i know it's very probably never going to happen,
but sometimes i wonder if russia is actually so overleveraged on their invasion that ukraine might have actually been able to march right into moscow and wipe it off the map if they tried.
this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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That literally almost happened:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group_rebellion
Backstory: there was this infamous Russian mercenary company called Wagner. They had a ton of support from Russian nationalists. During the Ukraine war, Putin decided its populist leader’s head was a little too big, so he plopped them on the front lines, undersupplied, and ground them down to keep Wagner in their place, and from growing too powerful.
The leader was not stupid.
So, seeing the existential problem, Wagner, out of the blue, rushed out of Ukraine and made a beeline for Moscow with a big military convoy. There was a lot of political noise, but basically it was a coup.
Ultimately, Wagner realized not enough of the Russian military was turning to their side and stopped (and it leader was literally blown up in a plane some months later), but the crazy thing is some Russian military did defect! Others let them pass without any resistance! And like you said, Moscow didn’t have a lot of defense.
But it was so close to working its nuts! Foreign militaries watched it very closely. The Wikipedia article and ISW reports on it are worth reading, and it’s all an interesting window into internal Russian politics/culture, as Wagner is not the only internal faction that’s a potential threat to Putin.
EDIT: Found the ISW post, so you can see how tense things felt in real time.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-23-2023
(More generally, those reports are great source for detailed Ukraine war info).
Man watching that in real time was crazy. Putin left Moscow ahead of their arrival. But realizing they were undermanned, it sounds like Putin gave him the opportunity to disperse Wagner to various other theaters to remove their threat. I believe Africa was a big one, some were absorbed by Belarus. I'm sure a lot were given the choice to immediately return to the front lines with what they had on them or face execution.
Regardless, The Chef must have known if he backed down, he was dead.
I'm not exactly sure why he agreed on a flight out of Russia, maybe he thought it was safer because of the size of collateral damage? And as well all know Putin gives 0 fucks about that, and we also know the way his enemies die is always a message. An anti-aircraft missile against an attempted coup leader was loud, big, and obviously intentional. He told all the other "would be coup attempts" that it's not going to be polonium tea, or novichok, or defenestration - it's public execution with innocents if necessary.
Your comment is very insightful. Thank you so much for sharing and for providing this source.
You're welcome. Check out the ISW report too!
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-23-2023
Thank you for being a regularly positive user. Seriously, it's hard enough to find some appreciation these days, may as well show my own. :)
Well, Putin was worried their mercenaries might. Then the leader blinked and is now dead.
The leader went back to fucking st Petersburg after already leaving Russia. He didn't blink, he basically killed himself.
Other countries should move their armies near Russian borders and waters just to keep them on their toes and prevent them from redeploying those troops to Ukraine.
Assuming a humble 10 pound bag of onions gifted to mothers of 62400 invading dead soldiers, thats 310.2 tons of onions.
Thats.. a lot of onions.
Looking at the price of onions: "The average cost per ton of fresh onions in Russia varies depending on the market and time of year. In April 2025, the wholesale price for fresh yellow onions ranged from approximately 0.30 to 0.88 USD per kilogram, or roughly 660 to 1,940 USD per ton. "
Lets take the median price then between 660 and 1940 USD, which is $1262.00. times 310.2 tons, we come to about $397,056.00 ...of onions. Just about 400k USD.
They might be able to trim that cost down a bit by giving mothers who lost multiple sons just a single bag of onions.
Good for them.
Oh no! Anyway...
That's a shame. Maybe.