I image most of you have seen one or more of the flood of articles reporting the death of Evgeny Prigozhin in a “plane crash” today. The plane, which was enroute to St. Petersburg from Moscow, crashed about half-way through the flight in the Republic of Tver.
We know for certain that the plane did not explode in mid-air. Check out thess two videos.
In the twitter video taken by a lady who lives on a farm in Russia you can see a puff on the left and then the plane appears as it falls in a slight dead spin. That means it lost almost all aerodynamic lift capabilities. The Embraer 600 (pictured above) has its engines at attached neat the tail of the aircraft. As the plane falls it rotates slightly, which means that part of one wing was still attached. Yet, most of the wings are not visible. The vapor trail that follows the jet as it plummets to the ground is most likely fuel rather than smoke.
What caused the wings to separate? One possibility is shrapnel from a surface-to-air missile. I have heard that Western intelligence reports that there were several SA-20 batteries close enough to conduct the engagement and that those systems were active (which is atypical for that region) during the time Prigozhin’s plane passed overhead. So, a shoot down is one possibility.
Structural failure, due to improper maintenance or sabotage, is another possibility for the catastrophic loss of the wings.
Because of Prigozhin’s ties to the GRU I am always skeptical of the initial story. Note, this coincides with posts on Telegram (unconfirmed) that Zurovikin is being punished/prosecuted and Prigozhin’s recent public statements about taking a greater military role near Niger. That raises another possible list of suspects.
One other scenario to consider — friends or relatives (or both) of the Russian airmen killed by Wagner during the mutiny in June may have taken matters into their own hands to seek retribution.
I am skeptical of the claims that Putin ordered this. For starters Putin was officiating at the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Kursk. I find it hard to believe that Putin would distract from that event by giving the green light to execute Prigozhin in this manner. This does not serve Putin’s interest because the downing of the plane also killed pilots and other passengers not implicated in Prigozhin’s mutiny. If Putin wanted to kill Prigozhin he would have ordered it sooner and done so in a much less messy way. For example, when you shoot down a plane you have no way to predict where the aircraft debris could have landed. Of course, identifying remains will be a challenge. The aircraft was burning on the ground and certainly consumed at least some of the bodies.
I discount this as an act of Maskirovka because it involved the deaths of at least 8 other people with no public profile linked to Wagner.
How about the possibility that this was staged. In other words, no passengers or crew actually were on board. Then Embraer was piloted remotely and shot down in order to send Western intel into a frenzy (because that is exactly what is going on right now) trying to figure out what the hell is going on?
One thing is certain — it feeds that meme that if you cross Putin you are a dead man walking. It does not matter whether that meme is true. If that is what foreigners believe then it is true by definition.
I look forward to an interesting documentary about Prigozhin.
https://mikehampton.substack.com/p/is-prigozhin-dead-accident-or-assassination
But I think I should add mention of his recent comments on Africa, which is awkward for Putin considering BRICS Summit.
The Embraer 600 is fully Fly-By-Wire and can be hijacked or remote controlled via satellite like a drone.
It don´t need a Pilot nor passengers onboard to fly.
+
Every commercial or private airplane has a tracker ID known to every National flight control Authority, and by extension their intelligence Authority. Thus the planes can be tracked via satellite wherever they fly.
We need to see some dead bodies.
The Embraer 600 has integral fuel tanks in the wings. An explosion in one of those tanks would blow off the wing. Which would result in what you see in the video — the aircraft crashing minus one wing, engines still intact. Fuel tank explosion are more common than they should be. The Boeing 777 for example is prone to them.
https://www.aviationtoday.com/2001/06/01/safety-in-avionics-time-to-stop-fuel-tank-explosions/
Scott Ritter and Simplicius are jumping to conclusions before the facts are in.
If there is fuel in a tank, then the air within is fully saturated with fuel vapor and it will not readily oxidize. If it were otherwise, you wouldn’t want to park your car in your garage. I was present during the investigation at Boeing of the TWA event and such an explosion could not be induced even with spark plugs. Boeing eventually fell on their sword for political reasons to save their other government business. The center fuel tank in a commercial aircraft is the sump of the fuel system and will thus not run dry in flight; parked on the ground it is possible.
That’s because these two rats, the pedo and the charlatan, are reimbursed shills for the Tyrant of the Khanate of Moscow, Vlad the Impaler Putin.
That’s my boy!
C’mon folks, Prigozhin and his crew were sticking Wagner’s oar in Niger particularly and west Africa generally, what do you think the Nuland US NeoCon Cabal, Macron, Bojo and the Rothschild Class would think and do? These are the same people who literally caused the murder-by-proxy of over 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers (and counting). Trying to stage-manage dissent in Russia on whatever differences Putin had with Prigozhin is right out of their scummy playbook.
OF COURSE they would do this while Putin was engaged in an African summit… like when they tried to upstage Putin during the Olympics.
Occam’s Razor, the simplest explanation is usually the right one, until proven otherwise. Putin is not a rash man, nor has he simply murdered his opposition… unlike the US/NATO/Ukie-Nazi crowd.
As the Brits say, “they have form on this”.
Being this happened in Russian airspace, I expect the forensic analysis to be VERY thorough, I’d be watching for US/Ukie-Nazi Black-op personnel in Russia to be suddenly disappeared over the next little while. A few more stars on the CIA wall… good riddance.
I find it intereting that I conclude likewise. Totally fact free because I know nothing about this other than the players and I know for sure that whatever the US Gov says is a lie. There was no air defense involved.
The investigation? The US will say it should be open and transparent like MH-17. Hell, they will just take the wikipedia entry for MH-17 and do a few word replacements.
It’s a propaganda operation and will have little impact on Wagner in the field. So much for my fact-free analysis.
I COMPLETELY agree with this assumptions and hold the same opinion. Russians have a saying that “The hat is burning on the head of a thief” – and THE thief (CIA/MI6/State Dep) with the Sleepy Joe at the front, immediately announced that they “are not surprised”, i.e. “Russians did it” – as they always do (reminds you of the NordStream, maybe?).
The problem is that the Russians were the last ones to benefit from taking out the whole command center of Wagners when they have just received the “assignment” from Putin – and performed wonderfully to fulfill it – in Africa. It was the US that was sitting quietly trying to figure out what to do and how to react to the dismissal of “evil Nuland” by the new Niger’s rulers.
To me it is as clear as day. And such a HUGE present to the ukro-nazi independence day – from whom, G-d knows.
Putin’s farters in the West keep bleeding their cold hearts over “enormous Ukrainian war casualties sacrificed needlessly” pickled from their Putin Talking Points delivered by KGB telegrams going west. But, the fact is that Russia has had at least almost as many casualties as Ukraine, if not more. Larry Johnson was wrong to say that Russian smartphone cameras haven’t teleported photos of many Russian funerals because they would have if it were true — but this ex CIA analyst forgets that many of the Russian provincial backwaters from where many Russian dead in Ukraine are coming home for funerals (those that aren’t left to rot in Ukraine) have no cellphones and have no permission to use them. These are the poor of Russia serving as Moscow’s cannon fodder in the Ukraine War cynically known as SMO.
“But, the fact is that Russia has had at least almost as many casualties as Ukraine, if not more.”
Fact!
The US is not in charge of The Hague (US controlled UN) coming to conclusions about “Who dunnit” based on whatever they decide, which is deemed secret?
https://9gag.com/gag/aKEOdog
**************
This is my response to America’s disgruntled Anti-Democrats acting as Putin’s advocates on YouTube:
**************
With or without all due respect, how is Yevgeny Prigozhin “a traitor”? Are you another Scott Ritter, Putin’s American bitch who goes on YouTube to spew the Kremlin Propaganda and hurts the deep feelings of the suffering soldiers and civilians on the frontlines by painting false pictures of “Russian Success”!? Are you like Larry Johnson who makes absolutely ridiculous claims about casualty totals in the glaringly incompetent Russian military leadership of this war, such as the claim that “only 30,000 Russians died in this war and 300,000 Ukrainians were killed so far” — when almost as many Russians died in just one battle of this war (the 8-month Bakhmut Battle) and at least half as many Donetsk and Lugansk East Ukrainian pro-Russian People’s Militia volunteers died in a nightmare of conflict under an incompetent military leadership in Moscow !?
The Russian Frontline troops have been paying in blood for the criminal incompetence of Russia’s elites. Ukrainian forces are FAR from defeated even now.
Prigozhin and Utkin were Russian heroes, NOT traitors, and now are the center of folkloric legends to come. Putin himself has betrayed the Russian people in Ukraine that he claimed to be defending by invading Ukraine 18 months ago. If he did for that reason, then how is it that the Ukrainian Army is still even now shelling non-stop the center of Donetsk City from its outskirts in Avdeevka and Marinka 18 freaking months into the SMO (the deceitful bullshit label phrase Putin’s Clique invented as a cover for its inept and callous handling of a war)????
Isn’t Putin a traitor for failing to protect the very people he claimed to be at war for??
I absolutely detest how Putin handled the Wagner Group. Wagner Army, Russia’s best fighting force, responsible for Russia’s ONLY battlefield success of this war, was withdrawn from the front and then decapitated on Putin’s watch and, for those unlike Larry Johnson who know the Russians and know Russian History, definitely on orders of his Russian Mafia Deep State, the Khanate of Moscow, whether Putin himself signed the shoot-down order or not.
Today, the pro-Russian Ukraine and most of Russia is in a deep state of mourning and despondency over the decapitation of the Wagner Leadership of Russia’s patriots. Prigozhin did not mount a campaign of treason two months ago, but a frontline revolt of outrage against a criminally corrupt and vastly incompetent command of soulless apparatchiks of Putin (Gerasimov, Shoigu, etc.) in the Russian MoD that cost many lives on the Russian side. Those 12 Russian Air Force people that died in June, died because they bombarded the Wagner Convoy and killed Wagner soldiers. They drew first blood. In response, the shooters were shot down by the Wagner defenders. Putin’s leadership will NOT survive this war, no matter what Putin’s bitches in England (Alexander Mercouris & the Greeks Inc.) and America (Scott Ritter, Brian Berletic & Co.) say.
How about you keep Youtube crap on Youtube? You make less sense than Jack Devine.
You see what others want you to see.
Ask yourself which side is having problems finding recruits? If the Ukrainian people really believed Russia invaded in order to kill and destroy them, don’t you think they would be volunteering in droves to prevent it?
Of course this isn’t the case, which speaks volumes about what the Ukrainian people think about this conflict as most are trying to escape it.
Those fighting are either doing it for economic reasons (there are no jobs and no money), have been easily manipulated by the propaganda, or they are dragged into it.
If you want to delude yourself than I’m sure the Ukrainians would love to have you volunteer to die for them and their efforts.
Re: ” Putin’s advocates”
Does Vietnam have a border with the US?
– – – – – – – – –
“Ill feeling also came from many black soldiers who experienced discrimination at home, but were expected to fight for America and for freedom from communism.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z342mp3/revision/3
“As the war in Vietnam continued, opposition grew from all sections of US society.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z342mp3/revision/6
“En casa, la administración Johnson había prometido reformas sociales y económicas para mejorar los niveles de empleo, los servicios médicos y la educación. Estas reformas no se completaron ya que el dinero tuvo que ser desviado al esfuerzo de guerra.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z342mp3/revision/6
“In 1973, THE US RECOGNISED IT COULD NOT WIN and signed a peace agreement with North Vietnam.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z342mp3/revision/6
Mr. Bitch!
Your last name says everything!
Kiss our very Russian ass!!
Those lips are way too deep into Sorosh butt crack. Once shit hits the fan, they will be doing lot of apologising and explaining to those with similar last names, 1945 style. You can already see the panic.
That’s OK because George Soros is 100x more intelligent than the smartest Russian peasant. At least with him, one can have a human conversation on the basis of individual worth, not a pissing match between heads of cattle as in the Russian standard.
Mr. Bitchtor,
You can kiss my European dick.
But first, you need to grow your small Russian brain to fit the size. You don’t need that smirking Mongol Tyrant Vlad the Impaler Putin to keep a brain inside your pointy Russian head.
Mr. Bitchtor.
You sound as intelligent anf as educated as a typical Russian peasant slave whom History has always been kicking in the ass, to this day and for many days to come. Enjoy your role, and kiss my Western rear!
I think a traitor was executed. A man responsible for the deaths of soldiers in Russian helicopters. The Moon of Alabama is especially hilarious about this. The CIA did it! The Ukrainians did it! Anyone but Putin did it! And he’s alive! And will spring forth soon in the offensive that goes to the gates of Paris!
I think Putin did it. I think Putin was justified. That traitor was supposed to stay out of Russia after his failed coup. And he has been flying all over Russia.
And Putin does not care. Putin will never be able to leave Russia again. There will be threats of arrest or assassination. That is the problem of fucking with a man to a certain level. Putin has Zero Fucks Left To Give.
And by the way? It is good to have a reputation of a man not to cross. I was a very angry, large, and violent man early in both police and the military. That reputation stayed with me. (I was called River Dance on TPD). But oddly, in my later years I rarely had to put the wood on anyone. Tulsa is a small town. Word gets around.
And my ethnic Russian friends are ecstatic. I served with a Russian emigre that was on the police department. He did his tour in the Russian military as a young man before he came here. He would have beat Prizoghin to death with a baseball bat. He was literally incoherent the day of the coup.
