift base from which its soldiers could defend Philippine waters.

With the marooned navy ship in the distance, we watched as the same Philippine coast guard vessel that had been targeted by the military laser was flanked by a pair of Chinese coast guard ships more than double its length. The radio crackled with verbal jousting.

“Since you have disregarded our warning,” a Chinese coast guardsman said, “we will take further necessary measures in accordance with the law, and any consequences entailed will be borne by you.”

“We will deliver food and other essentials to our people,” the Philippine side answered.

The Philippine boat barely made it through to resupply the marine base. Every week brings such a David and Goliath showdown, and the chance for a dangerous miscalculation.

“The Chinese are flouting the maritime rules of engagement and intentionally violating the good rules of conduct,” said Gregory B. Poling, the director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “They’re making foreign vessels veer, sometimes at the last moment. One day, a foreign vessel is not going to veer off. And then what?”

Despite its lack of territorial claims in the South China Sea, the American Seventh Fleet regularly cruises these waters to ensure freedom of navigation for all nations, according to the U.S. Navy. (Beijing contends that the presence of American military ships, particularly patrols near Chinese-controlled bases, inflames tensions.) And security pacts bind the American military to several Asian countries. The Philippines, which was once an American colony, is tied to the United States in a mutual defense treaty that Vice President Kamala Harris said last year would extend to “an armed attack on the Philippine armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the South China Sea.”

This month, U.S. and Philippine warships sailed together in the South China Sea, and the two navies plan a joint patrol later this year.

American support has not always been so full-throated. In 2012, Chinese vessels occupied Scarborough Shoal, off the coast of the Philippines’ most populous island, even after the United States thought it had brokered a deal for both the Philippines and China to withdraw from the reef to cool tensions. Despite the Chinese incursion, American forces did not defend the shoal. Chinese boats have essentially controlled Scarborough ever since.

Around the same time, China began constructing what it said were “typhoon shelters” for fishermen on several South China Sea reefs it controlled. Then Chinese dredgers began piling sand on the atolls. Airstrips and barracks appeared. In 2015, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, stood in the White House Rose Garden and said that “China does not intend to pursue militarization” of the Spratlys, despite satellite evidence that China was doing just that.

“The U.S. response was pretty much limited to statements that they opposed it, but not much more,” said M. Taylor Fravel, the director of the security studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an author of books on China’s defense strategy and territorial disputes, noting that the development of the P.L.A.’s South China Sea military bases was done in three phases from 2014-2016. “It’s reasonable to speculate that a much harder response to the first wave would have prevented the next two waves.”

The 2016 tribunal ruling that dismissed China’s “historical claims” over most of the South China Sea came just as the Philippines was ushering in a new president, Rodrigo Duterte, who made close ties with China a signature of his six years in power. Mr. Duterte ignored the tribunal ruling, even though it favored his country. Since President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took office last year, his administration has spoken out against the Chinese presence in the South China Sea. Mr. Marcos has also granted the United States access to a handful of military bases on Philippine soil and is allowing for the building of others.

After we left Second Thomas Shoal, we sailed toward the Philippine island of Palawan, home to nearly a million people. Green hills rose on the horizon as we neared Sabina Shoal, a rich fishing ground for centuries. In recent years, the Chinese have placed buoys here. The Philippine coast guard has removed them.

Right on Sabina Shoal, where delicate coral once thrived, we saw boats arranged in a defensive formation. Ropes tied some of the vessels together. Chinese flags flew. Men bantered over the radio in a southern Chinese dialect. No fishing nets were in evidence.

China has said that such trawlers are commercial fishing vessels, and a Chinese appetite for seafood has created the world’s largest fishing fleet. But these South China Sea boats, experts say, rarely fish. Instead, they act as a maritime militia, swarming contested waters and unoccupied reefs for days or even months. They have steel hulls and advanced satellites, and some have rammed smaller Southeast Asian fishing boats. If a storm descends, they shelter at Chinese naval bases, like those built on Mischief, Fiery Cross and Subi reefs, satellite imagery shows.

We could see empty Chinese instant noodle packets floating in the water. We heard the Philippine coast guard over the radio, urging the Chinese boats to leave Sabina. There was no response. The Philippine entreaties faded.

Another One Down

There's been no credible confirmation yet of any bucket-kicking or dust-biting, but things have not been going well for Putin's buddies lately.

Scorecard:

• Prigozhin & Utkin assassinated
• Girkin imprisoned 
• Surovikin tortured & exiled
• Kadyrov comatose

They're all war criminals, and none will be missed. The system is eating itself.

Key Putin Ally Ramzan Kadyrov Is Critically Ill: Ukrainian Report

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is reportedly in critical condition amid his ongoing health problems, according to Ukrainian intelligence.

Andriy Yusov, a representative for the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence, told the Belarusian news site Nexta that Kadyrov's current health status had been confirmed by both "medical and political circles." The Chechen leader has reportedly faced health problems due to ongoing kidney issues and recently blamed his worsening health on his personal doctor.

"This is not about injuries. Other details need further clarification," Yusov told the outlet, according to a report from Nexta posted to X, formerly Twitter. "He has been sick for a long time, and we are talking about systemic health problems."

Yusov's comments were also confirmed by Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform. Obozrevatel, an online Ukrainian media outlet, reported earlier this week that Kadyrov had fallen into a coma and was flown to Moscow to seek treatment.

A close ally to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kadyrov has been nicknamed "Putin's attack dog" and has supported Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, including deploying his own troops to fight along the front lines.

The Chechen leader was also one of the first public figures to condemn the brief Wagner Group rebellion against Moscow in June, led by the now-deceased Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The U.S. State Department sanctioned Kadyrov last month for his reported role in the deportation of Ukrainian children from Russia-occupied territory, an ongoing act by the Kremlin. In a video message earlier this month, Kadyrov demanded that the U.S. sanctions, which also targeted his mother, Aymani Kadyrova, be removed, and called Washington's decision "a deliberate and cynical disregard for all ethical norms."

"I had already ceased to be surprised by the illogical sanctions decisions of the US and the West," Kadyrov said in his video. "And suddenly again, now my own dear mother has been put on the list. The entire world knows that she is engaged only in charitable activities."

Kadyrov was also accused earlier this week of murdering his personal physician and former Chechen deputy prime minister, Elkhan Suleymanov, who the Chechen head reportedly blamed for his sudden worsening health. According to the Telegram channel VChK-OGPU, which claims to have inside information from Russian security forces, Kadyrov accused Suleymanov of poisoning him and was rumored to have buried the doctor alive.

Newsweek previously reported that there has been no hard evidence to support claims of Suleymanov's death, although his whereabouts have been widely unknown since October 2022, when Kadyrov removed him from his post as deputy prime minister.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs via email for comment Friday evening.

Bad Thoughts

Making wild claims about 'false flag' attacks is all the rage these days, so yeah, I'll go there.

If I'm a Wagner Group 2nd tier commander with high hopes and obsessive ambitions, maybe I'm a little peeved about Prigozhin wimping out on the whole uprising thing, making a deal for himself and basically leaving me just kinda hangin' around with my dick in my hand.

So I'm a trusted guy, and I can get somebody to monkey with the airplane - or I can get my hands on a spare S200 SAM that's just kinda laying around (and that's not as weird as it sounded when I ran it thru my head just now - not in Russia). Anyway, maybe I set it up to fuck Prigozhin, knowing everybody will blame Putin, so I can stoke the rebellion and have my shot at playing in the big leagues. (?)

Unlikely, I know. But look at how any of this shit is going and tell me it's impossible.

Putin's Reach

Talk about effective optics. 

And timing. Putin memorializes the battle of Kursk, reminding everybody of Russia's brute power, as he re-asserts himself as the personification of the Russian state.

L'État, c'est moi. C'est moi l'État.

And all of that against the backdrop of his having decapitated the organization that most threatens his reign, and the not-so-quiet purge of the upper echelons of the Russian military's command structure.

