Wagner Group captures headquarters of the Southern Military District and the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Rostov, the headquarters of Russia's base of operations for War in Ukraine

downpunxx@lemmy.worldbanned from sitebanned from site to World News@lemmy.world – 25 points –
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Supposedly they've already agreed to retreat to Belarus? Shortest coup ever, or a dog n pony show.

I would like to submit "Putin panics and nukes his own people to stop the advance" for my Bingo card.

If there's one thing I've learned from my history classes it's that power vacuums (or even perceived power vacuums) and the ensuing instability always end well for everyone involved....

/s

I wonder if Flight of the Valkyries plays wherever the Wagner Group goes. (For at least two reasons.)

I welcome russian infighting. Hope it makes it easier for Ukraine to retake Crimea.

The Wagnerites also seized the buildings of the head office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB department, the administration of #Rostov and one of the police departments, according to local channels. Nobody in the city understands what's going on.

https://press.coop/@nexta_tv/110596856860216270

Can you explain the significance of these buildings?

Are they the head offices of those departments, or the offices that are in that city?

How powerful are these departments?

Rostov is the admin centre of Rostov Oblast (state capital city). I would assume the main offices are in Moscow and these are the regional headquarters.

So while it is big if they have taken them it is not as big as if they had done so in Moscow.

25,000 troops marching on Moscow. How many does the Kremlin have not already in Ukraine?

People are tired of this war. Putin wanted to secure food reserves and have an open access sea port for his military; however he wasn't honest as to his reasons why; understandably so. Given this the Russian public doesn't see the actual geopolitical value of the conflict. This was inevitable. If Russia couldn't play nice with the rest of the world as their money mostly comes from oil and gas; which we are moving away from. Let them pay for their crimes.

Can someone please explain what's going on ? I am out of the loop. I know Wagner was fighting for Russia but what happened now?

Everyone in Wagner was about to be conscripted into the regular Russian Army as the latest in an ongoing power struggle between Wagner's boss and the Russian MoD. So to avoid losing his private army, the boss has stepped up the power struggle to an attempted coup, basically.

The coup will be crushed, but it will weaken the Russian military even more and they lose their (now former) elite forces

My money isn't on the Russian Army being able to "crush" anything tougher than a chicken egg at this point.

what is Wagner group?

The Wagner Group, is a Russian paramilitary organization. It is seen as a private military company (PMC), a network of mercenaries, or a de facto private army of Russian President Vladimir Putin's former close ally Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The group operates beyond the law in Russia, where private military companies are officially forbidden. Because it operates in support of Russian interests, it receives equipment from the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) and uses MoD installations for training, the Wagner Group is said to be a de facto unit of the MoD or Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU.

While the Wagner Group itself is not ideologically driven, various elements of Wagner have been linked to neo-Nazism and far-right extremism.

While the Wagner Group itself is not ideologically driven, various elements of Wagner have been linked to neo-Nazism and far-right extremism.

It's literally named for Hitler's favorite composer.

Here’s a pic of the founder Dmitry Utkin whose call sign is Wagner. He can be seen with nazi eagle, swastika, SS Schutzstaffel. This isn’t just runic imagery. He chose that call sign and the name for his company because he is a fan of the 3rd reich. And it was Adolf Hitlers favorite composer. Not just actual nazis. But an actual nazi leader. Leading a war for conquest and nazi glory.

Utkin hasn't been really relevant for Wagner in recent years and is definitely not leading it. While their involvement in Ukraine might be for glory, their usual interests are monetary, their control over various oil fields, lumber, and gold mines in Syria, CAR, Mali providing a steady sanction-proof revenue stream. They also further the Russian's state geopolitical interests while maintaining plausible deniability.

They are nationalistic, opportunistic whatever, but not "Leading a war for conquest and nazi glory.".

They do have neo-nazis/ultranationalists elements of course though, especially Rusish Group.

Holly shit this has been picked up by the BBC.

Remember, it doesn't matter if they succeed or not. The fact it has happened will terrify Putin.

It won't terrify Putin. It all goes according to the plan. Different forces are fighting between themselves to show who's more loyal to Putin, those who are not loyal enough are either falling out of windows or being killed on the battlefield. And those who are loyal are getting ludicrously rich. The amount of billionaires in Russia has increased fivefold during the first year of the war.

Army generals got too corrupt and too complacent since their success in Crimea in 2014, this war is a tool to put them into place and Prigozhin talks a lot so that Putin can put generals' noses into their shit to teach them a lesson or two while the public fully supports this. Prigozhin gets his piece of the pie in the process.