(06-24-2023, 05:42 PM)dabigv13 Wrote: Zero percent chance Putin engineered a coup against himself so he can send Prigozhin to Belarus to attack Ukraine. This is some Putin as master strategist brainworms. All he would have had to do is ask him to do that, and then we wouldn't have scenes of crowds cheering for a rival, Prigozhin, multiple downed aircraft and dead airmen, torn up roads and bridges in a panic, Russians buying wheat and fleeing from the cities.https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-gangste...54865.html
If you're going to stage a coup with a willing stooge to play the role as couper, why let them advance on Moscow while you try to stop them in a panic? Why let them shoot down all those planes? Why make an announcement calling the coupers traitors and stabbing the nation in the back, only to pardon them hours later?
I think it makes sense that Prigozhin did this because he knew the MOD deadline to subordinate Wagner MOD was coming up, he was at height of his power, and he had to make a play before giving it up. He succeeded enough to force some uncomfortable choices but maybe realized he never could actually take Moscow or if he did assume actual control of the state.
The deal as announced by Kremlin seems strange for Prigozhin to accept, surely we will learn more as time goes on. But a Putin 4D chess match, definitely not.
I think this summarizes it well. You ask a lot of "whys" that I can't answer. One of them is why call someone a traitor and call for their punishment and then pardon them almost immediately? I don't know, but certainly one possibility is that there was already an agreement in place. That may be "why" he pardoned Prigozhin almost immediately. Why didn't the troops in Rostov offer any resistance? Who knows? It may be that Prigozhin indeed was attempting a coup and had second thoughts.
It is also very possible there was more to it than that. Why did the Russian air force not strike Wagner's moving convoy from the air and simply obliterate it? Even the Russians can do that. Instead they sent a couple of helicopters that shot up a few vehicles and then left. One was apparently shot down. Not much of an effort if you really are "worried". While it isn't 4D chess, Putin did secure his original lock on power by arranging to have Russian apartment houses blown up that he could blame on the Chechens. He also sent Russian troops up against Chechens that he had arranged to inform about the battle plan. Getting Russians killed to make his next actions look "necessary" is not new to him.
As far as simply asking Prigozhin to go to Belarus and operate Wagner from there, it is probable that Belarus (at least lots of them) would not accept a Putin ally who is virtually part of the Russian military coming to their country and attacking Ukraine. Now that Prigozhin is no longer "Putin's man", maybe it is more palatable to the Belorussians and their President. The Wagner rank and file also may not have wanted this to happen. Now, there is a "reason". The point I am making here is that there are lots of scenarios about all this and nobody yet actually knows what the real "story" is. We may never.