Prighozin dead

[El Guapo]

There were allegedly 2 or even 3 planes what if he was not on the one that went down.
On the manifest of that one but on another plane.

Wouldn’t be surprised at all if it was the case. For more than one of the top brass of an organisation to travel together in such a targetable way in what is obviously (to everyone else) the territory of a massive grudge holding untrustworthy and mental twaat like Putin would be literally suicide.

It may well be both he and Utkin were aboard but that’s a serious security oversight on their part if so.

 

[swordtrombonefish]

Russian prime minister Mishustin comes to Putin and nervously tells him to abolish time zones.

"I fly to another city, call home and everyone is asleep. I woke you up at 4AM but I thought it was only evening. - I call Olaf Scholz to congratulate him on his birthday and he tells me he had it yesterday. - I wish the Chinese President a happy New Year, and he says it will be tomorrow."

"Indeed" Putin replies "but that's only minor stuff. Remember when that plane crashed with Prigozhin on board? I called his family to express my condolences, but the plane hadn't taken off yet!!"

 

[RedAsABeetroot]

I thought he'd been reported to be in Africa either earlier this week or the back end of last week.

 

[Gunslinger]

Gee, i bet we will find out what happened from the black box

 

[BobUpnDown]

will be interesting in the coming weeks & months to see how the Wagnerites respond... will they just fall in line, sign the contracts as offered by Putin... or look for revenge, maybe all up & head to Africa...

I'm guessing the offices will have already been infiltrated by the FSB, will the groups finances suddenly be stopped?

Russia’s Wagner Group opens defence tech centre in St Petersburg

Opening is latest step for private militia’s owner Yevgeny Prigozhin in taking a more public role in shaping Russia’s defence policy

www.theguardian.com

Putin may have kicked the hornets nest... if he keeps up with his new - meet & greet - photos ops he's been having his days may be short too..

Another revolution.. an even more hard line nutter may emerge.. Putins opposition are either in jail or dead..

 

[rbmfc1985]

will be interesting in the coming weeks & months to see how the Wagnerites respond... will they just fall in line, sign the contracts as offered by Putin... or look for revenge, maybe all up & head to Africa...

I'm guessing the offices will have already been infiltrated by the FSB, will the groups finances suddenly be stopped?

Russia’s Wagner Group opens defence tech centre in St Petersburg

Opening is latest step for private militia’s owner Yevgeny Prigozhin in taking a more public role in shaping Russia’s defence policy

www.theguardian.com

Putin may have kicked the hornets nest... if he keeps up with his new - meet & greet - photos ops he's been having his days may be short too..

Another revolution.. an even more hard line nutter may emerge.. Putins opposition are either in jail or dead..

I really don't see a good outcome in Russia now. Putin goes and who knows what we end up with. At least we can be pretty sure that Putin isn't suicidally insane. He's had multiple opportunities to directly escalate with the west based on his rhetoric. But he knows the potential consequences of that aren't worth it. How can we be so sure that whoever follows him would be the same.

But if Putin stays, the Ukraine war doesn't have an end in sight and his opposition will keep falling out of windows and crashing planes. He isn't going to accept a compromise that would be accepted by Ukraine (he would want the Donbass and Crimea as a minimum) and after all of the Russian's he's conscripted to die in Ukraine, he has to appear to have been victorious or there would be a revolution.

It's just a complete mess. And I can't imagine how this can possibly have a positive end for Russia, Ukraine or the world as a whole.

 

[1finny]

I really don't see a good outcome in Russia now. Putin goes and who knows what we end up with. At least we can be pretty sure that Putin isn't suicidally insane. He's had multiple opportunities to directly escalate with the west based on his rhetoric. But he knows the potential consequences of that aren't worth it. How can we be so sure that whoever follows him would be the same.

But if Putin stays, the Ukraine war doesn't have an end in sight and his opposition will keep falling out of windows and crashing planes. He isn't going to accept a compromise that would be accepted by Ukraine (he would want the Donbass and Crimea as a minimum) and after all of the Russian's he's conscripted to die in Ukraine, he has to appear to have been victorious or there would be a revolution.

