Yi: Coup or Maskirovka? 47 >48 < 37

19 Approach > 47 Tiresome Restriction > 9 Modesty > 48 The Well < 37 Tribe, Wagner

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There has been much speculation about the events of a few days ago which have baffled people watching geopolitical turnings all over the world. So I have consulted the Yi which indicates that Wagner was in genuine distress (#47). Interestingly, there are no changing lines but using my new rule, #47 progresses to #48. Exhaustion, the water running out from below, turns into The Well, which involves man’s ingenuity drawing water up from below using Wood energy. Also water below indicates turbulent, hidden, dark emotions in play but they were brought out into the open (above) in #48. Line 5 is stable. Lines 3 and 4 are unstable. In this mix, I deem that line 3 is Wagner command, Line 4 is Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) high command which was in an open struggle with Wagner, up until now a Private Military Company (PMC), and Line 5 is the Supreme Commander, President Putin. In the change from 47 to 48 Lines 3 and 4 exchanged places indicating that line 3 took the initiative or the lead over line 4. Somewhere on the way between 47 and 48 is/was #9 whose ruling line is 4, the line of public service. So most likely an officer in both Wagner and the Russian Military linking them in a way that was mutually beneficial.

[Addition 6.30: because #9 features Heaven below, this means that the Officer in question might have been reporting directly to the President since the Heaven trigram is the one which most represents the leadership principle and Hexagram #9 would be #1 if it weren’t for the ruling yin line in Line 4, which is someone assisting or serving Line 5, which is the President in the scenario I laid out above. So Line 4 in #48 represents MoD High Command, but Line 4 Officer in #9 reports to Line 5, the President. This indicates that the shake-up by Prigozhin might have been done with Presidential knowledge and tacit consent in order to influence MoD high command and/or the general Russian public. How so? The High Command, and to a lesser extent perhaps the President of Russia, were put under pressure by the heroes of the SMO who are expressing frustration that they were not given enough support and moreover that the SMO needs to be conducted in a more aggressive and less defensive manner. The Russian people, seeing this heroic gesture on the part of a popular war leader (though he doesn’t have anything to do with actual combat and is a media troll farm operator by trade) will now be prepared for a more aggressive advance into Ukrainian territory and even cheer it on. Putin masterfully put down the potential rebellion, but then showed mercy to the rebel and, later on, possibly quite soon, will acknowledge the pressures which gave rise to this unfortunate event and give the green light to a more aggressive prosecution in Ukraine, possibly changing it from an SMO to a CTO.]

Because the overall result seems positive. Underneath it all is one happy family (#37). Prigozhin-Wagner demonstrated to the entire nation that he was serious about there being issues. He could not have staged this without his senior combat officer’s approval. He also demonstrated that if you really want to, you can quickly advance into hostile territory, which the SMO markedly hasn’t done in almost 18 months, though of course he did so with almost no resistance and as soon as an altercation happened involving loss of life he stood down, indicating that this was never a coup, rather a chutzpah-laden protest with tanks. Whoever tried to agitate that morning in Moscow, possibly with foreign coordination, lost out; but it seems everyone else gained except probably those in Line 4 in #48, the High Command in Russian MoD.

Also gaining are the US neocons who can now argue that Russia is evidencing dissension within and is ready to fall. That’s been their narrative all along but now they can claim to have evidence. So despite the obvious failure of the spring offensive, they can keep this going for another year at least. Perhaps the Russians too want this. Because as long as the West is exhausting itself in this fruitless endeavor, the weaker they become and the stronger the rising Eurasia becomes, both relatively and absolutely, and the more time they have to build their alliance in the face of Western hegemonic aggression. Indeed, this Cast could be looked at in this broader context: this is a strategy of exhausting one side whilst another side is using that turmoil to their own benefit. In any case, most players in this strange little drama seemed to have benefited. Except for the poor saps in Moscow, and of course those on the ground in war-torn Ukraine.