The Russian Coup & the January 6th Plot

America This Week

I spent a lovely, hot summer night on my patio last night, with music and current-events-twitter, two of my favorite things. Thursday night, my husband and I went to Summerfest in Milwaukee and saw Eric Church perform. It was fantastic! But yesterday was a great day of solitude after the abundance of humanity that is Summerfest. (I love you, introverts.)

A civil war just broke out in Russia. And it is absolutely related to the escalating threats to Democracy worldwide, which is one of the topics I study and write about. It’s also related to our own investigations of the coup plotters in the United States.

Wagner Group is a group of mercenaries paid by Putin. Wagner Group is basically Putin’s private army that operates outside the law.

The dude who runs Wagner Group is named Prigozhin. He’s a lifelong criminal, an oligarch himself, and he is, or was, one of Putin’s closest confidants. He also was indicted in the United States by Robert Mueller the freaking III for interfering in the 2016 election to help Trump win.

Prigozhin went on social media saying that he and his army want to challenge Putin’s leadership, and he’s asking the Russian military to back him and not Putin.

Some branches of Russia’s Department of Defense have already broken off and are backing Prigozhin. Others have issued public statements rallying around Putin. The reason they give for turning on Putin is that he treats Russian soldiers so horrifically in his genocidal invasion of Ukraine. They’ve just “captured” their first Russian city, the 10th largest, with no resistance from authorities or civilians.

In response, Putin released a previously-recorded video saying this is a “deadly threat” to Russia and vowing to quash Prigozhin and his allies.

Both sides in this coup are terrible, bloodthirsty, destruction-for-hire humans. Considering Russia has nukes pointed at our heads 24/7, I’m following developments. We do not want Prigozhin or his ilk in charge of those nukes. He once executed a deserter with a sledgehammer.