Evgeniy Prigozhin is dead, apparently.
His plane crashed in Tver alongside some of Wagner’s leadership that was on board.
RT:
The Russian Emergencies Ministry confirmed that the jet plunged to the ground in Tver Region, and that all three crew and seven passengers on board were killed. The ministry said that the jet, an Embraer 135BJ Legacy 600, was traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg at the time of the incident.
Rosaviatsiya, the Russian federal air transport agency, said that Prighozhin was on board, along with several high-ranking Wagner commanders.
…
In addition to Prigozhin, Rosaviatsiya said Dmitry Utkin – a former Russian special forces operator and alleged co-founder of the PMC – was also traveling on the jet, as was Valery Chekalov, whom the US considers to be the deputy head of Wagner. The remaining passengers listed were Sergey Propustin, Evgeny Makaryan, Alexander Totmin, and Nikolay Matuseev, identified by Russian news outlets as Wagner
But more on that and what it means in a moment.
The other day, I wrote an article explaining that no, Prigozhin was not under house arrest, and no Wagner was not disbanded, but operating in Africa and Belarus.
When the news came in that Prigozhin got shot down, I was immediately flooded by people gloating about the demise of my pundit career. This is interesting because it reveals that some people don’t understand the concept of “time” which I had long expected anyways and only now got confirmation of it. Even though I’ve tried extremely hard to weed out my casual readers by deploying a wide range of personal attacks and unpopular opinions at them, apparently, I was still unable to shake off the last of the mouth-breathers.
Oh well.
Some dates: the mutiny happened on June 23 and today is August 23/24. In the time in-between June and August, Prigozhin was yucking it up with African warlords.
Some people seem to struggle with the concept of sequential progression of events. If Prigozhin is dead now, it must mean that he was also dead when he was securing contracts at the Africa Summit. This sounds ridiculous, but, actually, it makes perfect sense that many people are confused about the concept of “time” when you consider what many Christians believe about Adam and Eve and the Trinity in the Old Testament, for example. They believe that Judaism became Christianity after the death of Jesus and so time was changed, making Adam and Eve who were pre-Christianity actually Christian retroactively. I mention this because it’s Christians who attack me the most and now we know why - they don’t understand how time works, clearly. Maybe they should figure out how dates and clocks work first before commenting on politics.
But I’ve been covering Wagner before and after the mutiny very closely on this blog. If you’re new here, you might want to check out what I wrote first. Believe me, they were very alive and well right up to a few hours ago. Here is what I wrote about Wagner as the mutiny was occurring. It holds up pretty well:
But this next one was downright prescient:
Here are screenshots provided in the article with dates:
And a relevant quote:
Translation: Putin messed up badly, but the fight is not over, the Kremlin is making moves to continue the war against Wagner. To be clear, regarding the “reneging”, so far we have Putin’s re-use of the word “mutiny” and the FSB continuing the investigation against Wagner. This is both face-saving and also a signal that they are not willing to kiss and make up.
But that was obvious before the Moscow SMO had wrapped up.
Now, the Putin and the Luka realities will almost certainly undergo a quantum split in the near future, probably in a matter of days. In other words, if you follow the news coming out of Belarus, you will hear about Wagner being resettled in their new home and the need to keep the peace deal or something like that. If you follow the Putin reality, you will be fed 5D nonsense about Prigozhin and Shoigu secretly being allies, Prigozhin being a traitor who was led into a clever trap by the FSB to test his loyalty, Zelensky coordinating the Wagner mutiny or w/e.
Naturally, my casual readers will believe the absolute worst, most truth-divorced narrative like they always do and lash out angrily at me for telling them the truth.
Then they will come slinking back a month later, a chip on their shoulder and grudge lodged in their smooth reptilian brains, hissing resentfully at me like the snakes that they are, pretending that they were right all along.
And there is no escape from this infernal cycle. None at all.
Ah well, turns out my political punditry career isn’t over after all! Also, I don’t plan on boarding any planes soon, so that means I’ll be around to make fun of your religion and your political messiahs for some time yet!
At least I hope so!
**
First, it seemed to me that the deal that Prigozhin and the Kremlin made had been upheld and both sides were honoring it. He was now in Belarus or Africa and he was no longer even commenting on the situation at the front or on politics in Russia. Whatever he had been offered, he was clearly content with it for the moment.
