Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben.
Speaker 4: We're joined as always with our super producer Paul mission
Speaker 4: controlled decads. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
Speaker 4: and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
Speaker 4: to know. Tonight, we are returning to a story that's
Speaker 4: been on quite a few people's minds, quite often.
Speaker 5: Quite recently.
Speaker 4: Several weeks ago, a guy that you've probably heard about,
Speaker 4: Yevgeny Pregoshan, the leader of a group called Wagner, appears
Speaker 4: to have died in an airplane explosion north of Moscow.
Speaker 4: You can see all sorts of analysis about it, as
Speaker 4: well as a chilling announcement by Vladimir Putin, still President
Speaker 4: of Russia. As a matter of fact, Can we play
Speaker 4: the video? Can we play a clip of this? Have
Speaker 4: you guys heard this guy?
Speaker 2: Let's do it?
Speaker 3: Dona snatch.
Speaker 6: Yeah, a man with a complex destiny. That's interesting, yes,
Speaker 6: so Ben, just just a very little clarity around the clip.
Speaker 6: Is this post attempted coup? Mm hmm, okay, yeah.
Speaker 4: This is after after the unfortunate airplane expedition.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: Uh, Vladimir Putin, current President of Russia, comes out and says,
Speaker 4: I've known you've got any progosion for a very long time,
Speaker 4: since the nineties. He was a man with a complicated fate.
Speaker 4: He made serious mistakes in life. It's kind of cold
Speaker 4: as eulogies go.
Speaker 6: I think that's why I was confused, because it didn't
Speaker 6: even seem like a eulogy. And it also you off off, Mike,
Speaker 6: You skipped through a whole bunch of other stuff before
Speaker 6: you even got to the slight mention.
Speaker 3: So it's like really kind of a footnote. Very cold.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but guys, what do you say about a guy
Speaker 2: that just tried to leave a mutiny against you? When
Speaker 2: that person dies? I liked him. You know, what do
Speaker 2: you say this jerk tried to overthrow my government? You know?
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a good question. Earlier, we'd speculated on the
Speaker 4: many rumors surrounding the alleged death or various death theories
Speaker 4: of Pregosian and his top men, at Wagner, But tonight's
Speaker 4: episode is asking what happens next the king is dead,
Speaker 4: what happens to the kingdom? Here are the facts. We
Speaker 4: need to give a quick recap on Wagner in general,
Speaker 4: because a lot of times, I think people in the
Speaker 4: West hear the phrase Wagner and they think like it's
Speaker 4: a battalion of the Russian military or something like that.
Speaker 4: But it's a lot closer to Blackwater.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's something that people I
Speaker 6: think in the West weren't hearing about at all for
Speaker 6: many years. I mean, it's really acted as kind of,
Speaker 6: like I think, been the term that you've used in
Speaker 6: the past, as sort of shadow military, you know, for
Speaker 6: Russia for a lot longer than this conflict has been
Speaker 6: at play, and these most recent kind of hiccups in
Speaker 6: the relationship.
Speaker 4: Let's just say, right, agreed, Yeah, Wagner is a private
Speaker 4: military contractor or PMC, and like you said, Noel, for
Speaker 4: a long time it was a de facto shadow army
Speaker 4: for Russia, similar to for instance, Blackwater. Oh wait, Matt, sorry,
Speaker 4: is it z X Oh wait is it ACADEMI?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: Hang on, is it constell Us?
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's all of those. Yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 2: private military contractors became famous or at least a known thing.
Speaker 2: That phrase became a known thing in the US during
Speaker 2: the Afghanistan War or whatever they want to call it,
Speaker 2: the war in Afghanistan, when we invaded Afghanistan as a
Speaker 2: country United States. We learned about Blackwater. Then we learned about,
Speaker 2: you know, operations in Iraq and other countries that maybe
Speaker 2: we shouldn't have been operating in where private military contractors
Speaker 2: went in and did some operations again on other countries
Speaker 2: soil while they were operating in a place where the
Speaker 2: US military is officially operating. Just some weird stuff has happened.
Speaker 2: We also saw stuff like that back during the Vietnam War,
Speaker 2: right when Laos and other countries were you know, there
Speaker 2: was activity going on when it really wasn't supposed to be.
Speaker 2: What I'm saying is that is what you can kind
Speaker 2: of do with a private military military contractor like the
Speaker 2: Wagner Group. You can have them do some things that
Speaker 2: are maybe they it would be an international incident if
Speaker 2: let's say the official Russian Army was taking part in
Speaker 2: actions in parts of Africa.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent ah Man so well put uh. Wagner
Speaker 4: is also common misconception in the West. Wagner is also
Speaker 4: a group of private entities operating under one name. It's
Speaker 4: kind of like, you know, the Portuguese Man of War
Speaker 4: is essentially a colony of independent, very small organisms functioning
Speaker 4: as a super colony that appears like one organism from
Speaker 4: far away.
Speaker 6: Yeah, sort of like the human The human being is
Speaker 6: a combination, complex, combination of cells and bios, all of
Speaker 6: that good stuff. This one just happens to be one
Speaker 6: that in this particular case is very specifically serving the
Speaker 6: interests of Russia up until you know, the whole coup thing,
Speaker 6: which was weird, and I think the reason all of
Speaker 6: this still perplexes me where I'm like, you know, we
Speaker 6: we even conjectured i think with Jake Hanrahan where it
Speaker 6: was sort of like could it have been a manufactured thing?
Speaker 3: You know, there's so many questions around that it was
Speaker 3: just real weird.
Speaker 6: And then this guy's plane gets well, we don't know
Speaker 6: if it was shot. We didn't, we don't have evidence
Speaker 6: of that, I don't believe yet, but falls out of
Speaker 6: the sky. And another thing we talked about with Jake
Speaker 6: Hanrahan was the the seeming issues with gravity that opponents
Speaker 6: of Vladimir Putin tend to face.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they faced them head on.
Speaker 6: Usually to me, when this news popped, I think probably
Speaker 6: to all of us, we were much more inclined to
Speaker 6: be like, oh, yeah, that wasn't manufactured. That guy was
Speaker 6: doing a thing and Putin popped him out of the sky,
Speaker 6: or did he.
Speaker 3: We'll get into some of that too.
Speaker 6: God, this stuff is as greasy as bubbles from Trailer
Speaker 6: Park Boys would say.
Speaker 4: Love it, love it. Also check out the sea shanty
Speaker 4: that Trailer Park Boys did. It's all about cats. It's
Speaker 4: very good. So, like we talked about in our previous
Speaker 4: primer episode on Wagner, before all this went down, before
Speaker 4: these conspiracies came to fruition, these Wagner guys, they get
Speaker 4: into all kinds of high jinks.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: They got international notoriety in the Dombas War back in
Speaker 4: twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, and since that point they have
Speaker 4: been involved in multiple coups and civil wars across the
Speaker 4: continent of Africa. In the Middle East. They fought in Sudan, Mali, Mozambique.
Speaker 4: And what they're doing in those situations is exerting Russian
Speaker 4: influence and interest by proxy, they are resource extracting and
Speaker 4: force projecting. As we established earlier, Wagner in its heyday
Speaker 4: got a percentage a vig of every resource when they
Speaker 4: interfered or when they, excuse me, interceded in the country's activity.