Putin is the guy who benefits most from the MAGA gang's insistence that we stop helping Ukraine.

And Xi Jinping sits passively, watching our reaction to all this.

With Prigozhin’s Death, Putin Projects a Message of Power

The Kremlin appears to be sending the signal that no degree of effectiveness can protect someone from punishment for disloyalty.

Just as the news broke on Wednesday of the presumed death of the mercenary chief Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was presiding over a televised World War II anniversary ceremony on a dark stage lit dramatically in red.

He held a moment of silence, flanked by service members in dress uniforms, while a metronome’s beats sounded, like the slow ticking of a clock: Tock. Tock. Tock.

The eerie split screen — the reported fiery demise of the man who launched an armed rebellion in June and the Russian president telegraphing the state’s military might — may have been coincidental. But it underscored the imagery of dominance and power that Mr. Putin, 18 months into his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, appears more determined than ever to project.

Mr. Prigozhin may have been brutally effective, throwing tens of thousands of his fighters into the maw of the battle for Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, tying up Ukrainian forces in the process and hobbling Kyiv’s ability to stage a counteroffensive. His internet “troll farm” helped the Kremlin interfere in the 2016 American presidential election, while his mercenary empire helped Russia exert influence across Africa and the Middle East.

But with his June rebellion, Mr. Prigozhin threatened something even more sensitive: Mr. Putin’s own hold on power. After the crash of Mr. Prigozhin’s plane on Wednesday, the Kremlin appears to be sending the message that no degree of effectiveness and achievement can protect someone from punishment for violating Mr. Putin’s loyalty.

“Everyone’s afraid,” Konstantin Remchukov, a Moscow newspaper editor with ties to the Kremlin, said of the reaction among the Russian elite to the plane crash Wednesday that Western officials theorize was caused by an explosion on board. “It’s just that everyone sees that anything is possible.”

Never before has someone so central to Russia’s ruling establishment been killed in a suspected state-sponsored assassination, said Mikhail Vinogradov, a Moscow political analyst.

To some, the fact that Mr. Prigozhin was able to survive for two months after staging his rebellion was more surprising than the crash of his private jet. In an address to the nation on June 24, as Mr. Prigozhin’s forces were marching on Moscow and already in control of a city of a million people in Russia’s southwest, Mr. Putin accused the warlord of “betrayal.”

And betrayal, Mr. Putin has said previously, is the one act that cannot be forgiven. So when Mr. Putin appeared to strike a deal with Mr. Prigozhin allowing him to retreat safely to neighboring Belarus, the act struck some Russians as a sign of the president losing control. The view was magnified when photographs surfaced of Mr. Prigozhin meeting with African officials on the sidelines of Mr. Putin’s marquee summit with African leaders in St. Petersburg in July.

“After he ‘forgave’ Prigozhin, it was understood by those around him as weakness,” said Aleksei A. Venediktov, who headed the liberal Echo of Moscow radio station before the Kremlin shut it down last year.

Mr. Venediktov, in an interview in Moscow on Thursday, argued that Mr. Prigozhin’s apparent death had strengthened Mr. Putin’s dominance in the Russian political system after the chaos of the rebellion. Now, “Putin has shown his elite,” Mr. Venediktov went on, that “any betrayal will be found out.”

U.S. officials are increasingly certain that Mr. Prigozhin was killed in Wednesday’s crash, and that Mr. Putin ordered the assassination. But when it comes to the power dynamics inside Russia’s ruling elite, whether Mr. Putin personally ordered the attack may be beside the point: What matters is that Mr. Prigozhin suffered a violent death after Mr. Putin publicly condemned him.

“He called him a traitor,” Mr. Remchukov said. “And that was enough for everyone to see that this person is no longer invulnerable.”

When Mr. Putin broke his silence about the plane crash on Thursday, some 24 hours after it happened, he described Mr. Prigozhin as a “talented man” with a “complicated fate.” Mr. Putin revealed that his personal ties with Mr. Prigozhin dated back to the early 1990s, and he acknowledged for the first time that he had personally asked Mr. Prigozhin to carry out tasks on his behalf.

