What is Plausible in Israel Post October 7, 2023?

Israel Successfully Invaded by its Segregated Inhabitants

Implications of India Killing a Canadian

By: Shahzeb Khan

Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a leader of the Khalistani movement residing in Canada, was gunned down last June by two masked men while exiting a gurdwara. Possibly, the blatant and crude attack was made to look like a hate crime, but within a few months, the government of Canada declared that it suspected the government of India to be behind the murder.

A government sending assassins to kill its domestic enemies who are residing abroad is a rare event. It is something you would expect of harsh authoritarian leaders. For example, the Communist revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky, who was Joseph Stalin’s political rival, was living in exile in Mexico when he was sentenced to death in a Moscow show trial in 1936. A few years later, in 1940, a suspected Soviet agent assassinated him in Mexico City by striking his head with an ice pick. More recently, in 2020, another Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, is suspected of orchestrating an assassination attempt on his political foe Alexei Navalny who was living abroad. Kim Jong Nam, half-brother of Kim Jong Un, was poisoned by what is widely believed were North Korean Agents, while he was residing abroad.

The democratic credentials India built over the last seven decades has already been torn up in many ways during the chaotic years of Narendra Modi’s rule. The state of India authorizing the murder of a Canadian citizen would be the most egregious example yet, in the eyes of the international community. If the Indian government can go this far, then just think of what they are capable of doing to separatist leaders in Kashmir, including those in India’s custody. The Indian authorities might not kill them outright in a blatant way, but can subject them to conditions that raise their mortality rate significantly.  Their slow-poisoning is not beyond India. Kashmiris are not even agitating to break up India. Their right to self-determination is enshrined in UN Charter, with several UN resolution favoring Kashmiri’s right to self-determination through a plebiscite while they are under Indian occupation, but India wants to exploit Kashmiri land and is therefore denying them that right. In 2019, India illegally abrogated their special status as a state administered under Indian occupation.

If the allegation made by the Canadian government is true, it implies that India’s premier military intelligence agency R.A.W, and by extension the Indian state, is a manifest terrorist entity. Previously, Narendra Modi was on list of terrorists and was not allowed entry to US on account of same. Now, the state of India too has reached the status of a moral outcast, if not a diplomatic one.

Implications of India Killing a Canadian

Niger Situation- Humanity’s Been there Before

By Raja Shahzeb Khan

The situation with the French embassy in Niger is likely to escalate into a military clash. It is rare for an embassy to come into conflict with the country it is located in. Not only have protesters been swarming around the French embassy for a month as the Niger junta orders the French ambassador to leave, there are reports that supply of food, water, and electricity to the embassy has been terminated. This would mean that a diplomatic mission is being besieged by the host nation. Any attack on an embassy or violation of diplomatic immunity technically counts as an act of war under international rules, because the embassy is the property of the nation it represents.

One of the very first military conflicts of the twentieth century was over similar issue. In 1900, a rebel group calling itself Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, which Western observers called Boxers, went about northern China attacking foreigners and Christians with the goal of driving westerners and Japanese influence out of China. As they converged on Peking, the capital of China, many foreigners took refuge in the diplomatic quarter. Subsequently, the Boxers laid siege to the legations (a diplomatic mission of lower rank than embassy) of several nations for several weeks. Eventually, a coalition of troops from eight nations was dispatched to China to relieve the legations. Great violence broke out in the country, because the Chinese government tacitly supported the Boxers.

In the end, the foreign coalition captured Peking and defeated the Boxers and the Qing monarchy. The victors imposed humiliating peace terms on China. The monarchy was weakened further and foreign presence increased. These circumstances set the stage for the revolution of 1912, which sought to establish a democratic, Western-style government in China. But China also diverged from that with the proliferation of warlords and the rise of the communist movement, spearheaded by Mao Zedong, who eventually took control of the country in 1949. This is something that Western powers should keep in mind today in case they are thinking of intervening in Niger, because any attempt to suppress a national movement for self-determination might result in the rise of radicalization. In the Sahel region, that prospect is especially dangerous as far as western interests are concerned, as the region can either go in the direction of anti-colonialists joining hands with Russia or in the direction of Islamic extremists.