Speaker 2: Oh, exactly, they're getting their cut. Just to clarify there,
Speaker 2: the dawnbas War, if you're not aware, is the conflict
Speaker 2: between Russia and Ukraine that started back in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: as you said, Ben, and that is really one of
Speaker 2: the things that has just kind of continued when there
Speaker 2: were separatists inside Ukraine that were you at least according
Speaker 2: to the best knowledge that we have, they're Russian supported
Speaker 2: operating inside Ukraine, and then large conflicts started there and
Speaker 2: then the Wagner came in to kind of fill in
Speaker 2: what a military would.
Speaker 4: Do one hundred percent. Yeah, And Wagner was also up
Speaker 4: until quite recently a cult of personality similar to Heart
Speaker 4: of Darkness or Apocalypse.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: The followers of Pragosion treated him like a real life
Speaker 4: Colonel Kurtz or like Judge Holden, probably one of the
Speaker 4: best villains in American literature. Check out Blood Meridian by
Speaker 4: Kormack McCarthy. They treated Progosion as though he could do
Speaker 4: no wrong, and internal tensions arose. The Russian Ministry of
Speaker 4: Defense was beefed up with Progosion for a long time.
Speaker 4: Eventually it boiled over. And what you were referencing earlier,
Speaker 4: Nol Wagner marched on Moscow unsuccessfully and for a short time,
Speaker 4: for like twenty three hours around June twenty fourth, twenty
Speaker 4: twenty three. And if you look back now, analysts will
Speaker 4: overwhelmingly say by hook or by crook, this is what
Speaker 4: led to Pregosians aircraft accident.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and as we said before, allegedly it began because
Speaker 2: of Wagner group what I don't know what you'd call it?
Speaker 2: A group of Wagners. We're allegedly attacked by the Russian military,
Speaker 2: either accidentally or purposefully, which then led them to march
Speaker 2: on Moscow. So just just who knows exactly what happened?
Speaker 2: Those are the reports we have access to.
Speaker 4: You know, it makes me think of I was just
Speaker 4: listening to our earlier episode on controlling the future via
Speaker 4: controlling the past, and Matt, you brought up this excellent
Speaker 4: group name for historians.
Speaker 3: What was it?
Speaker 4: No, it was an argumentation of his.
Speaker 2: My idea that was the author.
Speaker 3: I yeah, no, it's good.
Speaker 6: I mean again, it's all about perspective. And as we've
Speaker 6: started to see much more and more in these days,
Speaker 6: it starts to feel a little more nineteen eighty fourish
Speaker 6: by the day in terms of like what is objective
Speaker 6: truth that at some point leaves perspective behind entirely and
Speaker 6: it becomes just like which fabrication have you decided to
Speaker 6: throw your lot in with?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: So maybe on that note, maybe you can help us out.
Speaker 4: Fellow conspiracy realist, what is the correct group name for
Speaker 4: some Wagner boys? Is it a mutiny of Wagner's? I
Speaker 4: don't think old VP would like that one. Let's give
Speaker 4: you the official story of what happens. According to Russia's
Speaker 4: Emergency Ministry, Progolsion and company die in an airplane crash
Speaker 4: on August twenty third, twenty twenty three. We did a
Speaker 4: strange news piece immediately after. He was in a relatively
Speaker 4: small plane and rooted from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. There
Speaker 4: were only ten people on the plane, seven Wagner, two pilots,
Speaker 4: one flight attendant. Because there's always an innocent bystander.
Speaker 3: And like right off the rip.
Speaker 6: We even have you know, opposing versions of the stories
Speaker 6: to that, some people saying it didn't make sense for
Speaker 6: him to be back on the way to Saint Petersburg.
Speaker 6: His interests were in Africa, you know, he like and
Speaker 6: there was I believe an incident in the past where
Speaker 6: a plane went down that he was on the manifest for.
Speaker 6: But then he turned up, you know, all well and
Speaker 6: good later. So this is like, these are tactics. There's
Speaker 6: reason to disbelieve the official narrative. Not to mention the
Speaker 6: fact that we're never going to see an independent investigation
Speaker 6: of any of this stuff. You know, folks with the
Speaker 6: Russian government have said that they've done DNA right, DNA
Speaker 6: samples or whatever kind of irol.
Speaker 2: You know, well, it's so weird because we're going to
Speaker 2: get into this guys. But just to point out there
Speaker 2: you may have seen as you're listening to this, if
Speaker 2: you're searching through there are reports of him showing up
Speaker 2: other places in the world alive today as we're recording
Speaker 2: this episode. So just like Tupac, it's so similar. Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's keep going.
Speaker 6: I guess the point here just to put like a
Speaker 6: little bow on it. I guess is that when you
Speaker 6: have a government that is inherently siloing information, just by
Speaker 6: their very nature, it makes these kinds of conspiracy theories.
Speaker 3: It gives them a lot more air, a lot more
Speaker 3: room to grow and breathe. Yeah, I think, yeah, agreed.
Speaker 4: Our So we saw that everyone in the world, every
Speaker 4: credible source in the world, assumed this aircraft accident was
Speaker 4: not a random malfunction. Initial reports claimed that the plane
Speaker 4: was shot down by Russian air defense, and that came
Speaker 4: from Wagner itself. Western intelligence later looked at this and said,
Speaker 4: they probably weren't shot down because we sort of, you know,
Speaker 4: follow the missiles. They said, there was an explosion aboard
Speaker 4: the craft, and to your point, Pregosion is a sneaky,
Speaker 4: sneaky boy, or he was. He is a little rascal.
Speaker 4: So a lot of credible analysts thought it would be
Speaker 4: possible or not outside of the realm of possibility, that
Speaker 4: he had faked his own demise, and later the Russian
Speaker 4: government did appear to confirm his death through genetic testing.
Speaker 4: They claimed that according to their forensics, the identities of
Speaker 4: all ten people on the craft had been established and
Speaker 4: all ten of them corresponded to someone published on the
Speaker 4: flight manifest So the next question is who ordered this explosion?
Speaker 4: We mentioned this earlier.
Speaker 3: I love this.
Speaker 4: I think you should leave now. A hot dog car
Speaker 4: crashes through the store. There's a guy in a hot
Speaker 4: dog costume saying it could be any one of us.
Speaker 2: We gotta find out who did this.
Speaker 6: So well, you know, and and to your point, been
Speaker 6: with that clip that you play where Putin just kind
Speaker 6: of casually drops a tiny little mention of this incident.
Speaker 6: There are some in the media, you know, or analysts,
Speaker 6: I guess, especially because there's quite a few Russian journalists
Speaker 6: who maybe don't quite toe the party line, who have
Speaker 6: actually been exiled and like live in Germany.
Speaker 3: And I'm kind of so I should have written down
Speaker 3: the names.
Speaker 6: But I saw some interviews with a few of them
Speaker 6: who were saying that is an example of Putin basically
Speaker 6: saying yeah I did this without saying yeah I did this,
Speaker 6: and that it's his way of like he does this
Speaker 6: kind of stuff all the time while not openly acknowledging
Speaker 6: it or admitting it. He kind of wants people to
Speaker 6: think he did it, even if maybe they didn't find
Speaker 6: his body it's in his best interest to think that
Speaker 6: they for people to think that he did it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anything that makes him scarier, right, not only to
Speaker 2: the to his enemies, but to people who have to
Speaker 2: follow orders from him, that's probably a great thing for him,
Speaker 2: or at least he perceives it as such. And you know, oh, man,
Speaker 2: I had a whole point about this, Oh, Pregosian didn't
Speaker 2: just have enemies in Russia, even though he was pretty
Speaker 2: much fighting for them. He had enemies, you know, in
Speaker 2: Ukraine and all of the people who are allied to
Speaker 2: defend Ukraine now all the NATO countries in the US.
