The head of the military contractor Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has been accused of staging a coup, and Vladimir Putin ostensibly has fled Moscow.  Internal chaos in Russia is of worldwide concern because Russia has more nuclear arms than any other country.

In 2014, Russia covertly invaded and then annexed Crimea.  The Crimean Peninsula extends into both the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.  The value to Russians of the Black Sea ports is that these are the only warm-water ports for their navy.  After Ukraine massed over 100,000 troops in 2022 to put down Russian separatists in the Donbas provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, and the White House provocatively publicly discussed Ukraine joining NATO, Russians invaded Ukraine under the pretext of protecting their diaspora and preventing a Ukrainian military and Nazi invasion of Russia.  In short order, Russia annexed Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia.

You wouldn't know it from war-mongering Lugenpress coverage, but Russia has steadily gobbled up more and more Ukraine territory even as the West has waged a proxy war against it using Ukrainian fodder.  However, Russia has struggled to consolidate gains.  In addition to their regular Army, the Russians have employed both Chechen special forces, led by Islamist Ramzan Kadyrov, and the mercenary Wagner Group.  In response to pressure from Putin, Kadyrov has pledged allegiance to Putin and the Kremlin.  However, Prigozhin has not pledged his approximately 25,000-strong forces to Putin because Prigozhin has issues he wants resolved.

The Wagner Group strolled into Rostov-on-Don to capture it.  Rostov is on the northeast tip of the Sea of Azov, which itself is northeast of the Black Sea.  Rostov is a major logistics hub for the Russian Army for its Ukrainian invasion.  Leaving about 5,000 troops behind, the Wagner Group next rolled into Voronezh without any major conflict.  Voronezh has significant military facilities.  Already, vanguard forces are in Lipetsk.  All these cities are approximately south of Moscow.  The distance to Moscow is about 600 miles from Rostov, almost 300 miles from Voronezh, and a little more than 225 miles from Lipetzk.

Prigozhin supported the Ukrainian adventure until he completed the capture of Bakhmut.  Around that time, he was engaged in a public war of words with Russia's minister of defense, Sergei Shoigu, about not providing ammunition to accomplish the goal.  Besides this, he claims Shoigu is responsible for the Russian missile attack that killed about 2,000 of his troops.  Now Prigozhin claims that Shoigu (who wants a second Hero of the Russian Federation medal and to be promoted to marshal) misled Putin into the Ukrainian adventure.  Prigozhin claims that thieves in the military and bureaucracy, with either knowledge by or the complicity of Shoigu and chief of general staff Valery Gerasimov, have pilfered some of the funds needed to fight the war.  That is why Prigozhin was not given ammunition to ight.

Now Prigozhin wants Shoigu and Gerasimov brought to justice.  Prigozhin no longer believes that the Ukrainian adventure is just, but claims that Shoigu misled Putin by claiming that Russia was imminently at risk of Ukrainian military and Nazi threats.

To be clear, Putin is corrupt and tyrannical.  Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky is corrupt and tyrannical.  There is no national security interest for the United States in Ukraine.  American taxpayers have been pilfered of $110B and counting.  This wasteful expenditure stokes inflation, higher taxes, and a lower standard of living, impacting the poor and middle class the most.  The best that can be said is that there have been no American body bags come back yet.

What do they want?  Putin wants to maintain his authority, keep his stolen Crimean warm-water port, and regain worldwide respect.  Zelensky wants all of Ukrainian territory recognized as sovereign Ukraine territory, Russian troops of all flavors out of his country, and militant separatists dispelled.  Prigozhin wants justice for his men that were killed and for their families.  He wants Shoigu and Gerasimov held accountable.   Kadyrov wants to stay in Putin's good graces and, after the cessation of the Russian genocide campaign against Chechen militant Muslims, to maintain the autonomy granted Chechnya

How can all this be accomplished?  Putin should arrest Shoigu and Gerasimov and bring them to trial for corruption and embezzlement.  Prigozhin should pledge fealty to Putin and the Kremlin for himself and his men.  Russia should recall all forces from Ukraine.  Russia should pressure its diaspora in Ukraine to leave, being forceful, if necessary, with militant separatists.  In exchange for explicit recognition of Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea, Ukraine should agree to give a 100-year lease of the Crimean naval ports to Russia for one ruble a year.  After considering the aphorism that a leader should keep his friends close and his enemies closer, Putin should appoint Prigozhin to head the Ministry of Defense or else implicitly give Prigozhin authority to approve its new head.  Kadyrov should bring his Chechen special forces home.  The people of Ukraine can deal with Zelensky best.

The world would gain peace.  Theft of taxpayers by governments in the West would stop, at least for this crusade.  Ukraine would resume exports of fertilizer and grains, lowering worldwide food inflation and thereby improving standards of living.  Russia would resume exports of fossil fuels to the West, lowering energy inflation and thereby improving standards of living.

Apparently, the CIA and Joe Biden are adept in interfering in another sovereign country's (read: Brazil's) elections — one with whom we were not engaged in hostilities — but they have not so sharp an understanding of more fundamental foreign issues.  Putting aside its long history of incompetence with missing or wrong calls, the CIA is an un-American institution addicted to illegal and unconstitutional actions.  The CIA don't think they are above the law; they know it.  The CIA should be defunded completely.  If it's not too busy hosting drag queen story time events grooming children, then the Defense Intelligence Agency can pick up any slack with the CIA's dissolution.

Elected politicians have been bought and paid for by the military industrial complex so that Forever Wars are waged.  Nevertheless, NATO should be defunded completely.  The United States should not get entangled again anytime soon in European misadventures.  Russia is a paper tiger in conventional warfare, so Europe can take care of itself.

There is a path out of the Russian and Ukrainian nightmare.  But odds are that Joe Biden's puppet master won't tolerate it.  Putin just isn't getting with the progressive fascist program.  Putin may be corrupt and tyrannical, but, even worse, he is strongly opposed to the retirement of fossil fuels and believes in exploiting natural resources to help his country and the world.  Plentiful fossil fuel supplies highlight how uneconomical are unreliable and grid-destabilizing solar and wind generation is.  Putin doesn't tolerate LGBT sexual deviancy, much less grooming of Russian children.  And he opposes the ESG, CRT, and DIE programs because of the harm they would cause his people and the Russian economy.  As a result, there is abiding enmity with Biden.  Americans should hope for the best but plan for the worst.

Whitson G. Waldo, III is a capitalist, a venture capitalist, and master and skipper of a 43-foot monohull sloop-rigged sailing vessel.

Image via Pxfuel.