The situation in Niger today is looking perilously close to what happened in Peking back then. There is the same potential for several nations to get involved in fighting, because while it is just French and United States embassy that are finding themselves in the midst of trouble, ECOWAS is on their side. At the same time, many countries in the region are on the side of Niger junta. If war does break out over Niger, it might end up becoming another so-called “African world war”, a designation given to the Congo civil war of 1996-2003 because of how many African nations intervened in it. Another parallel for how the Niger crisis might turn out is the Suez crisis of 1956. It is possible that France will militarily intervene in Niger to protect its interests, while the United States of America chooses to abandon France for its own need to preserve US’ soft power in the region.

About the author: Raja Shahzeb Khan, author, columnist, journalist, is an expert in history and international affairs.

Prigozhin’s Assassination – a Triggering Event

By Zeenia Satti and Raja Shahzeb Khan

Two months after a failed mutiny and days after he issued video extolling glory to homeland Russia and military support to brave Africans trying to free themselves of continued exploitation by former imperial powers and their alleged protégé terror groups, Yevgeny Prigozhin along with six Wagner men and three crew members is killed in a plane crash while flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg. West is calling Putin Prigozhin’s murderer. Putin has called for investigation of the plane crash.

In the early 1900s, Europe was a hostile place. Great powers were forming alliances against each other while maintaining military readiness. The area of greatest instability was in the Balkans, where a number of small and independent countries in Eastern Europe were situated. It was wedged between the powers of Austria, Russia, and Turkey. Austria had been occupying Bosnia for decades but formerly annexed it in 1908, causing consternation in neighboring Serbia the same way India’s formal annexation of Kashmir in 2019 caused consternation in Pakistan. Relations between Serbia and Austria remained adverse over territorial dispute. Then, in July 1914, the heir presumptive to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist group, the Black Hand, while he was touring Sarajevo. This was the spark that ignited the international tensions spanning the continent, resulting in the First World War which ultimately led to the collapse of all absolute monarchies in Europe, the Kaiser of Germany, the Tsar of Russia, the Sultan of Turkey, the Emperor of Austria, and the King of Hungary.

Prigozhin’s death and the circumstances surrounding it are reminiscent of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination. Days before prigozhin was killed, he pitched himself as a threat to the post-imperial interests of European powers. What if the investigation in Russia finds evidence of Nato involvement in Prigozhin’s assassination? It would mean an act of Nato aggression on Russian territory, which would pave grounds for direct war between Russia and its allies and Nato.

If Russia finds no evidence of external involvement, Prigozhin’s assassination would be inevitably interpreted as an act masterminded by Putin and executed by his military commanders, in particular Shoigu and Gerasimov. That could ignite an internal rebellion in Russia because Prigozhin was a great mobilizer and has a following inside Russia as exhibited through his easy sweep over Rostov in June. If the rebellion is serious enough (large numbers involved including men from the military) it would have a negative impact on Putin’s rule and Russia’s war with Ukraine. Russia’s current circumstances would compel it to seek the end of internal rebellion through taking military action beyond Russia’s borders. Rather than getting out of Ukraine in the style of US evacuation from Vietnam, Russia would intensify blitz and raise the stakes further. Seeing a high number of Ukrainians including civilians being killed, NATO would escalate its supplies to higher levels. That would inevitably lead to Russian military having to take action against supply lines, i.e., NATO bases in the Baltics, a whole pan from up north to south in Romania. War in Europe would mean Third World War due to North America’s involvement.  