Speaker 6: So, I mean, a soldier of fortune is not someone
Speaker 6: who's exactly known for their you know, stand up attitude
Speaker 6: and then like and steadfastness. You know, there's someone who
Speaker 6: will basically work for whoever is the highest bidder in
Speaker 6: exchange for cash, capital assets. You know, I mean, this
Speaker 6: is not someone that cares about making friends.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Also, sof doesn't have a very long shelf life, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean. So it's like, right now, the
Speaker 4: current running theories for the demise of Progosion are a
Speaker 4: direct order from Latimir Putin. Possible third party leveraging the chaos.
Speaker 4: To your point, Matt, this would be ah, this would
Speaker 4: be an opportunity or an act by one of Bragosian's many,
Speaker 4: many internal enemies. The thing that gallows humor here, the
Speaker 4: thing that is amazing and cracks me up right now,
Speaker 4: is that absolutely no one is pretending it was an accident.
Speaker 4: Everyone is in who done it mode automatically.
Speaker 6: There's no way the time, it just doesn't know, there's
Speaker 6: no But also not to mention, and I can't remember
Speaker 6: if we mentioned this quite yet. Everybody else that was
Speaker 6: on that plane, besides the unfortunate presence of the flight attendant,
Speaker 6: they were all high ups in the organization too, So
Speaker 6: it was like a kind of a one shot kill
Speaker 6: for like some serious muscle in terms of leadership in Wagner.
Speaker 2: But this is why it's the perfect thing, guys, because
Speaker 2: it is it is plausible that a plane crashes. That happens.
Speaker 2: Planes crash, they do, small private planes do crash.
Speaker 6: Coincidences, though, man, they're never they're never coincidences.
Speaker 2: I know, but that but that's the the messed up
Speaker 2: perfect thing. What are we going to do about it?
Speaker 2: What is anybody gonna do about it? Planes crash man,
Speaker 2: what are you going to do?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I believe you. Know.
Speaker 6: They were saying it was too high to have been
Speaker 6: shot down by like a shoulder mounted weapon of some kind,
Speaker 6: like a like a rocket launcher or something. It could
Speaker 6: have been what you were saying, been some kind of
Speaker 6: anti aircraft situation, But I think the prevailing theory might
Speaker 6: be that it.
Speaker 3: Was some sort of device on the plane itself.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the West is thinking on board explosive sabotage, right,
Speaker 4: which means the timer was either activated in the air,
Speaker 4: remotely activated, or the time the clock started ticking around
Speaker 4: left off, all three of which are plausible, or we
Speaker 4: got ourselves a gremlin situation.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe could have been a gremlin on the plane.
Speaker 2: But do you guys remember back in April in Strange
Speaker 2: News we talked about a Russian vlagger that was killed
Speaker 2: while in a wasn't it a Wagner bar or something,
Speaker 2: and a woman brought in an explosive device, edit it
Speaker 2: to the guy and it ended up exploding and killing him.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: That was in Saint Petersburg.
Speaker 4: Well, no one's gonna accuse human forces of creativity nor originality,
Speaker 4: but the like this is where we're at, you know,
Speaker 4: and that's an excellent precedent to set there, Matt. There
Speaker 4: you have it, folks. The head of an enormously dangerous,
Speaker 4: at times rogue mercenary military force just left the big
Speaker 4: chess board. But all the soldiers remain. After the leader's demise,
Speaker 4: what happens to them, you know, what will become of
Speaker 4: Russi Army. It's kind of like asking what happens to
Speaker 4: Coca Cola when all the people with the secret recipe
Speaker 4: ride the same plane and die. We're gonna pause for
Speaker 4: a word from our sponsors and then we'll dive in.
Speaker 3: Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4: Yes, the Wagner folks, the name brand might change, but
Speaker 4: they're still going to be around. Armies are a lot
Speaker 4: like a snowball, a lot like an avalanche. There's an inertia.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: Once something gets going, it is incredibly difficult to stop it.
Speaker 4: You can change the name, right, Oh no, now we're Constellis.
Speaker 4: We're so different, Now we're Infinity whatever. But you can
Speaker 4: cut off the head, you can fire or kill the leadership.
Speaker 4: You can make all sorts of you know, little paperwork
Speaker 4: laws restricting saying the name. But you cannot unteach the skills.
Speaker 4: You cannot remove the experience. It is incredibly difficult, virtually
Speaker 4: impossible to keep an eye on every small group or
Speaker 4: loan operator that sets up shop afterwards.
Speaker 2: Dude, I was just reading about again the coups in Africa,
Speaker 2: and we talked about that recently, and just about the
Speaker 2: splitting of militaries in several African countries. I think it
Speaker 2: was Niger I want to say, yeah, it was specifically
Speaker 2: I was reading about. Oh, I don't think it was,
Speaker 2: but it was a it was a recent coup where
Speaker 2: it was two factions of the military itself that split apart,
Speaker 2: and there were two leaders. One of them is running
Speaker 2: like a special forces kind of group and then the
Speaker 2: other one is the official you know, military of the
Speaker 2: country's leader, and they are the two factions that are
Speaker 2: fighting each other. And so it just it's reminded me
Speaker 2: of that bend where as you're saying, like, once you
Speaker 2: once you create a military group that is cohesive and together,
Speaker 2: there it is gonna stick around.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean you can't. You can't unteach goria tactics,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, people are gonna remember it.
Speaker 4: Uh And and Matt to your point, I I need
Speaker 4: to bone up on this. It could be Niger, it
Speaker 4: could be uh Mali, it could be a number of
Speaker 4: other countries. It's pretty pretty deep water at this point.
Speaker 2: There were so many Oh maybe it was Chad, I
Speaker 2: can't remember.
Speaker 3: It's always chad Man. There's Chad's chadding around.
Speaker 4: There's there's also a strong sense to this point that
Speaker 4: Vladimir Putin, the Putin administration wants some version of Wagner,
Speaker 4: indeed needs some version of Wagner. We have to remember
Speaker 4: they exist to give the Russian state plausible deniability. The
Speaker 4: need for that does not dissipate just because seven guys
Speaker 4: are dead.
Speaker 6: Well, but it does give you a vacuum that you
Speaker 6: can then fill yourself with your handpicked successors. Because while
Speaker 6: it might not be an extension, well, it is an
Speaker 6: extension of the government. Why it might not be a
Speaker 6: direct wing of the government or branch, there's influence there.
Speaker 6: There's got to be friendlies within the organization, you know.
Speaker 6: And maybe this is just Putin rooting out the folks
Speaker 6: that were starting to kind of buck on him a
Speaker 6: little bit. And now he's got the ability to insert
Speaker 6: the people into the situation that he wants to make
Speaker 6: them back to being his little pet army again quite possibly.
Speaker 4: You know that's I'm glad you're bringing that up, because
Speaker 4: now there are several options on the table. One Russia
Speaker 4: attempts to completely dismantle Wagner. It's possible in a legal sense,
Speaker 4: it's far less likely in practice, to your point that,
Speaker 4: given Wagner's entrenched established rules in the African theater. And
Speaker 4: then the second one Russia attempts to co opt to
Speaker 4: digest Wagner. Right, let's get rid of the guys who
Speaker 4: are being a little too loud, and let's absorb the
Speaker 4: rest of the operation in the Ministry of Defense. And
Speaker 4: this was something that Progulsion was fighting for quite some time.
