Crash & Burn – Putin, Prigozhin & Changing Fortunes (Russian Invasion of Ukraine #349a)

Everyone says they knew it was coming and still there?was a sense of astonishment surrounding the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin. Exactly sixty days after he led a mutiny that swung from deadly serious to sublimely absurd, Prigozhin's star crossed existence fell from 28,000 feet to a fatal crash landing. Just thirty-four minutes after his private plane left Moscow on the way to St. Petersburg, an explosion sent the plane into terminal decline. Flight data shows that the plane managed to twice recover a bit of altitude, but this only prolonged the inevitable. There was no escaping the plane’s crash course. The final result was a smoldering heap in the countryside of northwestern Russia. Prigozhin, who on June 23-24 commanded the world’s attention as he and his Wagner Group mercenaries were just a couple of hours away from a showdown with the Kremlin in the streets of Moscow, was now a dead man. He no longer has the support of his patron and the man who almost certainly ordered his murder, Vladimir Putin.

Terminal Decline - The Fall of Prigozhin

We will never know what the final moments were like for Prigozhin and the nine other passengers on the plane. Did he have time to reflect on the fact that Putin had shown him who was the real boss in Russia? Did he realize that this was bound to happen? Or did he think “I do not deserve this.” Of course, he deserved it. Prigozhin has been orchestrating bloodbaths for years. It is only fair that someone would do the same thing to him, that he has done to thousands of others. The irony is that the man who did it has even more blood on his hands than Prigozhin.

Fortunes in Valdimir Putin’s Russia change incredibly fast. The mismanaged war in Ukraine has accelerated this process. The slightest bit of criticism can become a death sentence. Those who enjoyed power, prestige and insane levels of wealth become impoverished or worse. An oil company executive enjoys the fruits of his ill-gotten gains one evening, by the next morning officials are calling his death an accident. Elites kill their families and then commit suicide. They fall from open windows at great heights, poison finds its way into their system, or they crash and burn in a private jet that just so happens to suffer an inconvenient explosion.

On The March – Half-Measures

Yevgeny Prigozhin was a master of malevolence until he became nothing more than a burned corpse on the edge of an anonymous village. Prigozhin dared to cross Vladimir Putin and paid with his life. Post-mutiny, analysts from around the western world had weighed in with their opinions about the inevitability of Prigozhin's assassination. It was said to be just a matter of time and so it was. Yet this line of fatalistic thought overlooked one of the most unique aspects of Prigozhin's life and death post-mutiny.?

The fact that Prigozhin lasted as long as he did defied expectations. When he was leading his so-called "March for justice" from Rostov-on-Don to Moscow it looked like his reckoning with another sordid chapter in Russian history was imminent. Bets were that he would go down in a hail of bullets. It was not to be. Prigozhin’s immediate fate was averted by the intervention of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko who was either enlisted by Putin or took it upon himself to offer Belarus as a home for Prigozhin and Wagner Group forces before blood was shed.

Prigozhin had little choice but to end his declared mission of ending the incompetent reigns of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, Valery Gerasimov. The problem was that Prigozhin’s mutiny did not gain enough support to effect what would have been a semi-coup. Thus, Prigozhin took the escape route. Naively, Prigozhin believed that he had lived to fight another day. The truth has now come out. He survived long enough to die another day. Putin was his usual plotting and plodding self. Waiting until his henchmen could serve a deadly dose of vengeance.

Zero Tolerance - A Necessary Evil

Putin is not a master strategist, but he is a master survivalist. He knows how to use the power of his position and the state's resources to lay anyone low who dares oppose him. He has done this time and again to those who undermine his regime. Critical voices are silenced and most often the silence is deadly. Prigozhin was just the latest in a long line of Putin’s victims. Prigozhin does have the dishonor of being the most notable example of Putin wielding his authority to fend off a threat. Some call this revenge for Prigozhin’s disloyalty. A more appropriate term would be necessity. Putin simply could not have Prigozhin traipsing around Russia, Belarus or even Africa after he exposed the mismanagement of the war by both the Kremlin and Russian military leadership.

Prigozhin’s ultimate sin was that he weakened Putin. The mutiny was bad enough, the fact that Prigozhin and his band of mutineers were still alive spoke volumes about Putin’s ineffective leadership. This could not be tolerated because it exposed weakness. In Putin’s Russia, weakness is a fatal disease. Only the strong can survive. This meant Putin had only one choice, order Prigozhin’s assassination or risk looking even weaker than he already did. Prigozhin was not the only target. The Kremlin has also had to decapitate the leadership of Wagner in one swift and explosive stroke. This included Dmitry Utkin, the Wagner Group’s co-founder and military commander, as well as Valery Chekalov, its head of logistics. They, along with two other members of the group, went down in flames. The fact that all three of these men were on the same plane leaving from Moscow boggles the mind.

Were they so arrogant, na?ve, and foolish to believe Putin would allow them to go about their business unhindered after publicly humiliating him? And what about all their other enemies in the Kremlin? Those surrounding Putin were chosen for their loyalty. They rely on Putin to protect them and vice versa. Tolerating Putin’s murderous ways as a necessary evil for those with proximity to power. Better the devil they know, the one they cannot trust. Prigozhin and his closest Wagner colleagues constituted the latter. They could not, and as we now know, would not be left alive. Nevertheless, the plane crash opens a whole new realm of possibilities, ones that could portend more trouble to come.?