So, I respectfully disagree. I think the simple story is the story. This is not a set of Russian nesting dolls. It’s just a dead traitor.
I’m leaning towards your way of thinking on this one.
When we are in the middle of a proxy war and an equally vicious informational and cyber warfare, wild speculations like yours abound. Censorship and disinformation are in plentiful supply on both sides of the conflict. As far as the Wagner boss is concerned, I don’t give a flying f**k about the truth surrounding his fate. TBH, I wish it happens to Bush, Trump, Biden the Zionist, Condi Rice and any living war criminals.
I respectfully disagree. Putin is not a large, angry and violent man. He is patient and uses violence only as a last resort. He would not agree on the killing of a handful of innocent people just to take one person down. He has so many other ways to do this if he wanted to.
Agreed. Not to mention, Putin believes in following the law. He had all he needed to take down Prighozin for treason in court.
Otoh, this sloppy assassination would be bad optics.
Looks like the old shoe leather Indians have beaten The Great Winking Mommy Russia in the space race to the Moon! Da Russkis have their space module fart up and crash in flames just like the Wagner Leadership. Putin must be enjoying the burning all around him.
And I respectfully couldn’t agree more with you. Isn’t that how the Occam’s razor principle work? Anyhow, we’re all stuck with speculations for now.
I agree, revenge is a dish best served cold. Prigozhin got to experience falling out of the sky from a high altitude like those 12 russian pilots and engineers Wagner shot down. Maybe he had a bit of time to review his life on the way down… ‘should have stuck with catering’…
With the BRICS gobfest in progress, it’s a good week to bury bad news… Easy to pin the blame on Ukrainian special ops, and they might enjoy the notoriety even if they didn’t do it. Or the CIA, even denying it helps with the rep. I think the French would be flattered if someone comes up with a conspiracy theory blaming them.
The list of Mr Prigozhin’s enemies is long and with a turf war going on in Africa, the list grows longer. Perhaps, events over the coming months will show who benefits and the form of those benefits may provide clues to the culprit(s) and their motives.
What maintenance was done and who accessed the aircraft in say, the last 48 hours? Who was privy to Mr Prigozhin’s schedule and plans, other than those aboard the aircraft? Was anybody supposed to be on that flight who had a last minute change of plans?
The notion of a hit squad with a SAM loitering under the flight path on the off chance of taking down a particular aircraft in a fly-by shooting seems rather far-fetched.
Meanwhile, pundits, public and police the world over are baffled – we’ll need a star TV detective to solve this one.
Note that Wagner is a corporation, and companies rarely die following the death of a CEO, they just have a position vacant until a replacement is found.
As for “feeds that meme that if you cross Putin you are a dead man walking.”
You could say the same thing about the Clintons.
@Curt Nichols
The aircrew, 2 pilots and a stewardess, were not involved in any of Wagners actions, so it would make no sense whatsoever for any Russian leadership people to be involved in the murder of ordinary people doing their job. It would also have been a huge risk to have the plane crash into a town or city, and all for one man, for what?
The British press are screaming the same story you are selling, blame Putin!
Have you information proving it was Putin, or even information that anyone in the Russian leadership would have a reason to assassinate Prigozhin? You state Putin did it, because Prigozhin is a traitor, have you proof, or do you swallow the stories the British press disseminate? Going on your theory, Putin did it, all the story is short is to have Novichuk and a yacht involved.
If he is dead, a big if, it would most likely be his supposed handlers, you do say he was a traitor, his supposed handlers would have a useless asset with intimate knowledge of other traitors within Russia.
The bleeding obvious is, his handlers were outraged that he failed and made them look foolish, and made a public spectacle within Russia to aim the blame within Russia, just like they shot Boris whatever on a bridge facing the Kremlin a few years ago. James Bond playbook here ffs, they’ve been playing this game a long time, like a broken record.
Putin will never be able to leave Russia again?
Putin the evil dictator willing to sacrifice 9 other Russians to take out Prigozhin?
You proudly talk about being a bully when you were younger. You remain a brainwashed American exceptionalist bully to this day.
Moon of Alabama is an echo chamber with people who spout off without any sources. I can’t read the commentary or the comments because of their lack of informative information. They will run with any story without even giving it time to be sourced. Larry’s site and Andrei Martyanov’s Blog is where I go to be informed and read intelligent comments.
If Putin wanted to eliminate the guy he could have arrested him if as you say he was flying all over Russia. The US/Ukraine/West on the other has a history of dirty tricks, murder and assassinations.
The question is who benefits? Killing Prigozhin does two things, it eliminates the leader of the Wagner group who has taunted the west in Africa, and they can point the finger at Putin which undermines his authority especially in those regions where the western media can create the narrative.
Remember the destruction of the nordstream pipeline. Or how about the assassination of Soleimani. If the West wants a person dead they have numerous means of doing it and an unlimited amount of money in which to seduce some poor smuck trying to make a living to do their dirty work.
Over-thinking can lead to wrong assumptions. We may never know the truth just like the CIA/Kennedy and more.
We now know the CIA killed Kennedy.
Greetings. Please, I don’t know anything about forensics, but in one of the videos from the crash, I saw bodies, one apparently with a crushed head, I don’t know how this jell with your suggestion that it was staged.
I did not say it was staged. Raised that as one possibility pending the actual evidence. If what you saw is true then that discounts a staged crash.
Certainly possible, but not necessarily conclusive. Corpses can be us used to give the impression of deaths from the accident. A more detailed pic showing a body, but with an unrecognizeable, crushed head and face, is convenient, no? No immediate recognition or identification possible.
wild conjecture – yu could put cadavers in the plane if it is remote controlled. Imagine there are a few of them around these days. Then it all comes down to whom does the autopsies. The allies pulled this scam on the germans in ww2.
https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/operation-mincemeat-what-happened-hitler-tricked-who-william-martin-glyndwr-michael/
I am sorry, Mr. Johnson.
I should have waited and read more before I fired off my post.
Simplicius here: https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/special-report-the-curtain-closes?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
shed more light.
I am totally out of my depth when it comes to intrigues.
Even if there are bodies it could be staged. Wagner certainly has access to bodies that will not be easy to identify. Not saying it IS staged, just that it is still possible, albeit with a little help from the “investigators”. Meanwhile I’ll keep an open mind.
Femi please. Are the videos not staged? And the movies? And if so, we may well never know. It wasn’t the first time!
In my former life, I produced videos for a living using magics like After Effects and whatnots
So, I should know a staged act.
The crash scene that I saw was anything but staged.
Ok. Thanks.
My, i just hope at this point, Surovikin did not commit any grave sin against the state, and much less become another Tukachevsky.
I’d believe his daughter who said there is nothing wrong and her Father is fine, rather than the English speaking media who constantly run propaganda and outright lies like nuclear weapons in Iraq and Russia running all Western elections and candidates.
Where are the Skripals by the way? They are missing for years without anyone to say they are a fine, unlike Surovikin.
The hate Putin and Russia crowd are all over this because it comports with their view of Russia and Putin. He’s a bloodthirsty murderer who assassinates anyone who disagrees with him. I’m more of your persuasion. Why would Putin do this? Why now? I understand there are other parties involved, the Russian military has no love for Prigozhin. But would they do this on their own? I just can’t see what’s in it for Putin to do something like this. He needs the Wagner group. Wouldn’t murdering their numbers one and two alienate them? The people who are loudly trumpeting Putin as killer are the same ones who said he blew up the pipeline. OTOH, I have trouble seeing this as some kind of spy vs. spy deep fake. Hopefully, this gets cleared up.
Prig made too many mistakes.
He complained publicly and insulted top brass instead of going up the chain of command.
He made too many public enemies.
He made enemies in the Russian army and air force.
Planes have been used before to kill, regardless of who’s on board.
We will have to wait and see what the crash report will say.
The Bear never forgets and never forgives.
Update all photos with airbrushing for Prigo?
Faculty Lounge Uber Alles
🤔Hm, the bear do not forgive?
I can demolish that statement in less than 1 sentence…
“East Germany”
Per
Norway
Many say that Slavs forgive too much.
California Über Alles
Perhaps they do, but it is the Christian and Slavic way so i guess they just do what they think is right.
Per
Norway
I know. It’s more of an Othodox Christian and Slavic way (atheist Slavic too, and pre Christianity Slavic as far as I know). Catholicized and Islamized Slavs are different (hence all the wars).
Mr. Johnson -on this one- would have to say heads or tails – think its 50-50 either way if he is alive or dead .
Towards the series finale of the show the blacklist which i really enjoyed ; the main character raymond reddington faked his own death to throw off the police. He had his private plane take off and explode in mid-air. The pilot in the meantime had parachuted out and red was not on the plane. He had been tipped off by his friend in the fbi that they were coming for him. He also had planned for this contingency for years and had a bomb on board to use if needed. Reddington was the ultimate in staying 3 steps ahead of everybody else. which is why he survived for so long. The same i think can be said for the old FSB fox putin; guess time will tell.
regards,
ralph
I think the “tell,” will be the reaction of Wagner: gnashing of teeth and tearing of clothes, then Prigozhin’s death is most likely confirmed; meh…. would indicate Prigozhin has retired to a dacha somewhere.
Wagner is strangely quiet on this one, no long memorials or patriotic poems, only occasional reminders to be quiet in expressing opinions until official facts are known. Guess ‘meh’ it is.
Whatever it is…
Life goes on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHMqvAg16fw&t=140s
Forever and ever.
The Power Games continue.
Amen
I remain of the opinion that the ‘mutiny’ was a psy-op for western consumption and it worked a treat.
The death of the two copter pilots was unlikely to be on him – not sure that he was manning a Buk.
Had it been real he would have been disappeared 5 minutes after the Belarus deal.
Looking forward to Prigozhin popping up with a dated copy of a newspaper, preferably today’s NYTimes doing a Dewey Defeats Truman in crowing about his demise as well as Surovkin.
I wonder if he’ll quote Mark Twain re his death being exaggerated?
THANK YOU! Nothing else makes sense when one considers the characters of those involved, mainly Putin & Progozhin. Prigozhin’s ranting was an act from the getgo. He over-acted like crazy. Plus, if he had really shown bodies of dead musicians, he’d have been relieved of ALL authority immediately. Wagners loved him, and I’m positive they posed for the cameras.
It all comes down to Putin. IF Prigozhin had really killed airmen two months ago, he would already have BEEN dead on the 24th of June, not August. Putin would not have stood for it. Also, Putin wouldn’t shoot down a plane with so many innocent people! I mean COME ON. Anyhow thank you for being a voice of sanity. I too hope Mr Prigozhin turns up one fine day with a new face. Only, how will we know?
Curious to know who, or purportedly who, were the other passengers on the plane? Wonder if we’ll ever know? Would say learning about them might hold the clues. I am with you Larry it’s one thing to attack/kill Prigozhin but another thing to kill over half-dozen others. Doubt there would be much blowback for Putin if he just downed the one man and was found out. Killing an additional 8 Russian citizens, Wagner troops, etc. might be a bad idea and be frowned upon by the public. I contend even in a totalitarian dictatorship (am NOT calling Russia that) a leader must have the support of the masses. Alienating them in a time of war especially is not wise.
Guess we shall wait and see.
The list of passengers killed:
Prigozhin, Evgeniy
Propustin, Sergey
Makaryan, Evgeniy
Totmin, Aleksandr
Chekalov, Valeriy
Utkin, Dmitriy
Matuseev, Nikolay
Thanks….seems like Wagoner Brass to me perhaps. If true I would say it was most likely Putin and/or Russian military that pulled his card then.
Prigozhin was killed exactly on the 2-month anniversary of the Wagner’s march to Moscow (23 June), so it smells like retribution. Plus, the condition of Prigozhin’s pardon was that he was exiled forever to Belarus, and he made the Russian leadership look weak by not only not being duly prosecuted for his treason, but on top he’s violating the conditions of his pardon by being in Russia, not just peripheral Russia, but Moscow.
23 June is also Anniversary of the Battle of Plassey 1757 and the BreXit Referendum 2016………….
Maybe it was designed to shift the spotlight from these two anniversaries ?
“Prigozhin was killed exactly on the 2-month anniversary of the Wagner’s march to Moscow (23 June), so it smells like retribution.”
No, it doesn’t. Since when is it that killers wait exactly two months to kill in revenge? Why not a month? Or 3 months? Or maybe a year? Or whatever.
I believe in the list of dead I’m surprised it wasn’t sooner but revenge is a dish best served maybe lukewarm this time the man as they say where I come was to full of himself.
I confess that today I was surprised for the negative to hear Scott Ritter defend the shot down of a civil plane in Russia by the Russian Govt? So Prigozhin – and ten more Russian citizens – safter 50 flights in Russia was executed by the Russian Govt on the eve of Ukrainian independence?! Where they only had the new national cemetery to celebrate. What a Gift!
And far from being an expert, I was even more surprised by the thesis of an anti-aircraft missile that chases the heat, just tearing off the wing of an airplane with the engines in the tail. Leaving the rest of the plane intact?! Including the heat source, the two engines. So once again, Russia has now shot down Russian citizens with missiles to keep the courts out of trouble.
Therefore, there is no doubt that the plane’s wing was sabotaged on the ground. It remains to be seen by whom. Staging or once again on the eve of independence day in Ukraine, by a foreign agency! To destabilize Russia, where many people in the West also believe that Prigozhin is a national hero. And it seems that today another Air Force national hero also defected to Russia with a helicopter, where the rest of the crew were killed! I relate both cases to the Ukrainian independence festivities. Despite the fact that today many facts are analyzed without taking into account the conjuncture or situation. And people without looking at their life path.