It's just a complete mess. And I can't imagine how this can possibly have a positive end for Russia, Ukraine or the world as a whole.

That's a bit gloomy - better make the most of the bank holiday weekend

 

[Redwurzel]

The Russian area has a long and dark history back to Ivan the Terrible of moving borders, mass killings, armed struggle. They say all Russian leaders have to act tough and be tough to survive. The Czars were no pussy cats and had secret police as bad as the KGB. The country had slavery (serdom until 1867). I don't support and have any time for Putin - hes a modern brital dictator, but I can see he's going to be around say another 10 years and to get peace the Ukrainians will have to compromise to some degree. Then Putin can say to his people I am protecting Russian people and Russian interests and he is happy. The situation there is not Czechoslovakia in 1938/39 when Hitler was obsessed with World domination or his own destruction.

 

[Mwelolo]

I really don't see a good outcome in Russia now. Putin goes and who knows what we end up with. At least we can be pretty sure that Putin isn't suicidally insane. He's had multiple opportunities to directly escalate with the west based on his rhetoric. But he knows the potential consequences of that aren't worth it. How can we be so sure that whoever follows him would be the same.

But if Putin stays, the Ukraine war doesn't have an end in sight and his opposition will keep falling out of windows and crashing planes. He isn't going to accept a compromise that would be accepted by Ukraine (he would want the Donbass and Crimea as a minimum) and after all of the Russian's he's conscripted to die in Ukraine, he has to appear to have been victorious or there would be a revolution.

It's just a complete mess. And I can't imagine how this can possibly have a positive end for Russia, Ukraine or the world as a whole.

Hard to disagree with very much of that, I’m afraid.

 

[Smoggle]

The Russian area has a long and dark history back to Ivan the Terrible of moving borders, mass killings, armed struggle. They say all Russian leaders have to act tough and be tough to survive. The Czars were no pussy cats and had secret police as bad as the KGB. The country had slavery (serdom until 1867). I don't support and have any time for Putin - hes a modern brital dictator, but I can see he's going to be around say another 10 years and to get peace the Ukrainians will have to compromise to some degree. Then Putin can say to his people I am protecting Russian people and Russian interests and he is happy. The situation there is not Czechoslovakia in 1938/39 when Hitler was obsessed with World domination or his own destruction.

Firstly, he won’t be happy or pacified by some deal in Ukraine. He didn’t honour the treaties already in place and he’ll happily keep coming back for more. It didn’t stop with Crimea and it didn’t stop with the Donbas.

Secondly, how much sovereign Ukrainian territory are you willing to concede to Russian imperialism to obtain peace, how many other territories should we sacrifice for that goal?

 

[rbmfc1985]

The Russian area has a long and dark history back to Ivan the Terrible of moving borders, mass killings, armed struggle. They say all Russian leaders have to act tough and be tough to survive. The Czars were no pussy cats and had secret police as bad as the KGB. The country had slavery (serdom until 1867). I don't support and have any time for Putin - hes a modern brital dictator, but I can see he's going to be around say another 10 years and to get peace the Ukrainians will have to compromise to some degree. Then Putin can say to his people I am protecting Russian people and Russian interests and he is happy. The situation there is not Czechoslovakia in 1938/39 when Hitler was obsessed with World domination or his own destruction.

You're not wrong about the history, but I do think there are legitimate parallels with Hitler. This is similar to the earlier annexations when Hitler still acted under the pretence that he was just reclaiming German lands full of German people. It's not 100% the same, but there are clear similarities. And I do believe he is hiding his real intentions behind the "safety of ethnic Russians".

And I don't know whether he would accept just the Donbass/Crimea. There's no way that he would go to the lengths that he has done in Ukraine just to get formal acceptance of the Donbass and Crimea belonging to Russia. They have pretty much been "independent"/under Russian control since 2015, at least to the same extent that Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria are. If that's all he wanted, he would have left it alone, like he has in those regions.

