WTH Happened with the Russian Mutiny? Yaroslav Trofimov Unravels the Mystery
What the Hell Is Going On
AEI Podcasts
4.4 • 633 Ratings
🗓️ 12 July 2023
⏱️ 45 minutes
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Summary
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the private military company Wagner Group, staged a rebellion against Putin’s regime in Russia on June 24th. For a brief moment, the Wagner forces took over Rostov-on-Don, and came within 125 miles of Moscow before coming under heavy fire by the Russian military, and turning back. Putin struck a deal with Belarus president Lukashenko wherein Prigozhin was exiled to Belarus in exchange for amnesty. But who is Prigozhin? None other than Putin’s former caterer. If it sounds ludicrous, that’s because it is – and the media is still abuzz with theories as to what happened. Are there cracks in Putin’s regime? What were Prigozhin’s motives? Why the hell did Putin meet with Prigozhin a week after the purported coup attempt? Most troubling of all, US intelligence appears as perplexed as it was on day one.
Yaroslav Trofimov is the Chief Foreign Affairs correspondent of the Wall Street Journal. He covered the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 and has been working out of Ukraine since January 2022. He previously served as Rome, Middle East, and Singapore-based Asia correspondent, as bureau chief in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and as a Dubai-based columnist on the greater Middle East. He is the author of two books: Faith at War (2005) and Siege of Mecca (2007).
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast is brought to you by the American Enterprise Institute. |
| 0:03.0 | If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, review, and share. Thanks for listening. Here's our show. What the hell's going on? What the hell is going on? What the hell is going on? I don't know what the hell is talking about. You don't have to know what the hell is on it. What hell's the matter with these guys? We don't know what's going on. What hell's going on? |
| 0:01.1 | Who in God's name |
| 0:21.7 | knows what it's all about. |
| 0:35.2 | Hi, I'm Danielle Pletka. And I'm Mark Thiessen. Welcome to our podcast. What the hell is going on? Mark, what the hell is going on? |
| 0:42.1 | What the hell is going on is there was an attempted coup in Russia. |
| 0:46.6 | The head of the Wagner group, Yvgeny Progosion, turned his forces out of Ukraine and turned them on to Russia. |
| 0:53.6 | He took the Russian city of Rostov. The Russians |
| 0:56.9 | couldn't take Bakhmut for for months and months, but he took Rostov in a matter of hours, |
| 1:01.7 | was greeted like a conquering hero by the crowds and started on his way up to Moscow and |
| 1:07.8 | then suddenly stopped and turned around and made some kind of a deal. |
| 1:12.1 | And said, never mind. |
| 1:13.1 | Never mind. |
| 1:14.1 | And he's now in Belarus in some deal. |
| 1:17.1 | You know, we didn't even get into the Lukashenko ankle on this. |
| 1:19.6 | But he's in Belarus and everybody was watching this unfold and we just couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. So we've got somebody |
| 1:28.9 | who has a good theory as to what the hell was going on and can explain it for us. |
| 1:33.0 | Yaroslav Troufimov, who's the Wall Street Journal's chief foreign correspondent, who's |
| 1:38.1 | been on the ground in Russia and Ukraine all over the region and really have some really interesting |
| 1:43.6 | insights. |
| 1:45.9 | He's going to tell us what he thinks it all means. |
| 1:52.2 | For me, what was fascinating, I happened to be on that very day, I happened to be at a dinner with a fairly large number of senior administration officials, quote, unquote, senior |
... |
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