Errata: And it seems that today another Air Force national hero also defected to UKRAINE with a helicopter, where the rest of the crew were killed!
The pilot could have saved the other two crew members who were drawn into the pilot’s treason, and insisted that they be taken POW. There was no good reason they had to be killed on the ground just because one traitor stole a chopper.
The pilot has a cushy job and big money waiting for him in the Swamp in gratitude for his treason, but he must be a real skunk to let his two buddies get lured in and whacked, so he has shown his hand and no one will turn his back to him. Maybe Nuland will reward him by bringing him to her favorite all-you-can-eat buffet.
Those who sell their country also sell their colleagues. A piece of shit traitor.
Dmitry Utkin (actual head of Wagner troops) is purported to be among the dead as well (per Rogov quote). More details here, including locals reporting “two pops” before the plane started to fall.
https://zavtra.ru/events/evgenij_prigozhin_i_dmitrij_utkin_pogibli
Interesting. Manifest included Prigozhin and Utkin, the two acknowledged leaders of the coup. Other top operatives of Wagners. Also interesting is the recent vid of Yvegenii on ‘vacation’ in Mali released a couple of days ago. Significant or not?
Some possibilties:
It was a plane crash as stated. – If so, lease likely, IMO, top be a deliberate shoot down. Lot of ways for a plane to crash, including many not involving deliberate action. Larry mentioned some possibities along these lines. Hitting a flock of birds is another. These things happen.
It was sabatoged by 404, MI6 operatives to decapitate the leadership of Wagner after Yvegenii’s ‘vacation’ video from Mali.
It was retribution by non-state actors. Prigozhin,Utkin made many enemies. Having it done by such enemies removes cuplability from the state.
It was staged, no deaths in the crash as the sentences were were carried out in the past. It provides an explanation for the deaths.
It was staged, they are not dead, but now off the grid for activity in Africa.
It was staged, they are not dead, at least yet, but removed from sight for further serious interrogation before sentencing carried out.
Certainly more possibilities…
Hope that we all live long enough to find out what really happened!
Interesting timez…
If Putin or the Russian government ordered this plane shot down, it’s so stupid that it’s beyond words… that would mean that Putin and his Russian senior officials are even dumber and crazier than the Biden administration.
Prigozhin was flying from MOSCOW to St. Pete. If Putin wanted him dead, they could’ve just killed him while he was walking around in Moscow. Or they could’ve arrested him before he boarded the plane and executed him safely while he’s in a maximum security prison. Why shoot down a plane and kill least 3 completely innocent civilians (the 2 pilots and the stewardess)??
That would have to mean Putin is also a homicidal psychopath with no sense of morals or ethics, in addition to being very stupid. Everything I have ever seen or heard about the man tells me that Putin is the exact opposite of stupid and immoral. He is a highly intelligent and rational leader, probably the best in the world at this moment. Also he is a moral person who values human life, at least as far as a head of state can allow himself to be.
100 % agreed. Now way that this was a hit ordered by Mr. Putin, no fucking way.
No need and completely out of character for him.
Don’t know who done it but it sure ain’t Putin.
Also it’s not faked and the supposed dead are somewhere waiting to retire with new identity’s….. Stupid theroy. Too many of them.
Much to coincidental to be an accident. They are ALL dead and if done by Russians speaks quite a bit about what can be going on in high circles of the protagonist involved.
I heartily agree with your words here.
The West is just projecting itself on Putin. Killing everyone on the plane is what US president would do, and then carpet bomb the crash site, and flatten the nearby village too.
Nothing I have seen or heard of Putin suggests that he would have a whole plane of people murdered in order to kill one person. Actually, nothing I have heard or seen of him points towards him using murder as a policy; he tends to be a stickler for legality, making sure all i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed in terms of legal reasoning.
I think that the people who assume that Putin ordered this and other murders are showing their own colours, not shining a light on his. This kind of wholesale assassination of innocent as well as guilty is the action of mobsters and gangsters – or American and Israeli government actors.
Absolutely! Well said…. Bravo
It was M16 all the way.
You do overrate MI6 which I suppose is gratifying but you ignore DGSE which I should have thought to be more active in Mali
I also believe Prigozhin had no love lost inside Russian military whose had a score to settle. Utkin had Neo-Nazi tendencies and was Ukrainian by birth…….
Maybe Biden should be checking his plane if he wants to run in 2024 ? I am sure Trump does !
Could be bomb/sabotage from a Ukr. plant, you only have to see short range drone strikes on Moscow to see that there are plenty of those in Russia these days and the UKR certainly both have a serious grudge against Wagner and want to strike targets of note in Russia to Maintain their narrative.
Why assume the Rooskies did it as they could have quietly disappeared or offed him anytime, unlikely RF AD did it they have to account for rounds fired, number and target etc. MI6/CIA equally unlikely as Prig. was an historical irritation with rapidly declining influence, unless of course they are running UKR. sleepers within Russia?
The real truth is that we are all wasting our time guessing, just like NATO lol
just continuing with one line of thought raised by LJ:
if it’s not intended principally as a psyop, then its too messy to be a real intentional targeted hit by Putin etc. rather, taking out a plane in such dramatic fashion smacks of someone not able to get close enough to Prigozhin: i.e. a disgruntled victim’s relatives/friends, the Ukrainians, Washington even…certainly Putin’s hitmen could (and probably did) easily cavort personally with Prigozhin.
i can also see the west seeking to sow more dissent between factions in Kremlin/Wagner by taking out someone who is a hero for many , thereby raising doubt about Putin’s involvement…
Curious that Ukraine/CIA saboteurs are not on your list of possible suspects. Both have shown that they will use terrorist/irregular type tactics, and Prigozhin (and in particular Utkin) would certainly be high on the list of people the Ukrainian nationalists/CIA would like to see dead. Proghozhin was claiming he was entering Africa, and after how he sent the CIA’s activities in Syria sideways, I am sure they did NOT want him in the middle of their Niger problem! The CIA actually had the most motive to off Utkin and Prigozhin and the manner of the plane destruction has “all the hallmarks” of a CIA operation. For me the events of the last decade have made the once impossible to even conceive – quite easy to believe. Prigozhin was very visible, and easy to access with his globe trotting via private jet ways, and he just stirred up the CIA hornet nest in Niger – ‘suicide’?.
True. I should have included that. Thank you for doing so.
Ukraine has demonstrated it has a network of agents and saboteurs in Russia. Considering how many casualties it took trying to defend Bakhmut, there is a definite “revenge” motive possible. NATO may have quietly encouraged – and even assisted – in the operation for no other reason than to raise hell.
For now I’m leaning towards the “Ukraine Did It” notion.
Larry, they should have been the FIRST on your list of “usual suspects”! I would have added, though, – the ONLY ones (together with MI6 that conducts MOST of terrorist plots for the US in Ukraine).
Best possible take so far. Qui bono….
This was a hit orquestrated by outsiders. Easy to speculate to a probable mix of who.
The protagonist of this site is right to say he should have considered this.
Yes.
Dag Hammarskjöld,
Patrice Lamumba,
Mrs. John Mitchell
all the way down.
See stripes. See tiger.
See ugly. See American.
Not Mrs. John Mitchell. Sorry.
Rather Mrs Howard Hunt
with $10,000 in her purse on approach to ORD. Hush money had been paid to Mr Hunt.
Signature Nixon quote:
“a million dollars is no problem.”
So far all we have is what may just be some juicy tidbits. The plane could have been loaded up with some dead bodies, there’s always dead John and Jane Does in morgues, and flown by remote control, and an on board bomb or something used to take it down. The problem is with the names involved as they would be tough to hide if still alive.
It’s hard to imagine that there were 10 people Putin wanted dead conveniently in one place. The disgruntled military types would have needed advance knowledge of the flight and flight plan, plausible but would have to be organized in advance, and they’d have to border on psychopath to kill the innocents as well. Maybe they were just so upset they didn’t care.
Maybe it was a group infiltrated by Ukrainians or Ukrainian sympathizers. They, on the other hand, would kill all on board with no compunction. Given the drone attacks inside Russia, they obviously have people in place, and some resources. Maybe one of those handy US supplied anti-aircraft jobbies.
I believe it wasn’t Putin, too messy as stated. I wouldn’t rule out Ukraine operators using US equipment, or even Russian gear. Or that Russian assets may have been tricked somehow. I can see different possibilities than those listed.
Yes, it could be the comrades of the pilots killed during Prigozhin’s march on Moscow – and this flight was from Moscow. Military got a long memory. Also, the flight attendant of this plane told her family that the departure was delayed for some repairs. Who knows what was installed/screwed during the repairs. I too doubt that Putin would want to mar the Kursk battle commemoration. I think if he’d be officially taken out – it would be best in Africa.
This does not surprise me at all. Prigozhin committed treason. Putin himself said he could forgive anything but betrayal. Prigozhin outbursts to the media were completely out of control. That was bad enough, but his treasonist march to Moscow and the shooting down of two helicopters was beyond over the top. This when Russia is at war! He appeared unstable and it was only a matter of time before he would create another crisis. Putin obviously knows Wagner is popular in Russia. Putin just waited for a while before putting and end to the problem.
Zelensky should take heed…..
Special Report: The Curtain Closes On Yevgeny Prigozhin
„What I see is the slow, gradual, and inevitable reformation and clean up job that the MOD is doing on the entire systemic framework and infrastructure of the Russian armed forces and its various attendant apparatuses. It’s a colossal scale re-organization, a purification, ablution. This has been an ongoing process since the start of the SMO. We’ve talked at length about how Russia was not structurally sound enough to handle the magnitude of events today. This includes the oft-quoted fact about the first partial mobilization since WW2, the largest force usages, etc.
There have been endless reshufflings, retoolings, and adjustments done on the fly to right the ship and get the Russian state machine trim and into well-oiled combat shape. It’s a historic, epochal transformation process that’s etching away decades of rust and bureaucratic rot, convolution, and inelasticity in many levels and stations, top to bottom. And yes, it’s not pretty. At many times this process appears ugly, dysfunctional, and neurotic—but I believe it will lead to a better and stronger state with a more unified vision and purpose.
That being said, even given those conflict of interests, we still can’t be certain that Russia would have resorted to offing him in such an ostentatious way, on the outskirts of Moscow no less. It could still very well have been a malicious third party actor with the intent to frame Russia and foment division and a new rebellion. After all, the timing is peculiar given Russia’s own actions vis a vis the Surovikin dismissal, but conversely, the timing is likewise “interesting” given Ukraine’s own—and by extension that of NATO and attendant intel services—desperate promises of escalations, and an urgent need for something new to destabilize Russia in order to save its own disastrous “counter-offensive”. Budanov himself promised some more “surprises” for the end of August, if I recall—and Ukraine has been increasingly leaning into terror as its last shtick. „
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/special-report-the-curtain-closes
Since I had some scoffers yesterday.
I also recommend here to some to look at tass news daily to get a more complete picture of Russia.
The chief editor is also recently changed.
The richest man in Russia was recently indicted.
With Gates also possible????
Putin is increasingly playing the card, are they safe, and not, make a wish.
Also within the intelligence services.
The Simplicius piece is very weak. Bomb on board? Planes with bombs that go off on board break up normally. This one did not.
It could have been a small bomb with a chemical payload to kill all on board without breaking up the aircraft. There is mention of a gift case of wine put on board after security checks were completed, in some of the reports I have read.
small bomb on the wing….
Small bomb in the landing gear compartment it seems. The tail section landed many miles from the rest of the plane. This was posted by Escobar about an hour back.
❗️Shot channel: “Source: an explosive device on Prigozhin’s plane was planted in the landing gear compartment — this is one of the main versions of the investigation. According to preliminary data, it was in the area of the landing gear that an explosion occurred in the sky — as a result, the wing was torn off, which hit the stabilizer, because of this, the business jet began to climb sharply, and then went into a tailspin. From the explosive depressurization, all those on board instantly lost consciousness, so the pilots could not report an emergency. In any case, it was not possible to save the plane without a wing and the stabilizer. It was because of the explosion in the sky that the tail section of the aircraft fell five kilometers from the fuselage”
I have read all kinds of comments that it would be impossible to trigger the device at that altitude but it could have been done when it took off with a timer switch activated remotely or an air pressure/altitude sensor. These kinds of components cost a few bucks on ebay and with some easy to follow instructions on YT, almost anyone could construct such a switch.
The level of coverage in the UK media is exhaustive with regular updates, even crowding out the story of the Serial Killer Nurse that has fixated the nation and the media for days. Even the Spectator has done a special on it. The UK media have been given their orders and the narrative of ‘Bad Vlad’ is plastered over every front page and newscast. Detailed analysis of just how evil Putin is can be heard in every broadcast.
The message “We simply have no choice but to address this evil and that is why the nation is at war with Russia. There is no other way, we must do it and defeat the greatest evil since Hitler.” sums up the British POV and they no doubt have the most to loose from a defeat in Ukraine. They have invested heavily in the war and were licking their lips at the idea of Russian treasure making it into their portfolios. It is how the British ruling class have operated since Francis Drake and it has made them wealthy for centuries.