Either way, Ukraine would be in a real mess post-war if they accepted Russian control of any areas beyond, possibly, Crimea (although even that could be a tough sell). You've got quite a few heavily armed, fairly extreme, militias who are very nationalistic and who have just been fighting almost suicidal odds at times for the country. You have a population who have just endured heavy bombing campaigns and will have lost loved ones. You have refugees who have been scattered all across Europe who will have lost loved ones during the war. The President's position would be untenable if he agreed to any concessions to end the way, and he'd leave office and flee abroad at best, or face an armed uprising or civil war at worst. Then you're either looking at a power vacuum, a military dictatorship, or an even longer, extremely bloody, internal conflict. That's when you're going to have to rely on NATO forces to act as peacekeepers in an area where any of the militias have access to very powerful weapons.

I just think we've reached a point where neither side can back down without looking weak. And the best possible outcome I can think of is that Putin kills off all of his opposition so that he can present any concessions to Russia as a victory without dissent, whilst Ukraine loses so little that they can also present it as a victory. That's risky for both sides though.

 

[iamborome]

There has been no official confirmation that he is dead. We don't know for sure that he was even on the plane. If he is dead and it wasn't an accident, we don't know who is responsible. The mainstream media are jumping up and down saying it is Putin, as you might expect as this fits the western narrative of Putin as a mad killer. Other sources on the internet suggest that it is unlikely to be Putin for various reasons. Furthermore, Prigozhin had a lot of enemies and of course one cannot ever rule out the CIA.

 

[Mwelolo]

There has been no official confirmation that he is dead. We don't know for sure that he was even on the plane. If he is dead and it wasn't an accident, we don't know who is responsible. The mainstream media are jumping up and down saying it is Putin, as you might expect as this fits the western narrative of Putin as a mad killer. Other sources on the internet suggest that it is unlikely to be Putin for various reasons. Furthermore, Prigozhin had a lot of enemies and of course one cannot ever rule out the CIA.

I think it’s fair to say Putin has motive and previous in this regard.

 

[rbmfc1985]

Firstly, he won’t be happy or pacified by some deal in Ukraine. He didn’t honour the treaties already in place and he’ll happily keep coming back for more. It didn’t stop with Crimea and it didn’t stop with the Donbas.

Secondly, how much sovereign Ukrainian territory are you willing to concede to Russian imperialism to obtain peace, how many other territories should we sacrifice for that goal?

I agree with your second point completely on a moral basis. I do think it's unlikely the war ever ends without some territory ending up in the hands of Russia though, unfortunately.

The first point is a difficult one. Like I said above, he's never tried to push further into Georgia and has never tried to formalise the relationship with Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. So I don't think it's a given that he'd continue to push further into Ukraine if some deal was agreed to end the war. It all depends on what his goals are, really. And who can really guess what it is that Putin actually wants?

My personal belief is that he wants to destabilise Ukraine in the same way he did/does in Georgia and Moldova by keeping, at least, an area of the country in permanent conflict. The country is going to have lost at the very least a decade even if the conflict ends today. Any agreement is likely to lead to internal conflicts that will set the country back even further. So, in many ways, it would be job done.

So I don't belief his goal is to take territory in the way that traditionally imperialist leaders do. Gaining Ukrainian territory isn't his goal, stifling the growth and development of the country is. So coming back to take more territory won't help him, however, say we get 5 years down the line and Ukraine may be able to join NATO. Well, that would be a great time to start another conflict over an area of Ukraine so that it doesn't happen.

But it's all guesswork. And if you're a leader of Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Lituania or Poland, do you really want to take the chance that Putin doesn't actually want to expand further? If you're a leader of Ukraine, do you really want to take the chance that he doesn't come back in 5 years time when things start getting back on track? Especially if you know you're going to have tough internal battles to fight once the peace agreement is signed?

Honestly, I feel sorry for anyone who has to try and get a good resolution to this.

