Nevzlin is the kind of person who’d know. He’s a former Russian oligarch now hiding in Israel. Israel loves to collect this bandit trash.

Plus, it makes sense. Putin has spent much of the past decade in a bunker which explains his cluelessness. Prigozhin doesn’t call him “the moron grandpa” for nothing.

A joke from an unknown humorist:

The Russian army was the second strongest in the world. Then it was the second strongest in Ukraine. And now it’s the second strongest in Russia.

The important thing to remember is that the conflict between PMC Wagner and the regular Russian army is over how to kill Ukrainians more effectively.

They aren’t fighting over anything happening in Russia. They don’t care about Russia.

In the meantime, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have liberated part of the territory that has been under Russian occupation since 2014.

This is my part of Ukraine. This is where I grew up. I can’t tell you how much this means.

This is a billboard near St Petersburg that advertised PMC Wagner. It’s being urgently removed:

PMC Wagner’s brand merchandise is being taken out of the stores. Yes, Wagnerites are a popular brand, didn’t you know?

Russians have deified Wagnerites. They were the epic heroes the country worshipped. The Wagner (think where the name comes from for a second) mystique was cultivated with a single-minded intensity.

Now there will have to be a large pivot away from the Wagner worship. The Russian authorities are already blaming – yes, you’ve guessed it – the Pentagon. Let’s see how fast the US fans of Russia start parroting these lines.

I’m eagerly waiting for Tucker Carlson and Rasheda Tlaib to come up with an explanation how the ongoing insanity in Russia with Russian mercenaries occupying Russian cities is the fault of the United States. Because with these people, everything is the fault of the United States.

Everybody knows that the Russian uprising is led by the same mercenaries who prevented Nicolás Maduro from fleeing Venezuela and forced him out of the airplane that was going to take him into exile, right?

That’s why Venezuelans are the only Latin Americans who are passionately supportive of Ukraine. The rest are still in the throes of their perennial socialist dream.

Not true but still very funny.

Would that it were true one day.

As usual, N and I have completely different interpretations of what’s going on.

He thinks Prigozhin is acting on direct orders from Putin with the goal of giving Putin an excuse to declare a state of exception.

And I think that Prigozhin got upset and is acting out without much of a plan.

You can see the cultural differences at work right here.

The best part of the Russian circus is the complete indifference of regular citizens to the tanks and heavily armed mercenaries known for their extraordinary brutality. A normal person would run away and hide but they just stand there and gawk.

These people don’t know what’s real anymore. They’ve embraced the postmodern.

I deeply dislike Douthat but he gets it: