Especially if Wagner manages to destroy some or a lot of them.

Yea but at least he would have died fighting. Now he died for nothing lol

not anymore, they had to give up all heavy equipment

Wagner even shot down one Russian helicopter.

Anti-aircraft is different than air assets I get it that both are AA but I meant an air assets not anti-aircraft. 👍

And run away to hide in St. Petersburg

Sure so far, but a direct order from Putin directly after killing the last man who crossed him? If it came to it he would launch everything he’s got because anything not launched gets destroyed by mutually assured destruction, so every single Russian officer would have to refuse to launch. And it only takes one launch to be devastating and trigger a complete reaction from the US as our anti-Russian propaganda is still strong.

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=fWKGYnO0Jf4

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.

Behind the Bastards has an episode about Jim Caviezel, and in it they discussed several anonymous and one non anonymous retelling of working with the man. If the allegations are to be believed, he kept being worse and worse not understanding his characters motivations, and they had to adjust some stuff to stop him ruining the show. They mention him doing stuff like actually harming other actors/stunt doubles if he was doing action scenes, a desire to just kill and shoot up enemies, and being really bad later on about following the script.

As someone who viewed Person of Interest down to the last episode, this was a series that started strong, followed with a solid 2nd season and at this point it was like watching two series at once, one taking in consideration the roots of the story, the other written by a teenager fan group, wanting to turn up the dial for more intrigue.

The way it ended was a coup de grace, more than anything.

Having not finished any of these shows I’m unsure of if the format is telling me they have good endings or not. I’m guessing not but I heard Fringe and POI are great.

That’s what I would do if I were Putin. I would basically dissolve the Wagner charter or whatever the equivalent is in Russia. I would then have a “skills interview and test” (loyalty test) and give the most loyal a pay bump and a promotion, even if in title only. I would basically make everyone an independent contractor so they all get paid different rates and have different performance incentives based off their role. That would basically ensure that they stay loyal to you, as they would be way less likely to join forces if everyone thinks they are special and better then the next guy.

I don’t want to sound mean, but that sounds like a massive overcomplication from Putin’s side. To me, what you’re saying seems to make sense, but you and I are not Putin - I think neither of us is a narcissistic psychopath that’s been killing people en masse for at least a couple of dozen years. What makes sense to you or me might not necessary make any bit of sense to Putin - we wouldn’t have seen this war play out, nor the Crimea annexation, nor even Euromaidan, because without Putin’s egoistic attempts to control Ukraine via proxies (Yanukovich and the entire war in Donbass being the prime example) or directly.

If we start talking about this from positions of common sense, we’ll simply go back so far back in time that it’s just easier to assume that everyone would be better off without Putin as a whole in the first place, from the very beginning.

You clearly speak English well, do you have an English source I can read more about this?

First of all, thank you! It’s probably my most cherished skill - really did open a lot of opportunities in my life in many ways. Not really sure I wouldn’t be rooting for Putin if it wasn’t for English leading me to more liberal places, first outside the Russian internet, then - interestingly enough - inside the Russian internet and Russia itself.

As for the English sources, I’m afraid I can’t recommend anything. Things I know and share are mostly courtesy of the Russian-native sources of various kind, complied in my mind over years and years of discourse.

Since links to other social media sites are forbidden by the rules here, I’ll leave a few easily-searchable sources below. Keep in mind that none of them are native English speakers, but all have their content readily available in English one way or another. It’s not as easy as I’d love it to be to share with you, but it’s the best sources I could think of to share with someone outside Russia, helping them understand what’s actually going on.

