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Notes -
It doesn't really need to take a city the size of Moscow to work, however. It just needs to take the government- but especially MOD- infrastructure. That wouldn't be enough in a society with high social cohesion- but the Russian state is, deliberately, much more fragile for a lack of popular investment. In lack of that civic society resilience where the state infrastructure is not the institution, Moscow may be a city of 12 million requiring divisions to siege, but the parts that 'matter' are only a fraction of the size, especially if few people actually try to stop you.
And here your question of 'thinks he has allies' could be reframed as 'who else might be behind Wagner's effort.' We discuss this like Prigozin is acting on his own- but Wagner has always been an extension of certain parts of the security state. If Prigozin is not the actor, but the agent, then he may not be so opposed- or have allies in waiting- when he arrives.
I've no personal investment in this point- I think personal interest is enough and let Occam's Razor hold the rest- but given how the Russian state seems to have been surprised by this, 'why didn't the people watching Wagner notice this' could easily be answered by- or suspected to be- 'because the people watching them were in on it.'
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