this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
67 points (100.0% liked)
World News
22057 readers
70 users here now
Breaking news from around the world.
News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.
Guidelines for submissions:
- Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
- Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
- Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
- Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
- Social media should be a source of last resort.
These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.
For US News, see the US News community.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Conspiracy theory ahead: I think the whole mutiny was planned to involve atomic weapons, which would have given Wagner a waaaaay bigger bargaining chip.
Between the southern headquarters and Moscow is a nuclear storage site. To arm the warheads one needs a code which is only known to three people: The president, the minister of defence and the chief of the armed forces. It just so happened to be that the latter two where expected at the southern headquarters at the day of the mutiny. Except they were nowhere to be found, possibly tipped off by someone.
Now Wagner had a problem: They failed to capture the codes but couldn't simply back down without some form of deal. So the convoy to Moscow went ahead anyway to put pressure on the government.
They initially succeeded as in they secured an exit strategy via presidential pardon but lacking the nukes, there is no chance of any meaningful retaliation by Wagner. This means the pardon was easily "rescinded".