This isn’t bullshit or hot air — an actual armed rebellion against Vladimir Putin’s leadership of Russia, led by mercenary leader Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, is happening as we speak.

Putin has vowed “decisive actions” to suppress Prigozhin’s coup, whose forces have “claimed control of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and are moving north toward Moscow,” according to N.Y. Times reporters Victoria Kim and Anton Troianovski.

In a brief address to the nation, Putin called Prigozhin’s rebellion “treasonous” and “a stab in the back of our country and our people.” Prigozhin — a longtime Putin ally and fierce critic of Moscow’s military leadership, who has helped lead Russia’s assault on eastern Ukraine — rejected the treason charge of treason and said, in an audio message, that his forces were “patriots of our motherland.”

In short (and please correct if I’m wrong), Prigozhin believes that Putin’s waging of the war in Ukraine hasn’t been savage enough. My reasoning is telling me that if his coup succeeds (which at the very least will be dramatically satisfying) things will get a lot tougher for Ukraine.

N.Y. Times: “’We’re blockading the city of Rostov and going to Moscow,’ Mr. Prigozhin said in a video that surfaced early Saturday, verified by The New York Times, showing him in the company of armed men in the courtyard of the headquarters, asking for the chief of the General Staff of the Russian military and the Russian defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu.”