Prigozhin plane crashes, killing all on board

[Mik]

@Renauda said in Prigozhin plane crashes, killing all on board:

Not much here but Putin breaks his silence over crash and Prigozhin’s death.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-66599774?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=64e786a396ad8677126af6f5%26Putin breaks silence - and other developments%262023-08-24T16%3A44%3A45.173Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:3a1d01de-450d-4dde-805e-08d03197ab3f&pinned_post_asset_id=64e786a396ad8677126af6f5&pinned_post_type=share

"he made serious mistakes in his life"

That's an understatement.

[Renauda]

A well presented analysis in the immediate aftermath of yesterday’s incident:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/why-putin-wanted-prigozhin-dead?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter_posts&utm_campaign=tw_daily_soc

[Renauda]

Putin’s nightmare:

https://www.theonion.com/yevgeny-prigozhin-leads-army-of-25-000-undead-toward-kr-1850775179

[Mik]

I so wish that were true.

[taiwan_girl]

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that hand grenade fragments were found in the bodies of people who died in the Aug. 23 crash of mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's plane.

Experts investigating the crash found no indication the private jet had suffered an "external impact," he said. Prigozhin and two of his top lieutenants of the Wagner private military contractor were among the 10 people killed when the jet came down as it flew from Moscow to St. Petersburgh.

Very convenient.

https://www.npr.org/2023/10/05/1203948340/russia-putin-grenade-prigozhin-wager-plane-crash

[George K]

I would probably believe that the plane caught on fire because of "careless smoking" more than that ridiculous comment.

[George K]

https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/putin-patrushev-plan-prigozhin-assassination-428d5ed8?mod=e2tw

On the tarmac of a Moscow airport in late August, Yevgeny Prigozhin waited on his Embraer Legacy 600 for a safety check to finish before it could take off. The mercenary army chief was headed home to St. Petersburg with nine others onboard. Through the delay, no one inside the cabin noticed the small explosive device slipped under the wing.

When the jet finally left, it climbed for about 30 minutes to 28,000 feet, before the wing blew apart, sending the aircraft spiraling to the ground. All 10 people were killed, including Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner paramilitary group.

The assassination of the warlord was two months in the making and approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s oldest ally and confidant, an ex-spy named Nikolai Patrushev, according to Western intelligence officials and a former Russian intelligence officer. The role of Patrushev as the driver of the plan to kill Prigozhin hasn’t been previously reported.

The Kremlin has denied involvement in Prigozhin’s death, and Putin offered the closest thing to an official explanation for the plane’s fiery crash, suggesting a hand grenade had detonated onboard.

None of that was true.

Hours after the incident, a European involved in intelligence gathering who maintained a backchannel of communication with the Kremlin and saw news of the crash asked an official there what had happened.

“He had to be removed,” the Kremlin official responded without hesitation.

Patrushev had warned Putin for a long time that Moscow’s reliance on Wagner in Ukraine was giving Prigozhin too much political and military clout that was increasingly threatening the Kremlin.

[Mik]

@George-K

No surprise there.

[kluurs]

He lived longer than I expected

[Renauda]

Putin and company kept him alive until such time that they were confident they knew where all the money and offshore assets were stashed.