In 2016, Mark Carney (then Gov. of the BOE) gave a speech in my home town. In it he pointed out that to reduce the UK’s deficit, all would be done to make its ‘Tech’ firms competetive on the world stage. The devaluation of Sterling was part of that but the creation of the market for those goods was the key. Hence the support for the war in Ukraine.
What a stupid thesis! Where this jet has the fuel tanks. Any plane with a pressurized fuselage breached by an explosion does not fall in one piece due to pressure differences. See Lockerbie. And Escobar must have known this jet better than most.
This Embraer is the best Brazilian aircraft ever. In fact one of the best regional jets in the world. An idea by America Airlines for Embraer. That saved from bankruptcy during privatization. It sold like hotcakes! Regardless of even the best fall. But this one didn’t crash because of an explosion in the landing gear. The sabotage took place on the wing. Which doesn’t have engines or a fuel tank, which is also very common.
Sorry Brian. In the wing compartment to the avoid drag really makes sense. My mistake stemmed from reading in several places in landing gear.
Of course. There are several videos of terrorism on board with pressurized passenger cabin violated. But its not a more stupid thesis than an anti-aircraft missile and there are also many videos with aircrafts hit by missiles. In fact one of the reasons that should never be ruled out is the accident. It was not the first due to lack of maintenance and Embraer has already clarified that it did not supply parts due to sanctions. But everyone looks at the crash with their hearts and I myself attribute little probability to the accident.
And even less to Putin! Whose last thing it needs is destabilizing episodes. And besides not thinking that Putin is a terrorist, he had so many more discreet ways to eliminate Prigozhin. I continue to think that the wing was sabotaged in the ground. By a foreign agency directly or by bribery such as diverting the helicopter. In an essentially PR war!
I wonder – doesn’t Embraer carry fuel in its wings? And it looks like something happened to its wing… What if it wasn’t an “official” bomb but something “pedestrian” sabotage? I don’t know… like a sack of sugar/cement/whatever poured into its fuel tank during these unexpected repairs right before the fight – wouldn’t it explain the destabilization and the jet going up and down as it did before the tailspin? Am I totally off?
Well, it seems to me the event has distracted people from other events. I know Mr. Johnson said that he doesn’t think the West has the reach to coordinate a team of bombers but I think that the SBU might have that reach.
The UK media are giving it blanket coverage with extended coverage with a never ending parade of talking heads affirming that Putin is evil and responsible. It makes me wonder.
I certainly don’t know but I fail to see how Putin has gained from this and he is a calculating man and not prone to missing the effect his decisions will have.
I am not an aircrash investigator and so I can’t comment on how the plane crashed and the causes. We all have to wait for the investigation and then decide if it delivers a plausible explanation.
Lika,
Fuel tanks are in the belly of the fuselage. But you up there don’t even need explosives to rip off a wing. Just a loosely tightened joint. The forces up there are hell. That’s why a hole in the pressurized fuselage easily splits an airplane in half in seconds.
This plane was not split in half. The fuselage was intact until it hit the ground.
Exactly Larry. Which totally kills the chance of an explosion on board.
I do not know who this “simplicius” is, nor I am a reader of his, but, since I happened to read yesterday at Riley´s substack a linked article from some months ago by Surkov, I find it quite coincidental that both, “simplicius” and Surkov, hold the same delusional argumentary line on the inconvenience of Prigozhin keeping control of Africa and managing diplomatic relations there on beahlf of the Russian state.
Thus, I conclude this “simplicius” is, “highly likely”, Surkov, and that his absurd line of argumentary, developed in such longwinded essay, is directed at pointing out at the Russian state as perpetrator of this “accident” probably out of own resentment for being displaced from the Kremlin structures.
Prigozhin does not own Africa more than Viktor Bout owned it in the past, when nobody dared to venture there, especially after the fall of the USSR, and Bout decided to try fortune by buying some aircraft and starting commercing, as described by his friend Estulin in a recent podcast.
Then, it was the CIA who took out Bout from Africa, by aprhending him and jailing him for quite some decades, as he was menacing US interests there. The same which has probably happened now with Prigozhin, all the more with the excusatio non petita by Sullivan….and the obvious damage to NATO´s influence there.
The same Prigozhin stated in his last video appearance, when joking about the 50º out there where he was ( which can not be other than the surroundings of Niger´s borders where those temperatures burn at this time of the year…) that “they continue working to make Russia great and that they will fullfill all their new assignements”…..
That the Russian state could take advantage of Prigozhin or his partners populist appearance and stance to get close to humble and nononsense African people and leadership is understandable, this is called, if I am not wrong, “agent of influence” in your intelligence business….
IMHO, some kind of oligarchs in Russia feared the tide of unavoidable change ( lateral, if you want, paraphrasing Mirror Gazers….) that the actions and certainly heroic deeds by the Wagner group were inflicting in Russian society´s soul and mood…and that this could lead to a concrete collaboration by some treacherous self-declared liberal Russians with Western intelligence services, or even Ukrainian ones, to get rid of Wagner, fearing a very unliberal sovereignist identitary development of events in the future in Russia…or at least its influence…
One would say they decided to change course suddenly by turning that flight into spiralling….
Surkov, in his tirade some months ago, talks somehow contemptuously about that the Russian state is not some conglomerate of Eurasian tribes…..
I would bet that the recently condecorated crew of the “Alyosha” tank and unit would not agree…as it wouldn´t the very Alexander Duguin….who happens to also have lost his daugghter to the same people….
It was not during Surkov´s tenure as “Special Envoy for Ukraine” that all the Donbass commaders were killed and Russia was fooled related to the “Misk Agreements?
Is this guy loyal to Russia?
I think perhaps a leadership change at Wagner? The old guard was getting a bit too big for their breeches, and too steeped in their criminal pasts.
Wagner, on the other hand, likely still has an important role to play for
Mother Russia in Eastern Europe and Africa.
The West had a period of about 35 years to build up and position its people in Russia in the long term.
The access was like an open barn door.
This is underestimated by some here.
This front is much more problematic for Putin to control than the military front.
Since it is more invisible.
Only the clever actions of Putin and his close circle of advisors have so far prevented worse.
The cleanup work is still enormous.
Also recommend to some this article by Sergey Glazyev:
Russia’s position in the multipolar world that will be formed as a result of the change of the IU remains uncertain. To get out of the current peripheral position between the cores of the old and new IU, a radical change in economic policy is required, the implementation of an advanced development strategy on the basis of the new technological mode, based on the institutions and management methods of the integral IU.
https://kolozeg.org/patterns-of-formation-and-disappearance-of-global-economic-poles-sergey-glazyev/
Looks like Capital Controls and a Central Bank overhaul are on the way, as Glazyev long proposed.
Just playing Devil’s Advocate here, to cover all the bases. I don’t think this was an accident, but for the sake of completeness:
1] The reports said that TWO planes were flying together and one was Prigozhin’s. This could be important if accident was the real cause.
2] From the reports, this was the type of jet Prigozhin was on, with “aft-mounted engines, swept wings and all-moving T-tail horizontal stabilizers”.
https://s1.eestatic.com/2023/06/27/omicrono/tecnologia/774682626_234272850_1706x960.jpg
3] Those types of aircraft are particularly susceptible to DEEP STALLS:
Deep Stall Aerodynamics
“You didnt practice this type of stall during your primary flight training. They are generally UNRECOVERABLE, and mainly affect swept-wing jets.”
https://www.aviationsafetymagazine.com/features/deep-stall-aerodynamics/
4] When planes fly too close together they can encounter each other’s WAKE TURBULENCE:
Wake turbulence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_turbulence
Cessna 120 caught in helicopter wake turbulence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZLXMKMgnS8
Keep all that in mind as more news comes out. It seems unlikely, given who crashed, but it might prevent someone going too far out on a limb before all the facts are known.
Jet aircraft of this type don’t stall at high altitudes nor would they ever fly close enough to each other at high altitude to ever invoke wake turbulence, nor would they EVER fly in trail (directly behind each other) – ever. In addition, these would have been ex-military pilots who have extensive training in flying in close formation etc… Stalls and wake turbulence are well known and documented because they primarily happen during take offs and landings and your altitude is so low during at these times that it is difficult to recover. This airplane was at a very high altitude and was flown by experienced pilots.
I agree with you, it is highly unlikely. However, you made a lot of categorical assertions and assumptions that may or may not hold up. What if they were not ex-military pilots? What if they did get too close together? Where do spins occur when they don’t primarily happen during take-offs and landings? What if they did stall at high altitudes? Eg:
How Turbulence From An Airbus A380 Once Caused A Private Jet To Roll In Mid-Air
“As the two aircraft cruised towards their respective destinations, the Challenger 604 was flying at an altitude of 34,000 feet.”
https://simpleflying.com/how-airbus-a380-turbulence-caused-private-jet-roll/
The odds are that you will be proved right, however last week I saw many insist that Gonzalo Lira was working for the SBU, but we really don’t know that for a fact.
I would urge the same caution, and let the facts come out, before stating categorically that it was a bomb or missile …because no other accidental or negligent cause is deemed possible.
Wagner has been completely decapitated of its “private” directors. It could be a fake crash but what little evidence there is seems to point to an actual assassination. Of course with Prigozhin there are multiple parties that might see life as better without him in it, will we get a definitive report or will this enter into the realm of conspiracy with other notable poorly investigated assassinations such as JFK?
Seems the Ukraine war plot thickens yet again.
To shoot a plane with P. would be an exact answer for killing the helicopter crew in June.
Two helicopters and a AWACS plane , 11 pilots total. PMC meaning private, P was never private. These guys are supposed to live in the shadows, you never see them coming. P was to ostentatious for his own good. Maybe that last video from the border of Niger and Mali was just to much. Plus I’m hearing everyone on board was with the Wagner leadership and all were involved in the mutiny. Even the pilots were hand picked.
Tiny line from someone here who doesn`t know ANYTHING about military issues, may I…
Mr Prigožin has been knowingly in St Petersburg for already some time. President Lukashenko told this in public that he is not in Belarus and that to his knowledge Mr Prigožin is in St Petersburg. My speculation about this: there was no chance to catch him on the ground but he had to be on air not to have a chance to escape?????
Something happened yesterday in Russia as it was on the news that general Surovikin who vanished after the Wagner rebellion, was yesterday 23rd fired as head of aerospace forces. ??????
Then, who benefits from Russian army having major havoc inside their system the most ?????
Was there a need to arrange Prigožin a new identity and let him get away from publicity?
One last question, was this a drone attack?
The plane was at 30,000 ft, too high for a drone, manpads, or birds as someone else suggested.
Hi Larry,
I just sent you a “possible” natural causes explanation, but it got caught up in your moderation queue, because of the number of links. (sorry) Trying to be a good CIA analyst here and look at all possibilities. You might want to review it and let it pass if you think it has merit? FYI
Prigozhin talked himself up too loudly and made too many enemies in high places. Russia is at war. My guess he’s deader than fried chicken (thanks Tarantino), but what do I know? He might be in Niger, he might be in Iowa.
Utterly ridiculous bilge. Is Prigozhin supposed to remain in hiding for months, years, or the rest of his life? What about the others on board? They too? Since Wagner is not even in Russia anymore, how is it supposed to help? By giving Ukranazistan a propaganda victory?
Shit happens.
I am absolutely appalled by the speculations that “Putin did it” – especially made by such a person as Scott Ritter in his today’s interview on JudgeNap!
This is SO ridiculous that I have no words to express it. Why would Putin do such a thing? Not even Shoigu or Gerasimov – TOO obvious. That is exactly what “common west” would love to propagate.
There is also no need for Prigozhin to perform any “maskirovka”, especially killing the crew – and yes, there were bodies in the pictures/videos, unfortunately.
But I wouldn’t discount the revenge of the families and friends of the pilots 🙁 This sounds like the most “logical” explanation. They would want revenge for sure…
Only, shooting from the ground? Strange. Wouldn’t it be better to arrange some kind of an “accident”? On the other hand, there were already some reports of possible “maintenance issues”. But even more telling that there has already – and immediately – opened criminal investigation! So somebody definitely knows something. Possibly rumors or suspicions were circulating around.
But even more importantly – surprised you did not mention this Larry as in your direct “field of vision” – that it was CIA or MI6. SO convenient and all the haters could immediately blame it on “evil Putin”… And the Sleepy Joe was “not surprised”! Definitely works for him.
I think the capabilities of the CIA and MI6 are grossly over-rated. They don’t have that kind of reach in Russia. SBU, maybe. Ukraine is getting desperate and this is very well could be something they did.
How would you know that?
How many sleepers are there in Russia?
In Russia, arrests are going on every day at the moment, at the corporal level.
Ukrainians can export a lot, but they get the technologies from the West.
Maybe it was a joint Russia-USA operation.
Agree about Ukraine but not soooo grossly overrated the others.
Possibly all working together
*** “Possibly all working together” ***
That’s becoming an appealing idea with me as well. Suppose Ukraine or anybody else decided to take out Prigozhin. An Intelligence operative (and/or his immediate bosses) might decide to turn a blind eye towards the operation. Security people for Wagner might do the same. All sorts of “stuff” is already beginning to surface in the gossip media.
“Flight Attendant on Prigozhin’s Jet Reported ‘Strange’ Repairs Before Crash”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/prigozhin-jet-flight-attendant-reported-strange-repairs-before-crash?ref=home
Something Andrei Martyanov wrote also makes sense:
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2023/08/keep-in-mind.html
Not to many people are going to mourn for the P guy.
I do kind of wonder what all this means for the future of Surovikin.
