Pod Save the World - Wagner Leader Prigozhin Killed?

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

In a special episode, Tommy and Ben talk about the developing story of the alleged deaths of Wagner Group leaders Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin in a plane crash not far from Moscow. All ten people on the private plane were killed and Russian state news agencies reported that both men were on the passenger list – however, there hasn’t yet been confirmation they were onboard. From speculation about air defense missiles shooting down the plane, to claims that Prigozhin was on a different aircraft, Ben and Tommy analyze what this could mean for Wagner forces around the world, Putin’s inner circle, and more. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome back to another Wagner Group-focused bonus episode of Potsay of the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben. Wow, Ben. Quite a day today. A lot of news going on. We've got a Republican debate tonight and reports that Yivgeny Progoshin is dead and get to all that in a minute. But we should, you know, quite a, quite a day.

E2 will not be at the debate. Maybe he'll be playing hoops with Doug Bergam. Okay, so we're obviously, we are recording this at 4 p.m. on Wednesday after. We want to do something quickly to tell you guys what we know, which are, here are the facts so far. So there was a plane crash in Russia. Ten people are dead, and according to Russian state news agencies, the passenger list included Yvgeny Progogian and Dmitry Utkin, who are the leaders of the Wagner Group, the private Russian mercenary force that we've talked about many times in this show.

We're learning about all this in real time. We're relying on sources like Russian state media, telegram channels that are linked to Wagner group forces. So assume this story is going to evolve over time, assume that at least some of these early reports are wrong. But what's been reported so far is that the jet was carrying 10 people, three crew members, seven passengers. All of them are dead. The Russian Ministry of Emergency Services said it was a private plane flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg. The specific plane is one that Progotion has been linked to in the past.

A Wagner-linked telegram channel called Gray Zone reported that the jet was shot down by air defenses. there's some witnesses who said they heard two loud bangs before the plane started going down. So that would seem to suggest there was some sort of surface-dair missile being fired. And there's a video on social media that shows the plane tumbling down from the sky. And then others went and videotape the wreckage. Ben, it's worth noting that there's at least one telegram channel saying that these reports are premature and that progoshin was on a different plane and that plane turned back around. Time will tell, I guess.

But, you know, if progosion is dead, I think, A lot of observers were surprised that after the mutiny that Progosion and the Wagner Group stage in late June, that he had seemed to go unpunished. In July, Biden said, if I were he, I'd be careful what I ate. I'd be keeping my eye on my menu. This was during a news conference with Finland's president. In July, you pointed to this quote out earlier, CIA director, Bill Burns said, I think Putin is someone who generally thinks that revenge is a dish best serve cold. If I were Progoshin, I would fire my food taster. A few days ago, Progosian released a video where he said he was in Africa, making Russia even greater on all continents and Africa even more free.

On July 27th, Proggeon was photographed at a summit in St. Petersburg with some other African leaders. The Kremlin said the Putin and Progoshin met on June 29th, just days after the Wagner group staged a mutiny that got them within 120 miles of Moscow. But fast forward to today, Ben, it seems like he might be dead. Biden was asked about Progoshin's death on Wednesday. Here's a quick clip. I was asked about this by you.

I said, I'd be careful what I turned to what I wrote in. I don't know for fact what happened, but I'm not surprised. Do you think people are able? There's not much that happens when the Russian are keeping up behind. But I don't know enough to know the audience. I've been working out for the last hour in California. So that's kind of hard to hear, Ben, because you can really see the video. Biden is coming out of the gym.

I think he's in California. He's wearing with those half-zip sweaters. tipped sweaters. He's holding a smoothie and he gets asked by the press pool and like some parking lot what happened. And he's like, I don't know, guys. It's been working out for like half an hour. Progotion might be dead, but it's leg day. So, you know, I got to do what I got to do. Anyway, Ben, like this to me is kind of the definition of shocking but not surprising if progoshin is dead. But what's your reaction to what we've read so far? Yeah. First of all, the administration really likes food metaphors. I don't know if it's because

Progoshin's background is a camera. Look, I think shocking but not surprising is right because I don't think any of us thought that Progosion was beyond the reach of retribution here. This is a system in which many people tend to have strange one-person active accidents where they fall off of balconies. That said, I mean, it did seem to me like Putin might have given progoshin a little bit more of a lease on life,

in part maybe to kind of figure out, consolidate what the Wagner Group's resources are going to be. Like Putin's clearly been trying to integrate Wagner fighters into the regular army in Ukraine and clearly wouldn't want to lose the levers that he can pull into Africa in the Middle East through the Wagner Group's operations. So, you know, it's a bit surprising that after this kind of period of time in which he was popping up left and right, including a video in recent days where he claimed to you in Africa, that he goes down like this. I think there are a few things that stand out to me in initial reactions.

