i've always been kind of on the fence about ol' pringles. he would say shit about losing hundreds of men, then it turned out he didn't. he'd say he was out of ammo and moscow left them to die! then they took bahkmut less than 24 hours later. he said he was going to take moscow by force! but he just kind of... didn't. the fighting also wasn't intense at all, nor did they have any support from the civilian population. they came across some city and were met at the city limits by cops. not soldiers, not swat with special weapons, just cops. they told wagner to fuck off, they aren't coming through the city... and wagner did. the helicopter they shot down (the count keeps going up, but i remember the day it happened it was a single hind that may or may not have been up in the air without orders. russia has a bit of a problem with people doing that kind of thing) happened and some people died but mostly wagner wasn't actually fighting anyone, and no one was fighting them. and after pringles was pretty fast and loose with his exile. he "retired" to a villa just outside the border, and he made frequent documented trips inside the border without much issue. it's almost like he wasn't actually considered a dangerous traitor that tried to overthrow the government. personally i think he was paid by the cia or someone similar to take putin out. when the check cleared, he "surrendered". remember a few days before it happened, rather randomly at that, it was announced the pentagon misplaced 9,000,000,000 dollars. right after the coup failed, hey, they found it again! of course his plane blew up, which is pretty on par with anyone who actually poses the slightest political threat to putin, so i'm pretty sure they weren't bffs. but then again putin isn't the only murderous gangster holding elected office in russia, could have been someone we never talk about for reasons we've never heard of.
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