I have a theory that this was actually accidental. Ukraine has been attacking Moscow almost daily with drone attacks and their AA systems around Moscow must be in the highest alert possible. He was also close to one of Putin residences which itself has a bunch of AA systems to protection.
So odds are a trigger happy AA system made the massive fuck up of shooting their plane down killing all inside.
No one was probably counting on it, not even Putin. Was probably again a show of how shit the Russian army is. And it wouldn’t also be the first time Russian AA systems commit friendly fire, and won’t be the last.
I doubt Putin would willingly kick the hornet nest like this, the Russian army can’t stop Wagner if they start rushing against Moscow again.
rot in hell
I have two hypothesis to what might have happened:
- Putin got to him, but instead of falling out of a window he fell from the sky
- Prigozhin stages his own death so he could escape with at least some of his money to somewhere in Africa or South America
#3 Prigozhin was not on board, Wagner command knows, so no uprising, and Putin looks like he had him assassinated. Optics preserved
…
I might need some sleep
putin got him, 100%. both wagner and ru mod have reported that priggo is dead, and you don’t just randomly fire a SAM at a civilian jet
look at what happened to any other nationalist critic of kremlin: tatarsky is dead, girkin is in prison, surovikin is under “house arrest”, now prigozhin and utkin are also dead, and some others, like rybar, were told to toe the line or else and they complied
this one was 100% intentional. these two other were also intentional, just misguided, it takes several steps to fire a SAM, it does not happen through an accident (bar missile defence, but there are few civilian planes with size of missile, travelling at the speed of missile)
There’s a whole list of them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_incidents
Source for it being a SAM?
early claim by wagner telegram channel, and also what makes the most sense since entire wing was blown off
could be something else, but options are limited
I’m in the option 2 camp. While it is entirely possible that he really did die I’m skeptical and think this is some sort of plan of his. I don’t mean to sound conspiratorial but it’s so hard to believe anything reported by Russia
they already found his body, both ru authorities and wagner says that prigozhin and utkin are dead
They say they found his body. Can’t trust the Kremlin or Wagner.
kremlin and wagner are on opposite sides there, and they say the same thing
putin wanted to show very publicly what happens to traitors, and he did. this is the simplest explanation here; maybe it’s delayed response for mutiny, in which case the only unusual thing is why it happened so late. or maybe it’s gerasimov’s decision, or someone else’s in high command, in which case it’s more of an happy accident for putin