Speaker 4: One of his big internal rivals was a guy named
Speaker 4: Sergi Shoigu, who is or Shoiku we are not native
Speaker 4: Russian speakers. He was He's the big guy, the Grand
Speaker 4: Puba of the Defense Ministry or Ministry of Defense. And
Speaker 4: those guys hated each other because they were always trying.
Speaker 4: They were always like pissing on each other's fire hydrants. Basically,
Speaker 4: it's not what fire hydrants are for. You know, They're
Speaker 4: related to liquid one way or the other.
Speaker 3: They're either getting his daughter, they're shooting stuff out. No,
Speaker 3: it's true. Isn't that weird?
Speaker 6: Though you think about it, like why is that? Never mind,
Speaker 6: we can conversation for another day.
Speaker 4: So they're mainly their main use now is to establish
Speaker 4: whether or not you are a robot online. I think
Speaker 4: just recones that wheels.
Speaker 3: And motorcycles or whatever. Doors.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but there's a there's a third option, which I
Speaker 4: think would be ideal for the Kremlin. It's to keep
Speaker 4: Wagner overall what you can save of it as the
Speaker 4: same thing like get new leadership.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, by the way, Ben, it just occurred to
Speaker 6: me if there were a Gremlin play, it would be
Speaker 6: a Kremlin Gremlin perfect.
Speaker 3: I'm just perfect.
Speaker 2: I can't even know.
Speaker 3: You have to we agree.
Speaker 4: We agreed to yes and each other a long time ago.
Speaker 2: You're right, you're right, Bye, bad bye, bad dude.
Speaker 6: Really quickly, I went and saw a comedy show the
Speaker 6: other night with Brett Gellman, who plays the conspiracy Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and his solo thing was really good. Like his show
Speaker 6: that he did, I won't spoil it, but he wasn't
Speaker 6: very good at yes ending. He was really into like
Speaker 6: shutting people down and maybe it was kind of his style,
Speaker 6: but it made me really uncomfortable. That is, like, I
Speaker 6: hadn't been to an improv show in a while. They
Speaker 6: did like half of the shows improv, and he would
Speaker 6: just be like, no, that's not how this is gonna go.
Speaker 6: It's gonna go like this, even when reacts, you know,
Speaker 6: you know, a full disclosure.
Speaker 4: I know those guys, even with even with my buddy Kevin, I.
Speaker 3: Think Kevin was the main dude.
Speaker 6: And then there was Amber from from Archer, who was great.
Speaker 6: Everyone was great, and and Bratt was funny. But I
Speaker 6: just found that it was sort of like, I'm gonna
Speaker 6: do improv a little bit different.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the school of no.
Speaker 2: But yes, sorry.
Speaker 4: Bruske Bien, you have Devney Progosia school of improv. He's
Speaker 4: not exactly dull close. So there's there's this idea that
Speaker 4: you could change the leadership, keep the experience right, keep
Speaker 4: the Hoy paloy, keep the infantry, the rank and file.
Speaker 4: But if you look at the boffins in these various
Speaker 4: Western think tanks, they feel this is possible but unlikely. Instead,
Speaker 4: there's another mergent option, and it's got that kind of
Speaker 4: new car smell. Why not just engage another Russian based
Speaker 4: private military corporation or company, just change the brand name,
Speaker 4: but just put them into the same job position, the
Speaker 4: same day to day operations. You know, be like, hey,
Speaker 4: this used to be you know what, I'll take the potshots.
Speaker 4: This used to be Comcast, but now it's Exfinity. Don't worry,
Speaker 4: We're still in charge of the coup.
Speaker 6: So there are enough of these outfits around to just
Speaker 6: do the old switcheroo.
Speaker 2: Well, no, you just create one, right, But that's what
Speaker 2: Ben's saying, like, you go, oh, here's the new thing.
Speaker 3: Wait, wait, create them from what though?
Speaker 6: Obviously you need this organization because of their manpower and
Speaker 6: because of their whatever.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Well maybe I'm wrong, but Ben, I think that's what
Speaker 2: you're saying. You create the corporate entity, right because all
Speaker 2: that takes is a bank and an address and a
Speaker 2: couple other things.
Speaker 3: Then you staff it with your own So take.
Speaker 2: This the Wagner staff.
Speaker 3: All you shuffle them around.
Speaker 2: You guys are gone. We're dissolving this company now. Everybody
Speaker 2: walk over here. Okay, now stand here, take this corporate
Speaker 2: t shirt.
Speaker 6: But Ben, to your Kurt's Judge kind of point earlier,
Speaker 6: Wasn't there a lot of fear and loyalty within the
Speaker 6: Wagner organization like that? Isn't that how he got them
Speaker 6: to march with him against the country that they're supposedly protecting.
Speaker 6: I just have a hard time believing that all of
Speaker 6: those people, without certain dispensations, you know, would just like
Speaker 6: do what you're saying.
Speaker 3: Maybe I'm honest.
Speaker 4: I think we're all right, We're all correct in looking
Speaker 4: at this. What we need to understand is in this
Speaker 4: sort of bloody business, they're always going to be men
Speaker 4: like this, They're always going to be forces. There will
Speaker 4: always be an alternative, right if the first one doesn't
Speaker 4: work out. To your point, Noel, and to your point, Matt,
Speaker 4: there will always be the opportunity unity to do. You know,
Speaker 4: the military version of a new LLC. Just walk across
Speaker 4: the street. We got a different office. Give us fifteen
Speaker 4: minutes to see some new badges on the uniform I
Speaker 4: was looking into now. Think tanks are really not something
Speaker 4: you should trust. Shout out to our pal Jake, and
Speaker 4: shout out to our good friend Robert Evans. A lot
Speaker 4: of think tanks, unfortunately have dirty money or agendas supporting them,
Speaker 4: and with that being said, if you understand that lens,
Speaker 4: then we can understand that they are doing very good work.
Speaker 4: They are very very intelligent people. And so I cast
Speaker 4: no dispersion on some of the folks who were quoting
Speaker 4: Kendall Taylor, Andrew or Andrea. Kendall Taylor is a Russian
Speaker 4: intelligence expert at the Washington based Center for New American Security,
Speaker 4: and say what you want about CNAs. This person. She
Speaker 4: is legit, she's on the money, and she's sharp, and
Speaker 4: she says she thinks that what's going to happen is
Speaker 4: parts of Wagner are going to be folded in under
Speaker 4: the existing Russian structure in some way, and they're going
Speaker 4: to be sort of sold off there. They're no longer
Speaker 4: going to be one concentrated thing. They're just going to
Speaker 4: be a bunch of subcontractors, which also makes them more
Speaker 4: difficult to erase.
Speaker 6: But Benmus, I must come back to my previous question.
Speaker 6: Are there are there like a bunch of these types
Speaker 6: of operations just ready to to hop too again?
