(LifeSiteNews) — Regime change in Russia lasted 24 hours, revealing more about the means by which the news is made than the situation itself.
For this one day in June, the picture of reality was shaken by events. A strong signal of unknown significance, it attracted the full power of narrative manufacture.
How did this event come to be seen as both the collapse and the consolidation of power by a visibly enraged President Vladimir Putin?
What has been excluded from the picture is the most significant information, which flatters neither point of view.
Wagner’s origins
The Wagner Group was founded in 2014 as a means of projecting military power without invasion into the Donbass. It is named after the nom de guerre of its presumed founder, Dmitry Utkin.
With the outbreak of hostilities in these two heavily Russian regions of Ukraine in 2014, Russian intelligence agencies founded a private military company as a vehicle for furnishing support to the two self-declared autonomous republics of Lugansk and Donetsk.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the former hot dog vendor known as “Putin’s chef,” did not found the group himself. He would come to lead an insurrection against his own president due to longstanding tensions between irregular and regular military figures and the policies of Putin himself.
‘Special military operation’
It is notable that during his coup, Prigozhin went far beyond these disagreements and openly denounced the whole Russian rationale for the “special military operation.”
The Russian state claims their forces entered Ukraine to preempt a full-scale Ukrainian invasion of the Donbass, and thereby protect its ethnic Russian population.
Tension has arisen between military commanders and the Kremlin over the conduct of the so-called special military operation.
It is said that Putin’s initial commitment of a relatively small force was intended as a move to rapidly secure negotiations.
In fact, it did so, with Volodymyr Zelensky reported to have agreed to a deal brokered in Ankara. Both sides are reported to have made concessions. This is the deal which was sabotaged by then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
What followed was a surprising commitment of the European Union, together with the United States and United Kingdom, to supply maximum and ongoing support to Ukraine.
With a new reality on the ground, and money and weapons flooding in to Ukraine, the Russian army was hamstrung by Putin’s rules of engagement. Finally, in September 2022, a reshuffle was arranged, with a field commander for the army in Ukraine appointed for the first time.
In January 2023, General Sergey Surovikin was replaced as field commander in Ukraine by General Valery Gerasimov.
The army had won the argument, and large-scale Russian mobilization began. Between September and now, tensions have continued to simmer between elements of the Russian military who favor a rapid and decisive escalation in force and what they see as the frustrating hesitancy of the position of the Kremlin.
Steve Rosenberg, the BBC's Russia editor, with this gem of an observation from Moscow yesterday:
'They [Russians] don’t believe they have the power to change what is happening in their country. To make their voices heard. To turn things around.’
How unlike here in the UK… 🤔 pic.twitter.com/8jPAijnhuK
— Media Lens (@medialens) June 26, 2023
A move against Putin
The rationale for the invasion of Ukraine rested in part on the defense of ethnic Russians in the Donbass.
Prigozhin said this was a lie. He claimed the Russian government was simply corrupt, using Wagner’s operations in both Africa and Ukraine to siphon off money.
To say this was to ally himself with the messaging of the West, and against Putin. It is proof positive that the many claims of Prigozhin’s actions being confined to protesting the actions of the Russian Ministry of Defense and its generals are insufficient to explain his motives.
Prigozhin himself has made many near-mutinous statements in past months, notably during the fighting around Bakhmut.
He has recorded video in which he bitterly denounced the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the commander of the field army, General Gerasimov.
Prigozhin complained of the under supply of ammunition, and filmed himself beside the corpses of his fallen soldiers.
His antics attracted speculation that this man was running an elaborate psychological operation (or “psyop”) to present a false impression of weakness to the NATO-backed enemy.
In fact, he is a former caterer with a line in cinematic drama who, for reasons of his own, went over the top. His coup, which is what it certainly was, failed to attract any widespread support within or without his own organization.
Visible rage
During the coup, at around 8:00am BST, a rare outbreak of reality occurred. I watched President Putin give a live address. My Russian is poor and I lamented the lack of subtitles.
Yet I realized that there was little need of them. Putin’s impassive waxwork expression had melted into a volcanic fury.
Visibly enraged, he made no mention of the obvious fact that he took this as a personal attack.
He said there would be no return to the slaughter of the 1917 October Revolution. This suffices to explain the “ease” with which the small but determined Wagner columns managed to move on Moscow.
This was not an act. Trenches were dug in the roads, with video of sand-filled trucks appearing on the Moscow outskirts. The columns were bombed from the air by the Russian Air Force, with claims that Wagner had shot down Russian aircraft later verified in at least one case. Following the failure of his coup, Prigozhin offered 50 million rubles in compensation to the families of the crew of a downed Il-22 plane.
He said it had been “a mistake.” Kommersant reported on Monday, June 26, that despite earlier assurances, the charges against Prigozhin have not been dropped.
A nuclear disaster had been narrowly averted. This had nothing to do with the false claims that Prigozhin had captured the missile siloes at Voronezh.
This kind of nonsense was touted heavily in a Twitter Space hosted by the alleged scammer Mario Nawfal. Boosted by Elon Musk’s endorsement, his Space was flooded with tens of thousands of listeners and promoted outright lies – Putin had fled, Lukashenko had gone to Turkey, and Wagner was going nuclear.
