Stalking Horse, Provocateur, and PMC-Pirate for Putin
Set Up: Yevgeny Prigozhin has popped-up again in Belarus, claiming that new Wagner Group deployments are coming, emphasizing Africa and not ruling out future action in Ukraine. This, as Wagner fighters train Belarusian troops near Belarus’s border with Poland, and Russian troops mass with tanks, artillery, and multiple rocket launchers inside Belarus to open up…
Turkey playing both sides with decided preference for autocracy
One would think Putin would have yanked S-400 contracts with Turkey, angered by Ankara’s Bayraktar combat drone deals with Kyiv. He has not. Instead, he is pursuing a Bayraktar drone plant in Russia to use the combat drones against Ukraine. If a conflict with NATO broke out Putin would not want S-400’s operational over Turkish…