MEGATHREAD: whatever the hell is going on in Russia right now
please post any subsequent updates here unless they're huge happenings. i just woke up and half our news front page is updates which is nice but also A Lot and most of these don't have to be their own thread
I've not done a deep dive into his background, since he's clearly been in journalism for a long time with the choice of tangents he goes off on and presumed questions he addresses. I needed only one video to know he was becoming part of my daily news diet. If he does not have a military background in some way, I would be surprised.
I think he said he was a contractor for army but didn't go into any more details. He was also in prison for smuggling immigrants across border if I recall correctly.
His real name is Justin King, and his background is... checkered at best. His politics on screen are solid but he also has prior convictions for human trafficking. These are things you can look up. So I take everything around him with a grain of salt.
I appreciate the background. I've worked with a lot of journalists with checkered pasts and am one myself, so that sort of thing doesn't bother me so long as he's good at predicting the things he can based on experience and data and is clear when he can't. That his politics align somewhat closely with mine makes it easier to watch, but I'm there for the analysis.
An important distinction here is that he was convicted for the visa fraud kind of trafficking and not like sex trafficking or something. There's a huge difference there but people hear trafficking and just assume it's the worst kind imaginable.
Justin Eric King, 27, of Chipley, Fla., has been sentenced to 41 months in prison followed by three years supervised release resulting from his conviction on charges of conspiracy to commit visa fraud, visa fraud and conspiracy to commit alien smuggling, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and United States Attorney Gregory R. Miller of the Northern District of Florida announced today. The defendant and his co-conspirators brought illegal aliens, mostly from Bulgaria and Romania, to work in the hotel industry in and around Destin, Fla. King was sentenced by Senior District Court Judge Lacey A. Collier of Pensacola, Fla.
This isn't usually what we think of as "human trafficking." It seems that the people he smuggled understood what they were doing, and not being forced or coerced it. If that were the case, additional charges of exploitation would have been filed.
This is what like 99.9% of human trafficking is. They’ve successfully propagandized anyone who conflates sex trafficking with normal undocumented human movement.
He is intentionally vague in his videos, but he has worked with the military in some capacity as a civilian before, and he still has a lot of contacts in the military. Mostly though, I personally trust him more than most because I've been watching him for years and he usually turns out to be correct. He's also pretty level headed and willing to admit what he doesn't know.
It lays out the general events well enough, I don't know if he'll keep updating that page specifically. But it was good as an intro to what's happening.
It seems much of the "Ammunition shortage" Prigozhin was loudly complaining about was stock pilling. Similarly much of Wagnar was pulled out of Ukraine to rebuild.
There have been suggestions Prigozhin was planning to launch an attack on Sunday but the Russian MoD attacked a Wagner site forcing him to launch a day early.
One tweet suggested Wagner soliders had been calling family all day (e.g. before a big operation).
Seizing Rostok Von Don was a clever initial play, since its a major logistics hub. This allowed him to arm his troops and provides a base if the coup fails.
It seems the South Military District gave up without a fight, with soliders surrendering.
Prigozhin has sent a shock force to Moscow, its bypassing major cities and trying to get there ASAP. There is a belief senior Kremlin officials will abandon ship.
Various helicopters are attacking the shock force but it seems Wagner are using air defence. Various MI-8, KA-52 and a ll-s2 have been shown destroyed.
The Tik Tok bigrade are trying to attack Rostok, considering they aren't "true Russians" and were used as barrier troops, this doesn't seem to be going down well. They are also stripping Donetsk of defenders to do this.
Seizing Rostok Von Don was a clever initial play, since its a major logistics hub.
This also means if the coup lasts for more than a few days, the Russian Army's going to start running out of ammunition in significant portions of the front in Ukraine.
This feels like wrestling "Kayfabe." Like, was this just some weird feint by Russia? Try to bait Ukraine into doing something? This would be a new level of gaslighting if so...
It could also be a way to shake out any elements of the Russian military or other paramilitary groups that are looking for ways to get out of Ukraine. Like, maybe the attacks on Wagner coming from the Russian army are rogue elements where Wagner is obviously the most effective target for friendly fire.
The mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, has just put out a statement on Telegram announcing that "a counter-terrorist operation regime has been declared in Moscow" and that Monday will be a "non-working day" to "minimise risks".
Kadyrov's Akhmat units are heading to Rostov to supposedly counter Wagner's advance. As of this moment the head of the column is 40km away from Rostov. Worth remembering that just a few weeks ago Kadyrov's Chechen troops were tipped to take over from Wagner in Ukraine. https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-31-2023
graphic showing the progress of Prigozhin's rebellion. Little bright spots mark district centers where evidence of fighting has been observed, and big bright spots mark cities where explosions have been heard. Regions where Wagner column has been spotted marked in purple
Source: PMC Wagner leadership ordered mercenaries stationed in Moscow region to ‘be ready to move towards the incoming units’ yesterday.
Two fighters of PMC Wagner who are currently on leave in the Moscow region told Novaya-Europe that back yesterday they had been contacted by representatives of the PMC leadership and ordered to “be prepared to move towards the incoming units of the PMC”.
In practice, Prigozhin declared mobilisation among his former employees: there could be at least 30,000 of them in addition to the fighters that are already in service, military expert Georgy Aleksandrov tells Novaya-Europe. 1/
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