“He made some serious mistakes in life, but he also achieved necessary results, for himself and, when I asked him about it, for our common cause,” Mr. Putin said.

Mr. Prigozhin had long been suspected of acting in the shadows in Mr. Putin’s interest while giving the Kremlin plausible deniability. His forces deployed to eastern Ukraine in 2014, back when Mr. Putin was stoking a separatist war there while insisting he had nothing to do with it. In 2016, Mr. Prigozhin’s internet “troll farm” intervened in American politics as part of the Kremlin’s attempt to swing the presidential election to Donald J. Trump.

But what Mr. Putin left unsaid in his brief eulogy of Mr. Prigozhin was that by turning against the Russian president after decades of devoted service, Mr. Prigozhin may have signed his own death sentence.

On Friday, another longtime confidant of Mr. Putin, Aleksei Dyumin, issued a statement that made the message a little clearer. Mr. Dyumin, a former bodyguard of Mr. Putin who is now the governor of a region south of Moscow, said he had known Mr. Prigozhin “as a true patriot, a decisive and fearless man.” He said he mourned all Wagner fighters who had died in Ukraine, and added: “You can forgive mistakes and even cowardice, but never betrayal. They were not traitors.”

The apparent subtext was that Mr. Prigozhin’s soldiers and commanders were loyal men worthy of respect. But it also hinted at the notion that if Mr. Prigozhin himself was a traitor — as Mr. Putin had said — then he may have deserved his death.

But Mr. Prigozhin’s death also carries risks for the Kremlin. In Ukraine, Wagner was seen as one of Russia’s most effective and brutal fighting forces, exacting and taking enormous casualties in the monthslong battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.

In Africa, where Mr. Prigozhin built a mercenary empire propping up autocrats loyal to Moscow in countries like Mali and the Central African Republic, it is far from clear whether Wagner will be able to retain its footprint. Wagner’s top military commander, Dmitri V. Utkin, was listed as a passenger alongside Mr. Prigozhin on the plane that crashed, according to the Russian authorities.

Abbas Gallyamov, a former speechwriter for Mr. Putin who is now a political consultant based in Israel, said the Kremlin was most likely behind the plane crash, and he argued that the risky decision to kill Mr. Prigozhin in order to send a signal of deterrence revealed the president’s fears of losing power.

“To send this signal, Putin decided to risk a bunch of projects,” Mr. Gallyamov wrote on social media. “This is important for understanding what his priorities are right now: maintaining power, not external expansion.”

Mr. Putin has also long made it clear that he sees his personal interests as inextricable from those of the Russian state. “He believes that if something is important for keeping him in power, then all other concerns are secondary,” said Grigorii Golosov, a professor of political science at the European University at St. Petersburg.

It’s a philosophy that Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of Russia’s lower house of Parliament, summed up simply earlier this year: “As long as there is Putin, there is Russia.”

Problem Solving

It seems Yevgeny Prigozhin's airplane fell out of a window on the 437th floor of the Moscow regional air column ...

... or ...

Yesterday, Mr Priozhin's airplane underwent an unscheduled rapid disassembly procedure, the details of which will be reviewed and released as early as Autumn two-thousand-fucking-never.

So now we get to play a few exhilarating rounds of the Wild Speculation Game.

This being the latest iteration of This Modern Age, anything that happens - anywhere with more than a few humans per square parsec - carries a fair probability of being documented by smart phone video, but this seems just a tiny bit too convenient.

Apparently, Mr Putin is still convinced he can kill his way out of his problems.

Even if it's just a "lucky break", it serves the purpose of further terrorizing average Russians enough to keep them compliant.

The rumor mill is being cranked up and will soon be running at 110% capacity.

Say What, Vlad?

What up here, dude?

Is this another shot at extortion?

Take hostages and maybe the world will overlook the shit you're always trying to pull?