There was a real atomic threat, however.
It was the threat that the president himself might explode amid the greatest display of nuclear rage I have ever witnessed on live television.
Gordon Ramski’s ‘Kitchen Nightmare’
Prigozhin’s aim was to attract rapid support. He denounced the Russian state as corrupt and claimed they had been lying to the Russian people – concealing far higher casualty numbers than had been officially announced.
His aim was to build on the open disagreement between military leaders and the Kremlin, combined with his own denunciation of the leadership of the army.
To this he hoped to add public outrage with his allegations:
- Russia’s case for war was a lie.
- The real reason was corruption.
- Higher casualties resulted.
- The government has covered this up.
- This is the reason he is in revolt.
He hoped to become the champion of an outraged people. Yet his insurrection failed. Perhaps 4,000 of the Wagner Group itself came out in support.
None of the officers did. The vast majority of his own fighters did not join him, and nor did a single civic leader or politician.
The television chef had blown his top, in a move long trailered in the British and American press.
Damage control
The Western media continues to wring from this abortive coup what consolation it can. The line is that – wait for it…
Russia is going to collapse – and that Putin is weak.
The coup thrilled the newsmakers of the West. It released a pent-up wellspring of exotic fantasy, as the respected experts of intelligence and foreign affairs fell over themselves to announce their dream had come true with the fall of Russia.
https://twitter.com/StephenKing/status/1672408014089846789
Here is an example from the Times in the U.K. Putin is doomed because he survived, no one betrayed him, and the coup was extinguished in a day.
There are others.
This is wishful thinking.
The perception of the coup as a Western-backed operation, whether true or not, has consolidated Putin’s popularity at home.
The real damage to Putin is not taking place inside Russia, nor in his army.
It is likely to be amongst the new strategic partners Putin has been careful not to alarm with his cautious management of the war in Ukraine.
His claim that Russia faces the West in a kinetic information war whose aim is the destruction of Russia appears to have convinced the BRICS bloc.
It was repeated in his video address on the morning of the coup, as he stressed that the insurrection was enabling the enemies of the Russian people.
How far can he now carry his nascent alliance with China, India, Saudi Arabia, and the putative 20 nations hoping to join BRICS next month?
How the sausage is made
The old adage that butchers do not eat sausages – since they know how they are made – breaks down when applied to the manufacture of news.
The opinion factory which has served up a hyperreal spectacle in place of the war appears to be run by a dedicated bunch of sausage eaters.
I joined the biggest Twitter Space online during the coup and witnessed the real-time manufacture and ravenous consumption of some of the most odious thought salamis I have ever witnessed.
The space was hosted by the alleged scam artist Mario Nawfal and amplified by Elon Musk himself. Whilst reporting some details, it served mainly to replace reality with a consensus fairy tale which none seemed capable of questioning.
Almost every online “expert” projected a narrative of pure fantasy on to the developing events, with near-universal agreement that Russia was collapsing.
The pro-NATO faction dominated the space, with some weighty counterbalance provided by Kim Dotcom. Robert Barnes had this to say:
It's fascinating watching "amateurs" like @KimDotcom better understand Russia than the official ex-generals, state department hacks, & foreign affairs "experts" of the west. #DeepState really shouldn't have gone after a guy who just wanted to chill in kiwi land.
— Robert Barnes (@barnes_law) June 24, 2023
U.S. Secretary of State and Sausage King Antony “Al” Blinken made the following statement. He refused to speculate on his own speculation before proceeding to speculate that it was “not over.”
The top diplomat of the United States is thinking about cracks – and where they are going (he does not know). He is heavily made-up in this video, perhaps in homage to his narrative of events.
Cracks in the narrative?
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is rumored to have said that Russian nuclear missiles, placed in Belarus last May in retaliation for the supply to Ukraine of depleted uranium shells by the U.K., will now be guarded by “a private military company.”
I do not believe the coup was a setup. I think Prigozhin meant it, and Putin’s reaction was genuine. The Russians have already claimed the West was involved, and some sober analysis supports the claim.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive is not going well. On Wednesday June 21, Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko warned of attempts to undermine and oust him. The war plans of the West have competed with those of the Russians in their failure to anticipate reality.
Russian regime change has always been the hoped for outcome, and the coup that never was has revealed the foundation of this strategy to be a wish that never came true.
Yet the Russians changed tack, and have rearmed and resupplied at a rate which is outpacing the rapidly depleting arsenals of NATO. The war of attrition it is fighting through defense in depth favors this capacity. It is the West which is short on time. This factor may have prompted the sudden meltdown of the would-be masterchef.
On both sides, then, the mask may have slipped, but perhaps the maskirovka has not. The Russian tactic of deception and misdirection has a fabled status. Whilst I do not think the whole thing a clever deception, it is reasonable to conclude the Russians are turning events to their maximum advantage.
From this sudden chaos, the dust is settling around a few facts. Putin is secure. Russia is loyal to him and unshaken. Perhaps, as Putin vowed, it has emerged stronger.
Time will tell who – or what – cracks first.
If you would like to know more, see my Substack for the forthcoming series World War Weird.