Larry On Prigozhin, Scott On Russia.

Larry wrote excellent piece on Prigozhin's histrionics. As good CIA analyst Larry presents three possibilities. 

Personally, I call bullshit. For starters, Prigozhin is not a military commander nor does he have any military experience. He can whip up a great Chicken Kiev and is an incredible marketeer, but he ain’t Clauswitz or Sun Tzu. I will not bore you with the conventional analysis that insists Prigozhin is either a whistleblower on steriods or someone who is on the verge of a mental breakdown. I fully understand why some will draw those conclusions, but I am not buying it.

Read the whole thing because it is an excellent food for thought piece. But there is a fourth possibility, which Lt. Colonel Oleg Shalandin, Vera and me discussed today with a huge caveat that Prigozhin's histrionics may and most likely will now cost him a lot. Especially after distasteful video with Wagner's KIAs. The fourth possibility being the fact that he may be removed from Wagner's control because, in the end, Wagner is a commercial corp initiated by Russia's Defense Ministry and Prigozhin, methinks, overstepped. Keep in mind that "suddenly" General Mizintsev is IN Wagner and as Oleg described him--he is an outstanding general, very competent and his "retirement" may, actually, be the sign of Wagner being in the process of "whipping in shape". It is clear that Akhmat is now in process of deployment to Artemovsk to finish off mopping up or the remnants of VSU.

Meanwhile, Scott travels across Russia with his new book and that is what he has to say about "sanctions".

Yes, sanctions aren't working against Russia. In fact, they accelerate Russia's economic development. On the other hand, sanctions inflicted an immense pain on combined West and now we see cracks all over Western-run institutions ranging from NATO, to EU, to what have you.