Prigozhin provokes West into frankness

After the simulation demo of the coup in Putin's Russia, carried out by Putin's "chef" and his thugs from Wagner PMC, we learned a lot of interesting things. We learned that the dictator, whose image has been worked on by an army of political technologists for decades, is in fact a dictator only within Moscow’s Garden Ring, that the Russian army is already the second largest in Russia, and that everything can be bought in Russia - at least for $4 billion.

But the most interesting discovery, in my opinion, is the reaction of the West. That is, those who, for Putin and the Russian people, are the instigators of the Ukrainian campaign, and for us, a reliable ally in the fight against, to put it mildly, not entirely healthy neighbors.

There is also a whole layer of revelations and confessions here. To begin with, the British government has admitted that it was not prepared for the scenario of a sudden collapse of the Russian Federation. "We thought that all this would happen gradually. There was no question of an unexpected 'march on Moscow'," said John Foreman, former British military attaché in Moscow.

“So now, according to British officials, we should focus on planning for a new challenge - the collapse of the conglomerate of regions called the Russian Federation, and most importantly, a nuclear power whose deadly potential is spread over almost 1/6 of the world's landmass”

Of course, it's a shame that even the most cautious of Britons have not learnt anything from the lessons of history. It is also unfortunate that creative thinkers and strategists in the West, who seem to be able to calculate the most fantastic scenarios for the development of human civilization, did not pay attention to such trifles. However, for some reason, what the public considers to be unshakable constants usually make trouble at the most inopportune moment. This was the case not only with the USSR, whose successor and guardian of Soviet "values" Russia claims to be. This was the case with virtually all empires, except that the time of their collapse correlated with the general, so to speak, speed of the times.

“An indirect confirmation of the fact that the United States was not ready for an "unfortunate misunderstanding" with the possible collapse of the Russian Federation was the report that Washington leaders had tacitly warned Kyiv not to strike at Russian territory during the "raid" of the newly minted Kornilov. They said that Ukraine could use the moment at the front as they pleased, but refrain from hits in Russia itself.”

This is diplomatically explained by the reluctance to demonstrate support for any of the parties to the "conflict", but for some reason it seems to me that the Pentagon or the CIA were simply not ready to catalyze a process with unpredictable consequences.

I'm not talking about the "caution" of European leaders, whose reaction to the Prigozhin "coup" was habitually soft. I think that if the Putin regime were to fall these days, and an uncontrollable process of a "parade of sovereignties" and civil war were to begin in Russia, it would be considered by strategists in Berlin, Paris or Rome to be something like "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century". What the collapse of the USSR was for Putin, by his own admission…

But what should we demand from the "commanders-in-chief" whose officers, with the outbreak of a full-scale war in Ukraine, submitted their resignations to their commanders en masse? As it was in the Bundestag. Of course, they had no idea that the military profession implied participation in hostilities, even if it was illusory. Excuse me, but who gave such people the right to assess the pace of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' counter-offensive? And such assessments have been increasing in number lately…

I am convinced that Russia itself has long since realized the fatal nature of its prospects. In any case, the so-called fear mongers have become more active there. For example, Sergei Karaganov, a member of the Scientific Council of the Russian Security Council, has published his second article stating that Russia will be forced to launch a nuclear strike on Europe. "The fact that we refuse the possibility of using it (nuclear weapons - ed.) in all situations, except in case of mortal danger to the state itself, seems to me frivolous."

“Still inactive in the field of journalism (rather, propaganda), one of the founders of Valdai, an "academic" close to Putin and Patrushev, demands that "the West should simply 'f*ck off' and not prevent Russia and the world from moving forward". And the conclusion about the consequences of a nuclear apocalypse is quite adequate for a recognised "guru" of Russian intellectuals: "The winners are not judged, but the saviors are thanked".”

But it seems to me that the fear-mongering of others is just an attempt to suppress one's own inner fear. After all, what could be more terrifying for refined imperials than the loss of imperial status and arrogance? A situation that will make you feel miserable and ignoble, just as you have always considered "populace" to be.

But I hope the ice has broken, and the West's political statements about the awareness of the possibility of Russia's collapse as a state and territorial entity, will be translated into concrete strategies. And I am convinced that it is the Armed Forces that will encourage our partners to accept the collapse of Putin's empire as a given, as an indisputable fact.

After all, it is not Prigozhin alone…

About the author. Ihor Hulyk is a journalist and editor-in-chief of the Espreso website.

The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.