The deck has been reshuffled. I wonder what the fallout will be.
Yeah. man. This could go any number of ways. - Putin has demonstrated that yes indeed, he will sell out senior cabinet members for his personal safety. Shoygu is a loyalist's loyalist, one of the keener political creatures in the menagerie. - Prigozhin knows full well that Lukashenko has been given the task of making him dead. Lukashenko knows that Prigozhin knows. Putin knows that Lukashenko wants his job; Lukashenko knows that he went to Russia and nearly died. - The man-on-the-street clearly gives no fucks either way, which should surprise no one. What was "nobody can replace Putin" could become a full-fledged Game of Thrones where pretty much everyone is Reek or worse. A whole bunch of stuff that has been buttoned down for decades is now flapping in the breeze. This is like when they locked Gorbachev in his dacha but then let him come home.
I wonder what will happen to the Wagner operations in Libya and Sudan, if Prigozhin will be able to remain in control of them or if they somehow also will be absorbed into the regular army structure. Either way sounds like a headache for the Kremlin.
I think that comes down to who collects the money. Wagner is more than just irregulars, it's a bunch of guys who didn't fit into the Russian command and control structure. Wagner lets them be themselves. If they wanted to be regulars they would be; they don't. Not only that but if they slide back into regular army they're gonna be "the Wagner guy" everywhere they go and being "potential Wagner material" is what got them out of the regular military in the first place. There likely aren't a lot of Wagnerites excited for the prospect of rejoining Putin's org chart. I think it's telling that Lukashenko may or may not have had himself a polonium Arnold Palmer in March, may or may not have a passel of ex-Soviet tactical nuclear weapons on his turf, and may or may not have the cooperation with the guy who got a tank column to within 120 miles of Moscow before he was given amnesty to leave. If I had to guess, Lukashenko told Putin "allow me to murder him for you my liege" and told Prigozhin "let's murder Putin together." Putin was absolutely, positively buying time, and he was paying for it by giving Prigozhin options. The fact that Lukashenko jumped in the middle of this and said "I'm sure I can benefit from this somehow" does not simplify matters in the slightest.