The first is, you know, it does appear like unless there's a miraculous coincidence of an aviation accident, you know, that this plane was brought down, shot down, or something. That's pretty, that is pretty brute force, you know, to kill, you know, reportedly 10 people. on a plane like that. And as we'll get into, I think, you know, it wasn't just Progosion. It seems like there are other members of the Wagner High Command. And so it feels like not only a message to Progosion, you know, or at least a message to everyone else who watched Progosion, but also maybe an effort to kind of decapitate a piece, at least, of the Wagner group. So pretty dramatic here. This is beyond even just like a one person falling off the balcony thing. This is like, yeah. Let's stick on that for a second. I mean, you're right. Putin has employed a lot of ways of killing people. People fall out of windows. Alexei Navalny was poisoned. Other people are just shot.

Like, again, we're kind of speculating here, but what kind of message you think it sends to use an anti-aircraft missile over Moscow, right? It's a combination of risky, complicated, as high profiles you could possibly get. Like, what do you make of that choice? I think there's a couple of things. Yeah, you're right. I mean, this is a plane that was going from Moscow to St. Petersburg, right? So this is like over the heart of Russia. And it kind of militarizes the manner in which Putin is repressing people and exacting revenge. You know, it's kind of assuming it was shot down. This is like a military operation, essentially, on Russian soil.

And that, you know, I think foreshadows like an even more brutal and militaristic turn in terms of Putin's repression. I think it may speak to the threat he felt from Progogsion and the Wagner group generally that he may have not just killed Progoshin, but a bunch of people that they were on plane as well. The fact that it took place, and we'll get into the fact that he also demoted a very important general who allegedly knew of the mutiny, it may have participated in, or at least knew about it, that suggests that this wasn't like a freak accident, right? This felt coordinated, like, you know, the same day that demote this general, they shoot down

this plane. Sergei Sarovkin was the general, yeah. While Putin is, you know, commemorating this, you know, victory of. the Red Army over the Nazis in World War II, which is striking pretty deep chords in the Russian national memory. So there's a lot going on here in terms of this not just being like your typical assassination of a Putin opponent, but kind of a militaristic message about who's in charge here. I'll say this one thing, Tommy. Like in the initial days of the mutiny, you know, there was some hyperbolic commentary, this is the end for Putin, et cetera.

Now I think I'm beginning to see some hyperbolic commentary, and Putin's stronger than ever, you know. I'm going to zag off of that. I don't think it's a good thing for Vladimir Putin, that there was a military mutiny and then all this uncertainty, and then he had to shoot down a plane that includes a longtime close oligarchic associate of his who commands the most lethal military mercenary force in Russia and beyond.

That's not like a win for proof. Like this is a guy, you know, yes, he's in charge, and yes, there's nobody, you know, who's poised that we know of right now overthrow him. But this is a guy who, like, should be focused on this kind of full-scale invasion he launch of neighboring state who's clearly, you know, had to focus on not just killing progosum, but sending a message of paranoia and fear to everybody in the Russian elite to back off. to me, that's a system that is cracking, actually. That's a system that, you know, is running out of steam in some ways. It doesn't mean Putin's going to be gone tomorrow at all. He is clearly in charge. But I don't know, I think this whole episode from the open fighting between Progoshin

and the Russian military to the mutiny itself to this is like, this is not how Putin would have drawn up how he wanted his internal politics to look deep into the second year of the full-skill invasion of Ukraine. Yeah, I think it's fair to say that, you know, He probably didn't anticipate having to shoot down his own guys over Moscow. That's not ideal. I definitely think this sends a message from Putin that's like, you know, you guys said I was weekend. I'm still here, guys, you know, and I just played a Trump card.