 

[rbmfc1985]

There has been no official confirmation that he is dead. We don't know for sure that he was even on the plane. If he is dead and it wasn't an accident, we don't know who is responsible. The mainstream media are jumping up and down saying it is Putin, as you might expect as this fits the western narrative of Putin as a mad killer. Other sources on the internet suggest that it is unlikely to be Putin for various reasons. Furthermore, Prigozhin had a lot of enemies and of course one cannot ever rule out the CIA.

His plane returned to Moscow from Africa a few days ago after he was last filmed in Africa. Eyewitnesses on Telegram said that it appeared to be shot down, which the video does also suggest.

Truthfully, I'd expect that Prigozhin wouldn't be stupid enough to actually return to Moscow after leading a mutiny and marching on the city so recently. But the CIA can't carry out such an attack on Russian airspace, Ukraine would struggle to take the plane down in that manner and who else within Russia could order it?

Plus, Prigozhin being alive was a good thing for Ukraine and the West. He (albeit, according to him, unintentionally) undermined Putin and got away with it. Every time he posted a video or was seen in public, it reminded people of that fact. Plus, he was no longer involved in the fighting in Ukraine. The only way I could see him dead would be if he ended up dead in Africa.

The motive is there (he made Putin look very weak), the opportunity was there (assuming he did return to Moscow in his plane) and the means were there (he can pretty much do anything within the territory of Russia.

I don't think this is evidence of him being a mad killer, either. It's incredibly, coldly, logical. Every day that he was alive, the weaker Putin looked. Anyone in the position Putin (a modern dictator) would probably do the same.

The most logical scenario (if he is dead) is that Putin invites him back to resolve everything and discuss what Prigozhin is doing in Africa and how Russia will benefit from it. Prigozhin returns, thinks all is good, and then Putin shoots his plane down.

I still think the biggest hole in the whole story is why an experienced leader of a militia would actually return to Russia after marching on the capital and think that he'd live to tell the tale. But the ego leads people to do very strange things.

 

[Smoggle]

I agree with your second point completely on a moral basis. I do think it's unlikely the war ever ends without some territory ending up in the hands of Russia though, unfortunately.

The first point is a difficult one. Like I said above, he's never tried to push further into Georgia and has never tried to formalise the relationship with Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. So I don't think it's a given that he'd continue to push further into Ukraine if some deal was agreed to end the war. It all depends on what his goals are, really. And who can really guess what it is that Putin actually wants?

My personal belief is that he wants to destabilise Ukraine in the same way he did/does in Georgia and Moldova by keeping, at least, an area of the country in permanent conflict. The country is going to have lost at the very least a decade even if the conflict ends today. Any agreement is likely to lead to internal conflicts that will set the country back even further. So, in many ways, it would be job done.

So I don't belief his goal is to take territory in the way that traditionally imperialist leaders do. Gaining Ukrainian territory isn't his goal, stifling the growth and development of the country is. So coming back to take more territory won't help him, however, say we get 5 years down the line and Ukraine may be able to join NATO. Well, that would be a great time to start another conflict over an area of Ukraine so that it doesn't happen.

But it's all guesswork. And if you're a leader of Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Lituania or Poland, do you really want to take the chance that Putin doesn't actually want to expand further? If you're a leader of Ukraine, do you really want to take the chance that he doesn't come back in 5 years time when things start getting back on track? Especially if you know you're going to have tough internal battles to fight once the peace agreement is signed?

Honestly, I feel sorry for anyone who has to try and get a good resolution to this.

I think I pretty much agree with you. He’s proven that he wants to destabilise regions and rule by chaos where direct political control isn’t immediately possible. However, he has certainly shown his willingness for military conflict and he pushed to the outskirts of Tbilisi before withdrawing. A main bugbear of mine is that the discourse around this topic often comes back to concessions whilst ignoring that the decision is Ukraine’s to make, too many commentators discard the agency of Ukraine and that of their neighbours when dealing with Russia, and see western boogeymen as pulling the strings… however, there are glaring reasons why these nations look west and away from Russia and we should respect their reasons.