Many, many people had it in for Prigozhin. Deliberate Blindness could well be a feature in this affair.
The Embraer 600 has an excellent safety record; that doesn’t mean it can’t crash, but that mechanical failures are not common. If you’ve got enough money to buy one, you’ve got enough money to maintain it, probably, keeping it in good working order. That puts mechanical or structural failure low on my list of possibilities for the crash. Planes suffer bird strikes regularly too, but rarely does it cause a crash, especially on a 2 engine jet.
That plane is dead weight tumbling out of the sky – that isn’t a stall/spin – so its obviously completely disabled. I’ve watched the footage the folks shot from their garden several times – though its not super clear even on my big monitor – but the tail doesn’t look quite right & possibly at least one wing is gone. Did something shear off part of a wing then take off part of the tail?
A lot of people asked why Prigozhin was allowed to come back into Russia & run around wherever he pleased after the attempted coup. If you weren’t going to prosecute him & throw him in jail, because of the sensitivity of the situation, why not let him come back? You watch him. Keep your friends close, you enemies closer, maybe. Makes sense to me.
So, if you wanted to eventually take him out, it would be a lot easier to do it on your home turf, if you’re the gov’t or military. You control the playing field. If you’re some outside entity, certainly adds to plausible deniability if he’s taken out in Rus. Dude definitely pissed off some powerful people. And no matter what we think we know, regarding the coup or anything else concerning Wagner or the Kremlin, there will always be information & details we will never know. We only know what we are allowed to see.
Plane crashes happen every day, all over the world. They aren’t unusual. Plane hits the ground, bursts into flames, very little evidence left to sift through. That’s why its sometimes takes years for NTSB to make a finding on a crash here in the US. I don’t even think that’s a particularly messy way to take someone out. Governments all over the world – including here in the US – do much, much, worse when they perceive a threat to the nation.
I’m leaning more towards @Curt Nichols line of thinking. You do not stay in power for 2 decades & bring your country back from the brink of death if you aren’t willing to make decisions that are unpalatable to most of us. That’s just reality. I think VVP’s speech he made when coup happened was very, very clear. Traitors will not be tolerated; they are a danger to Russia’s existence. A plane crash gives lots of room for plausible deniability, but leaves enough doubt to say, “fuck around and find out”. Let’s not forget that there were warrants/indictments in the US for Prigozhin related to his Internet Research Agency & that Wagner had been declared an “international criminal organization” – that’s one step away from being declared a terrorist organization – and Russia a state sponsor of terrorism.
It will certainly be interesting to see what other info, if any, pops up over the next few days/weeks.
Engines are Rolls-Royce from the Allison stable………..
I am certain it was in full use prior to the trip to Africa………I would be interested to know who guarded/refuelled or maintained it on the ground there
“You do not stay in power for 2 decades & bring your country back from the brink of death if you aren’t willing to make decisions that are unpalatable to most of us.”
Why 2 decades ?
Blair was in power or 1 decade and had people “suicided”
Thatcher was in power 1 decade and had people ‘executed’
Clinton certainly had people “disappeared” as did Obama and Bush…..and no doubt Biden is just getting started………
None of which proves who or what caused this plane crash…………
I prefer to think in USA that not one sparrow falls to the ground without the All-Seeing Eye of Biden being behind it……….HE is The One
An aerial NordStream?
Biden “not surprised” by either.
“Two decades” because Putin has been in power for that length of time. I didn’t state that to mean something definitive for every world leader. As I also said, I believe that ALL governments – as you mention some examples in your post – do many unsavory things if they feel that their power or their perceived interests are threatened. Time frame not withstanding.
I’m not a crash investigator privy to the details, so no, my mere opinion proves nothing. I thought we were commenting here to just discuss our thoughts on the incident. I could be completely wrong, as we all could be. We’ll probably never 100% know the real truth and I am personally open to every possibility. My opinion on anything and $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee anywhere in America. As of 11am, no world leader has called me up to get my analysis.
As for JB, as a US citizen I view his presidency as having a much less clever Whitey Bulger as president.
I have been wondering whether the killing of the top brass in Wagner might have been intended to spoil relations between Russia and Belarus and to destabilise Lukashenko’s government.
Lukashenko’s role in ending the march on Moscow in June gained him a lot of praise and good will, but also many thousands of Wagner men who did not sign up with the Russian MOD but who remained loyal to Prigozhin. If those men get the impression that the Russian state was involved in the murder of Prigozhin and his lieutenants and that Lukashenko is keeping them in Belarus in order to isolate Prigozhin (and I expect the SBU will be busy putting that kind of narrative out, if they have any sense), then instead of getting a reinforcement, Belarus will have imported a nest of furious hornets.
There is something about family name Prigozin on the internet: This is not the same person but there is something about the possible line family connection…
Strange everything is connected to this one group of people always…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iosif_Prigozhin
Prigo gone “dark”?
Just imagine his phantom showing up in Africa?
(Assuming he is dead)…… We do know that there was fury in the west over how Prigohzin tricked and humiliated western intelligence (with the faux coup and a whole a lot of other stuff including money he had received from western agencies etc and false intelligence he had delivered over Bahkmut). This reckoning was always going to come. The west was just trying to work out how to capitalise on the revenge which significantly has come on the eve of the 24th- significant to Ukraine and suggesting that the west has given up trying to milk anything much from the ‘how and when’ of the hit, beyond a (non trivial) headline grab. It is always worth throwing Ukraine a bone, who is being badly attrited in Bakhmut having committed ludicrous scarce resources on the back of the false intel for which it is now being blamed in the media as if the plan did not have any higher imprimatur!
In the world of crumbs, there is also the crumb of comfort in unsettling Wagner viz Niger- another site of western intelligence fury as Russia quietly basks in the adulation of the ex colonials.
Finally there is BRICS and the need for a western show of force to those it knows will know: ‘When bribery fails (as it has) and regardless of our propensity to lose overt wars we can still do covert… remember that, you guys- and we do not forgive……
So Putin’s involvement in this goes to the bottom of the list of suspects.
Never underestimate western spite, a nasty trait threaded through western neo liberalism and exemplified in Biden. On. the international stage we are behaving like a dumped spouse. The setting sun is not going down quietly.
I lean towards the staged theory. It has been suggested that there were some dead CIA agents killed by Russian forces earlier this year, whose bodies could have been stored then staged on the plane.
I note too that RT reported initially only 8 bodies found with the plane, of the 10 on the plane list. That begs the question where were they? Perhaps the relevant authorities realised it’s possible then for two pilots say, to parachute out, so it was easier to say they had identified 10 in the wreckage.
Other problems with the ‘dead Prigozhin’ version of these events:
– firstly the timing is too much of a coincidence for other events, namely Ukraine’s ‘anniversary day’ on 24th Aug, where the Ukie government was somewhat desperate to have something to show for their efforts and funding. The only thing they had in the end for today, was a (no doubt temporary) occupation of Robotyne, having driven the Russians out yesterday. Their news would have been swamped and washed away by the Prigozhin news, which I think is very handy for Putin and a win for Russia in the PR war.
Secondly Prigozhin was just winding up the prior organisational jobs before a possible counter-coup war in Niger. He and Wagner are fully involved in a campaign planned under Putin and his advisors to bring Africa completely out of the colonialist occupation, and into the sovereignty of their own countries. Russia and China are backing the military side of this, as well as the planning. Prigozhin is Putin’s ‘red right hand’, and they are both military men who understand war and its tactical objectives in carrying the war aims.
Staging the ‘death’, without any evidence of a body to show the world to prove it, is a convenience for Prigozhin that allows him to skip the spotlight and the queue of would-be assassins that are more motivated that ever after recent events, from the US to its vassals. I am also betting that a groundswell of sympathy from the Russian public for a ‘dead’ Prigozhin will help immensely if he turns up later in a not-deceased capacity. Prigozhin also has allowed for his own redundancy, and has a group of very able commanders who have trained under his command.
Putin has discovered a certain amusement I think, in planning and carrying out psy-ops, and in observing how it drives the west and its media into a frenzy of endless speculation. Although, I notice this time a large number of US media outlets who are not taking the presentation of Prigozhin’s death at face value just yet, not without more evidence. I think they smell a rat maybe, after the so-called ‘coup’ story earlier this year. They’re not sure though.
I agree. They (Putin and Prighozin) had so much fun over the last outing (didn’t we all?), more than ever got publicised. So let’s see.
He certainly made himself a hate figure with Western intelligence (oxymoron) agencies though, so this sort of intervention was always on the cards, and it sends a message to Russia that a strike can happen in their territory.
Given the western obsession with narrative you can ask who the headline best serves, and coming alongside BRICS and Niger, the balance favours the west, currently anxious for anything to take the focus away from failures on the ground in Ukraine, especially around the 24th and involving a new tranche of wonder weapons.
” Prigozhin is Putin’s ‘red right hand’, and they are both military men who understand war”
Bollocks. He was not Putin’s right hand was not a military man at all. He was the spokesman and purported owner of Wagner. That is all.
@ Larry
We know too little, especially what is possible with new and special energy systems and how they show themselves to the outside and how they can be infiltrated.
What is discussed here are the phsysical findings that are known. Unknown one cannot discuss yet, highest assume.
E.g. in the field of scalar wave technology.
Only today it becomes known little by little how clever and deadly the whole corona system is constructed and works pharmaceutically-biologically.
In addition, newer and newer findings are coming, how long-term and complex it destroys the immune system and is lethal.
Too few elements to make any supposition that holds water at this point. The only thing we know that appears as certain is that a plane belonging to Prigozhin has crashed. Nothing else. But people love to speculate.
I agree with you. Too early to tell. Actually, what we might be seeing is a CIA drone (with Ukrainian flag decals plastered all over it), falling to Earth. The Embraer 600 continued on its way, unbothered, and unharmed (not a scratch on it), by the CIA’s equivalent of a Radio Shack toy airplane. Can’t go spending real billions of dollars on real drones. That would mean cutting off Victoria Nuland’s supply of Twinkies and Bon
bons.
“I image most of you have seen . . . .”
Have I “imagined” your language skills (more to the point, your proofreading skills), have broken down? In the first sentence?
Larry, you either need a break, or an editor.
Speaking of typos, there is one about neatly attached engines near the the tail of the aircraft.
If Utkin is alive, Prigozhin not being a soldier but a self-publicist, he is probably with Elvis in National Enquirer land, appearing in Snake Sullivan’s nocturnal reveries
“The Embraer 600 (pictured above) has its engines at [sic] attached neat [sic] the tail of the aircraft. ”
Larry, hitting the sauce a little hard?
Dude, take a break.
You need to take a break. Who gives a fuck about a few typos here and there? If one has a command of written English then typos are not obstacles.
Well said Grr.Narcicism is everywheree.Did you understand the text?If yes then shut your pie hole.
There’s no way that Putin did this. For one the FSB is already treating this as a “terrorist attack.” If Putin ordered it, they would not be doing that. Besides, I don’t believe Putin has his enemies killed. He has killed a few double agents, but those were all spies. Double agents don’t have a long life expectancy.
Qui Bono? Whom does this benefit the most?
All of a sudden the leadership group of the group most likely to be sent to Niger is (probably) dead. France and the USA benefit from that.
Ukraine benefits in revenge for their massive losses in Bakhmut.
Putin? Maybe, but for him it also has immense possible drawbacks.
Which makes me wonder,
is the fact that Wagner’s entire management team is sitting on an airplane.
That violates elementary safety rules.
And they are supposed to be professionals.
I dont know much about aircraft.
Does this aircraft have a ‘black box’?
These items are made, sort of indestructible, for obvious reasons.
“I am skeptical of the claims that Putin ordered this. For starters Putin was officiating at the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Kursk.”
Yes, and Michael Corleone was out baptizing a baby when he killed all his enemies.
With all the Russian sanctions (that aren’t accomplishing the sanctioning of anything Russian much), where are the Russians getting the parts necessary to keep a luxurious Embraer 600 — a popular private jet and personal favorite of rich elites and the obscenely militarized corporate oligarchs — in the air, or on the ground, in a heap of flames.
Besides, Embraer 600s are tough old birds. In 2006, one survived a mid-air collision with a Boeing 737. The Boeing died (of course). The Embraer 600 proceeded onward and upwards, landing safely — despite serious damage to the left horizontal stabilizer and left winglet.
“Yes, and Michael Corleone was out baptizing a baby when he killed all his enemies.”
Oh to live in a world where fiction and reality blur !!!!!!
Mario Puzo died in 1999………how much of the current world is based on his scribblings I know not………but in Europe not many people conform to the fictional scripts of American authors
I was being sarcastic. Sorry if I forgot to include the brackets for the really stupid and impaired, like you.
Larry, and everybody else here, makes references to Hollywood. Yet, you seem to have a particular problem whenever I do?
Issues maybe?
You consider me “really stupid and impaired, like you.” and yet you treat me with such disrespect. Such an insight into the real character of someone dealing with people who are “really stupid and impaired”…………..it does you little credit.
No doubt you assault people in wheelchairs and throw old ladies under trains………quite why people like you have such contempt for people who are “really stupid and impaired” is not clear, but surely a source of most societal anger we see today
Embraer is Brazilian.
Why would more than one top Wagner officer travel on the same aircraft at the same time? It reminds me of the videos of soldiers all bunched up together for the benefit of a single bomb. Do I expect too much?