It is very weird to me. Look, Progoshin could be alive. These reports could all be wrong. There's his telegram channel saying he was on a different plane. That plane turned around and went back to St. Petersburg. I'm not saying I believe that, but like we're all open to all possibilities here. We're working with deeply flawed media sources. It is very weird to me, though, that you had this extraordinary event happened over Moscow,

a plane is shot down or near Moscow, and state media just immediately produce the flight manifests for a 10-person, you know, private jet. You know, that's interesting and fast and convenient. Yeah, you know, what it reminded me of is when Navalny was poisoned in the airport in Siberia. And so he's poisoned presumably in the airport. and then he passes out on the plane has this horrific episode. The video of that of him in the airport, like miraculously made it on to Russian media, like immediately, you know?

And so the fact that, you know, they clearly had a plan to get this information out quickly. Again, we don't know. If Progoshin pops up alive, like, man, that guy's a legend, not in a good way. But if this is what it looks like, it does feel like they shot this down, they had the information about the past and a manifest out immediately. These videos materialized immediately, albeit on Wagner channels, it seems like.

And yeah, like this is a guy that likes people to know. He doesn't come out and announce, I've killed this guy, but he wants people to get the message, you know, and message definitely received above all by you give any progression, but also by the rest of the world. And most importantly, I think anybody inside of Russia who might. might be contemplating a challenge of Putin. Yeah. And I think to your question about what does this mean about sort of Putin's relative strength or weakness or strength or weakness of the state, I do think it matters what happens

with the rest of these Wagner forces. I mean, it is interesting that he, Putin or whoever took out Progoshin waited to do this until the bulk of the Wagner guys were sitting in Belarus and are, you know, it's probably a lot harder to, you know, mount an insurrection 2.0 or march towards Moscow from over there. And there are some reports of, you know, maybe people locking down the borders in the region, like Lithuania, Pole and other places were out of concern about Wagner coming across the border.

Ben, you mentioned that Progoshin's number two was on this flight. It's a guy named Dimitri Utkin. He's a former lieutenant colonel in the GRU. He is, you know, you often see photo. There's one photo of him that's all over the internet where he has his shirt off and you can see Nazi tattoos on his upper shoulders. He was known to sign his name with two lightning bolts,

which was the insignia of the Nazi SS. He was like kind of the field commander of the Wagner group, and Progosion was the CEO and financier. So it really is like the big boss, the overseer, the guy with the connections to the Russian state who's now dead, and the battlefield commander who is sort of in the trenches, leading the troops, is now dead. And the question I have is, are the remaining Wagner forces loyal to them?

Or are they going to do something? Or are they just mercenaries for hire who will kind of go along with the next guy? I think that's a big open question. Yeah. I mean, first of all, these are like, you know, this is not a pleasant guy, this Nazi. And, you know, we should note, like, Wagner group because Wagner was Hitler's favorite composer. You know, like, it's not a subtle messaging from these guys. It's a really, really important and good question

because there's both the question, again, are Wagner guys going to be in the fight in Ukraine and what happens to the Wagner network in places like Africa? Now, what we saw in that mutiny is it seemed like these guys were really loyal to Progoshan because when Progoshan was like, hey, let's march on Moscow and shoot down some Russian military helicopters,

a bunch of guys went with him. You're like, cool, boss. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't Pergosian who shot down the helicopters, right? So clearly there is some core that has some degree of loyalty to Progoshin himself. I'm most interested in the international operations. I'm sure they don't want like to lose the Wagner fighters in Ukraine, but they'll draft some more people, they'll pull some more convicts out of prison and throw some people as cannon fodder under the fight in Ukraine. But there's a pretty complicated network in Africa that encompasses everything from, you know,

essentially running the Central African Republic as a kind of Praetorian Guard for the president there, controlling mining interests, getting close to these coup leaders in the Sahel that we've talked about, running very sophisticated disinformation campaigns in parts of Africa, controlling media channels. This is not straightforward stuff. And what's interesting is what Wagner allowed Putin to do is have a cutout from the Russian government. So it was like, you know, if Blackwater, the U.S. military contractor of Iraq and for me, you know, was doing something and the U.S. government itself wasn't necessarily the one doing it. And that means it wasn't the FSB or the Russian military that was running these operations in Africa. It strikes me that

unless he has like a different person from within Wagner that he can elevate who can kind of keep that machine running, it'd be a pretty complicated piece of business to kind of absorb the entire Wagner infrastructure into the Russian state. And by the way, it would also raise some interesting questions of like under what basis, therefore, would these Russian troops, not Wagner troops, be in all these African countries? You know, that's a different flavor. It may seem like a distinction with that difference, but it matters because all of a sudden, therefore, you have like Russian military occupations of multiple countries. So that's the most interesting thing for me to watch in the coming weeks, is how do they, are they able to absorb this?