I do disagree about him potentially not pushing further in the event of some deal, he hasn’t stuck to the territorial treaties that existed before and it was an aim to take Kyiv in the initial invasion, and probably the whole of Ukraine once the government had collapsed, giving him a land bridge to Transnistria. Any deal would just give him time to prepare for a future attack, I believe it would be an inevitability (but can never be sure of course!) and you’re correct that it’s all guesswork- but yes, we can be certain what the countries that escaped Russia’s grip are likely to say on the matter.

 

[BoroMart]

There has been no official confirmation that he is dead. We don't know for sure that he was even on the plane. If he is dead and it wasn't an accident, we don't know who is responsible. The mainstream media are jumping up and down saying it is Putin, as you might expect as this fits the western narrative of Putin as a mad killer. Other sources on the internet suggest that it is unlikely to be Putin for various reasons. Furthermore, Prigozhin had a lot of enemies and of course one cannot ever rule out the CIA.

It’s really really unlikely that the CIA could have anti-aircraft weaponry and operate it around Moscow. The top two culprits are almost certainly Putin or someone in the Russian military

 

[Mwelolo]

It’s really really unlikely that the CIA could have anti-aircraft weaponry and operate it around Moscow. The top two culprits are almost certainly Putin or someone in the Russian military

Hard to imagine anyone in the Russian military would do it without Putin’s sign off.

 

[rbmfc1985]

I think I pretty much agree with you. He’s proven that he wants to destabilise regions and rule by chaos where direct political control isn’t immediately possible. However, he has certainly shown his willingness for military conflict and he pushed to the outskirts of Tbilisi before withdrawing. A main bugbear of mine is that the discourse around this topic often comes back to concessions whilst ignoring that the decision is Ukraine’s to make, too many commentators discard the agency of Ukraine and that of their neighbours when dealing with Russia, and see western boogeymen as pulling the strings… however, there are glaring reasons why these nations look west and away from Russia and we should respect their reasons.

I do disagree about him potentially not pushing further in the event of some deal, he hasn’t stuck to the territorial treaties that existed before and it was an aim to take Kyiv in the initial invasion, and probably the whole of Ukraine once the government had collapsed, giving him a land bridge to Transnistria. Any deal would just give him time to prepare for a future attack, I believe it would be an inevitability (but can never be sure of course!) and you’re correct that it’s all guesswork- but yes, we can be certain what the countries that escaped Russia’s grip are likely to say on the matter.

I think we're pretty much in agreement. There's little I can really disagree with there, the difference in opinion all really comes down to Putin's motivations. It's guesswork there and if you're right on Putin's motivations, then you're right on the risks of any peace deal.

Putin did use the potential of a deal early in the conflict to buy time to prepare for an attack. So he's definitely not against using that tactic. I could see him agreeing to a peace agreement and then building up troops to attack again in the future. If that is his aim.

I suppose the one big difference between Ukraine and Georgia/Moldova is the historical ties between Ukraine and Russia. Dating back to the foundation of both countries. I do think Putin is more logical in his reasoning than to think he could control a country and subdue a population based on a shared history the Ukrainians don't hold the same level of belief in. But I don't know. If his plans for Ukraine are as another Chechnya then you're completely right. And I don't know how you resolve that as even pushing him back and out of Ukraine will just lead to him regrouping and starting again.

Like I said, I don't think there's an easy answer to this. And you're right, at the end of the day, the decision has to be Ukraine's. Especially because, as I said earlier, concessions will be dangerously unpopular with the population.

 

[coluka]

It’ll be something simple that caused it. Well, my money is on a white cat jumping down from one of the Putins laps has accidentally knocked a button on a X-Box controller that caused a chain of events so bizarre that it culminated in someone at the FSB, driving their motorised rocket launcher home after a busy day, dropping their wodka accidentally, thus unfortunately causing a short circuit on his ground to air missile launcher and it just happened to be at the time that plane was passing by. A million to one chance, so nothing to see here really I suppose.