Russia Pulls Out of the Black Sea Grain Deal

The Kremlin terminated an agreement that had allowed Ukraine to export its grain by sea despite a wartime blockade, a deal seen as essential to keeping global food prices stable.

Russia said on Monday that it was ending an agreement that had allowed Ukraine to export its grain by sea despite Moscow’s naval blockade, upending a deal that had helped to keep global food prices stable and alleviate one element of the global fallout from the war.

Ukraine is a major producer of grain and other foodstuffs, and the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, said he was “deeply disappointed” by the decision. Millions of people who face hunger, or are struggling, as well as consumers around the world facing a cost of living crisis, will “pay a price,” he said.

"Today’s decision by the Russian Federation will strike a blow to people in need everywhere,” he told journalists.

A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told journalists earlier on Monday that the agreement was “halted.”

“As soon as the Russian part is fulfilled, the Russian side will immediately return to the implementation of that deal,” he said. He added that the decision was not connected to the attack hours earlier on the Kerch Strait Bridge linking Russia to occupied Crimea. Russian officials blamed Ukraine for the attack, but Kyiv has not taken responsibility.

“Only upon receipt of concrete results, and not promises and assurances, will Russia be ready to consider restoring the ‘deal,’” the statement said.

The agreement, known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative and brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, had been set to expire on Monday following the latest in a series of short-term extensions.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said he would speak to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia about the agreement and signaled hope that it could be revived.

“Despite the statement today, I believe the president of the Russian Federation, my friend Putin, wants the continuation of this humanitarian bridge,” Mr. Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that Moscow had broken its agreement with the United Nations and with Mr. Erdogan, rather than with his country itself, given that Ukraine had made a separate deal with the two mediators over grain. Ukraine demands a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from its territory and an end to aggression before any talks can take place.

“Even without the Russian Federation, everything must be done so that we can use this Black Sea corridor,” Mr. Zelensky said in remarks sent by his press office, adding that Ukraine was ready to restart shipments if the United Nations and Turkey agreed.

The deal successfully eased shortages that resulted from blockades in the first months of the war, which caused global wheat prices to soar. It allowed Ukraine to restart the export of millions of tons of grain that had languished for months, and it has been renewed multiple times, most recently in May. Wheat prices surged on Monday, exposing vulnerable countries to the prospect of a new round of food insecurity.

But Moscow has complained that Western sanctions continued to restrict the sale of its own agricultural products, and sought guarantees that would facilitate its exports of grain and fertilizers. In an effort to extend the deal, Mr. Guterres sent Mr. Putin proposals last week that he said would “remove hurdles affecting financial transactions” through Russia’s agricultural bank.

Ukraine has exported 32.8 million tons of grain and other food since the initiative began, according to U.N. data. Under the agreement, ships are permitted to pass by Russian naval vessels that in effect have blockaded Ukraine’s ports since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The ships are inspected off the coast of Istanbul, in part to ensure they are not carrying weapons.

Last year, Russia halted participation in inspections that were part of the deal, only to rejoin in a matter of days.

And There It Is

We're coming up on 3 weeks since Gen Surovikin was seen in public.

My crystal ball has been in the shop since I got the friggin' thing, but I'm thinking the odds that the guy is still in one piece are getting pretty slim.

Vlad Putin is nothing if not an old school Soviet-style NewSpeak authoritarian asshole.

A Missing Russian General Is ‘Taking a Rest’ a Top Lawmakers Says

Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces, has not been seen in public since a short-lived mutiny of mercenaries on June 24.

Gen. Sergei Surovikin of Russia, a onetime ally of the Wagner chief who hasn’t been seen publicly since a short-lived mutiny last month, is “taking a rest,” one of the country’s top lawmakers said Wednesday, when pressed by a reporter.

“He is unavailable right now,” the lawmaker, Andrei Kartapolov, the head of the Russian Duma’s defense committee, added in a video posted on the Telegram messaging app before hurrying away from the reporter.

