Tag: New York Times

Putin On The Fritz

(UPDATE: Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, above, released an 11-minute video Monday in which he said last weekend's seizure of two major Russian region capitals amounted to protest, not an attempted military coup, NPR reports.)

Over the weekend, The Wagner Group’s mercenary leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, took control of Russia’s Southern Military District HQ in Rostov-on-Don, and another major regional capital with troops and tanks on their streets. He demanded Vladimir Putin sack his military leadership. 

Prigozhin sent 25,000 soldiers from his private military company (also until now known as “Putin’s private army”) charging toward the Kremlin, 600 miles to the north of Rostov-on-Don, but they stopped about 200 kilometers, or roughly 125 miles short of Moscow with no reported injuries, according to The New York Times. Footage surfaced of Prigozhin in control of the Southern Military District HQ, where he apparently had Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, and top military officer, Gen. Valery Gerasimov surrounded by Wagner guards, “Perhaps the most shocking scene of the day,” said the NYT.

However … Prigozhin backed off his insurrection before Wagner troops got any closer to Moscow and was then let off without arrest by Russian officials. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told reporters that Prigozhin instead will exile to Belarus in a deal brokered with that country’s leader and close Putin ally, Aleksandr Lukashenko. 

How it started: ICYMI, Prigozhin was a 30-year ally of Putin, first as a caterer, then as head of an elite and brutal army of mercenaries. Wagner – named after the German composer – was formed during Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and it joined Russian forces after it became clear to Putin his February 2022 invasion wasn’t going as planned. Prigozhin recruited soldiers from Russian prisons and pushed them into the bloody battle over Bakmut and then feuded with Russian Gens. Shoigu and Gerasimov. 

Last Friday night, Prigozhin claimed Russian forces attacked Wagner troops as they slept in their camps. Russia denies this, says the NYT, and the claim has not independently been verified. On Saturday, Prigozhin led a force of 25,000 from Ukraine to Rostov-on-Don, Russia, which he took over apparently with no resistance. Saturday morning, Putin delivered a five-minute address to his nation in which he described Prigozhin (without naming him) as a traitor and vowed to crush the uprising. 

“This is a stab in the back of our country and our people,” Putin said, comparing the insurrection to events leading up to the 1917 Russian Revolution and the end of the Russian Empire he so much longs to restore (per The Kyiv Independent).

Independent Russian news outlet Meduza quoted unnamed sources reporting Prigozhin initially attempted to get in touch with the Russian presidential administration midday Saturday as his fighters advanced toward Moscow (per The Kyiv Independent, again). 

Too late?: Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, told the NYT Putin underestimated the threat from Prigozhin and Wagner Group. “He thought he was totally dependent and loyal.”

What’s next?: Prigozhin is exiled to Belarus, but Wagner troops are not. But even if Putin can somehow persuade many of those 25,000 returned Wagner soldiers to turn around and head back into Ukraine, progress on Russia’s invasion should be further compromised, especially with Ukraine’s counter-offensive already underway.

Can Putin hold on to power? The only certainty is he will double-down on repression of his own people.

Epilogue: Neither Putin nor Prigozhin have been seen in public since Saturday, NPR reports.

UPDATE: Monday, Putin made his first video appearance since his condemnation of Saturday's insurrection, BBC reports, though it is not clear when or where the video was made.

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SCOTUS this week – Supreme Court decisions are due before the end of June on four important cases (per U.S. News & World Report):

•Affirmative action

•President Biden’s $10,000 student loan forgiveness program

•Religious rights

•Voting and the “independent state legislature” theory.

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Up on the Hill – The House and the Senate are off through July 9.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Biden to Announce

President Biden is expected to make a formal announcement by next Tuesday he will seek re-election in 2024, The New York Times reports. Biden’s team is said to be in the final stages of planning, with a video in production and donors being mobilized.

He would be the third announced Democratic candidate for president in 2024. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. threw his hat in the ring earlier in the week. While RFK Jr. will reportedly emphasize family history instead of his anti-vax positions, most of the Kennedy family are said to be staunch Biden supporters, People magazine reports. 

But RFK Jr. does have his wife, actress Cheryl Hines (she plays Larry David’s ex-wife on Curb Your Enthusiasm): 

“My husband, RFK Jr., announced today he will be running for president and I support his decision,” Hines said in a statement obtained by People.

First candidate to announce for the Democratic nomination was Marianne Williamson, the author and “spiritual leader” (Wikipedia’s description) who first ran in 2020.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

…meanwhile…

(MON 9/12/22)

Ukrainian Momentum: Ukrainian troops on Saturday recaptured the eastern city of Izium, a strategically important railway hub that Russian troops have held since last spring, The New York Times reported Sunday. Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, confirmed on CBS News that her country has pushed fleeing Russian troops out of 1,200 square miles of the northeast region of Kharkiv in the last eight days, more than the invading forces had captured since April. 

“We have to win, and this counter-offensive shows we can win,” Marakova told CBS’ Face the Nation. She agreed with military assessments that Ukrainian forces can push Russia back to the borders before the end of the year “because of the resolve of the armed forces.”

•••

Better Call Saul: From Sunday’s New York Times’ story about myriad Trump lawyers who have to lawyer-up themselves after working for the former president, this “dark joke”: “MAGA actually stands for ‘making attorneys get attorneys.’”

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THIS WEEK ...

The White House: President Biden visits Boston Monday, where he will deliver remarks on Bipartisan Infrastructure already underway and “tangible results for communities and the country.” Biden announces his “Cancer Moonshot” goal of finding a cure, to be held at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum on the 60th anniversary of President Kennedy’s announcement of his goal to put an American on the moon before the end of the 1960s.

On Tuesday Biden visits the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

On Saturday the president and Jill Biden travel to the United Kingdom for Queen Elizabeth II's funeral, to be held next Monday.

Congress: The Senate is in session Monday, with both chambers in session Tuesday through Friday.

Inflation Rate: The Labor Department publishes the August Consumer Price Index Tuesday. Expectations are the rate will fall somewhat from the annual rate reported for July of 8.5%, which itself decreased from June's annual rate of 9.1%.

--TL

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