NATO and Putin both have incentive to pin the blame for Yevgeny Prigozhin’s assasination on each other. Prigozhin’s death, be it an act of political assassination or military retaliation, can yield consequences that could lead to escalation in military terms, just as the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand did. And even though Prigozhin is not as high-ranking a leader as Archduke Ferdinand was, some historians note that Ferdinand’s killing was not really a 9-11 moment for Austria-Hungary. He was not a very beloved figure in the empire and his death was less a cause for deep mourning than an excuse for belligerent statesmen to pursue their aims of creating breakthrough in preexisting tensions. Prigozhin is the opposite of Ferdinand. He is not a high ranking political figure but is none the less a charismatic figure in Russia and an influential figure abroad. Just before his demise, he show cased two high profile events that proved his support base in Russia and his influence in Africa’s SAHEL. The potential for big power exploitation of Prigozhin’s death for political-military gain is there in current circumstances in the Baltics, though it may take longer to materialize. What makes today’s world different from the one in 1914 is that threats were larger in scale but fewer in number back then, which is why a straightforward world war was triggered in Europe.  The innumerable threats of today, hybrid war, cyber war, info war, trade war, nuclear war, all feed into the potential for an all out war between big powers, making a global military demonstration a plausible event.

Should that happen, it would be the beginning of the end of the era in which the Euro-American powers called the West dominated the globe. History will describe the Ukraine War as the defining moment of this change.  

NIGER COUP FALL OUT ON LIBYA

US’s Bush wars in the Middle East have started to blow back all across the Muslim Asia, Muslim Africa and Muslim Europe. The events in Sahel are part of this blow back. The coup in Niger, most significant of coups in the region, is only the most recent example of anti-West sentiment pervading across the very military institutions that developed under west’s auspices. A formidable mix of youth bulge and pervasive anti west sentiment in the military institutions of the region means democracy itself as a political system is losing efficacy as means to political and economic development of nation states. The fact that this is happening simultaneously when west’s own democratic systems are under historic stress, both economically and politically, may make the turning away from democracy, at least the Westminster-style democracy, an irreversible process.

The western media is quick to point fingers at Russia for instigating the military takeover in Niger. It isn’t as simple. Expression of pro-Putin sentiment in military junta is in part due to Putin’s anti west narrative enjoying genuine home grown support among masses, especially the youth. It is winning hearts and minds.

Just as the blow back of US destruction of Iraq is now manifest in the Gulf region, destruction of Libya is politically blowing back across all of North/Central Africa. NATO’s recent meaningless venture in Afghanistan is blowing back politically across Central Asia. These are developments the West cannot handle through kinetic force alone. It has already used the same against its own long-term interest. It sent its armies into Iraq, Libya and Syria to safeguard its oil interest. Fossil fuels have already become an endangered means of production due to worsening climate crisis. Russia and China, on the other hand, have made inroads into Africa, a region rich in resources that industrial societies are in dire need of. Niger’s Uranium is critical to nuclear power plants, which is cleanest energy producer. As climate crisis worsens, nuclear energy will become more prevalent as the cleanest source of energy. France entirely relies on Niger for supply of Uranium for its nuclear technology. So does Russia.

During the Cold War, if anti west ideologies penetrated hearts and minds in Afro-Asian and South American populations, the military institutions propped by the west were instrumental in reversing the trend. In return for their cooperation, they enjoyed the financial and military aid that kept their institution and their nation states afloat. Paradoxically it is the same institutions that are now turning away from the West.

Against this background, Nigerian President Tinubu, hitherto the king maker of the region, is already cutting a sorry figure within days of threatening, at west’s behest, military action against Niger’s junta if they fail to reinstate Mohamad Bazoum’s govt. ECOWAS quickly distanced itself from the plan, pitching it as that of Bola Tinubu alone. Tinubu’s own military shot it down as the deadline approached and Nigerian  parliament (Tinubu’s own party in power) rejected the military option with overwhelming majority.

