The events of the last few days seem surreal, even by Russian standards.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the huckster-cum-warlord, finally snapped after many complaints and accusations against the Russian Ministry of Defence. After what appeared to be a missile attack on his Wagner troops by Russian forces, Prigozhin made a grand appearance in Rostov – a hub and staging point for the Russian military. Wagner units then appeared to make a bold, rapid advance towards Moscow by way of another large Russian city, Voronezh. A number of Russian aircraft were shot down in the process, allegedly by Prigozhin’s forces. In Moscow and elsewhere, there were signs of hurried preparations by troops to repel an incursion.
This situation led to conflicting and hysterical reactions in the Anglophone war commentariat, a phenomenon going back to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that deserves serious sociological analysis. It’s not uncommon to come across Twitter accounts with hundreds of thousands of avid followers commenting with great confidence and seeming authority on every aspect of the war and in excruciating detail.