Speaker 4: Yes, there there will always be men for this sort
Speaker 4: of job, you know. And it's a good question. It's
Speaker 4: a disturbing question. More people should ask more often. Our
Speaker 4: expert that we mentioned earlier, Kendall Taylor. She notes that
Speaker 4: Russia is going to continue to use pmc's private military
Speaker 4: contract the United States is going to continue to mess
Speaker 4: with Halliburn. They're just going to be spread about in
Speaker 4: different ways. Like if you the best way to say
Speaker 4: it is the evil way to say it is if
Speaker 4: you run a shady mercenary army. It's a great time
Speaker 4: to put in an application to Russia. Just find Vladimir
Speaker 4: Putin on LinkedIn and say, hey, Bud, sorry about the planes.
Speaker 4: I got some stuff going on. This is the kind
Speaker 4: of thing that keeps Eric Prince, the owner of Academi
Speaker 4: Wait Exy, Wait, Blackwater Wait constellis awake at nights salivating
Speaker 4: government contracts. We've got to go to the La Times.
Speaker 4: They have a great exploration of this, and Noel, I
Speaker 4: think this speaks directly to the point that you're raising.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it does.
Speaker 6: Ben. In this piece, they speak to a Ukrainian open
Speaker 6: source intelligence company whose business it is to track these
Speaker 6: types of organizations, and shockingly, I guess, at least to me,
Speaker 6: they tracked thirty seven of these types of contractors.
Speaker 3: And I guess my question really was I mean, I totally.
Speaker 6: See what you mean about there will always be men
Speaker 6: that will do stuff like this, but will there be
Speaker 6: like hundreds of them, thousands of them under a single banner?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 6: Because that to me seemed like what the benefit of
Speaker 6: Wagner was was that they were all this like, you know,
Speaker 6: army of scale that could be bought and paid and
Speaker 6: paid for. It makes me think of like stuff from like,
Speaker 6: you know, the Golden what are they called in Game
Speaker 6: of Thrones? There was like a whole mercenary army that
Speaker 6: they hired that was literally a massive army of the
Speaker 6: scale of like the kind of army a country would have.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely, raise a very good point there, man, because
Speaker 4: we're thinking about the Golden Company.
Speaker 3: That's a Golden company.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they were sort of the Wagner of that story.
Speaker 4: The issue is exactly what you describe economy of scale.
Speaker 4: If you look at it now, there are two outfits
Speaker 4: that are closer to being the next Wagner. One is
Speaker 4: called Convoy sadly not affiliated with the amazing song by C. W. McCall.
Speaker 4: Can we even can we play a clip?
Speaker 3: Shortly? Isn't there a movie?
Speaker 6: Too?
Speaker 3: Is called Convoy. It's drug drivers.
Speaker 4: So so just so Matt Nolan and I and and
Speaker 4: you played along home, fellow conspiracy realist can vibe with this.
Speaker 4: We're gonna play just a short clip of Convoy.
Speaker 2: A breaker one nine this year as a rubber duck.
Speaker 3: You've got a copy on the fan, come on, oh yeah, Convoy.
Speaker 3: The song is from Convoy the movie.
Speaker 6: So that's pregosia I am for good, buddy, dude. The
Speaker 6: the poster of Convoy is so horny, it's like just
Speaker 6: just ripped Chris Kristofferson getting felt real nice and.
Speaker 3: Good by his lady co star for the film. Yeah,
Speaker 3: for the film.
Speaker 6: But it's also one of those like hand drawn kind
Speaker 6: of Indiana Jones type posters.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So it just has like extra drama.
Speaker 6: It honestly looks like the cover of like a dime
Speaker 6: store kind of romance novel.
Speaker 4: Little Steamy, Yeah, little little Lurid.
Speaker 3: Indeed. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Convoy, the private military contractor is pretty young. It was
Speaker 4: established late last year by a guy named Sergi Askyonov,
Speaker 4: the head of the head of the Interim attempt at
Speaker 4: Russian Governance in Crimea. At Crimea and Putin's administration took
Speaker 4: over that that bit of land back in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 4: Convoy is right now. Convoy is the suited to replace Wagner.
Speaker 4: It's run by a guy who used to hang with Pregosian,
Speaker 4: a guy named Konstantine Piccolov. So we got the experience
Speaker 4: and that's not the only thing that's right.
Speaker 6: Convoy since forming has received quite.
Speaker 3: A bit of capital in the form of donations. Sure.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the quotation fingers and donations right untrackable. People are
Speaker 6: getting something from their donations, maybe trackable, but the intention,
Speaker 6: I believe is something a little underhanded here, if I'm
Speaker 6: not mistaken.
Speaker 4: Is it a donation or is it an investment? A
Speaker 4: lot of those donations to our sound effect, they came
Speaker 4: from a bank called VTB, which is mostly owned by
Speaker 4: the Russian state, and they came from an oligarch in
Speaker 4: Putin's new network guy named Rutenberg. So we've got second
Speaker 4: the connections. If you want to learn more about these connections,
Speaker 4: check out, of course sad olagark by er pal Jake,
Speaker 4: and check out the Dossier Center, which tracks what they
Speaker 4: see as criminal activity and network associations for the Kremlin. However,
Speaker 4: there is a PEPSI for every Coca Cola, and if
Speaker 4: convoys are Coca Cola, then the Pepsi here is an
Speaker 4: outfit called Reduced m hmm.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's a great article you found in the Eurasian
Speaker 6: Times talking about how you know, Wagner is out, Redout
Speaker 6: is in or redo, however you want to pronounce it.
Speaker 6: You know, they're filling that vacuum as a power vacuum.
Speaker 6: I mean, I'm from the moment there was news of
Speaker 6: the demise that suppose I'm still not convinced the demise
Speaker 6: of Pregosian. Any of these burgeoning military you know, extra
Speaker 6: military organizations must have been just champ at the bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, put man because Reduct or Pepsi in the conversation,
Speaker 4: was involved in action protecting Russian interest in Syria. They're
Speaker 4: also one of the first forces on the ground in
Speaker 4: the twenty twenty two Ukraine invasion. There's an immediate problem
Speaker 4: that arises. Both of these groups, Convoy and Redout. They
Speaker 4: are tiny, infinitesimal in comparison to Wagner, and Wagner itself
Speaker 4: pretty small, you know. It's like, at the at the
Speaker 4: craziest estimate, Wagner is like fifty thousand operators.
Speaker 3: That's a lot.
Speaker 6: But what are we talking for, reduct Ben, do you
Speaker 6: have a sense from maybe some of these fractionally sized organizations.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's thirty seven guys, serious, No, no, because I
Speaker 4: was in my mind.
Speaker 6: It could mean a lot of things. It could mean
Speaker 6: the size of like a really high quality strike force.
Speaker 6: Are like swat team.
Speaker 4: Yeah they're, but we're talking bigger than that, right, Yeah, hundreds, Yeah,
Speaker 4: they're they're bigger. They're in the thousands, both of them,
Speaker 4: but they're they're not in the fifty thousand range. And
Speaker 4: you know, unless there's some mercenary version of a merger acquisition.
Speaker 4: These groups also, no matter how many people they have,
Speaker 4: they don't have the same field experience you find in Wagner.
Speaker 3: They don't have the.
Speaker 4: People who have shut down puppet governments right or instituted
Speaker 4: their own. Wagner can go toe to toe with France
Speaker 4: in Africa, which is nuts.
Speaker 3: That is much more Golden Company style.
