I "ran" a bot/crawler hobby project that takes a russian-speaking telegram channel as an input and outputs the messages in a translated form, including text, images and video. During this situation I realized this became really relevant so I improved during the coup it to support multiple input channels and to keep a queue as post processing takes long for videos, and to provide audio transcriptions (Prigozhin himself likes to post audio clips)

I don't think its true that there was not much information. There actually was minute-by-minute updates by citizens, Wagner itself, establishment-oriented channels etc. You can read the backlog if you want: https://t.me/translatedrussianpropaganda

At the peak there was some real queue and I had to switch from running it on an ARM VM to my 12-core local system just to keep up. Whisper takes the longest to run, and given it translates spoken russian really well, I claim it was the first source of information in several occasions for people that don't speak Russian, for the few people that actually joined the channel (I didn't advertise it but on a small forum because I knew it might become a maintenance/fixing burden).

I find this to be a universal fact of the war in Ukraine.

I speak Russian natively and most of my family (dad and both in-laws) grew up in Ukraine.

So you'd think that compared to an average Westerner I could be well I formed about what's happening.

Yet I find it completely impossible. An amalgam of Russian sources will present a totally different tactical and historical picture than that of Western and Ukrainian sources.

I can chose to believe the later based on emotion and prevalent sentiment of where I live but objectively I don't feel confident going in either direction.

It's crazy to me that someone can feel certainty here with access to only one of the sides' information.

Perhaps and even likely this has been the case in every war but it's the first one where I am so accutely aware of it.

This is, in my experience, actually a good indication that the event was truly a surprise to the Russian government. Their media apparatus is very good at having a cohesive narrative and lots of talking points in place before planned information operations, and they're not typically great at responding to events on the ground as they unfold, usually needing a couple of days to assemble a media campaign in response to unexpected events. The lack of any coordinated information response is a tell that the Russian government didn't anticipate this whole shebang.

Because (US) foreign correspondence is a hollow shell of itself.

https://twitter.com/ChrisBuryNews/status/1672410476364300288...

> At @abc we had foreign bureaus in Beijing, Beirut, Berlin, Cairo, Frankfort, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Tel Aviv and Tokyo.

> Only London is left.

During Soviet times, many Russians learned to be _incredibly_ supportive of large gangs of people with guns and tanks standing in their front yard. There can be a horde of Romulans invading and they’ll be lining the road with water bottles and flower garlands.

People there still remember family members being carted away in box trucks for asking when they can expect the next food shipment. Russia is, and mostly has always been, ruled by violent thugs that believe their monopoly on violence should be exercised swiftly, frequently, and harshly.

Look how any kind of perceived criticism (or perceived lack of jubilant support) has been treated at any time in their past. Any public display of loyalty, any vox-pop interview - completely meaningless.

I'd long ago realised that this was a significant indicator of a crisis situation in many contexts. These range from military attack to natural disaster to political or business unrest.

The first indications of the atom bomb attack on Hiroshima were a) scattered reports of a "large explosion" and b) instant loss of all telegraph communications from a point some distance from the city centre inwards. Though the bomb struck early in day, it wasn't until that afternoon that an Imperial Japanese Army observation plane was able to fly over the city and surveil the damage, and the next day that the cause was known, after the United States informed Japan through diplomatic channels.

Similarly, when the HMS Sheffield was struck by Argentinian Exocet missiles during the Falklands War, the immediate effects were a loss of communications with the ship, and the first accurate information arrived, via heliocopter, along with the first casualties transported off the Sheffield.

In widespread natural disasters, particularly earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes, there is often some communications from major urban centres, but even those are limited and often outlying regions are entirely cut off. I recall when following a major Chilean earthquake, the US immediately offered satellite telephones, which could be used to report on conditions from remote communities.

In business or personal relationship usually characterised by open channels, "no news is bad news" is a useful heuristic.

For start-ups and business, there's an almost ridiculously predictable progression of blog (and more recently: social media) updates, initially exuberant, enthusiastic, and often technical, shifting to highly-managed public relations releases focusing on business and social factors, to ... silence. The latter often ends with a "next stage in our story" post, i.e., "we're shutting down".

And in political and military situations, what used to be a fat channel of communications (though not necessarily useful or accurate) is cut off as chains of command become unclear, leadership and spokespersons scramble for safety, and rumour and gossip spew forth. That last is its own interesting mix: the genuinely confused or misinformed, often, but also those trying to influence or exploit circumstances.

Think about how many videos exist of generic Russian troops and tanks moving on the M4 and around the Ministry of Defense building in Rostov just on Twitter alone. Most of the time the only way to differentiate Wagner from regular troops is a little patch on their arms.

It’s very hard to verify the date a video was taken, even when there’s several of them online. Deception is always a concern and it takes time to gather enough experts to cross verify facts and find trustworthy sources on the ground.