This is a situation that the United States and France need to be sophisticated in handling or they could lose more. Niger’s most articulate support isn’t Putin but Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traore, the 35 year old firebrand military officer turned leader, expressing economic nationalism reminiscent of Gamal Abdul Nasser. The latter, during sixties, made the Arabs feel good about themselves in an unprecedented manner. The difference is, Egypt’s Nasser was operating during the Cold War and had only cautious support of USSR during firmly bipolar world which never wanted to tip the balance Cold War maintained. Ibrahim Traore enjoys the ardent backing of Russia, not to mention China, during West’s hot war against Russia in Ukraine and all out trade war against China globally. Traore’s speech at the African summit in Russia is resonating in the streets of Africa, even Tinubu’s Nigeria.  The movement already has a formidable spokesperson. Tinubu’s stance, on the other hand, was backed by Emanuel Macron! It may have been better for Tinubu if Macron stayed quiet. Washington DC, fortunately, showed caution. Blinken did not call the action of Abdourahamane and his National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland a “Coup d etat.” Situation watchers appreciated America’s diplomatic skill in the matter.

China and Russia are both pitching their anti-colonial, anti-imperial narrative in Muslim Africa, where the west has been pitching its “War on Terror” narrative. At the start of 2000, when West’s WOT began, Africa hardly had any terror attacks. Twenty years into the war, it has suffered thousands of terror attacks and mushrooming of terrorist organizations. The most formidable economic challenge for the growth of North West and North Central Africa is terrorism. West’s wars demand that military forces of the region engage against terror operatives on their own soil, worsening the security and economic situation for these states further, with no end in sight. The military forces that adhered to West’s demand are now saying enough is enough because they have options in the shape of what they believe is more sincere partners in handling their security situation.

Russia has risen as the supplier of security to these nations via Wagner and export of military technology and via supply of food. China has risen as rich investor. Russia’s relevance to the region does not end in supply of food and energy. An arid region frequently suffering from droughts is also looking to Russia as the supplier of fresh water in future. Russia has the world’s largest reservoir of fresh water. As climate crisis worsens in the 21^st century, Russia is set to increase its fresh water supply. In the next thirty years, Russia will be the world’s most water-efficient country. It could even enjoy formation of new rivers as other countries face the drying down of theirs. Russia’s leverage in Africa is therefore three-pronged, supplier of energy, food, and in future, even water. Russia can supply fresh drinking water through pipelines installed across seabed (for which technology already exists and will further refine itself in future) and friendly territories. Russia’s importance for water and food stressed people has grown during climate catastrophe. Even South West Asia, which currently has enough money for desalination plants but faces decline in revenue as fossil fuels are inevitably shunned in future, will look to Russia for its fresh water supply.  

Water will soon become the commodity nations are ready to go to war for. The country that has enough to export will enjoy leverage over all other. For Russia, there are two export routes for supplying piped fresh drinking water. One is through the Caspian Sea. The other route, much shorter and more feasible for North Central Africa, is through the Black sea, across Mediterranean, through Libya, into Sahel.

The West has no feasible military options to reverse the developing situation in the Sahel region. The anti-West coups have backing of Russia and China and could even enjoy the financial support of rich Arab monarchs. One of the reasons the militaries of the Sahel region have turned away from democracies and West’s influence is belief that their so-called democratic political elite is puppets of the west and has for decades let the West exploit resources of the region in return for dividends to the puppet regional elite only. Instead of springing into action at the behest of such forces, the military leaders have decided to spring into action in defense of their homeland and to ensure use of their resources for benefit of their own people.  Russia and China, being free of imperial past, not to mention Arab monarchies, are therefore ready patrons and partners of this economic nationalism.

The West is likely to opt for the low-level violence option in dealing with such a situation. Military regimes are always more adept at dealing with this kind of kinetics than civilian governments. West therefore needs a sustainable base. The easiest country for west to enter, through proxies or directly, is the one they broke themselves; Libya. Describing the Sahel situation as “need to drive out Russian mercenaries,” United States and NATO will likely rush back into Libya to use as a base from where they can launch their undercover operations in Sudan, Chad, Niger etc., in other words use their own military force or mercenaries in resource rich region against rising Russian influence – read – economic nationalism. Control over Libya’s energy resources to use same to decrease European dependence on Russian energy is another incentive.