• Vlad Vexler (YouTube) - I can’t really recall who he is exactly, but it’s safe to say he’s been studying/looking at the Russian politics for many years now, and shares some insights with the English-speaking audience. He doesn’t live in Russia and, from what I can tell, hasn’t lived there for decades, so he is a little rusty and out of touch with things like motivations of the elites, the processes in the society, etc., but it’s a good enough source if you need an English-speaking source.
• Maxim Katz (YouTube) - a Russian-speaking politician, currently wanted by the Russian government and living in Israel until he can come back. Probably the best speaker we have right now. His production has gotten really professional since the beginning of the war in terms of subtitles, the topic coverage, upload frequency (as of yet, it’s daily, so there’s a lot of content if you’re interested) - very easy to follow, very humane, and extremely representative of the Russian society’s current demands and thoughts, despite everything people have to say. The channel covers a lot of topics, both from the liberal perspective and the more conservative/conformist one, trying to reach out to as many people as possible; sometimes they cover some things about the Russian opposition and the challenges it’s facing, which is a great peek into what’s going in Russian minds, too; sometimes they present some analysis on what’s to come in terms of the war or Russia or Putin, also making it very clear that their forecasts are extremely tentative due to the nature of such things in the situation Russia is in thanks to Putin; honestly. there’s so much Maxim and his team talk about that I wouldn’t be able to list everything here, but if you want to have a consistent, worthwhile and sensible insight into the country that Russia is today, this is probably the best option aside from regularly talking to someone inside (speaking of which, feel free to reach out, I’ll be happy to try and answer some questions; sometimes it makes me feel like I’m doing my little part in dissolving the myths about the obedient slavery-loving Russians that just crave to live under some mad dictatorships).
• Ekaterina Schulmann (YouTube) - an extremely experienced and professional political scientist. She does have a channel, but also gives interviews to various media outside Russia in English, so you’ll have an easier time with getting info from her. Her analysis and understanding of Russia are a little more complicated than that of Maxim’s and Vlad’s from above, but if you want a really thorough look across large swathes of content, both from her specifically and just featuring her, this is definitely the woman to follow.
• Ksenia Sobchak (YouTube and Telegram) - quite a big name in Russia in general, and now in more liberal media as well, but I can’t tell you much about her because she cover a wide variety of topics not just related to politics. Still, she’s another great example of someone trying to talk to both those pro war and those against - because, trust me, it’s a very complicated topic and throwing the former aside only helps Putin. Surely worth a few looks, especially over at YouTube with some subtitles.
• Mikhail Khodorkovsky (YouTube) - a bit more radial than the rest, but nonetheless worth checking out. The insights he offers are a little more outdated than that of Maxim’s because Mikhail has been living outside Russia for years now, and spent even more in jail prior - Putin didn’t like him for multiple reasons and dealt with him in a relatively nice way (took away his business and with that, a great workplace for millions of people; I think my father used to work at his company, UKOS, and it was definitely better than today’s Rosneft for him in particular and us as a family as a whole). I do believe he is worth checking out anyway because he brings his experience of being a very active member of the Russian society during the 90s and 00s.

Sure they probably would kill each other just for fun, but they were also allies until this.

It’s about money. They’re mercenaries. If they don’t get paid, they’ll bite the hand that feeds them. That’s likely why they marched to Moscow. So Prigizhin got paid and they turned around. But what now? Prigozhin has the money. Suddenly dies. Did his mercenaries get paid? Dead men don’t pay bills. There’s no hand to bite. The mercenaries were prisoners before they joined Wagner. It’s unlikely that neither Putin or Prigozhin gives a fuck about them.

If you ask me, it’s really fucking convenient for both Putin and Prigozhin to fake his death right about payday.

Yeah, was gonna say. A CEO dying doesn’t stop the paychecks in a normal company, but if the CEO was murdered by the company’s only client…

I know of two small ? (Not sure what the cutoff is) businesses and payroll would stop if they died. They would be paid eventually as the companies have assets, but it would take a while for them to pick up the pieces. Basically for one of them their lead saleswoman would have to assume the role and teach herself basically everything he was doing. Instead of hiring HR/AP/Etc. he outsourced everything to programs and other companies other than sales, design and production. I honestly don’t know if the company would survive if he died, which is sad because the lead saleswoman is his wife.

I didn’t say it was ‘controversial’, just inaccurate. There’s no controversy about it.

What makes you think military members are more loyal to their nation than mercenaries? Heck, one of my most upvoted responses says “Wagner was more gungho about the war in Ukraine than the military.”

For a lot of mercenaries, the military doesn’t go far enough or give them the freedom to shape the nation how they want.

Literally everything you said can also be said about soldiers, and in most cases it would be more accurate.

https://piped.video/watch?v=XTOco33mzDw

I’d recommend watching this

Oranges? What does Trump have to do with this?

Appeasement never works, we should have learned that by now, but we need to make it clear.

Does Putin seem reasonable to you? I think it’s pretty possible that he will be willing to take the whole world to the grave with him.

Recent? I was watching a video about the USSR losing a whole bunch of their top generals because the idiots went on the same plane to some meeting. They used this little trip for some personal shopping. They bought a lot much stuff and it was improperly secured in the aircraft so it shifted during takeoff dooming them all.