(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Prigozhin or pirozhki: Can the caterer deliver? [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-06-26 Prigozhin or pirozhki: Can the caterer Deliver? For several months Yvgenny Prigozhin, long-time friend of Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin and himself a billionaire oligarch, has travelled a dangerous, if scenic path, in Western media as a stone-cold killer in furtherance of Russian aims in Ukraine, Syria, Mali and the Cental African Republic (gold, gems, space age minerals and, of course, power). Prigozhin is an intriging figure exposing in very unKremlin-like style fractures in the Ukrainian war effort pointing out the flaws in Putin's strategy and messaging, not the least of which was his sledge hammer criticism of Putin's hand picked army Commander-in-Chief non-soldier Yvgenny Shoigu. I can't claim first-person knowledge that Shoigu shaved Putin's chest when they spent many nights together in Siberia, but the personal touch must have something to do with their association as it's odd to entrust someone without military experience to direct a million-man army. But Tsars - even would-be Tsars - are different - just ask them. Still, Prigozhin's recent pretentions to 'liberator' of Russia simply don't ring true. Prigozhin, the meaty, profane ex-con pulled his 25,000 man private army out of Ukraine last week claiming Shoigu was out to get him. By Saturday he committed apparent treason toward his boss and immediately this thug had become a crusader for 'justice' in the mind of the West for sending six trucks and one tank toward Moscow in a purported coup. Prigozhin's sudden feint toward the Soviet capital makes no sense generally. His intimate knowledge of Russian politics informed him that Putin's 400,000 national guardsmen - his personal police force - couldn't seriously be challenged by 25,000 Prigozhinists. Sorry, Russians simply are incapable of building a subterranean resistance. Why would he attack knowing he lacked the element of surprise? And even more damning: any 'leader' of a capital revolt knows they must provoke a bloody challenge immediately in order to bring the fence sitters into the conflict before their opponent has a chance to prepare a counter-strike. Seriously, six trucks and tank (I've seen the video numerous times) wouldn't scare Shirley Temple, and a ham-n-egger like Prigozhin lacks the charisma of a say, Fidel Castro. By standing down so as not to spill 'Russian blood,' Prigozhin labeled his rebellion as phony, insincere and pretty much a surrender. If he were serious in his intent to unseat a world-class villain who sits on Satan's right (my Hell-O-Vision is a bit fuzzy but that looks like NATO's own Erdagon on His Clovenness's left), Prigozhin would have opened all the drawers at Central Command in Rostov-on-Don for up-to-date maps of Russian trenches, land mines and artillery with which to aid Ukraine. To my knowledge this did not happen. The saddest part of all this is Western gloating over Putin's instantaneous vulnerability, his weaknesses exposed and the sudden creation of a mindset of revolution in Russia itself. Such conversation, in the opinion of Andrew Weiss, Vice President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, amounts to 'projection,' or wishful thinking given the precarious truth embedded in any information seeping out of the Russian mir. In addition, there is the excellent counter-weight analysis of Rebekah Koffler, author of Putin's Playbook, Russia's Secret Plan To Destroy America. In her view, Koffler, a native Russian and a U.S. Intelligence analyst, suggests a 'false flag' operation, an agit-prop creation of the wily Kremlin monarch. Koffler points out the optimism of anti-Putinists overlooks the fact that Putin has used this 'emergency' to potentially add 300,000 convicts to his 'liberation' army in Ukraine - a popuation once blocked from the armed services of the Russian Federation by 'liberal' acts of previous regimes. (Ironically, Koffler appeared on Fox News itself supposedly 'liberated' from owner Rupert Murdock's icy Stalinist leanings by Fox personality Bret Brier's takedown of a stupified Donald Trump a week before Pirgozhin's hyper-nastics.) In fact, I don't detect a planned coup at all. Nothing has really changed, Prigozhin is just another too loud rooster heading for the chopping block. This scenario regarding Russia is tediously familiar. Every year a new sparring partner appears so he can be flattened - Alexi Navalny, Bill Browder, etc. (Browder survived a run-in with Putin, but his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was not so fortunate. The Magnitsky Act, pushed by Browder, aims to sanction Russians involved in attacks on human rights. Putin asked Trump to repeal it, but Trump didn't get his bribe fast enough and the law stands). How is pastry chef getting his just desserts after brief shadow boxing a revolution? Putin is no Rocky Balboa, but as head of state he doesn't have to hit the canvas in order to make a dramatic come-back in front of dazzeled MAGA types. A heavyweight of Putin's stature can name the round; there isn't a scintilla of suspense in this knock-out of his latest patsy. The only way this bogus regicide gets into syndication is if Prigozhin's antics allow Putin to shrink his public persona - always a good idea for mobed-up types - and, by not putting Pirgozhin's head on a pike along M4, Putin undergoes a long-delayed humanization likely to push his approval rating even higher than its current 80%. Something is missing here and it doesn't show up anywhere, not in the under card and not in the main event. There is no midget contingent to throw clowning punches at the Tsar as Peter the Great would have done while getting ferociously drunk. And no busty women boxers to pound a goat, no tag-team display of fisticuffs while being chained to railroad tracks. In other words, this is just an exhibition among a singe weight class. There is no participation in any of this show by real people - that species has gone extinct under Putin. This whole Potemkinization was staged to give the boss another easy win, with just enough tension to prevent the audience from demanding their money back. Americans, of course, don't really care what they are watching, as long as the colors are concise and the volume turned up. This is why no one is really talking about Putin's masterful agit-prop that brought us Brexit and Trump and whose whole point is chaos, because in chaos there is distraction and in distraction there is opportunity. Vlad the Small is chuckling in one of his billion dollar palaces, he has 'saved' the nation from anarchy, added umpteen bodies to the charnel house in Ukraine, all while stealing the fortunes of the Siloviki who fled before the phony coup. Give him credit, it's a much better show of relevancy than the fopish, bemedaled King Charles of the former British empire and his feminine napkin Queen. Putin is 70 years old, an age at which really good writers, explorers, even bankers are already gone, submerged under friable reputations, haunting memories of things undone, promises unkept, friends out of touch, garages full of dusty obsolesence. After seven decades the human spirit can no longer look forward to much. The body is on loan to the medical profession, truth is scattered among hope and disappointments and the necessarily inadequate grasp of younger generations which forget their You Tube glances by lunchtime. If you're lucky the mind can still grasp simple ideas. Tomorrow consists of getting up, navigating stairs and trying to remember, well, something. But Putin, owner of 180 million bonded slaves, merciless warrior and manipulator, still aspires to be recalled in the company of Peter the Great, whose 'greatest' accomplishment is defeating Sweden, then a country of 1.5 million, in a decades long war over 200 years ago in Poltava, central Ukraine. That same Ukraine, which Putin declares is not a real country, is still being shattered daily by thousands of Russian munitions, while Prigozhin has escaped with his gold and his life - some coup. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/26/2177817/-Prigozhin-or-pirozhki-Can-the-caterer-deliver Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/