Speaker 6: And Ben, I don't think we've mentioned this in this episode,
Speaker 6: but I know that we have in the past. That
Speaker 6: one tactic that you know, you know, we talked about
Speaker 6: how pregosion really is kind of a culture personality or
Speaker 6: was a culti personality. So there's some loyalty to him,
Speaker 6: least of all because he got some folks out of
Speaker 6: some prison sentences in order, you know, for like a
Speaker 6: lighter sentence or like a furlough or something if you
Speaker 6: fight for his group. Surely these other smaller groups can't
Speaker 6: offer quite the same unless again, maybe the goal with
Speaker 6: the Putin is to combine them, rebrand them, and then
Speaker 6: do some of the same stuff that Pregosian was doing
Speaker 6: off books.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, man, And it makes sense logically. Pregoshon is
Speaker 4: exceptional because he built Wagner by gathering more than three
Speaker 4: hundred different private companies together Convoy and REDDA. They cannot
Speaker 4: say that that's part of why Wagner became as much
Speaker 4: of a cult as it was a mercenary group at
Speaker 4: the end. And one thing is for sure, the need
Speaker 4: for something like Wagner exists for the Russian government, which
Speaker 4: means that need will be satisfied one way or the
Speaker 4: other by hook or by crooks. So with this in mind,
Speaker 4: the ultimate analysis is the Kremlin will move quickly to
Speaker 4: contain and stabilize a leader to lists Wagner, and that
Speaker 4: is fragmenting balkanizing. As we record this containment to your point, Noal,
Speaker 4: whatever form it takes, it will one hundred percent aim
Speaker 4: to maintain business as usual, force projection, resource extraction, running
Speaker 4: the coups.
Speaker 3: And I guess the thing that keeps sticking in the
Speaker 3: back of my mind is like.
Speaker 6: If Russia is so contained and they kind of answer
Speaker 6: to no one, barely acknowledge the international community, you know,
Speaker 6: accept as interlopers on what is theirs? Why do they
Speaker 6: need that's plausible deniability so much? Is it just in
Speaker 6: the face of like international courts and war crimes and stuff,
Speaker 6: or when they're poking their nose in places that don't
Speaker 6: belong to them and stealing resources on behalf of Russia.
Speaker 6: Russia can basically say, well, I don't know anying about that,
Speaker 6: we didn't do that. But at the same time Putin
Speaker 6: has said openly, you mentioned at the beginning of the
Speaker 6: show that they're really good at stealing other people's stuff.
Speaker 6: So why the plausible deniability?
Speaker 4: It's an interesting question because at some point does this
Speaker 4: not seem like.
Speaker 3: A fig leaf?
Speaker 4: What would you if you were the president of the
Speaker 4: United States? What would you say if it turned out
Speaker 4: that you were not only engaging mercenaries to commit war crimes,
Speaker 4: but you were also taking people out of your prison
Speaker 4: system and putting them in the field. This is a question.
Speaker 4: It's a difficult question to answer. I think we pause
Speaker 4: for a word from our sponsor for a moment, and
Speaker 4: then we return and talk about a very interesting point.
Speaker 4: You brought up nol a convict army.
Speaker 3: And we're back, Ben, Let's get right to it.
Speaker 6: What a what a way to attract loyal followers, loyal
Speaker 6: militants into your group who potentially maybe have some street
Speaker 6: fighting skills by legally busting them out of jail or
Speaker 6: prison right ilegally quotation fingers Again, a lot.
Speaker 3: Of black box stuff going on in this part of
Speaker 3: the world, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you make the laws, you decide what is legal.
Speaker 4: It was a huge hit for Western propaganda, the idea
Speaker 4: that Russian convicts even those who committed egregious violent crimes.
Speaker 4: We're talking sexual assault, murders, you know, crimes against children.
Speaker 4: Not to be too explicit, those folks were given plea deals,
Speaker 4: the rumor went, in exchange for joining Wagner not to
Speaker 4: be trained as operators, but to function as canon fodder.
Speaker 4: And it turned out this was absolutely true, and as
Speaker 4: a result, you know, when Wagner dissolves, this leads to
Speaker 4: a situation where in thousands of criminals are cut loose.
Speaker 4: To your earlier point, man about nineteen eighty four, this
Speaker 4: is what Winston Smith would call double plus un good.
Speaker 4: But it's still like thousands, thousands monstrous people roaming free
Speaker 4: as a bird. But that's still is less less of
Speaker 4: a threat than the larger instability issues facing the Russian
Speaker 4: state and therefore the world very soon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean, you know a lot of analysts.
Speaker 6: That I've been listening to and reading think that this
Speaker 6: is all kind of a sign of Russia's ultimate weakness.
Speaker 6: That the reason that Wagner did what they did, or
Speaker 6: the Progosian defected in the way he did, was because
Speaker 6: he lost faith in the operation. He lost faith in Putin,
Speaker 6: and he thinks Putin is no longer acting in the
Speaker 6: best interest of the country. But again, it's you know,
Speaker 6: it's really hard to nail down the motivations of a mercenary,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean. He's not acting on some
Speaker 6: sort of like you know, taking a stand for what's
Speaker 6: right exactly. He's just basically saying the winds have shifted,
Speaker 6: you know, we are here to get paid and make
Speaker 6: sure that we have the stuff we need. We think
Speaker 6: maybe Putin's not the guy to do that anymore, or something.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but.
Speaker 6: There is a lot of questioning about whether Putin's kind
Speaker 6: of grasp is slipping.
Speaker 4: Right, allegations of dementia, allegations of possible terminal deteriorating nervous
Speaker 4: system conditions right. Also in Progosion, I think we see
Speaker 4: a real life version of a Colonel Kurtz, you know,
Speaker 4: for fans a Heart of Darkness, or for people who
Speaker 4: watch Apocalypse Now. The thing about Kurtz is that he
Speaker 4: becomes a personification of war. He doesn't really want the
Speaker 4: war to end, right, And you could say the same
Speaker 4: about Pregosian, Like to your point, Noe, what are the
Speaker 4: guy's ultimate aims?
Speaker 5: What were they?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 4: Did he want a peaceful, happy world? Did he want
Speaker 4: the blood and treasure and the experience of chasing that?
Speaker 4: It's a scary thing. The big I guess, from Wagner's
Speaker 4: perspective and from the Russian perspective, their big moment in
Speaker 4: the sun was the taking of Bakhmut the city in Ukraine,
Speaker 4: in eastern Ukraine. And unfortunately, even if you erase Wagner
Speaker 4: from the board, the war in Ukraine will continue. The
Speaker 4: Putin administration is definitely scrambling to try to maintain their
Speaker 4: grip on various resources on the African continent and in
Speaker 4: the Middle East. But even without Wagner, they still have
Speaker 4: enough capability to continue this conflict. But their capabilities are finite.
Speaker 4: Russia is a collapse state. It is a kleptocracy. That's
Speaker 4: a problem.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: You would think maybe that if you are not Russia,
Speaker 4: or if you were opposed to Russia, it'd be very
Speaker 4: good for that state to collapse. It would mean you
Speaker 4: win the game. But the problem is, because Russia has
Speaker 4: never hesitated to pay blood for treasure, it still has
Speaker 4: one more move to pool, a very dangerous move, because
Speaker 4: Russia is a nuclear capable state.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, I mean, I was.
Speaker 6: I heard some stats recently about like the amount of
Speaker 6: certain military gear that they possess in terms of tanks
Speaker 6: and ships and whatever, and it's pretty negligible, like compare
Speaker 6: to what the US and NATO and all that stuff has,
Speaker 6: Like it really pales in comparison. Uh, that's also partially
Speaker 6: probably another reason why they need to beef up their
Speaker 6: military support with hiring these types of groups. But what
Speaker 6: what does change the calculation entirely is their arsenal of
Speaker 6: nuclear weapons, their their nuclear submarines, and their ability to
Speaker 6: hit most of Europe directly from where.
