Russia supporters can be kinda like NAFO too

I got my very first Substack ban! 🎉

Last month I wrote this post about the wide range of opinions in the nominally ‘pro-Russian’ (or perhaps ‘anti-Nazi’, or ‘sympathetic to Russia’) side of the commentariat. I mentioned that Rolo Slavskiy of The Slavland Chronicles was a vocal proponent of Wagner and supporter of Evgeny Prigozhin in his diatribes against Shoigu, Gerasimov and other Russian generals and members of the ‘Deep State’. I enjoy reading Rolo up to a point, because although he certainly has read an awful lot of both English and Russian commentary on matters, his posts tend to devolve into scathing derision for non-paid subscribers who dare question him in the comments. He can be pretty casually racist too, but I don’t think that that invalidates all his opinions.

After the Wagner ‘attempted coup’ started to take shape, he posted on Saturday in typically Rolo style that I Told You So, in which he basks in the adulation that he apparently received on a stream he did, as people finally realised that he had been right all along about Wagner being the force that was going to shake up Russian politics. I don’t know how he (or anyone) thought that this was going to work, but Rolo pinned his colours to the Prigozhin mast.

And we all know what happened thereafter: Russia rallied around its government and around Putin, and showed a fairly universal disappointment and disgust at Prigozhin - although people were also keen to emphasise how much Wagner had contributed to the Russian military effort.

But Rolo didn’t see it like that. In keeping with the When Prophecy Fails psychopathology (that it’s less painful to double down on your predictions when they don’t transpire than it is to admit error) he insisted on Sunday that actually Prigozhin Wins the SMO, Lives to Fight Another Day. He claims that “Wagner is in a better position now than they were going into the 24 hour SMO [i.e. the attempted coup]”, and that by forcing the Kremlin into “humiliating” talks, Prigozhin actually exposed their weakness. Mmhmm.

At this point, you could be forgiven for thinking that Rolo might be getting his talking points from CNN, because they sure started to sound like the kind of thing Western media was saying. It’s doubly perplexing that Rolo was sticking with Prigozhin after the allegations Prigozhin has made, that Russian oligarchs were responsible for the Donbass conflict, and that Russian planes were firing on civilians. Most Russians have a healthy disdain for oligarchs, but to pin the Donbass conflict on them is really pushing it. Not to mention that Prigozhin himself is a successful catering tycoon (and former thug - he was put away in 1981 for being part of a gang that assaulted and robbed a woman in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg).

Today Rolo posted The Kremlin is Reneging on the Wagner Ceasefire as We Speak, which is a long, rambling post in which Rolo mostly quotes his own tweets and Gab posts, apparently to show how smart he is and how dumb everyone else is. Maybe if you really like him it might be convincing to you, but I just found it gross and ridiculous - kinda like most NAFO posts! I commented as such, saying that it was 90% self-aggrandisement and 10% content, and that he must keep his good content for his paid posts but I’ll never find out.

He replied, accusing me of ‘seething’ and telling me that my Ukraine blog sucks and ‘I don’t know squat’, and then banned me and deleted my comments. Turns out that a ban on Substack just means I can no longer subscribe to him or leave comments, but I can still read his posts and most of his posts’ comments are restricted to paid subs anyway, so it makes no real difference. Amusingly, I looked back later and people had liked his reply to me, even though they couldn’t see what he was replying to. What can you say - fanboys gonna fanboy.

This whole silly incident just drove home to me how even though you think someone can be an entertaining, enigmatic writer, who knows their subject very well, that doesn’t mean they’re immune to vanity and hubris… in fact, it probably comes with the territory. His reaction reminded me of NAFO types, but I think his motivations are much more sincere.

Anyway, he recently recorded an interesting podcast episode with his amiable friend Edward Slavsquat. I recommend you check it out.