Let’s eliminate what we can safely deduce. Putin’s sense of law and fair justice means Prigozhin would have been charged with embezzlement or similar criminal offenses.
He has consistently dealt with unruly oligarchs through the courts.
If GRU or state sanctioned actors, less risky taking Wagner leadership out in Africa.
So, accident (when was the plane last serviced, ongoing faults?), staged (possible criminal charges/sanction evasion) or assassination (on constant alert and planning for this, 2 planes, etc). Usually, the simplest answer is the best guess.
I think Putin was not involved for several reasons. First, the timing has very odd and inopportune. The BRICS conference is very important to Putin and he would not want anything to taint it. The optics would be very bad as far as the BRICS members and applicants are concerned. It could undermine Russia’s support from the global south. Second, Larry correctly comments that the execution could have happened in a much more low key fashion after the ‘coup’. To do it now in such a spectacular fashion is at odds with Putin’s cautious and rational approach. And third, I doubt Putin would whack him along with several innocent people. It’s bad optics again. In conclusion, timing is everything and I do not think Putin ordered this. Who did? My feeling is some rogue Russian actor, SBU or Western intel to taint Putin in the eyes of the global south.
I agree, I think presence of Wanger in Niger presents a big problem for France and US.
Eliminating Prigozhin and Utkin and other top commanders would help with military campaign there. I would expect then quick military assault by French and Americans in Africa while Wagner figures out their command structure in Africa.
And what about the second plane that landed in Moscow? Who disembarked from that plane? There is no news about this. It is not a trivial detail because Prigozhin usually used two planes at the same time and only a few people knew which plane he was flying on.
I don’t care who has done it. I ask what consequences will it have? Will the situation in Niger get difficult?
Further more: Interesting to see that the last big murder of a politician in the USA was JFK. All other big guys survive. Nuland went to Niger without being held hostage. The US government happily lives in a nation with around 200 million weapons, despite of stark criticism from millions. The US population prefers shooting among peers, not among the rich.
Well, life in der the USA obviously is much safer for the rich than in Russia. How that? Is there no quarrel among the rich? Elon musk gave up his funny fight with the Facebook owner.
The USA, as aggressive it is towards other nations, is strangely peaceful within its oligarchy.
Trump, an oligarch, faces 500 years jail. He got uppity.
The EU looks in teror over its shoulder at what is brewing in the US- it’s coming to the EU.
Since Prighozin’s Internet Research Group were responsible for the election of Trump, (according to the Mueller Report), will Trump send a memorial wreath or a representative to the funeral?
The idea that Putin ordered this shoot-down is preposterous. President Putin’s life work has been to establish the rule of law in a country where it never really existed and on that basis form a new socio economic and political life that would reestablish Russia as the great power it always was. If he had wanted to pursue Priogzhin this would have been done in an exemplary manner. But as we see, despite all the drama of treason and such nothing of the sort ever happened. Supposedly ‘exiled’ he was seen mixing with African leaders at St. Petersburg, his real vocation actually. A few words here since not a single commentator about EP has called attention to what I take to be the most important facet to the whole Prigozhin/Wagner business. The Wagner PMC was created to serve as Russia’s Foreign Legion. By law Russian forces are not allowed to operate on foreign territory. But there is a great need to help Russia’s friends in Asia and Africa who have been heavily manipulated by this ‘war on terror’. We know clearly enough that the jihadi/terrorist militants are supported by money from the Gulf monarchies and essentially managed by Western covert military and intelligence forces to fight Russia and its allies. After they destroyed Libya the way was clear to move their proxies into sub Saharan Africa which then provided the rationale for dozens of new American bases to ‘fight terrorism’. The Wagner group was the first counter measure taken by the Russians or anybody else to help governments like Syria and African governments to really fight off these Nato proxies. As regards Prigozhin, I’ve long regarded his theatrical performances as particularly calculated to play well on the African street. They like this guy. Does anybody need an explanation for this? My point then: it’s about Africa. Prigozhin was an outstanding asset of the Russian Foreign ministry. He was a unique and popular ambassador to this crucial continent. His passing will not affect the Wagner fighters. They’ll carry on. But ‘hearts and minds’ wise, a lot of people will miss this man.
Why is Putin responsible for……..everything in the largest country on earth………but Biden is not even accountable for his son?
Maybe Gerasimov had fallen out of love with Prigozhin and his charming demeanour ?
As Ray McGovern, veteran CIA, said recently, the really dangerous problem is this :
Biden, Sullivan, et al keep pushing the Ukraine Project, but remember Clinton. He had a Lewinsky problem, and bombed Sudan to divert attention.
Biden, and Sullivan could possibly face trial over Hunter and Russiagate.
See this from Putin’s perspective – what will they do to divert attention?
No one knows , yet right now there is the Niger crisis.
That was posted here a few days ago.
Biden needs a “win” to get out of the Project. And to divert the possee.
He “is not surprised” either by this event nor NordStream. SBU is a red herring – they are a CIA subsidiary. That plane had apparently special hurried maintenance that day.
There are umours that Dmitry Utkin was on that plane as well.
Given the fact that Prigozhin was, essentially, a PR clown and figurehead, and the actual operational commander was Utkin, perhaps, if these rumours are true, the actual target was Utkin, with Prigozhin being just a collateral damage. After all, Wagner group, presumably, was requested to assist the current Niger government, and DGSE does have a history of using sabotage with lethal consequences as a tool.
I am doing a voiceover for SouthFront on this incident in a few minutes on this. Here’s what I wrote:
“Some reports say there were TWO explosions, That would suggest a fuel tank explosion. The S300 has a warhead large enough to bring down a B52. The Embraer 600 is small. The radar tracker of the S300 would explode either from the rear (proximity fuse) destroying the tail first or by contact use, the main bady of the aircraft. One wing was intact and the body of the aircraft. A The wing tanks are compartmental. So the likelihood of TWO explosions is high, completely severing the wing. ”
As mentioned fuel tank explosions are very common in commercial aircraft, notably the Boeing 777.
Scott Ritter and Simplicius are jumping to conclusions.
You are absolutely right about Scott and Simplicius.
When first I heard of this my immediate thought was of all those missing Stingers 1 year ago.We new they would show up somewhere sometime.
Larry, please pay attention to a new troll account appearing in the comments recently:
@Ljubenkovic
The name sounds Slavic, but whoever is using it, is writing full on Nazi stuff (maybe the guy is one of Ustashe/Banderite bunch). Just read what that “ubermensch” has written on this page alone.
It’s funny how these Western apes of the KREMLIN get away with their defacto edification of Nazism by making it seem like anyone reasonably opposed to the Asiatic Tyranny of Moscow must be a Nazi German ape, which is BULLSHIT, and useful for propaganda. We in Europe have always held on to much higher standards than the Russians or the convertible cowboys.
simplicius did not jump to any conclusion – calmly looked a lot of possibilities, found the famous case of wine bomb unlikely, but that trick was used before.
Do I detect professional jealousy?
Agreed re Simplicius. His method is to look at each scenario and gives an opinion of probability. In this case he put a disclaimer, as he usually does, that it is just one possible scenario.
Disagree re Larry being jealous though, he doesn’t seem to be the type. Probably just misread the article.
I don’t know where you got the idea that fuel tank explosions are frequent on commercial planes or any type of plane and then you point out a specific model. In fact, I saw no evidence of a fuel tank explosion and the tail vertical stabilizer was intact after the crash. And you are also wrong about the jet. It’s an Embraer 135, with the layout available on the net. Legacy is the business jet version. A regional jet with tanks in the belly of the fuselage. The tanks in the wing sections – which hold the planes in the air – are only concerned with sharing the structural load in the air. Meaningless in terms of range. Finally you should try to see a video with a plane shut down by an anti-aircraft missile. You will see a totally different video. At least I never saw any fall because only the wing was hit. I just want to help with the narration.
It was a lone gunman, with a magic bullet.
My money would be on a Western Intel Op. They don’t want Wagner in Africa to prevent their re-taking of Niger.
I suspect they will find pristine passports in the ashes with slightly burned edges.
That’s because RF internal pasports are made of kevlar-titanium compsite, and nomex…
Yes – Andromeda strikes again. They switched from deep sea ops to sky ops.
I’m not saying is the same, I think Putin didn’t order this, but the argument that it was not him because he was somewhere else…. well, reminds me of Bush in a school “reading” a book with kids….
Not the best example. Perhaps Bush was sent to read a book to kids on purpose, to have him out of the loop.
I’m waiting for Kiev to claim responsibility. With the first Kerch Bridge, the claim came later. That was a very complicated MI6 operation, even later admitted.
What is coming up – US Budget ? With all the open MSM talk of failure, some want an off-ramp. Has an off-ramp on-ramp brawl broken out in London/D.C.?
Seems to be a lot of distractions from what are probably the last days of the last Ukrainians fighting againt Russia.
Almost as though western media are encouraged to pretend the war moved to Russia.
This is a very weak argument: “Putin was officiating at the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Kursk. I find it hard to believe that Putin would distract from that event by giving the green light to execute Prigozhin in this manner. ”
I agree that more likely Putin is NOT behind… but this argument basically implies that they didn’t know in advanced the scheduled flights on Russian airspace of a man “banned” from being in Russia… and also, this reminds me of Bush “reading” a book with kids in a school very far from NY… “oh, he was too far, no way he could possibly know”… I think very well respected people (from journalist, to scientist, to military) agree that (even if Bush didn’t give the order) he was well aware in advance.
No-one would have told Bush Jr. – trust him with such info?
The entire NSA missed the 9/11 signals as ex-NSA Tech chief Bill Binney testified.
Drake ran Binney’s replaced system ThinThread for 36 hours after 9/11 and found all the evidence, and that even more planes were involved that did not move that day! Putin got through to Bush on AF1 and both agreed to stand the missiles down.
How could NSA miss the signals – ThinThread was replaced with a system to gather everything on all Americans, illegal, and in the end deadly incompetent.
FlightRadar tracked both of Prigozin’s planes – see simplicius’s graphics.
If half of the world wanna see you dead , your disappearing is always a possibility.
Right now the guy is the new Schrödinger cat and the new North Stream in a single package : nobody knows if the guy’s dead or alive and there are too many people who wanna see this guy vanishing to designate the ideal culprit in the mass.
Timing is funny tho : BRICS summit , 404 “national” day , Kursk anniversary , last days of the spring-summer-fall “counter ooffensive” , West Africa in turmoils and yet everyone is only talking about a private jet crash… isn’t it astonishing ?
Wagner is really “the hand of the magician” :).
The debris and radar imagery will tell the story if objective investigators like Yuri Antipov are given access.
As a general rule when a jet flying at or near cruising speed and altitude falls in pieces the cause is one or more internal explosions. Not mechanical failure. Not an air-to-air or ground-to-air attack.
Any ground to air means of attack capable of reaching 28,000 feet would have been seen and heard from the ground. An air to air missile could have been fired from a great enough distance that the attacking aircraft would not have been seen near Prigozhin’s jet. But air to air missiles with fragmentation warheads are not designed to rip a target to pieces.
Radar imagery should make clear whether the jet initially fell intact or in pieces. If the breakup was immediate, that points to one or more internal explosions.
The more time that passes without clear and verifiable information the more likely we will never know for sure.
The effect on Wagner is going to be interesting with Africa heating up and Wagner’s services in high demand who will take control of the musicians?
Also, I am really interested to know what is going on with Surovikin, the Russians keep their cards close to their chest…
According to preliminary information, the explosion occurred directly in the landing gear area, where residue was found, which led to the separation of one of the aircraft’s wings. Subsequently, the torn wing collided with the stabilizer, which caused a sharp change in the flight path and the subsequent entry into a corkscrew fall.
The severity of the explosion and the speed of the development of the catastrophic situation did not allow the crew to report an emergency. Because of the explosion, the cabin was depressurized, which probably led to an instant loss of consciousness of all those on board.
Wait until new video surfaces of an F16 speeding away with the true Ghost of Kiev at the joystick. What you think Zelensky was sitting in a plane in the photo op was for theatrics? C’mon Man.
Agatha Christie?
Prigozhin was a very convenient candidate for assassination. Many people and organizations wanted him dead as he had become an increased threat to Ukraine, NATO, Russia, France et.. they all wanted the end of the dangerously popular and successful Wagner.
Therefore it will be impossible to know who did it. Looks like Agatha Christie ‘s Murder on the Orient express. They all did it.
As more has seeped out it seems that the culprits were a western agency having another pop at trying to foment an internal overthrow of Putin by inciting the mercs to rise up against Putin (after the first failed effort, that is).
Warfare within Russia is the only way the west thinks it can get out of this mess of its own making (having created a war that is essentially Russians fighting Russians, although half of them have lost sight of that).
It tried once before with Wagner (and that went well) but hope springs eternal. or… if you only have a hammer everything. is a nail
The message out of Wagner is that those responsible are ‘traitors’ meaning the motherland is safe, but anyone conniving with western agencies should start watching what he puts on his cereal.
Worth a punt if you are desperate as the west is now.
Sorry, but I do not believe that this was a Putin act. Prigozhin was, as I recently read, in Africa, commanding his men against the merc from west. Progozhin and the number 2 probably were forbidden to come back to Russia and Putin gave to them a reason to fight/get money (and stay alive) in Africa. The assassinations were not necessary. I even consider the case of both are alive and the accident was staged. Let’s wait for further info.