If this happens, there will be renewed bloodletting in Libya, which could impact the security situation of Egypt. Sisi’s government could be adversely impacted in such scenario and may even face a genuine revolution this time under formidable leadership. Algeria will typically try to isolate itself by hardening its borders and try maintaining balance.

The important question is; what will the Gulf Arabs do in such a situation? Will they watch the humanitarian crisis grow from sidelines or join Russia, China, Iran Syria and other regional allies to drive the western militaries and their proxies out from Libya and restore peace in the entire belt?

The political and military fallout of the Niger coup will be borne by the people of Libya.

HEALTH OF LEADERS IN THE LINE OF ‘FIRE’

Pakistan’s 33 year old Foreign Minister, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari did something before the eyes of domestic and international media that raised alarm bells about the state of his health.

The Foreign Minister of Iran, H.E Hossein Amir Abdollahian is in Pakistan for bilateral talks on regional issues. While at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, both he and his host Bilawal jointly planted a tree in the foreign office garden, as per tradition. After the tree was planted with the help of shovel jointly held by both the foreign dignitary and his host, and jointly watered with a green watering can,  Bilawal Bhutto and his Irani counterpart Hossein Abdollahian walked into the building together, facing dozens of cameras. While walking, Bilawal Bhutto started stretching his left hand as though it had gone numb and he was trying to resuscitate blood circulation in the limb.

The media, while playing the shot, showed Bilawal’s movement again and again, raising silent yet obvious alarm bells. Pakistan is currently in the throes of hybrid war waged by hostile foreign intelligence agencies in whose strategic thinking Pakistan is only part of Great Game. One of the fundamental goals of hybrid war is to deprive the target state of effective existing and potential leadership while engineering circumstances to steer and keep enemy agents into position of power. This is the time when leaders who are looking out for their country’s interest successfully are typically at risk because they are targeted in myriad of under-cover ways.

Already, Pakistan’s military institution, which has in the past steered the country politically also when civil leadership has reached fatal deadlocks, (in all but one instance – that of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who was ousted upon reaching compromise with restive opposition) is being vilified through social media operatives, many of who are based inside Pakistan but are on hostile foreign intelligence agencies’ pay roll.

Social media is a new tool of aggrandizement of big powers, utilized in furtherance of their economic, political and military designs. As an instigative tool of opinion mobilization, aimed at isolating and weakening the target, social media is a new and all pervasive, unbridled, 24/7 phenomenon in big power military strategy. Because of its sudden rise and all pervasive popularity, global collective security regime has not yet come up with conventions and international legal norms to regulate this all pervasive tool of political aggrandizement and military assault.

Meantime, Pakistan serves as the most powerful example of how social media is deployed to wage info war against a smaller nation-state with limited means of countering it. Pakistani military has stayed out of politics for decades, yet it is being maligned by social media networks for “political machinations,” “nefarious ambitions” and much more by way of unsubstantiated propaganda. Lies are spewed on hear-say basis by electronic media about Pakistan’s corps commanders to achieve ratings. One of the former military generals and former ruler of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, has already been killed while forced into self-imposed exile abroad and while judicial proceedings in his defense were unduly delayed at home. Pervez Musharref ruled Pakistan successfully for 9 years and founded a nation-wide political party after retirement. He was ousted during NATO operation in Afghanistan not by a mass uprising but by a limited lawyer’s movement. Musharref’s under-cover murder during the time he was made to live abroad in a small apartment building in open access urban hub (obviously a security threat given his strategic importance) is described as “inexplicably acquired unique medical illness” which he battled for three years and to which he finally succumbed during his stay abroad.