Do they lose some of it, that capability? You know, know, are there to be defections, or going to be Wagner guys crossing the border into Poland. You know, there's a lot that has to play out here. Yeah, and I think it's worth remembering that the breaking point for Progogian that led to the Wagner Group mutiny was the Russian Ministry of Defense saying that all Wagner forces had to sign a contract with the Russian military and essentially get absorbed into the Ministry of Defense's operations, which would have stripped all of Progoshan's power away. And it seems like that's what ultimately led him to lead this ill-fated march on Moscow.

But Ben, you know, a lot of folks in the Ponce of the World Discord were asking a version of the question, like, what happens to the Wagner group now? What happens to their operations in Africa? I also, you know, sort of imagined this from like the African junta leader point of view. Imagine if you're sitting in Mali or Burkina Faso or Niger, where you're kind of waiting for Wagner forces to ride to the rescue. because you just started this coup a few weeks ago and you probably need some help by now, they must be wondering, like, what's going on? You know, there's no way that Putin would risk an operation like this

by, like, communicating in advance to some of these Wagner proxies around the world, like, hey, some shit's going to go down, hang tight. Yeah, I mean, the ones in Ukraine, you know, given how much Russian military presence there is there, I assume that their ability to kind of absorb and swallow up any Russians with guns in Ukraine is something they can do. Now, to be clear, though, that's not how this war started. Like Putin has created these different fiefdoms over time, the military, the GRU, the FSB, intelligence service, the Wagner group, Kadirov, the Chechen warlord essentially with his own guys.

And at the beginning of the war, all these different forces were fighting and operating in Ukraine. Clearly, they decided to try to consolidate that. that makes sense, but they're building that plane while they're flying it, as it were, in this war in Ukraine that's not gone exactly as they wanted to go. But there, I think, you know, they're seeking to kind of impose Russian military command order over things and will probably be able to do so. They may just lose a bit of capability in that. I think, you know, by the way, that's a risk for Putin away too, because one of the reasons why he liked all these fiefdoms is he didn't like anybody to get too strong who might challenge him. So if he's beginning to centralize command, you know, then all of a sudden, you know, the generals might become a threat to Putin sometime down the line as they get stronger. The Africa piece, I don't, that to me is the mystery because like the, now I imagine, you know, they're Wagner guys that are currently in these countries just doing what they're doing.

But, you know, imagine being a Wagner guy. A lot of these guys are like longstanding relationships, loyal to prognosion. And, you know, you check your telegram channel and you find. out your boss just got like whacked in a plane crash, it might be kind of tempting to just like, you know, grab some of the stuff from the mines and disappear. Grab a couple giant diamonds and get out there. I'm not sure I'd want to be hanging out waiting for my new commander, you know? No.

So again, the best case in here for Putin is that he somehow has some other person who's high up in the Wagner thing that he has been working with him who's set to take the helm here, but I have to imagine at a minimum it's disruptive for that. Yeah, and there might be some new listeners to the show today. just to remind you who Givgeny Progoshan is. This was a guy who spent nearly a decade in prison when he was younger for choking a woman during a robbery. When he got out, he started selling hot dogs. He got into the supermarket, catering and restaurant business in St. Petersburg.

That's where he met and started working with Putin. That's why people call him Putin's chef. There's literally photos of Progosion serving food to world leaders, including George W. Bush. Later, Progoshin started the Wagner Group, and he had his mercenaries fighting in Ukraine, in Syria and all across Africa. But he's also grown this massive business empire that stretches across, you know, more than a dozen countries. The New York Times did a big investigation into all his various shell companies and the intermediaries.

They include a chocolate museum in St. Petersburg, a gold mine in the Central African Republic, oil and gas ventures off the Syrian coast. There's movies, there's beer, there's vodka, there's timber, there's mining, there's diamond. He was also indicted by a federal grand jury in the United States for interfering in the 2016 election through the internet research agency, that troll farm that we all remember from 2016. He was sanctioned by the U.S. again for activities in Crimea. This is a guy who was recruiting out of prisons and basically getting these untrained men to

sign up to join the Wagner Group. And he was throwing them at the front lines in Bukhmud as cannon fodder. So, you know, he has this sprawling business empire. It extends beyond the Wagner Group to all these other places. And now it does just sort of lead the question to what happens to all of it. We have no idea. Yeah. And it's a very off books kind of thing, right?

