What if the 101st stole all their crayons first? Still no?

Agreed. For comparison, I was also in the US military (not during combat) and had the opportunity to briefly work alongside some former Soviet soldiers in a former Soviet Republic (not Russia) several years after the break up. Fighting each other was these dudes primary mode of passing the time. It was absolutely wild. I imagine that the culture hasn’t changed much.

I mean, imagine a dictator in charge who started a bloody war on Canada which has been going for more than a year and cost a few hundred thousand lives already. Maybe then it would be in the realm of possibilities.

It’s hard to wrap one’s mind around the mindset among many Russians. They must be filled with despair with no future in sight. Only booze to soften the daily life. Of course, also terrible for morale.

You would never ever EVER see …

I served in the 80’s and let me heartily agree. We “wind dummies” derided “Jar-Heads” and “Wing Nuts”, but the thought of actually trying to kill them is just ludicrous. Not even the ones from the wrong side of the political aisle. It’s hard to imagine what kind of sick environment the Muscovites have in place that could give rise to this kind of in-fighting. It’s hard to understand how they’ve managed to last this long with this level of rot.

Looks like it!

Joyful ! - - I like it and I’m up-voting most every comments in here now 🥳
So happy this war may end soon 🎉🍾

We keep singing happy song in chorus, with bottle of vodka in hand, as mutiny rises around us.

I think Prigozhin is aiming for a position where he will need the support of a lot of people in order to get what he wants, even if succeeds with his objective. He is rallying support outside of Wagner, in order to gain legitimacy or acceptance for his end goal, whatever that may be.

I think the more support you have, the more likely others will support you. So you want everyone to know about your supporters. I’m sure there’s a number of people who’ve wanted to overthrow Putin for a looooong time and were just waiting for something that actually stood a chance of success.

I think it might also be possible, that everyone who knew anything about how the war was really going, thought it was fucking stupid. But that order to stop had to come from the top, and so, there was a fragile hirearchy following orders. But the further down you go, the less agreement with them.

And now, Wagner has rocked the house of cards. And all those who were wishing for it all to just fucking end are seeing an opportunity to not stay aboard the sinking ship they’re pretending was seaworthy.

Russians know more than most people that what you say in public makes a difference, hence why they’re so good at misinformation.

If you can get some of the public behind you when making a coup, then later that may be useful, though this likely works only if you have some public support initially.

I know there’s been some build up to this, but something just doesn’t sit right. Like you mentioned, how public it all is with videos and people in front of cameras but… Why now, after everything.