Musharref’s death spelled the end of one potential leader with interest and experience in governing Pakistan. In hybrid war, all potentially effective leadership is a target of the enemy. Currently, Pakistan’s former leader Nawaz Sharif is also living in self-imposed exile abroad because of convictions against him at home, but Sharif was more resourceful and instead of living in a small attached apartment, he bought the entire row of attached apartments in an upscale and secure community in London to create safer living conditions for himself. After he retires, a military leader loses all power he enjoyed while in military service and can not return to office, while a political leader continues to enjoy the support of his party including financial and can come back in office if he wishes. Needless to mention, despite living abroad, Nawaz Sharif is still alive but shouldn’t count on it as hybrid war against Pakistan gathers further momentum. Unlike Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s sons, Nawaz Sharif’s sons are devoid of political charisma so they are not likely to be target of hostile foreign intelligence agencies with secret plans for Pakistan. His daughter Mariam, on the other hand, is a crowd puller. Nawaz Sharif is wise in ensuring she lives inside Pakistan.  

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has performed well while handling his first high profile appointment as Minister of Foreign Affairs. He has not made any faux pas despite his young age, unlike Rahul Rajiv Gandhi in India, who suffered some embarrassing moments during political activities he was made to face while he too was very young.  Bilawal’s life is potentially most at risk as Pakistan fights intense hybrid war waged against it by multiple foreign military forces and their domestic agents.

I already tweeted several months ago that Bilawal Bhutto’s security should be tightened, but security is not limited to guards on physical duty. It is a sophisticated practice requiring multiple checks at myriad levels, including innovative medical examination and investigation, preempting the onset of unique and/or life-threatening diseases and nipping same in the bud. Any Pakistani leader who can potentially build consensus and is capably projecting Pakistan’s interests abroad and capable of mobilizing masses at home is a potential target in hybrid warfare of Pakistan’s foreign enemy/ies . His life should not be taken for granted in Pakistan’s current circumstances.  Henry Kissinger’s famous statement is relevant here. ‘Just because I am paranoid, does not mean I have no real enemies.”

Pakistan is in the eye of the storm of great power diplomatic maneuvers in the region. In an age when political assassinations are no longer done through the barrel of gun but through biological and medical means, debilitating illness among its leaders or death among its important personalities can become the most decisive factor in success of enemy maneuvers against Pakistan. Hugo Chavez was wisely thinking out loud when he asked if the US was giving ‘them’ cancer while talking about the rising rate of anti US Latin American leaders succumbing to the disease one after the other, including Chavez himself. If Chavez is right, we should rest assured US is not the only state doing this. Modern ordinance factories do not produce explosives only. Parts of military ordinance factories in rich industrialized countries comprise of labs that are experimenting with producing virus and engineering life threatening illness in enemy state’s critically significant personalities, among other innovations.

Illness and its debilitating impacts, untimely demise of a politically significant person and its impact on regional and global events are dealt with in a piece by Steve Coll in the Yorker. Readers of this piece are encouraged to read the same at link below. https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/woodrow-wilsons-case-of-the-flu-and-how-pandemics-change-history

Pakistan is a country whose founding leader hid from all and sundry the fact that he was dying of cancer. War time US President Roosevelt hid the fact throughout World War 11 that he was dying. Historically, Even before hybrid warfare reached its current diabolical levels, leaders have been covering up their ailments to prevent the impact such revelations would make on events they are trying to shape.

Bilawal, indeed all of Pakistan’s political leadership should watch out. Pakistan’s corps commanders, both living and retired, should watch out. Medical security against invasive pathogens at personal and mass levels are part of national security plans of a modern state. We are more than modern. We are nuclear.

Ukraine Could Win

Rebellion within the rank and file of the Russian military is now manifesting itself. Video of a brawl inside a Russian military camp during which a soldier dies fighting the decision of his commander to send him to the front is viral on social media. While we have still to find out if the video is fake or real, one thing is for sure. Divisions within the Russian military in the matter of Ukraine war are deep, tempers on both sides are high and getting higher.