General Surovikin, the chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces, was considered to be an ally of Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary company, whose forces mounted the brief insurrection in June aimed at toppling Russia’s military leadership, before standing down in a deal with the Kremlin.

In the days since then, intense speculation has surrounded General Surovikin, who skillfully pulled out Russian forces from Kherson amid Ukraine’s counteroffensive last year and has often been dubbed “General Armageddon” for his ruthless tactics.

The New York Times reported that U.S. officials believe General Surovikin had advance knowledge of the mutiny but do not know whether he participated. In the hours after the rebellion began, the Russian authorities quickly released a video of the general calling on the Wagner fighters to stand down. He hasn’t been seen in public since.

In the video, General Gerasimov was receiving a report from the Russian Aerospace Forces, which are run by General Surovikin. But the person giving the update in the footage was General Surovikin’s deputy, Col. Gen. Viktor Afzalov.

General Surovkin’s location is just one of the many mysteries that have arisen since the mutiny. Despite a deal announced by the Kremlin, under which Mr. Prigozhin would depart Russia for Belarus and avoid prosecution, the mercenary tycoon appears to remain in Russia.

The Kremlin disclosed earlier this week that Mr. Prigozhin and his top commanders met with President Vladimir V. Putin five days after the mutiny, raising many questions about what sort of deal had been struck with the former insurrectionists.

According to the Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, during the meeting the fighters pledged their loyalty to Mr. Putin, who in turn discussed “further employment options and further combat uses” for the Wagner fighters. Mr. Peskov did not give any additional details of what was agreed to.

General Surovikin led Russian forces in Syria while Mr. Prigozhin’s Wagner group fought there. When Moscow appointed General Surovikin to lead Russian forces in Ukraine last year, Mr. Prigozhin praised him as the best commander in the Russian military.

But in January, Mr. Putin transferred command of Ukraine operations to General Gerasimov, handing the reins to someone Mr. Prigozhin regularly pilloried as an incompetent paper-pusher.

Mr. Prigozhin said his revolt was aimed at getting rid of General Gerasimov and his counterpart, Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu. Mr. Shoigu has made many appearances in public in the days since the uprising, in what has been interpreted as a sign of Mr. Putin’s endorsement.

The questions about General Surovikin’s whereabouts came as another incident roiled the ranks of the Russian military.

A former Russian submarine commander, Stanislav Rzhitsky, who had been serving as the deputy director of Krasnodar’s mobilization office, was found gunned down in the southern Russian city early this week.

On Tuesday, the day after the body was found, Ukrainian military intelligence said on its official Telegram account that Rzhitsky had commanded a submarine that was involved in missile attacks on Ukraine.

Have You Seen This Man?

No, I'm not going to do the milk carton thing. Not because I've suddenly decided I'm above doing something so trite and stale and sophomoric and whatever. I just couldn't get it to look right.

Gen Sergei Surovikin

Known as General Armageddon, and a Putin darling, that Surovikin guy has gone missing. He hasn't been seen in public since a couple of days after Prigozhin's mutiny fizzled, during which time, he missed his wife's birthday.

That doesn't mean he's been disappeared met with a tragic accident. There's a host of possibly legit reasons, none of which come readily to mind at the moment.

He needs not to count on being welcomed back into the slimy embrace of the Russian Kleptocracy though, because any given big shot (even in a fairly decent government or business) has a hundred guys looking to torpedo his ass so they can step in to replace him, taking all the goodies that go with that position.

So yeah - I think he's either totally fucked, or semi-fucked, but fucked all the same.

Today's Jake

Reality is that of course the Kremlin fully funds the Wagner Group.

Wagner is not independent and self-sustaining, the way Putin has needed us to believe.

So we've got Pregozhin running around in Africa and Syria, et al, committing atrocities we'll find hard to believe could ever be carried out by honest-to-god humans. And those will be the atrocities that the investigators and their bosses will allow us to be aware of because some of them are bound to be so horrendous, nobody wants to know about them. Ever.

The point that needs to be hammered on is that this shit is not simply being done by rogue actors who are unaffiliated with Moscow.

