Originally posted by Old Man Whirly!
I think this war is going to get a whole lot worse. Putin is not an Ice Man, far from it. He is very emotionally driven.
Putin's supposed to deliver remarks regarding the Wagner group and the short rebellion. I suspect he will spin it and make himself look like both the victim and hero.
Putin says the aborted rebellion played into the hands of Russia’s enemies
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday blasted organizers of a weekend revolt, the gravest threat yet to his power, as traitors who played into the hands of Ukraine’s government and its allies.
Speaking in a stern tone and looking tired in a five-minute TV address near midnight, Putin sought to project stability. He tried to strike a balance between criticizing the uprising’s perpetrators to prevent another crisis, and not antagonizing the bulk of the mercenaries and their hardline supporters, some of whom are incensed at the Kremlin’s handling of the situation. -snip
"Strong daddy" and heroic figure to many on the Right (at least here in the US) not looking so strong these days.
Wagner's apparently being dismantled. That's Putin's strongest and most successful military arm going bye-bye 🙂
The Coup Is Over, but Putin Is in Trouble
"Prigozhin gets to stay alive, at least for the moment, but his life as he knew it (and maybe in any sense) is over. Putin, however, is now politically weaker than ever. The once unchallengeable czar is no longer invincible. The master of the Kremlin had to make a deal with a convict—again, in Putin’s culture, among the lowest of the low—just to avert the shock and embarrassment of an armed march into the Russian capital while other Russians are fighting on the front lines in Ukraine." -Snip
🙂
Hopefully that is true.
Putin's veneer as the undisputed ruler and master of Russia has taken a hit, as a rather large and powerful military force (of mostly Russians) was less than 125 miles from his capital, they were staging a coup and he had to go into hiding before a deal could be struck.
Just a matter of time until someone takes him out, and not to lunch 🙂