So, like, you know, they'll help take over, you know, oil fields in Syria. And then they'll take a 20% cut from, like, the, you know, the revenue. Or I met a Syrian recently who had left his hometown because, like, the Russians took over the port and we're kind of running the business at the port. And I can't imagine that those guys are, you know, using regular accounting here, you know. Your kid's probably not going to be like, hey, can I please have the deed to the chocolate factory? Yeah, exactly. There's not a bookkeeper for this kind of stuff. So, yeah, like, it's an illicit mercenary empire.

And so that's a harder thing to kind of rest control of than, you know, the operations of like a military unit per se. But clearly, Putin felt like this is, it didn't matter. Like, even if he, you know, suffers some complications in managing that, he could not allow this guy to live. He wanted to send this message. He wanted to do it relatively quickly after the newtiny. And, you know, here we are. You know, left to wonder what the next chapter is here.

You mentioned this at the top end. So while this was happening, Putin was at a concert commemorating World War II in the Kurtz region near Ukraine. What do we make of, I think that's a coincidence that Putin's, giving a speech at this massive sort of terrifying-looking memorial as the split screen is, you know, Progoshin's plane swirling down and crashing on the ground? So, again, we don't know what's in Putin's head. We don't know exactly even what happened here. If I were to guess in this kind of, you know, I think Biden's point with a smoothie in hand,

that stuff doesn't happen in Russia without Putin knowing or in coincidence. To me, the most likely scenario is that this wasn't. orchestrated, you've got Putin commemorating a battle where the Red Army defeated Nazi Germany. Putin wants to associate himself with the legacy of strong and great Russian leaders, including importantly the victory over Nazi Germany, and he's cast the Ukrainians as the latest flavor of Nazis that have to be vanquished on behalf of the Russian Empire. So there he is, kind of playing the role of the Russian strongman, the embodiment of the the Russian state, the embodiment of this, you know, history that included great sacrifice

militarily. The Russian army, obviously, the Red Army lost millions and millions of people in World War II, dwarfing even the losses of Ukraine. While he's doing that, he's demoting, like, the general who was disloyal and literally killing the guy that challenged him. That feels like a Wagner-esque symphony. Yeah. It's a hell of a coincidence, if it's a coincidence.

Yeah. Otherwise, it's a hell of a coincidence. of coincidence, yeah. Someone on Discord name Brava Centauri asks, imagine you're sitting at your desk at the White House when news like this breaks. What's the first thing you do? The second, how does the day play out differently if it does it all?

Great question. I mean, you've got to figure that Jake Sullivan or the Deputy National Security Advisor, John Feiner, is immediately calling some sort of situation room meeting where you're getting together to State Department, all the intel agencies, and just saying,

what do we know, they're all probably checking Twitter, is just the truth, at least for the first 24 hours before you can kind of actually covertly reach out to sources in a safe way or collect some or mine all the intelligence that's been collected through signals intelligence in a way that actually shows you something, but I don't know. Yeah, I mean, look, you know, after the annexation of Crimea and the, you know, Russian move into eastern Ukraine in the Obama years, there were incidents like the shootdown of a Dutch passenger plane, MH17 over Ukraine, or the assassination of Bors and MSOV that we talked about in another Russia, where I remember like, yeah, like you described, you just go into the situation.

There's like a kind of stand, the deputies meeting, you know, the deputies of all the agencies and the NSC gather in this situation room. And a lot of that, and it becomes kind of an open-ended ruling meeting, where you're gathering information. And to your point, like, okay, so what are they doing? Like, part of it is monitoring the media, monitoring Twitter. A lot of this stuff is popping up on telegram. Part of it is asking the intelligence community to go through everything that they know

and what they don't know. Like, you know, did we see any indication that this was going to happen? Has there been any intelligence in the last couple days that foreshadowed this? They're definitely reaching out to the Ukrainians. So I'm sure that they're making a plan, like, you know, call the Ukrainians. Like, what did they know? Is there anything they know about this? What do they think is going on here?

Did you see one of a top Ukrainian advisor just linked to the song Highway to Hell? That was this on Twitter. Yeah, it was good Ukrainian trolling. They love that shit. But also like this Africa piece, I bet, comes up too. So I think that they're probably also like trying to surge resources, you know, diplomatic intelligence resources to try to understand, is this going to have any impact in the next, you know, a couple of days in terms of, what we're seeing around Wagner operations in Africa.