Putin sponsors Wagner, Wagner is acting on behalf of Putin, Putin is largely responsible for Wagner's behavior. The Russian government is committing war crimes everywhere it goes.

Putin will not survive this war.

Let The Purge Begin

Keep trying to get a peek behind the curtain.

There's a reason - or many reasons - why Prigozhin's march on Moscow met with practically no resistance, and then halted as abruptly as it started.

I think the big one could be that the Russian general staff have had enough of Putin's little war.

• The longer it goes on, the more they look like the incompetent bozos many of them are
• ...the more it's revealed just how deep the corruption runs
• ...the more damage is done to the overall "prestige" of the Russian military
• ...the more likely it is that whole big bunches of them will be integrated into the Siberian biome

So I think one of the weird little wrinkles is that some commanders told their guys to stand down and not interfere with the Wagner gang.

If that's how it went, it had to come as a very loud and very clear message that Putin and Shoigu are not the only power-holders. Putin has the FSB and GRU, and the reason he keeps Shoigu around is that Shoigu has always been willing to pledge his troth to Putin, using Putin's guys to coerce the military.

Now it looks a whole lot like Shoigu's hold on the Russian military is either badly weakened, or that maybe it's all but gone. And that could mean Putin will have to expend even greater time and effort to keep people in line and to re-establish the illusion of his omnipotence.

Like I've said - nobody knows what all is going on, including me.

Russian General Knew About Mercenary Chief’s Rebellion Plans, U.S. Officials Say

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner, may have believed he had support in Russia’s military.

A senior Russian general had advance knowledge of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plans to rebel against Russia’s military leadership, according to U.S. officials briefed on American intelligence on the matter, which has prompted questions about what support the mercenary leader had inside the top ranks.

The officials said they are trying to learn if Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the former top Russian commander in Ukraine, helped plan Mr. Prigozhin’s actions last weekend, which posed the most dramatic threat to President Vladimir V. Putin in his 23 years in power.

General Surovikin is a respected military leader who helped shore up defenses across the battle lines after Ukraine’s counteroffensive last year, analysts say. He was replaced as the top commander in January but retained influence in running war operations and remains popular among the troops.

American officials also said there are signs that other Russian generals may also have supported Mr. Prigozhin’s attempt to change the leadership of the Defense Ministry by force. Current and former U.S. officials said Mr. Prigozhin would not have launched his uprising unless he believed that others in positions of power would come to his aid.

If General Surovikin was involved in last weekend’s events, it would be the latest sign of the infighting that has characterized Russia’s military leadership since the start of Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine and could signal a wider fracture between supporters of Mr. Prigozhin and Mr. Putin’s two senior military advisers: Sergei K. Shoigu, the minister of defense, and Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, the chief of general staff.

But the infighting could also define the Russian military’s future on the battlefield in Ukraine, as Western-backed troops push a new counteroffensive that is meant to try to win back territory seized by Moscow.

Mr. Putin must now decide, officials say, whether he believes that General Surovikin helped Mr. Prigozhin and how he should respond.

What happens next? In their first remarks since the revolt ended, Putin tried to project unity and stability as questions swirled about his grip on power, while Prigozhin claimed he wasn’t trying to overthrow the Russian president. With Wagner’s future in doubt, it is unclear if the mercenary army will still be a fighting force in Ukraine.

On Tuesday, the Russian domestic intelligence agency said that it was dropping “armed mutiny” criminal charges against Mr. Prigozhin and members of his force. But if Mr. Putin finds evidence General Surovikin more directly helped Mr. Prigozhin, he will have little choice but to remove him from his command, officials and analysts say.

Some former officials say Mr. Putin could decide to keep General Surovikin, if he concludes he had some knowledge of what Mr. Prigozhin had planned but did not aid him. For now, analysts said, Mr. Putin seems intent on pinning the mutiny solely on Mr. Prigozhin.

“Putin is reluctant to change people,” said Alexander Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “But if the secret service puts files on Putin’s desk and if some files implicate Surovikin, it may change.”