I was following all of this and providing updates about Wagner’s whereabouts and redeployments at the time:
Sure, the conflict cease-fire between the Kremlin and Prigozhin was temporary, but I expected it to last longer and for Prigozhin to make the next move, probably related somehow to the upcoming elections in Russia. Finally, I expected the attacks to begin with a media barrage on Wagner like they did in the days following the coup with Wagner firing back through social media. I was looking for that and waiting for that. But things escalated rather quickly with no warning.
I don’t understand fully what happened and why and I’m not going to lie that I do because no one knows yet.
So instead, here are some questions that we can speculate on together.
Why did the Kremlin do it now? To look tough ahead of the upcoming surrender negotiations?
Are they trying to send a message that the Kremlin always pays its debts instead of trying to appear reasonable like they used to?
Is this simply petty revenge for making them look like clowns or did they move fast to ensure the Prigozhin couldn’t hit them first?
Why was Prigozhin and Wagner’s leadership in a jet together flying over Tver?
Was it a bomb onboard? How did it get through?
Anyways, as always, we ask “who benefits” (should have asked that earlier in the article, actually, I just assumed that people understood that it was Putin) and then ask what the benefits are. If Wagner had to be eliminated in this way it means that Wagner was a) still around and b) still a problem otherwise they wouldn’t need to be eliminated, now would they? This flies in the face of the reports that the hatchet was buried, Wagner disbanded, etc.
Good thing we didn’t believe any of them here.
As I reported the other day, Lukashenko was letting them build an entire mini-city in Belarus and Shoigu’s own PMC had failed to poach men and talent from Wagner’s ranks. So, with some of Russia’s most competent commanders assassinated by the Kremlin now, the rest of the structure should be accessible to Shoigu now, who is like a raccoon who broke an egg to get at the precious yolk inside just now.
Seeing as Lukashenko was a guarantor of the peace and the reason that the ceasefire deal was brokered in the first place, I wonder what he will say/do now? Is he next? The Kremlin hates him for not going along with the WEF agenda over COVID, for not letting the oligarchs loot Belarus and for not sending troops to this disaster SMO. Then, he added fuel to the fire by recruiting Wagner and letting them build a mini-city on his territory, presumably from which they would march on Moscow a some point in the future again.
The Kremlin has just slapped Luka across the face, it sure seems like.
Following this event, the people who need a narrative tune-up the most are, of course, ZAnon propagandists. They were saying that Prigozhin was about to lead a strike on Kiev from Belarus as part of a larger mega-offensive planned by Shoigu on Lugansk. Also, so much for the narrative that it was just actually just a friendly disagreement among army buddies that got out of hand, but was resolved quickly, no hard feelings, and nothing happened at all, really!
So much for the narrative that it was all kabuki theater to flush out traitors and have them arrested as well!
Will they blame Kiev for this?
If they do, which they will, it begs the question: why is the Ukrainian GUR and SBU allowed to operate with impunity in Russia? The modern RF is a sprawling spook state with probably a million-strong army of spooks, assets, janissaries “keeping the peace” at home. And yet factories, warehouses, bridges, officers, intellectuals, and now political opponents of the Kremlin get hit all the time.
That’s suspicious, no?
**
Finally, I don’t think that anyone will mourn Prigozhin’s passing. He cut a deal with the Kremlin that served his own interests and left his allies in the military twisting in the wind. He had a straight shot to Moscow, but he didn’t take it because the deal he was offered was juicier than having to actually take power and deal with the entire circus in Moscow. Afterwards, in short order, Prigozhins’s own diehard supporters had turned against him in the aftermath of the Not Mutiny on Telegram.
Everyone understood what had happened.
The only real loss are the commanders of Wagner. Utkin, in particular, who was the real deal and who I had high hopes for is quite a tragedy. In fact, Utkin was the entire reason why I used to be so optimistic about Wagner back in the day and I’ve written a lot praising Utkin on this blog. I am genuinely saddened to hear that he is dead and I hope that news comes out unconfirming this.
The Slavlands seem to always devour their brightest and most talented sons.
Finally, this seems to be the end of the Wagner saga.
Prigozhin is alive and well. He just landed on the moon and is organizing the BRICS' space force.
Seems to me like the Russian leadership is purging the right-of-center before an upcoming humiliating surrender to globohomo. They don't want to risk a Wagner or military uprising if/when Minsk 3 happens, which will be as real as Minsk 1 and 2. Putin or whoever is in charge really lulled Prigozhin into complacency before the devastating blow, well played by them....