Speaker 3: They are, you know, exactly. Yeah, it's a big deal.
Speaker 6: I mean, like, you know, I went to Berlin a
Speaker 6: couple of years, it's been almost two years now, and
Speaker 6: a member of our party who was going to go
Speaker 6: it was right when the Ukrainian War started, and they
Speaker 6: opted not to come because there is that wild card
Speaker 6: loose cannon energy around putin that he would do some
Speaker 6: wild like that, and he said it what do they
Speaker 6: call it, ben saber rattling, you know, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 6: And that's that's the piece that he possesses the ability
Speaker 6: to continue to leverage all this stuff, is that they
Speaker 6: have the nukes.
Speaker 4: Oh well, you know, that reminds me of that old
Speaker 4: Rby's commercial, We.
Speaker 3: Have the nukes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, where's the beef for Wendy's.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So that's that's the big elephant in the room right
Speaker 4: of the globe, which is could there be a nuclear exchange.
Speaker 4: The three biggest powers in the world geopolitically right now
Speaker 4: are what we could call the Russian Crew, which would
Speaker 4: be Iran, Syria, North Korea, deeprk maybe Venezuela if you
Speaker 4: want to put that in, and then there would be
Speaker 4: the West, NATO, the US couple others. They're they're trying
Speaker 4: to hit on India real hard, we'll see how it
Speaker 4: works out. And then the third beat China, you know,
Speaker 4: bricks on bricks on bricks. These three primary powers, to
Speaker 4: be very clear with everyone, save you some time if
Speaker 4: you ever want to study international affairs in college, is
Speaker 4: what you need to know. Those three primary world powers
Speaker 4: are right now all run by pretty elderly, pretty wild
Speaker 4: ass dudes. They do not give up.
Speaker 6: Yeah, same kind of I mean, you know, I would
Speaker 6: count Progosian as one of those elderly, wild ass dudes
Speaker 6: who is just.
Speaker 3: Larger than life, you know. I mean, you don't get into.
Speaker 6: That business of death dealing, you know, unless you've got
Speaker 6: I don't know, man, you got something going on, you know.
Speaker 6: I mean, these are people that have been part of
Speaker 6: the kinds of secret operations that maybe the KGB would
Speaker 6: have been involved in. You know, people that have served
Speaker 6: in a very different way from what we may think
Speaker 6: of as military service.
Speaker 3: You know here in the United States, would I would think,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 6: Not not to say that the United States military service
Speaker 6: and like, you know, we do some dirt too, no
Speaker 6: question about it. But you know, we know what the
Speaker 6: KGB gets up to. I mean, they're notoriously ruthless. And
Speaker 6: I would assume that a regime run by the former
Speaker 6: head of the KGB is going to deploy some of
Speaker 6: those types of tricks and some of that kind of
Speaker 6: ruthless mentality, and then those are the types of people
Speaker 6: that are going to gravitate towards a man like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, very well said. You know, while while these three
Speaker 4: large categories of powers are not adverse to a little
Speaker 4: enemy of my enemy as my friend action, those relationships
Speaker 4: are the equivalent of one night stands. Both China and
Speaker 4: the United States know that they will get a big
Speaker 4: win if Russia falls, and Russia knows that they know that,
Speaker 4: So it's super awkward. That's why if you dig just
Speaker 4: a bit, you'll see some strange bedfellows situations. We were
Speaker 4: talking about this, Matt Noel and I were talking about
Speaker 4: this off air a little while back, the US just
Speaker 4: specifically warned North Korea not to aid Russia, and uh,
Speaker 4: the leader of North Korea or d p r K
Speaker 4: is is about to visit Vladimir Putin in person and
Speaker 4: talk about working together and then Russia for their side.
Speaker 4: They specifically warned Uncle Sam not to bring nukes over
Speaker 4: to the United Kingdom, which means it's time for old
Speaker 4: Who's who's in charge of that place? Now?
Speaker 3: Who's it's the king?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 6: I guess too much stuff going on over here to
Speaker 6: keep tracking those those Brits. But yeah, Kim, you know
Speaker 6: that seems fine, right, Putin and Kim together again.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're just watching Police Academy like we do.
Speaker 6: Match made and fascist heaven there it is. I mean,
Speaker 6: really they they hurt each other.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean seriously, that just sounds terrifying.
Speaker 6: That sounds double plus plus triple plus un good bad bad,
Speaker 6: not good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like, think about this. What does all this show us?
Speaker 4: It shows us when we look at these conspiracies, which
Speaker 4: are not theories for the most part, When we look
Speaker 4: at these conspiracies, it teaches us that the post Wagner
Speaker 4: world is not going to be much different. At first,
Speaker 4: There's one counterintuitive puzzle piece. Russia losing its Halliburton escalates
Speaker 4: the danger for the continuation of the Russian state, and
Speaker 4: when the Russian state feels endangered, it is increasingly likely
Speaker 4: to consider some moves that would otherwise not be seriously considered.
Speaker 6: You know, well, it's also like you have to think
Speaker 6: about the state of Putin's mind and how he views
Speaker 6: his legacy, and is he the kind of guy that,
Speaker 6: knowing that he's on the way out, why not just
Speaker 6: hit the big red button.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Oh, dude, he's totally going to hit that button.
Speaker 4: You think, so not a wonder.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 6: I mean, I wonder, you know, I mean, it scares me.
Speaker 6: You're right, it's scary, But also it makes me think
Speaker 6: what we do know. It would appear that this whole
Speaker 6: situation with Wagner it was legit, and it was as
Speaker 6: a result of people in high up, people in that
Speaker 6: organization thinking that what Putin was doing wasn't good and
Speaker 6: was no longer serving their interests. I have a hard
Speaker 6: time believing these smaller organizations won't feel similarly. But they
Speaker 6: also might just look at it as an opportunity to
Speaker 6: become something larger than what they are and therefore be
Speaker 6: like yes, daddy all day long.
Speaker 4: Sure, perhaps until they find a new, higher paying daddy.
Speaker 4: The way that the way that this kind of stuff works,
Speaker 4: like the honest conspiracy realist perspective on a rush of
Speaker 4: face with an existential threat and the likelihood of using nukes.
Speaker 4: It's not publicized as Vladimir Putin pushing you know, a
Speaker 4: cartoon cartoon button or picking up a red landline phone
Speaker 4: and saying dah or whatever. It's more like the right right,
Speaker 4: you know, tell them there are no car washes in
Speaker 4: Crimea or whatever. Instead it's it's a quote unquote totally
Speaker 4: not associated with Russia, private military contractor that somehow quote
Speaker 4: unquote illegally acquires a low yield nuclear device, you know,
Speaker 4: kind of like a bunker buster. And then Russia again
Speaker 4: is the guy in the hot dog costume going, we
Speaker 4: have to find who's responsible for this, or you could
Speaker 4: have a proxy force on the outside of the global
Speaker 4: order already Think up Yongyang, think that's a rod and
Speaker 4: they rain fire. In the case of North Korea, maybe
Speaker 4: it comes from their newly minted apparently nuclear capable submarine.
Speaker 4: And the entire time that stuff happens, if it ever happens,
Speaker 4: and let's hope it does it the entire time that happens.