This whole incident was actually quite accessible this time around - a lot less fog of war than usual. Google Maps showed blockages on the M4 and Prigozhin sent out audio messages via official channels.

This existed, it just didn't exist in the traditional media. Look in the right discord servers and there were new videos being posted every 5 minutes as the convoy was moving around.

On the face of it, you might say "pick your poison" when choosing between Russian and Ukrainian social media sources, but the pro-Russian sources hae been consistently counter factual, stating things like the number of Patriot systems destroyed as much higher than the number of systems in theater. There are some quality pro-Ukraine sources that I've found provide consistently good info.

If you want neutral, the Austrian MOD comes out with an english language analysis once in a while which is good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvJgRrpkaaU

Why would people not support Wagner over the regular army, and specifically over Shoigu and Gerasimov that he alleges to target? I can explain. None of the reasoning below is meant to excuse or praise Wagner or the rest of Russian actors in the region, but nevertheless, it's valuable to understand people's perspective.

This stuff about Utkin's Nazism, with Prigozhin himself son of a Jewish man, is completely peripheral and not in any way more salient than fringe National Socialist elements and Azov symbolic on the Ukrainian side that Russians make much hay of (in spite of Zelensky, too, being Jewish). The accusation just doesn't bite when there's a Slav on Slav war going on, it's only good for propaganda and twitter point-scoring, neither side there is seriously making decisions with relation to WWII political compass.

War crimes? This whole – unrecognized – war is a crime if we're serious about it, and regular Russian military is neck deep in war crimes, and it wasn't (far as anyone knows) Wagner that had terrorized Bucha, obliterated Mariupol or blew up the Kahovka dam, to name just three high-profile atrocities. Executions? The most recent case was them executing a defector (and a repeat criminal offender, from Ukraine, who had been serving a term for aggravated murder prior to his recruitment and defection). I don't think it's surprising when people in a rather harsh society shrug about such things (not to whatabout, but how many Americans would approve or at least not object to Snowden's execution?).

On the other hand, there are very salient reasons Russians support Wagner.

1. They just have a compelling, powerful image. It is known that they've succeeded in a few areas where regular forces have failed; Prigozhin is somewhat good at moving speeches; and they've been effective at exaggerating the difference and appropriating credit. Reminder that Prigozhin is a man of many talents and careers, one among those being management of the so-called Internet Research Agency [1]; catering business, paramilitary operations and illustration of children's books [2] aside, he's been in charge of propaganda for a long time now.

2. Adding to that, they just have an outsized presence in people's minds, there are catchy edgy music videos [3] and decently made movies [4] of their production (with military history buffs praising that movie), many affiliated Telegram channels, they're just very online, including Prigozhin personally – unlike Russian Ministry of Defense that's infamously behind the times, secretive, prone to embarrassing transparent lies, "boomer-like". It's another Russian self-own, in a sense, because the MoD grasped at Wagnerite meme magic to rescue the perception of the campaign, and became overshadowed as a result.

3. The war is not genuinely popular, especially now that it's clearly close to being lost. Surveys to the effect that 70% of Russians support the war omit details that this support is often in the form "we'll be exterminated if we surrender" [5], it's not driven by some positive expectation of Imperial greatness but by fear, very much like 1945 Germany but exacerbated by connectivity [6]; there was an awful lot of chauvinistic smugness early on, but not now. Prigozhin articulates criticism of the status quo (Ukraine never planned to attack, the operation was a mistake, it needlessly made Ukraine into a real threat, eroded Russian prestige, brought NATO closer to the heart of Russia than it'd have been otherwise etc.) [7] that resonates with people vastly more than coping output of the official organs.

4. People really, truly hate and look down on Shoigu, even people in the regular army. Thus they did not open fire at Wagner forces, and there's such a volatile situation that soldiers at the frontline are often not given arms, due to fear of mutiny. It is known at this point, in large part thanks to Wagner propaganda, that Shoigu is a corrupt bureaucratic oaf not qualified for his job, who appopriates vast sums and even diverts military resources for his pampered daughter, who only became a Minister due to his ties within Russian elite (he's one of the most powerful members of the gang, jumping between top-level posts for three decades). He's a lightning rod for all aspects of dissatisfaction with the way the war has gone for Russia (which might be part of why Putin keeps him around). And he's specifically hated by the unorganized but powerful undercurrent of ethnic Russian nationalism, due to being perceived as a strongly identifying Tuvan Buddhist [8] feudal lord with a private army [9] who is completely beyond any reproach and glibly sends tens of thousands of Russians (plus of course other peoples) to the meatgrinder, in meat waves, for zero benefit. Shoigu is understood as "noviop" [10], a member of semi-artificial Soviet post-ethnic people, and the deeper one's ethno-nationalism, the less support he gets, with people really concerned about Slavic race and so on charging him with slaughter of Slavs on both sides. In contrast, Prigozhin plays up his Russophilic and Slavophilic attitude, has his son serving in Wagner, cries crocodile tears about the loss of lives, and very pointedly, repeatedly drives the connection, in very simple language: "the "Tuvan degenerate" Shoigu denies us materiel – thousands of our Russian boys are getting killed by the enemy". With Ukrainians apparently unbeatable and, frankly, acting in their right, the conclusion about ways to stop boys from being killed becomes obvious enough. Like Kadyrov, his fellow warlord, he conspicuously does not accuse the Supreme Leader of any wrongdoing, but the implication about actions he believes are legitimate for Putin to take are clear.

