Prigozhin Asks For Separate Negotiations?
- 6.03.2023, 11:31
The head of the Wagner PMC understands one wants to eliminate him.
One year and nine days of war have passed. I am writing with some astonishment the now-traditional phrase that there has nothing changed on the front for twenty-four hours. This astonishment can be explained by the fact that there was no change in Bakhmut either.
For several days now, everyone has been waiting for the AFU to leave Bakhmut. But they still do not leave it. And they even seem to have stabilized the situation there, and the enemy's ring has stopped shrinking!
Today, Prigozhin posted a pretty interesting video. He tells that, first, he is still not given any shells and so he has nothing to fight with.
Secondly, he admits this is done on purpose and is a conspiracy of generals against PMC Wagner in general.
Thirdly, he said that his convict mercenaries (as he called them: "ordinary men") believe they were simply betrayed.
Finally, he draws the public's attention to the fact that if, as a result of this betrayal, he is forced to retreat, the front would fall all the way to Luhansk and Krasnodon, and the entire war will be hopelessly lost.
What did I personally learn from his cries of Yaroslavna? First of all, that he has no direct access to No. One (as they all call Putin). He can't meet him and complain about the intrigues of generals.
And the generals, in turn, realizing that a military disaster is inevitable, and not wishing to bear responsibility for this disaster, are actively making Prigozhin a scapegoat.
Putin found himself in Hitler's situation of 1934: his former comrades-in-arms became a burden to him. When Hitler needed the loyal army, the generals, realizing this, delivered him an ultimatum: remove the Sturmabteilung (SA) and their leader, Ernst Röhm. We want nothing to do with these bandits. They destroy all the principles any regular army rests on.
And Hitler destroyed both the Sturmabteilung and their leader, despite the fact that it was they who brought him to power, and Röhm was his closest friend and comrade-in-arms. This event in German historiography is called the "Night of the Long Knives" (30.06.1934).
And now the "Night of the Long Knives" has happened in Russia. Putin is using the AFU instead of knives. But the goal is still the same: to avoid conflict with the army, to sacrifice his armed units made up of lumpen and criminals.
Prigozhin is not a fool. He is not going to become a "pig" who has been fattened up just to be slaughtered at the right moment. Once he realized that Putin is distancing on purpose and he and his rogues in Russia have already become cannon fodder, he decided that it's time to look for new masters: are they, after all, mercenaries, or what?
The whole history of the world, and European one for that matter, is full of stories of mercenary Landsknechts leaving one liege lord for another. And there was no damage to their honor: it was business, nothing personal. If one employer fails to meet the terms of the contract, there is no shame to serve another person. After all, it wasn't the soldier of fortune who refused to honor the contract; it was the employer who betrayed.
Now, Prigozhin is desperately messaging Zelensky, calling him "Dear Vladimir Alexandrovich," then being profuse in compliments and admiring the bravery of Ukrainian soldiers, then directly saying that he "would like to talk directly to Zelensky".
My Ukrainian friends, as soon as I told them my idea about Prigozhin, immediately waved their hands at me and started telling me that it was as immoral as negotiating with Himmler in 1945.
I think this is a bad analogy. First, there is nothing immoral about seeking to save the lives of your soldiers. And if one must ally oneself with the devil, one must do it without hesitation.
Second, it was probably a really bad idea to negotiate with Himmler in the spring of 1945. But if he had offered such negotiations in 1943 - why not?
And third: separate negotiations with Himmler were impossible because the Allies had agreed not to conduct them. Today, Ukraine has no such obligations to the Allies. Moreover: they have handed over all rights to such negotiations to Ukraine. And, therefore, such negotiations cannot be separate.
It's just a negotiation with a part of the enemy army that, for whatever reason, is willing to stop the war or even take your side. So what's wrong with negotiating with them regarding terms they accept?
Perhaps, I am wrong. Perhaps, I am misinterpreting Prigozhin's public activity today. So what? What does the Ukrainian side lose by verifying it? The SID surely has an opportunity to ask Prigozhin what he meant. Who but himself would be compromised by this kind of contact? And in the worst case, these talks will serve as another reason to mistrust between the Wagner PMCs and the army. And given the strong fear of treachery on Putin's part, it will be good even from this side.
Any discord in the enemy camp is a step towards victory. All the more, we stand on the right side of the argument, so the enemy will be defeated and the victory will be ours.
Alfred Koch, Telegram