Pepe Escobar
@RealPepeEscobar

Putin wins ON ALL COUNTS. [Oh my God, no he did NOT! He looks like a weak jackass!]

1) Making an absolute ass of Western MSM [mainstream media] again; [I feel that I was made an ass.]

2) Rallying people to end the war quicker; [Don't even know what that means.]

3) Amassing a list of traitors and 5th, 6th columnists; 

4) And freedom to deploy CTO [counterterrorism operations] martial law powers.

3:45 PM · Jun 24, 2023 159.8K Views

He doesn't say that this was an inside job, i.e. that Putin and Prigozhin collaborated. I actually had that (among a zillion others) thought: The handshake between Prigozhin and the commander in Rostov after Wagner had seized the headquarters and the city; In one photo I saw Wagner's guys looked like they had gone to Starbucks in Rostov--they all had cardboard cups in their hands; the lack of any resistance to Wagner's road trip on the M4. A column that long (50 km I read) and on a major, paved highway is a sitting duck for strafing from air by fighters or drone attack (see Ukraine making mincemeat out of Russian columns on streets. I could believe that this Yevgeny's excellent adventure was cooked (except for a host of counters, e.g. for Putin's evident panic) but not even this guy alleges that. I still can't help feeling taken, that is how I feel, but not by Putin, who is not a "winner" here. How many world leaders consider Putin stronger today that 48 hours ago? Taken by Prigozhin, yes. I don't know what his intent was. Taken by the Russian security forces? Maybe. Why was there no fight back?