In short, it's best to understand the situation not so much as Wagner group being popular with Russians on its own merits, but as Russia having arrived at the metastable condition where any cohesive military unit that seems competent and starts a mutiny against the Ministry of Defense can expect nontrivial cooperation from the masses and other forces. This is, I believe, is exactly why Prigozhin is acting in such a bizarre manner: he is making clear to Putin that he could easily move around and destabilize the war effort, all to secure his own survival – in the way that popular field commanders of "Novorossiya" failed to do, and got eliminated on Kremlin orders as potential competitors for control.

Wagner is theoretically easy to destroy, but has enough momentum to topple the Army and potentially send the whole regime into tailspin, with how unpopular Shoigu is; yet Putin is too invested in his little mafia family to throw Shoigu to the dogs; and if he keeps covering for Shoigu, the whole "good Czar, bad boyars" scheme implodes. So the equilibrium is letting Prigozhin go, with his force. At least for now.

I wonder when Prigozhin has started working on this.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency

2. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/06/01/wagner-head-prigoz...

3. https://www.reddit.com/r/N_N_N/comments/xn4ky5/mc_wagner_rel...

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1EXVrACxnk

5. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/06/03/the-only-thing-worse...

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#Wartime_conseq...

7. https://t.me/Prigozhin_hat/3790

8. https://nationalpost.com/news/world/the-pounds-12m-polite-pa...

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_(company)

10. https://twitter.com/devarbol/status/1534020945660321792

Maybe because Prigoshin was saying that the war was started for no real reason and people liked to listen to truth for a change [0]?

[0] https://t.me/concordgroup_official/1279

It is not crazy, if you take into account that the genocidal war is very popular among Russians, and the only complain they have is that it is not going according to their expectations. They blame the top military officials for that and think that wagner will be more efficient in killing Ukrainians.

This raises an interesting question for me.

The invasion of Ukraine enjoys popular support inside Russia - around 70%. The justification continuously put forward regarding why such a large proportion of the Russian population supports the invasion is that they've been brain-washed by state media into believing that Ukraine requires "de-Nazification".

That the Wagner group enjoys such popular support, while their Nazi sympathies are also common knowledge^ makes this justification questionable.

My best, admittedly totally speculative, guess right now is that the Russian populace has a far better/non-brainwashed understanding of the geopolitical situation than what is commonly suggested, and that while everyone is happy to go along with the de-Nazification pretence, in reality the populace harbours the same ambitions for a return of Russian imperial power that the Russian leadership does, and also holds similar moralistic perspective.

^I believe this to be the case, but I'm not certain. At the very least there doesn't seem a state sponsored campaign to hide it

1. Russia does not have journalists.

2. When people see a military putsch, they don't normally stop to film it. They run for their lives instead.

> with few notable exceptions, we have not even seen faces of anyone from national security council. Some local actions of the governors, fortification of Moscow, pathetic speech of Putin in the morning and that’s it.

3. Everybody was waiting to see who will win, and join the winning side

> All despite that PMC Wagner is a criminal organization famous for extra-judicial executions, war crimes etc. An organization led by an open nazi (Utkin) and assembled from prisoners, many of which were convicted for violent crimes. It is crazy how people can even think of collaborating with them.

4. I'm surprised this coming as a surprise to anybody. They would've gotten the same treatment in much of the world.

> Russia still has nuclear weapons and it is big enough that even without using them by falling apart it can destabilize the entire world.

Russia will be 100 times less of a treat to the world, if it crashes, and breaks apart.

Why do you think it’s not this?

While I don’t know how truly “weakened” Putin has become, this seems like it could have easily been a trap to find any who would side with them.

I'm inclined to believe that this entire drama was manufactured by the MSM working with US Intelligence to spread the fallacy that there is chaos on the Russian side. Prigozhin may have been upset that he wasn't getting the support his men needed and may have retreated in protest. And even that is pure speculation.

Prigozhin isn't an idiot and if he purportedly did what the MSM is parroting then he failed spectacularly and sending Putin a j/k, bff? SMS isn't going to cut it. If Prigozhin is alive a week from now, then this was just more manufactured bullshit from the MSM.