So the first day when something like this happens, a lot of it is about like how do we piece together as much information as we can? Who do we need to be in touch with? You know, African leaders, Ukrainians, Europeans, liaison intelligence services. What is our public comment on this? And the NSC comment was kind of like, you know,

we've seen the reports, it's not surprising. And that was like a, it was kind of, It was kind of a Russian, it was a kind of a Ukrainian-style troll, albeit not quite as, you know, dramatic as the ACDC, you know? It was Adrian Watson. She said the administration has seen the reports about the plane crash in Russia, if confirmed, no one should be surprised. Yeah.

So it makes for a more interesting day, but the reality is it's not like we are a player in this. You know, we're not inside the Russian system. I mean, maybe a lot of reaching out to Russia experts, you know, just trying to gather information as you can. Yeah. I will be very interested to watch in the coming days how Russian state media responds. For a while, Progoshin was kind of like a hero in sort of the military blogger set. He was celebrated. You know, a lot of the Wagner Group's victories were celebrated on state TV.

That turned pretty quickly when he launched an insurrection against Moscow against Vladimir Putin. But it'll be worth watching how they talk about what happened to him, whether, you know, Putin is getting. given credit publicly on TV. You know, you and I sort of speculate on this. We don't have, you know, we're not doing any, we don't have Anne Seltter doing Iowa polls in Russia for us to figure out these things. But it seemed like progoshin might be pretty popular among sort of like ranking file Russians because he kind of talks like a real human being and was on the front lines,

filming these videos and cursing out the elites that everybody probably hates. So it's important to see how this kind of unfolds. Yeah. And we've talked about that far right, you know, military. blogger, you know, a set of people. And Putin recently had one of those guys tossed in prison, pretty prominent guy that was part of the support for separatists in Ukraine. And like, what's their reaction? Is there, you know, you want to look for any inkling of any backlash to this from the Russian far right, you know, ultra-nationalist right? Is someone going to try to make a play to be

the new progosion and be taped videos? Like, you know, it is, it's not like totally risk-free for Putin. I don't think he's going to face a mutiny anytime soon, but like, you know, does the kind of sentiment that Progoshin tapped into this frustration with the Russian military command and the conduct of the war combined with this kind of ultra-toxic masculinity, Russian nationalism, like, or other people are going to make a play to be that person? So you'd be looking at all that. Yeah. And the last thing I'm sort of interested to see is where I bet a lot of people are wondering is

what impact might this have on the war in Ukraine? My understanding from listening to military experts, and I don't ever pretend to be one, is that the Wagner forces were mostly doing offensive operations in places like Bakhmut, and then largely were kind of pulled off the battlefield. A lot of the most experienced guys, I think, are now up in Belarus. So I don't know that, you know, the Russian forces are about to lose a lot of guys if, you know, the Wagner forces pack up and leave at this point. I think the Russian military has kind of dug in a lot of these trends.

and they're doing defensive operations. But who knows? We'll find out. Yeah, I guess, you know, Bachmood. Like, it's interesting how much Russian manpower may have left Bachmood. I think on the Russian military front, um, the Serovkin, the general who got, you know, shit canned or may have his own accident. I don't know.

You know, he, by all accounts had been pretty effective, you know, uh, in coming in and helping to kind of create these defensive lines. And, um, and so, you know, when you're losing progoshin and his guys and you're demoting this general and probably taking him off the field, like that may have some impact over time, right, in terms of the conduct of the war. But that's probably not something you're going to see quickly. Yeah. I should say, Ben, that one of the Discord questioners who asked about how this intonance being sort of reported and viewed in Russia

has the name Hannah Worldo-9-891 on Discord. which I know that's not my wife because she spells it with 2Hs and she doesn't listen to this show. But, you know, we really appreciate you being a part of the Discord community here, Hannah. Thank you, Hannah. Yeah, or, you know, Hannah, who works with me, friend of the pot as well, I don't know. Yeah, it could be a bunch of Hanas, yeah. Yeah, Hannah Vitor is kind of like, I don't know, man. I like keep it. I like keep it on Wednesdays. I can't see you're slipping into the Discord.

