Did the West just get played by Putin?

The Wagner group invasion of Russia is indeed over before it even started.  There are some that speculate that Prigozhin called it off because Putin threatened his family.

Russian intelligence services threatened to harm the families of Wagner leaders before Yevgeny Prigozhin called off his advance on Moscow, according to UK security sources.

While others speculate as I did that promises of support did not materialize and he had no choice but to stop.  I certainly don’t believe the first story because Prigozhin would need to be an idiot to start this without first getting his family to safety.  Now one day later I don’t complete believe my own theory.  I believe the support did not materialize, I just don’t believe that is the whole story.

I think the promise of support was real because the US could not resist bragging about how they knew this was going to happen days before it did.

While over the past months Prigozhin has made his personal hatred for Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and top general Valery Gerasimov well known, the intelligence that Washington supposedly had seems very specific and appears to have accurately predicted events, a mere few days before they unfolded.

So the US was either the entity that encouraged Prigozhin with a promise of support; or the US was cooperating with Russian generals who were promising support.  Either way the support did not materialize, which effectively ended the invasion.  What happened next is what makes me believe that the story does not end here.  So far Putin’s response has been uncharacteristically muted.

Dmitry Kiselyov, in his Russian state TV programme, has claimed the swift resolution of the Wagner Group’s mutiny shows Russia is a united nation. Part of his show has been tweeted by Francis Scarr from BBC Monitoring. Mr Kiselyov also played an archive clip of Vladimir Putin saying he is able to forgive many things, but not “betrayal”.

No one thinks that Putin is the type to forgive and forget yet he has done just that so was this really a betrayal?  Putin allowed Priigozhin to go to Belarus.  Belarus is Russia’s closest ally so maybe Putin is just getting Prigozhin out of sight to execute him but maybe there is more going on than we see.  No one else has been publically arrested?  Why not?  Why would Putin allow Priigozhin to go in to exile without giving up his accomplices?

I found the whole thing very odd until I read another opinion of what really happened that fits all of the facts.  Prigozhin and Putin hatched this plan together to expose disloyal elements in his government and military.  They may have even convinced the US to fund the whole operation.

This might seem a little far-fetched but there is more to consider.  By marching his troops up the highway from Rostov to Moscow and turning them back Prigozhin has now placed his mercenaries much closer to Kiev than they were just days ago.  From His exile in Belarus Prigozhin himself is also much closer to Kiev.  And don’t forget that rolling up the highway made the Wagner troops a sitting duck.  The Russian air force could have wiped them out in hours but they did not.  Putin made a big show of constructing sand bag bunkers all around Moscow but he did not take the chance to wipe out Wagner before they got near Moscow?

Everything I said here is pure speculation but the next few weeks will be very interesting.  Either we will find out that this was one of the most ill-conceived invasions in history, or, a brilliant tactical move by Putin.  I would not bet against the latter.  It is never a good idea to underestimate your opponent but from the start of this proxy war the west has consistently under estimated Putin.  Intellectual light weights like Trudeau and Biden believe they are so much smarter than Putin.  There is no evidence those two men are smarter than anyone let alone a man that was able to rebuild Russia after the complete collapse of communism.

The west is run by morons.  Putin might just be preying on their collective stupidity again.  Time will tell.