Senior American officials suggest that an alliance between General Surovikin and Mr. Prigozhin could explain why Mr. Prigozhin is still alive, despite seizing a major Russian military hub and ordering an armed march on Moscow.

American officials and others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. They emphasized that much of what the United States and its allies know is preliminary. U.S. officials have avoided discussing the rebellion publicly, out of fear of feeding Mr. Putin’s narrative that the unrest was orchestrated by the West.

Still, American officials have an interest in pushing out information that undermines the standing of General Surovikin, whom they view as more competent and more ruthless than other members of the command. His removal would undoubtedly benefit Ukraine.

The Russian Embassy did not respond to a request for comment.

General Surovikin spoke out against the rebellion as it became public on Friday, in a video that urged Russian troops in Ukraine to maintain their positions and not join the uprising.

“I urge you to stop,” General Surovikin said in a message posted on Telegram. “The enemy is just waiting for the internal political situation to worsen in our country.”

But one former official called that message akin to “a hostage video.” General Surovikin’s body language suggested he was uncomfortable denouncing a former ally, one who shared his view of the Russian military leadership, the former official said.

There were other signs of divided loyalties in the top ranks. Another Russian general — Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev — made his own video appeal, calling any actions against the Russian state a “stab in the back of the country and president.” But hours later, he surfaced in another video, chatting with Mr. Prigozhin in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, where Wagner fighters seized military facilities.

“There were just too many weird things that happened that, in my mind, suggest there was collusion that we have not figured out yet,” Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said in a phone interview.

“Think of how easy it was to take Rostov,” Mr. McFaul said. “There are armed guards everywhere in Russia, and suddenly, there’s no one around to do anything?”

Independent experts, and U.S. and allied officials said that Mr. Prigozhin seemed to believe that large parts of Russia’s army would rally to his side as his convoy of 8,000 Wagner forces moved on Moscow.

Former officials said General Surovikin did not support pushing Mr. Putin from power but appears to have agreed with Mr. Prigozhin that Mr. Shoigu and General Gerasimov needed to be relieved of duty.

“Surovikin is a decorated general with a complex history,” said Dara Massicot, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. “He is said to be respected by the soldiers and viewed as competent.”

General Surovikin and Mr. Prigozhin have both brushed up against Mr. Shoigu and General Gerasimov over tactics used in Ukraine. While the Russian military’s overall performance in the war has been widely derided as underwhelming, analysts have credited General Surovikin and Mr. Prigozhin for Russia’s few successes.

In General Surovikin’s case, that limited success was the professionally managed withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson, where they were nearly encircled last fall and cut off from supplies. Based on communications intercepts, U.S. officials concluded that a frustrated General Surovikin represented a hard-line faction of generals intent on using the toughest tactics against Ukrainians.

Similarly, Mr. Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenaries achieved some success in taking the eastern city of Bakhmut after a nine-month slog in which, by Mr. Prigozhin’s own count, some 20,000 Wagner troops were killed. U.S. officials and military analysts say tens of thousands of troops died in the fight for Bakhmut, among them Wagner soldiers who were former convicts with little training before they were sent to war. Mr. Prigozhin frequently complained that senior Russian defense and military officials were not supplying his troops with enough weapons.

Russia’s entire military campaign in Ukraine has been characterized by a musical chairs of changing generals. Last fall, when General Surovikin was put in charge of the Russian Army’s effort in Ukraine, he was the second man to get the job, replacing a general who had lasted barely a month. General Surovikin did not last much longer, but performed far better during his weeks at the helm.

Nevertheless, by January, General Surovikin was demoted, and Mr. Putin handed direct command of the war to General Gerasimov, who promised to put Russian forces back on the offensive. General Surovikin’s demotion, military and Russia analysts say, was widely viewed as a blow to Mr. Prigozhin.



This Peter Zeihan guy gets a lot right. He indulges himself in his own hype sometimes, but he's a smart guy and knows some real stuff.