No, no, no. Well, that's all I got. Obviously, we did this very quickly because we, I don't know, just wanted to talk about. about what we knew. I imagine we might do more bonus content than Thursday or Friday if there's more to report or just dig deep on for Wednesday of next week. But anything else you want to add before we wrap? I think the only thing I'd say is part of what's interesting is we live in this kind of crazy news cycle stuff. And the war's been going on. The full-scale invasion was February 22nd. So it's been like a year and a half. And just think of how much stuff has changed, like how many

surprises there have been, how many twists and turns. It's a reminder, you know, that stuff that was unthinkable six months ago, like the idea that Wagner would march on Moscow and then Pergogne be shot down on a plane. If I told you, you know, that's not totally surprising today to learn that news, but if I told you, you know, at the beginning of this calendar year, hey, guess what's going to happen? You'd be like, what the fuck? So I think it's a reminder that whether we're talking about the battlefield state in Ukraine or the state of Russia's internal politics. When you start a war like this, you don't know how it's going to end. Putin doesn't know how it's going to end.

And that's why I want to end on this note of like, because I was reading these takes of like, well, actually, no, like Putin's stronger than ever. Like, you know, there's a lot. This suggests a degree of uncertainty inside of Russian politics. Yes, Putin is the strong man on top of a bunch of corrupt, rotted out fiefdoms. but this is not like a cohesive system that is functioning. You know, there's not like a political party. This is not like the Communist Party of China or the old Soviet Politburo.

This is Putin sitting on top of an elite that is made up of a bunch of self-interested corrupt motherfuckers. Like you give me progosin. And I don't know. Like I wouldn't be buying stock in that system right now when planes are getting shot down. I also think it's kind of this mafia-style hit, right? And there's something about the guy going down on a private jet. It's kind of a metaphor for the entire Russian oligarchy. You know, like he's got the private jet, but he still gets shot down by the czar.

You have a mega yacht would be the only sort of better example. Yeah, I'm with you. Putin is a mob boss. You know, he's sort of got all these like capos that he allows to operate and fight each other because that kind of keeps him on top. And he just took one out. But yeah, there's a lot of risk to that. I guess listeners might ask or wonder,

why do you guys dunk on Vivek Ramoswamy so hard? Because you hate the blob and you hate the kind of like boring standard national security people. And he's at least trying to say things differently. And for me, it's because he's just so unbelievably arrogant and like doesn't know what he doesn't know. And if anything, four years in the White House taught me it's humility and how little control you actually have even when you're the president in the United States and how unpredictable world events are. So I'm with you.

Like anyone offering a hot take on Twitter who thinks. they know exactly how things are going to play out from here. Like, they're full of shit. Unfollow that person. It's a really good point, just to dunk on Vivek one more time before the debate. Because keep in mind what Vivek has been arguing, which is something, by the way, we're going to hear more of, which is that his argument is literally we should give Putin, like the chunk of Ukraine has, in exchange for a deal in which he breaks his military alliance to China and makes him deal with us.

Like, this, that presumes that Vladimir Putin is this kind of. Yeah. Yeah, he's like a guy in like a VC tech deal with Vivek. Right, he's a rational actor. This guy is like a brutal megalomania, you know. And so the conversation has to take that in account. And to be, yes, to be clear, I learned that the hard way over eight years. You know, we tried to do self-interested rational deals with Putin.

And what you learn at the end of the day is like this is not a, this guy is about one thing and one thing only, which is his own power and his own kind of. dreams of grandeur and anything in his way is going to get plowed over and that's why i think you have to be quite skeptical of uh of the efficacy of that kind of diplomacy with somebody like yeah yeah five d chess doesn't really work with someone like Vladimir Putin um all right well that's it for us for today uh if there's more big news maybe we'll do this again this week or maybe we'll wait till next week but thanks for listening and uh holy shit holy shit yeah join the discord get on the discord Discord's fun. Yeah, come see Hannah Worldo.

And my guy, there's a guy named Dude Guy Pal who has some great questions. Alexandra had some great questions. And then Brava Centauri. So thank you all. Many, many more. I shouldn't have named any names. Now we're going to get in trouble. But those are some ones that I brought down.

All right. Thanks, guys. Later. Pots Save the World is a Crooked Media production. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor, Ben Rhodes, and Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Ashley Mizzou. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. audio support by Kyle Segglin and Charlotte Landis.

Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn and Phoebe Bradford, who upload our episodes and videos to YouTube.com slash Pod Save the World. Thanks to Saul Rubin and Rebecca Rottenberg for production support. Our intern is Naomi Beerenbaum.