Speaker 4: The Russian state officially can sound like that old Shaggy song.
Speaker 4: Do you guys remember that Shaggy on.
Speaker 6: There banging in the shower, all over the place, all over,
Speaker 6: all over the apartment table.
Speaker 4: It wasn't him, though they were both.
Speaker 6: Button naked and bang banging on the bathroom floor. It's
Speaker 6: a real catchy bop. You almost have to like sing
Speaker 6: the whole thing in your head. The best part is that,
Speaker 6: Oh good.
Speaker 2: The workaholics guys made a movie where he shows up
Speaker 2: and I think he was gonna have to sing that song.
Speaker 2: I think it was Shaggy. It's pretty great.
Speaker 4: Former marine by the way.
Speaker 2: Yes, guys, it's sorry for being asked and jumping back in.
Speaker 2: But like we've never faced let me rephrase this, since
Speaker 2: the Cold War right and the tensions occurring there, we've
Speaker 2: never had a global superpower facing a seriously existential annihilating
Speaker 2: threat right to where they are backed. Any any force
Speaker 2: has been backed into a corner to where they feel like,
Speaker 2: if we do not use everything we have, we as
Speaker 2: a country will be extinct and I don't think we
Speaker 2: are anywhere near that with Russia right now, so hopefully
Speaker 2: that situation isn't going to come to fruition anytime soon.
Speaker 2: It does feel like I don't know if to me
Speaker 2: that feels way off in the distance, like not possible
Speaker 2: because humanity will prevail in their thought of humanity needs
Speaker 2: to survive even if my country doesn't. Kind of thing.
Speaker 2: I really hope, I really really hope that's the situation
Speaker 2: where I.
Speaker 6: Just think Putin's big enough of an a whole to
Speaker 6: not think like that, especially if you know with the
Speaker 6: the the unilateral nature of his power, you know that
Speaker 6: he's bestowed upon himself and the ability for him not
Speaker 6: to have to get sign off from others, that if
Speaker 6: he did have some sort of mental you know, breakdown
Speaker 6: or deterioration, that's something very very scary could happen. I mean,
Speaker 6: I'm not trying to freak anybody out. I'm just I
Speaker 6: think about this. You know it does. But I agree
Speaker 6: with you, Matt. You know that it's certainly not as
Speaker 6: bad as the Cold War, but in some ways it's
Speaker 6: scarier because this is a person at the end of
Speaker 6: his life or at the end of his legacy who
Speaker 6: really wants to make an impact.
Speaker 4: It reminds me a little bit of the Automan Empire.
Speaker 4: Thank goodness, you guys remember back in the day, Like,
Speaker 4: thank goodness, they did not have nuclear capability. People weren't
Speaker 4: really talking about and you expect then. But you're right,
Speaker 4: it's not to that point yet. The issue is that
Speaker 4: the issue is that the instability escalates. And right now,
Speaker 4: as weird as a counterintuitive again as it may sound,
Speaker 4: the reality is simply this. There is a solid case
Speaker 4: that the chaos Wagner spread during its heyday may well
Speaker 4: end up being less dangerous than the chaos spread by
Speaker 4: its death throes. And that's not saying that either case
Speaker 4: is in any way good. It's just saying there's bad
Speaker 4: and then there's worse, or there's worse and then there's
Speaker 4: worse and worst, and then you know, dead hand because
Speaker 4: Putin woke up with a bad day in a case
Speaker 4: of the.
Speaker 6: Craps trippity dippity dubb dub dubs double plus on good bad,
Speaker 6: bad bad.
Speaker 4: Quite So, I mean, for now, okay, we have to
Speaker 4: do it. It is our want, it is our remit
Speaker 4: in this continuing mission, folks, we have to give you
Speaker 4: what the Kremlin officially says. They deny any speculation that
Speaker 4: they or Vladmir Putin directly ordered Pregosian's death. It's unfortunate
Speaker 4: their investigating. That's the official line.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: There's some neo Nazis in Ukraine, they say that are
Speaker 4: probably responsible, right, because it's a.
Speaker 3: Line from the start, right right, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: And while the form of Wagner's future role in Ukraine
Speaker 4: is still under question, it will continue operations elsewhere in
Speaker 4: the Middle East, in the African continent, and those operations,
Speaker 4: as balkanized or fragmented as they may become. They are
Speaker 4: in frantic communication with the Russian Ministry of Defense. The
Speaker 4: names of the war may change, the names of the
Speaker 4: chess pieces may evolve.
Speaker 3: Is that a castle?
Speaker 4: Is it a rook? I'll tell you what. They do,
Speaker 4: the same thing from Kiev to Moscow, from Bamako to Bangi, Bengi,
Speaker 4: if you wish. We can't make any mistake. The great
Speaker 4: game continues, and it does so at the expense of
Speaker 4: innocent people all around the world. This is our Vagner
Speaker 4: up date. You know, if you if you work for
Speaker 4: Vagner right to us.
Speaker 3: Can I just add one little thing.
Speaker 6: We talked about this offt of Mike, and I think
Speaker 6: it's so fringy that it's almost not worth mentioning, but
Speaker 6: I do think it's interesting. There's a guy by the
Speaker 6: name of Professor Valerie Solova who has apparently had a
Speaker 6: relationship with the Russian media for some time, making some
Speaker 6: would say quite outrageous claims, and has been cast as
Speaker 6: a bit of a conspiracy nut.
Speaker 3: But he has said openly a couple of things.
Speaker 6: One that Progosian is in fact not dead but living
Speaker 6: on an island in Venezuela called Margarita Island, which is
Speaker 6: also where Jimmy Buffett is living. He didn't actually die either.
Speaker 6: They're hanging out there together sipin' marks. I'm kidding about
Speaker 6: the second bar. It's both probably kidding level. But this
Speaker 6: guy's also claimed that Putin is on death's door, like
Speaker 6: he claims to have supporting docums men saying leaked documents
Speaker 6: saying that Putin is so.
Speaker 3: Ill that he might not last the year.
Speaker 6: So yeah, definitely worth a little bit of rabbit holing
Speaker 6: on this guy. Professor Valerie soliv a largely a fringy,
Speaker 6: debunked kind of figure, but I didn't think it was interesting.
Speaker 3: It came up in a couple spots.
Speaker 2: How do you spell that last name?
Speaker 3: It is so O l o v e y.
Speaker 4: So Again, the most important thing to remember from this episode,
Speaker 4: from this update, or two things. If you are affiliated
Speaker 4: with Wagner, if you're affiliated with PMCs in general, and
Speaker 4: you know what I'm talking about, then do feel free
Speaker 4: to write to us. We would love to hear from you. Second, actually,
Speaker 4: flip it. The most important thing. Innocent people who have
Speaker 4: no opportunity to make a choice here, they will suffer
Speaker 4: the results of these great powers, of these pretty elderly,
Speaker 4: pretty wild ass dudes once again making decisions for their
Speaker 4: version of a greater good, however bubbled, attenuated, narrowed that
Speaker 4: may be. We want to hear from you. Thank you
Speaker 4: as always for tuning in and just let us know, like,
Speaker 4: let us know what you think the future is here?
Speaker 4: You know if you if you have some opinions on
Speaker 4: the safety of aircraft, we'd love to hear that too.
Speaker 4: We try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 3: Correct.
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Speaker 6: You can also find us at that handle on Facebook
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