Radio War Nerd EP #384 — Prigozhin's Mutiny, feat. Anatol Lieven
Guest: Anatol Lieven, author & journalist
Recorded: June 25, 2023
RWN emergency episode with guest Anatol Lieven on Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's failed Russian coup-slash-mutiny, Kremlin succession, class warfare in the trenches & the stalled Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Anatol guested on RWN EP #291 on the Afghanistan collapse of August 2021.
Recent articles by Anatol:
"Prigozhin erupts: Has a Russian succession struggle begun?"
"Lieven inside Ukraine: some real breaks, and insights"
"Ukraine’s paradoxical lessons for the future of warfare"
Buy Anatol's books, including his latest "Climate Change and the Nation-State: A Realist Case". Follow Anatol on Twitter.
Total time: 1:07:17
Direct link to this episode's mp3 here
Sound production by Telescope Audio Studios
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Comments (23)
I imagine Yevgeny is retired happily on a beach somewhere with a new face. Call me a dreamer you silly punters. :)
Really interesting discussion, thanks to you all. Interesting about Progozhin's origins in the tumult and tragedy of the 1990s (so well covered by WN). This reminds me of Adam Curtis's Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone, currently available on BBC IPlayer. An editing of a huge amount of often unseen BBC material taken in country so to speak. Cinema verite to the max.
The links to Anatol lievens articles come up with a "403 forbidden"...
that shit was so wild. i hear about it on friday night, spend saturday morning catching up on the news, and by the time i'm caught up it's already over. I spent a couple hours in a daze saying aloud "what the fuck just happened?"
Yes but what do all the tech-bros and VCs think? ;-) Great episode as always guys!
I used to work in catering and the lesson here for me was never trust a caterer.
Very good in an overly dynamic situation. Bahkmut was an 8-month slog which Wagner manned almost by itself-and a tremendous victory in furtherance of SMO stated aims of “demilitarization, deNazification.” Also, not sure John Kirby is a reliable source for anything. US NatSec seems to get all its info from Ukraine.
Earnest question: could Progozhin be a kind of controlled opposition? You know, the whole hypernormalization bag?
Does Russia not have their own problematic 19th century composers
Mussorgsky? Ok I gather it doesn't roll of the tongue, brand-wise, but at least they wouldn't be outsourcing......
They really called their extremely right wing, Neo-Nazi private paramilitary group “Wagner”?
On behalf of former caterers and food service professionals, I feel seen and valued by the representation of caterer bodies and spaces in the military contractor community. Prigozhin makes me feel that I could truly bring my authentic self to ill-timed mutinies.
Hot Dog PMC
One question about the timeline. Did Prigozhin make his move before or after control of Wagner was transferred to the ministry of defense. And if it was after is it possible that he had some fore knowledge and he made his moved because we wanted to pre-empt his usurpation?
Yes, definitely, he wanted to avoid the loss of power in having his troops integrated into Russian forces. I think Mark mentioned that on the show.
Thank you RWN! On vacation in Finland and you’d think Putin was marching on Helsinki from the newspaper( based on pictures mind you), now I can get back to normal levels of dread and foreboding.
The fins are cracked out on this one. At least that's the sense I got from my sister who recently visited and she's a standard warren NYTimes reading lib but she was taken back by russiaphobia often directed at ukranian refugees
Great Episode! always love anatol lieven. Will be interesting to see all the takes from various weirdos with absolutely no personality disorders whatsoever on why you guys are whatever type of shill for whatever reason.
Get off your high horse Jimmie O'Hagan.
Thank you
My brother keeps on trying to talk to me about this and I've been sweating bullets waiting for this episode to come out so I can sound like I pretend I know about it
ha ha same
Finally