Larry,
On August 21st, two days before the plane crash, U.S. Embassy in Minsk posted alert: “U.S. citizens in Belarus should depart immediately.”
Any thoughts?
Not sure, Larry. If this was a fake crash of an empty plane on automatic pilot, why would you need to blow it up (shoot it down) over a village? It would have been safer to let it crash away from population in a controlled fashion and claim mechanical failure or sabotage. The village “lady” (with unwashed mouth) who was freaking out when making the video, thought this was some sort of an attack on a ground target.
From Foreign Affairs, 72 (1993}:
John Mearshimer ;
To complicate things, for you guys…
John Mearshimer advocated then
that Ukraine should keep its nuclear weapons. Ukraine should being encouraged to fashion its own nuclear deterrence. A mistake
of US to press for a non-nuclear state.
Mearshimer contended, this was the only way for Ukraine to defend
itself against Russia, a war a disaster, a reconquest would injure prospects for peace in Europe, increase the danger of a Russian-German collision, and intensify the security competition across the continent…. ”
But Mearsheimer’s view never took hold in the US…”
Did Larry know this?
Ukraine never had nukes.
Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine “housed” Soviet nukes, controlled by Russia. And gave them up when the Soviet Union was dissolved and they gained independence.
Just as Turkey would give up its nukes if it left NATO.
Soviet nukes under strict Soviet control were given back by a Ukraine treaty after 93.
Then a few days before the SMO, Z announced at the MSC Munich conference revoking that treaty, and acquiring nukes. It took only a few days to act.
First target – the RF secured ZNPP, largest European NPP.
IAEA chief Grassi said at Davos 2022 that 40 tons of enriched Uranium and 30 tons Plutonium vanished – been estimated worth about $300 billion.
First question – who enriched this fissile material. Ukraine had most tech to build nukes. How far were they on track? It sure looks like RF knew, AND the IAEA!
Numerous visits later by IAEA were futile.
Every corporate company has compliance and safety standards. Wagner is a private company, is it not? So how likely is it that the company´s CEO, COO and CMO all sit in one plane that “happens” to go down?
Possible, but to my gut feeling rather unlikely.
Quite interesting to note, that another plane, RA02748, that is said to be Prigo´s second vehicle is currently en route from Moscow to Baku? https://www.flightradar24.com/RA02748/31bb1bbd
To Prigozhin again thoughtful:
By chance, there was also a cameraman filming the crash. And by chance there was also a cameraman filming the crashed plane burning, even before the rescue and firefighters.
Sure there are also accidents that are filmed by chance, it still remains exciting.
BRICS meeting was great success in my view.
Putin today very relaxed to the live broadcast.
6 new additions: Egypt, Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
All strategically important countries in geographically relevant areas.
Russia will assume the BRICS presidency from Jan. 1, 2024.
Further steps toward a monetary community are then also planned here.
Africa will receive extensive support from the BRICS to free itself from neocolonialism, especially French, and become self-sufficient.
Europe is the big loser.
The EU loudspeakers have already become more denfensible as of today.
Sarkozy, the ex-president calls for urgent normalization with Russia.
I never thought I’d agree with Sarkozy, but the fact is, close relations with Russia are essential for Europe. Which is why this entire post 2014 Maidan fiasco is disastrous for us, and catastrophic for Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the US is trying to wreck our relations with China too!
If Europe doesn’t find a backbone, it’s game over.
“… there was also a cameraman filming the crash …”
Or a random villager with a smartphone. It’s not like Russians have smartphones. What are the chances of someone with smartpone taking one out, and filming a crashing plane?
Reuters: Serbia has joined the Ukrainian-led platform for the reintegration of Crimea. This indicates a move away from Russia, which is the country’s sole supplier of natural gas. Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said Belgrade “sincerely regrets the suffering of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.” She stressed the commitment to respect the principles of territorial integrity.
______________-
Eh, Serbs, Serbs … you are our unreliable brothers.
Cowardice = betrayal.
BRAVO SERBIA! FINALLY MAKE SOME SENSE
You two should get a room.
Nonsense! It is NOT the Serbian brothers but a lizard Vucic
Listen to this honorable Serb Nick – he says truth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vor1tkHoUPM
Thanks for the link.
I understand. I understand the difficult situation of Vučić, the state of Serbia and the Serbs. I understand that the torn away Kosovo is a stumbling block.
Only declaring on European platforms the commitment to the principle of the territorial integrity of the state will not help Serbia return Kosovo. No talking shop will help.
The problem is that Serbia in the Kosovo issue associates itself with Ukraine, from which Russia allegedly seized Crimea. And one should have taken the position of Russia, which returned Crimea, which had been torn away from it, restoring historical justice.
Russia defends its interests on the battlefield. What the opponents of Russia think and say about this, by and large, no longer matters. The time for negotiations, treaties, declarations, ultimatums is over.
No, you don’t understand. If you did, you would not have written what you did.
Serbs have been fighting USA/NATO by themselves for decades, and you got the fucking nerve to call that non-brotherly, unreliable, cowardly, and betraying. Serbs bought Russia time needed to prepare for global conflict with The West, by delaying USA/NATO for years, and even decades. If Serbs did not “take one for the team”, there might not be Russia today. They have been defending Russian interests on the battlefield decades before “Russians” like yourself. I wonder what you have been doing all this time.
Serbs are fighting in Donbass as we speak. I suggest you go there an explain them what they are, and what they should do. You should also visit graves of those that have died, and spit on them, because that’s what you just did.
BULLSHIT! Russia will not ever again be able to use Serbia as her little Trojan Horse bitch in Europe with which to duck up Europe. The English who hated Old Germany, also used Serbia and their romantic bitch. Back then, Russia and British interests against the West coincided.
@Ljubenkovic
You forgot to add Slava Ukraina at the end.
Serbs have not been fighting NATO but the Albanians and Serbs have insoluble grievances and mutual history of oppression of each other going back for centuries. NATO stepped in to separate them. The wife of Milošević with JUL was a Russian Communist agent in Serbia, but that doesn’t make all Serbs the same as her.
Man, you really are dense. NATO-Arian indeed. Please, go smear your excrement somwhere else. All hail NAFO!
Just because you find a few Serb mercenaries or volunteers lost alongside the lost pro-Russian people of the Donbass Industrial Zone (who were promised by “great mommy Russia” to be protected — but still not safeguarded AFTER 18 MONTHS OF WAR!! as Ukrainian shells rain down non-stop on Donetsk and Lugansk) doesn’t mean that “Serbs support Russia”. Just like the lost and now decapitated Wagnerites, you can also find Serb mercenaries in Latin America and in Africa, too. Does that mean that Serbia supports Colombia and Africa?
@truesays
Hold your horses, please. There is no valor in the “fucking” assault on a lady.
In fact, Russians and Serbs have no reason to quarrel. Reasons for mutual reproach are found even in the most friendly family.
And Vucic is wrong, no matter what you say.
@Gera (Татьяна)
No one assaulted you. There is no valor in the assault on anyone, lady or not. You went out of line, and got strong response.
I have not mentioned quisling Vucic at all, so your last sentence must be directed to someone else.
Names here don’t matter. Nothing prevents a man from pretendig to be a woman, or Ustasha from pretending to be a Serb. Everyone should know that by now. Internet is full of Ukrainians pretending to be “concerned” Russians. I have seen them posting insults towards Serbs on Telegram. Your first post looked exactly like one of those.
“Listen to this honorable Serb Nick – he says truth”
Can confirm. Dragan knows stuff.
The point IS NOT to be on ANY side but to be an OBJECTIVE ANALYST who is neither uncritical of the Ukrainians nor of the Russians. The same ought to be true of any conflict. This is what HAS NOT BEEN SEEN throughout this disgusting Russo-Ukrainian War. All you have are partisans for both sides, in the East and in the West. SHAME!
However, the East is almost excused from this condemnation because of the mentality of the Eastern Christian Orthodoxy which prevents this traditional Western approach to thought, from the get-go.
This page is already chock-full of your objective analysis of small-brained pointy-headed back-stabbing tyranic moronic corrupt mongoloid slave losers Russians, and other shameful subhuman Slavs that you want to exterminate, with blessings of your beloved Soros and Pope. No shame present, at all.
There are almost no excuses for practising what you preach on the fronline, with bullets. You would have quite an advantage there, because nothing can come trough that thick Arian skull of yours.
Slava Cocaine!
It’s really funny how all of you Neo-Communist Orthodox Christian apes of the subhuman tyranny of Moscow obsess about the Nazis. What would you even do with yourselves and your sorry-ass Russian Propaganda For The Ignorant IF there hadn’t been a Nazi Invasion of USSR??! What a BOON for all of you mentally mongoloid Muscovites was the Nazi Attack on Russian Oil and Land reserves! Without the Nazis, your hoary voices of protest would have no moral pivot upon which the turn your malicious diatribes!! LMAO
…upon which to* turn your malicious diatribes.
A grammar Nazi too. Nice!
I agree with the commentators above that it seems very unlikely for the entire leadership of Wagner to travel on the same plane. But stranger things have happened.
Note that the senile old man who nominally is in charge of the US FedGov managed to put two neurons together and said something like he was not surprised by Progozhin’s demise.
Senile old people become like young children, repeating things they have heard without any understanding. Perhaps the unfortunate old guy heard one of the real rulers of the US talking about their plans to get rid of Prigozhin? Sort of like how he gaffed by talking in advance about the destruction of the German/Russian NordStream?
“This does not serve Putin’s interest because the downing of the plane also killed pilots and other passengers not implicated in Prigozhin’s mutiny. If Putin wanted to kill Prigozhin he would have ordered it sooner and done so in a much less messy way. For example, when you shoot down a plane you have no way to predict where the aircraft debris could have landed.”
This reminds me of the way the CIA rejected exploding cigars for Castro out of fear that he might give one to a visiting citizen or dignitary before sparking one up himself.
And crazy Nikki Haley lost no time screaming that “Putin killed Prigozhin” at the GOP debates last night. Before that, Christie gave a detailed account of how Russian soldiers torture Ukrainian civilians — and it must be true because Zelensky told him so. The pathetic spectacle of these 8 vying for the presidency when they are clueless about foreign affairs.
*Today, the Swedish government and opposition, support to send JAS39-Gripen, about two squadrons = 32 planes, but first after Sweden been real accepted member of the Nato.
A move commonly known as “Erdogan haggle”.
Maybe one part of the “deal” with Priggy after the attempted mutiny was no more appearances on camera – as that’s where a lot of the original “rot” started .. this is apart from the restrictions on his movements inside Russia (which he never observed) .. then to go and make slogan like “Make Russia Great Again” I mean c’mon Man .. lol
I had no idea the Clintons were advising Putin on such matters.
@ Glasshopper
“It’s going to be a terrible verbal massacre”. 🙄
The 360° potitic protractor practices basic military linguistic training with special mine tactics.
https://t.me/uncut_news/57398
U.S. Chief of Staff Mark Milley should very quickly take basic academic training with her to move the mine belt 360 ° to make it surmountable.
No investigation needed. MI6 knows what happened. Putin did it. They say so.
At the time of the attempted coup, Ritter was early out there labeling Prigozhin a traitor.
This shuts down dialogue about a great ‘sting’ against western spooks and it deprives Yevgeny his possible status as master of the con. Johnson initially did congrats for genny’s acting ability but over rode this with a years old Syria story as revenge motive for the coup.
Who had motive for this take down? Who benefits?
https://swentr.site/russia/581787-putin-wagner-chief-plane/
RT 24 Aug, 2023 16:16 HomeRussia & FSU
Putin comments on Prigozhin plane crash
The Russian president described the Wagner chief as “a talented man”
A must read!
https://readovka.news/news/160174
An explosive device was planted on Prigozhin’s plane Artem Ivanov today at 13:06
One of the versions of the investigation is being checked
According to one version of the investigation, an explosive device was planted on the plane of the head of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, media reported.
Due to the explosion of the device laid in the landing gear area, the wing of the aircraft was torn off. As a result, the stabilizer was damaged and the business jet began to gain altitude, after which it went into a tailspin. Everyone on board abruptly lost consciousness due to instantaneous depressurization, so the pilots could not report the explosion.
…
Not clear what source… FlightRadar does show strange altitudes before the fall.
Why is it people note the Oligarch Prigozhin, and fail to see the Oligarchs hooves poked in their own eyes?
Oligarchs do nasty things to other oligarchs.
Has a War off-ramp on-ramp Oligarchical brawl broken out in London/D.C.?
Would make Prigozhin’s insurrection look like a kaffeeklatsch.
Duck and cover!
Rarely comment here; I don’t believe anybody in the Russian government, from President Putin down, were involved in this. If it was deemed necessary to shut down Prigozhin/Wagner this would have been via the route of financial investigation, akin to what finally took down Al Capone.
Tax evasion, false accounting, invoice carousels; all manner of things can be found to take out someone with his profile and lifestyle. No need for an air crash.
Exactly. Ironically, the FSB got FBI training in the ’90’s and found the way Capone was took down for tax evasion (no-one would testify to murders). Applied to Khodorkovsky, worked, ala Pecora Commission.
One possibility : The plane wend down very near Moscow.
What if this was a failed 9/11, or the plane was supposed to go down in Moscow and was somehow flown just enough away to make it harmless? A fight on board would explain the strange altitudes just before. Reminds me of 9/11 Plane #4.
In other words a hijack?
Then there were mobile calls..