The split is between two schools of military preference. Those who want to “neutralize” Ukraine and those who want to destroy Ukraine if need be to safeguard Russia. I said it before and I repeat, there is an opportunity in this development for Zelensky to avail for negotiated settlement of this conflict. If he does not avail the diplomatic mileage the split within Russian forces gives him, his leadership too could come under severe domestic criticism. While Putin is likely to survive the division within his military, Zelensky’s capacity for survival in the face of serious civil military domestic opposition is bleak.

Using the split within the Russian military to steer Russia-Ukraine war towards a negotiated settlement will make Zelensky appear as a winner and give him an edge over Putin internationally. His domestic approval rating too will be high. Zelensky is likely to enjoy overwhelming domestic and international support in his effort to reconstruct his war torn country thereafter. History too will give its verdict in Zelensky’s  favour.

All eyes are on Russia now but in due course, Zelensky too could be in the eye of the Ukrainian storm rising against the decisions he made in recent past that led to the war with Russia. Neither the split within the Russian military nor the winning of the hard liners in Russia (when and if that happens) will give military victory to Ukraine in this war.

Seizing the moment, Ukraine could score a victory on the diplomatic front and win sustainable peace. Ending the war now would entail a victory of sorts for NATO as well. Otherwise, this war is likely to evolve as further bad news for Europe.

RUSSIA’S WANGER GOES BUST

Simmering tensions between the Wagner group and Russian state have now exploded into breaking news as Prigozhin vows to march onto Moscow to liberate Russian military from “corrupt commanders.” Will this lead to civil war in Russia?

There are three things to note here; one, it is the state that has initiated armed action against Wagner, Prigozhin is merely retaliating. Two, Prigozhin may get some supporters from the lower rank and file of the Russian military, but this support base is not likely to expand into a formidable set up sustaining an entrenched armed conflict within Russia. Three, the development of the Wagner group turning on Russian state itself will impact the Russian Ukraine war in so far as it will corrode the awe with which the Ukrainian military establishment and their western backers view the Russian military prowess in Russia’s near abroad. Paradoxically, instead of facilitating Ukraine’s victory in this war, it could end up causing a stalemate with both Kiev and Kremlin viewing the options available to them less positively than they have hitherto done in this conflict. That means Kiev will not wrest control of Crimea from Russia.

Russian military is likely to crush the insurrection. Prigozhin and his allies could end up in state’s custody facing trial, or they could escape Russia. If Prigozhin escapes, where ever he finds a safe haven, the west would surely like to use him against Putin like they used Cuba’s rebels against Castro. It is unlikely that prigozhin will accept being armed by the west to fight a battle with Russia as West’s proxy. Such a role does not sit well with the temperament Prighozin seems to possess.

Prigozhin’s next abode, if he manages to get out of Russia, could very well be Sudan, where his forces are already supporting hemedti in the civil war. With or without Prigozhin taking up permanent abode in Sudan and supporting Hemedti in the armed conflict, Hemedti will end up winning the war but not before hundreds of thousands of Sudanese are dead in a conflict that has already evolved to be one of Africa’s bloodiest.

Putin’s rule in Russia is not ending any time soon – not with Prigozhin’s insurrection. It is more likely the insurrection will be ended.

As for Russian-Ukraine war, it may end soon enough if Ukraine and Russia agree to end the war under Chinese mediation, with Ukraine giving up the Nato idea and Russia returning some of the territories it severed from Ukraine during the war. If that does not happen, this war will evolve geographically,

It is quite obvious than Russia has sustained greater military wounds in this war than it seems to have anticipated at the start. The war has taken its toll. Current Prigozhin saga is an embodiment of Putin’s woes on the home front. In the hours and days ahead, the world will be watching extremely sensational news from Russia, causing Russia a great deal of embarrassment but without letting the west achieve anything real.

RAW’s Diversification of Anti-Pak Weaponry Through Social Engineering

Watch on YouTube channel Zeenia Satti