Let’s get this straight – 9/11 was a FAILED Reichstagsbrandt , the arson that put Hitler in powers in 1933. The stated objective of NATO is Regine-change in Moscow – they need a Reichstagsbrandt. 9/11 very nearly succeeded – we got the Patriot Act and universal surveillance , censorship. Putin calling Bush then saved all our lives!
This looks like a Reichstagsbrandt Light – that means a kamikaze on-board , and there WERE German Nazi Kamikaze’s in WWII.
Prigozhin violated the terms of his pardon for the mutiny. He was exiled, but continued to travel freely in Russia. Moreover, he was still stirring up trouble.
I’m not convinced by the “Putin would not kill innocent people” meme. Seven on board were high ranking Wagner who continued to follow Prigozhin after having been personally presented with an offer to be regularized into the Russian military by Putin himself.
The other three, the aviation crew, were employees of a traitor whom they were transporting inside Russia against the explicit terms of Prigozhin’s pass.
Putin righted a wrong by killing Prigozhin. Anyone who raises their hand against the government and/or military in time of war has got to go. It was exactly two months after the mutiny took place and after repeated breaches of the terms of the agreement that ended it.
Now, it may have been the CIA or SBU. Who can say with certainty? But at least in the eyes of Russia and Russians, Putin was justified in eliminating this pain.
I cut and pasted this in depth comment from a poster named Anon at moon of alabama because it makes more sense than any theory postulated thus far. Seems like Prigozhin’s allegations about traitors within MOD was spot on. https://t.me/africaintel/5144
🇷🇺🌍Exclusive: Wagner’s rotation in Africa and dialogue with the Russian government
Our sources told us interesting facts regarding the negotiations between Wagner PMC and Russian government that involve Africa and Wagner’s presence there.
Apparently, just the day before the plane, on which PMC’s boss Yevgeny Prigozhin allegedly was traveling to Moscow, crashed, an agreement was reached with one of the security agencies of the Russian Federation.
This agreement was made to separate Russian Ministry of Defense and Wagner, so to make them focus on different directions and tasks in the interests of the Russian Federation and make sure they don’t overlap each other, in order to prevent another conflict and “mutiny”.
Wagner was supposed to partially return to Ukraine and even more intensify its activities on the African continent.
So Russian idea was to increase the presence of the PMC in Africa and, following the idea of separation of tasks between Wagner and the Ministry of Defense, make the group one of the main Russian military actors on the continent.
https://t.me/africaintel/5145
🇷🇺🌍 Exclusive: Regarding the Russian delegation in Western Libya and its role to decrease the influence of Wagner in Africa
We received new additional bits of information about the conflict between Wagner and Russian government and the involvement of Africa in it. Previously we’ve told about the separation in tasks between Wagner PMC and Russian Ministry of Defense.
As we’ve found out, the story is not that simple. Yesterday we published news about the visit of the delegation from the Russian Ministry of Defense, headed by Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Yunus-bek Yevkurov, to Western Libya where Khalifa Haftar forces are present (which, by the way, used the services of Prigozhin). Previously this delegation visited Syria.
Negotiations were not only about the cooperation and fighting terrorism together. As it turns out, Yunus-bek Yevkurov held meetings with the leadership of these countries and insisted on the winding down of all Wagner’s supporting business projects and withdrawal of PMC’s contingents. The most important part was that the decision had to be made independently by the governments of Syria and Western Libya to deflect negativity from the Russian leadership.
So on the one hand, Russian government tried to negotiate with the Wagner PMC and make it focus primarily on Africa. And on the other hand, the Ministry of Defense tried to persuade Libya to decrease the presence of Wagner’s forces.
https://t.me/africaintel/5146
🇷🇺🌍 Exclusive: Addition on how Russia banned Syria from receiving CAR flights
And to finish the talk about Wagner’s rotation, negotiations with the Russian government and the Ministry of Defense attempts to decrease PMC’s presence here are some additions to the story we’ve already covered about how Russia banned Syria from receiving CAR flights.
As we said, Wagner PMC had serious problems with rotation in Africa, because Foreign Ministry at the request of Ministry of Defense banned Prigozhin’s group from using Russian air bases in Syria for logistics needs that includes the use of aircrafts of the Russian Air Force for the transportation. After that Wagner started to use African and Syrian aircrafts. PMC chartered them at their own expense and used them for transportation. And they used Damscus as a new transfer point.
Russian Foreign Ministry found this out and wanted to bureaucratize the transfer of aircraft through Syria as much as possible. However, diplomats and the consul got it all mixed up and forbade Syria to receive Central African’s aircrafts. Everyone in Syria and CAR government were in shock.
It all came to a direct call from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Central African Republic to Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Bogdanov, who was on vacation. Despite the call, the lack of understanding on all sides, including Bognadov who said that such case is impossible, the situation is still unresolved.
To sum up, Russian Ministry of Defense through Foreign Ministry was working very hard to disrupt the work of the Wagner PMC in Africa, while trying to make it as natural as possible (like it wasn’t their idea, but African’s). At the same time they tried to smooth things over with the group to prevent new conflict.
Posted by: anon2020 | Aug 24 2023 15:33 utc | 20
Sorry to say that you are either too naive to identify a bot OR in cahoots with it. “poster named Anon at moon of alabama” LOL – one does not have to have extremely high IQ to identify who or what behind this “source” is hiding anonymously.
The least likely explanation, by far, is that this was an assassination carried out on orders from Putin. The optics are too awful to take that scenario seriously. I am beginning to favor the idea that this was an act of sabotage by Ukrainian sponsored actors. It’s all speculation at this point. The facts will eventually be revealed—or they won’t.
On the contrary, the most likely explanation is another hit ordered by either Putin or his oligarchy, another one in a long series of murders orchestrated by the Kremlin.
Prigozhin, as you see this event Larry, is like Schrödinger’s cat, and therefore in a state of neither being dead nor alive until DNA tests take place or other solid evidence confirms his death.
While there is much speculation on this matter, I would like to add that “Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) suffered significant losses during the mutiny of the Wagner Group on 24 June this year.”
There was the reported downing of 2 x K-52s, a Mi-8, a Mi-35, and the deaths of 11 crew members on the Il-22 aircraft.
While there is no evidence to prove why the Wagner plane crashed, if it is found to be a deliberate act, it is worth casting a thought that some people with access to airports and knowledge of aircraft within Russian Aerospace forces, may have a vengeful motive for ending Prigozhin’ s life. Pure speculation on my part, but I have not read or heard anyone thinking about this as a possible reason why the plane may have crashed.
So has the Hopium that the Prig is still alive worn off? One delusion at a time my friends. The secret of a good 12 step program. One step at a time.
On other news. It seems like that loving feeling is starting to fade between Zelensky and Zaluzhnyi. Since they are both supported by the hard-core Nazi’s, this will be an interesting schism. As failures in Ukraine mount, it will be time to find some scapegoats. Someone has to take a fucking for the team.
I would say Zelensky wins this, because he is the waterboy for the West. But he has had some missteps and forgot his place as a little bitch. It’s always troublesome when a figurehead forgets he is a figurehead. For all of our obsession on this, it is fascinating how little we know about the Organ Harvesting Oligarchy of Ukraine. I mean who would be up if both the Z men had an unfortunate boating accident?
Would it be Syrskyi? Seems to like the low-profile Nazi guise. Not sure if he wants the job.
Patience. It is what old age teaches you. Be happy. Be patient. And wait for your enemies to destroy themselves. (Or of course, you could wait till they get on a plane)
Fact is that Russia has always been a self-destructive political entity subjected to the rule by a jealous tyrant whose feet are licked either by the Christian Church or the Communist Party. The number one priority of any Tyrant is to protect his cronies, which Putin has proven once again by stabbing in the back BOTH of his ablest commanders in the Ukraine War: Wagner leader Prigozhin and General Surovikhin. (Prigozhin and Surovikhin, responsible for the only Russian successes in 2023, wanted to purge the Russian Military and MOD from incompetent and very corrupt officials who caused Russian disasters in Ukraine in 2022). Putin has a long track record of murdering and torturing Russian dissidents in gruesome ways regardless of collateral damage. One can understand why the Ukrainians want to get the hell away from Russia. After all the crimes that Moscow perpetrated in Ukraine and in Russia, who would blame them??
Think God the USA is not like Russia! I mean we only murdered 1 million fucking people in Iraq. The Prig was a joke. His convicts were handy assault troops to use in high casualty events like Bakhmut. Which killed two birds with one stone. Empty the prisons and take the town. And if they survived, they got a good deal also. Wagner was not shit without the constant help and provision of the Regular Russian Army. Making a saint of some pretentious fuck with delusions of grandeur is a waste of time. He’s dead Jim. He thought he was big. He was a tool. Like most of us are. He just forgot. And he paid the price.
Putin has brought Russia back as a power. Has he done bad shit? You betcha brother. He had a country to save. And you can get the fuck out of his way or pay the price.
It’s hard to convince the uneducated and world-ignorant run of the mill conservatives in America that their idol Putin is an unreformed Communist KGB hater of the West — but most importantly, the chief enemy of his own country — because his ABSOLUTELY DISASTROUS Ukraine War record of the past 18 months has exposed what sort of morons and corrupt and mentally inferior apparatchiks he has placed in charge. Now that his system is being severely tested, cracks are appearing everywhere. The great heroes of Russia, Prigozhin of the Wagner Group and General Surovikhin, the two prominent victims of Putins Tyranny designed to keep down the talented Russians and keep up the absolute corrupt slaves of Putins system — are in the hearts of the Russian people who are having more and more doubts about that Soviet Mongol face of Putin. It will take time but Putin will fall down, and maybe all the many dozens of talented and incorruptible Russians he has crushed will be laughing at him from the other side.
Putin has FAILED to protect the Frontline civilians of East Ukraine who are still being shelled day and night by AFU, but none of these Western bitches of Putin care about them, just like the Biden Democrats who never cared about the Donbass Industrial Zone’s pro-Russian civilians and their volunteers for war who have been dying nonstop since this bloody charade by Putin was launched. Protecting cronies is always the #1 priority for all tyrants. That’s why Putin will sacrifice even the victory in Ukraine rather than let somebody else besides himself and his despicable Russian cronies bask in the glory of such an achievement.
Yawn. If you say so.
Ljubenkovic ,You describe Prig as a commander, that there shows you are ignorant and no nothing of which you speak.
As a Slav (judging by your name) spewing this shit means you are a traitor.
A couple of points to mention, after much brain fuel spent on this question overnight.
I see with surprise that Surovikin is to replace Prigozhin as head of Wagner forces in Ukraine. Surovikin was also relieved of his position as head of aerospace forces around the 22nd Aug. It was mentioned in the news media at the time that this was done as he was about to take up another position. Is this not rather a coincidence that Surovikin is prepared for the job that Prigozhin formerly held, just a few days before the Prigozhin jet crash?
On a lighter note, perhaps Prigozhin was curious to enjoy the nice words that people would say about him at his memorial? After all, he did a lot to be remembered, and most people are not able to attend their own.
this makes more sense than you might yourself think.
BS!
Everyone’s favorite diplomat Victoria “Fuck the EU” Nuland was promoted by Biden to escalate. Just sayin’.
https://jamesburrillangell.substack.com/p/strange-diplomacy-victoria-fck-the
Your spiteful and bitter Slav(e) Mentality shows through. Yes, Prigozhin was a commander of Wagner Group, not a battlefield commander, but a leader, strategic commander and owner of the now destroyed Wagner Group in this EXTREMELY embarrassing war for Russia and her people. The usual domestic Russian shit-show is about to hit with the ever greater Ukrainian-Nazi victories on the battlefield. “Slavs” is the most shameful concept Europe had ever known. There is no such thing as “Slavic Unity” or *Slavic Identity* except as a source of lowest behaviors.
You judge too much and you assume even more. But that’s because you are nothing but an American slave to foreign forces because you have no respect for your own government or country. A perfect stooge for an alien tyrant in a country you know only from reading brochures and watching brainwashing videos, and maybe from fucking too many Russian whores.
Are you one of them Banderites?
No, I am the one who knows the ugly truths about the Russians that Larry Johnson, Col. MacGregor, Little Greek Alexander Mercouris, Putin’s American pedo bitch Scott Ritter and American traitor Brian Berletic wouldn’t ever tell you to safeguard their agenda.
“Because of Prigozhin’s ties to the GRU I am always skeptical of the initial story.”
THE MOST intelligent statement printed or voice so far.
Wagner Grp. PMC is GRU… Prig is a FACE of a Military-Intelligence organization/operation, and so, one thing I do KNOW, concerning Mil-Intel… NO ONE on the outside has a f n clue what is going on.
The ignorant clowns that went off half cocked about some “coup”, mutiny” or “insurrection”, are going off AGAIN… and of course every “key board clown” has a thing or two to say… in complete ignorance.
“How about the possibility that this was staged. In other words, no passengers or crew actually were on board. Then Embraer was piloted remotely and shot down in order to send Western intel into a frenzy (because that is exactly what is going on right now) trying to figure out what the hell is going on?”
Another excellent thought! This would be classic Intel war.
Prig might be dead, he may not be… one thing for sure, the folks at Grizodubovoy Street 3, Moscow know what happened and as usual they are NOT talking.
The world of Military Intelligence is a world of “Mind Fuk” and during the time of WAR, VERY few humans have a grasp on WTF is actually occurring, certainly NO ONE in the public.
The THEATRE of War continues.