Is this the end of Yevgeny Prigozhin?

[Duke Wellington]

At the concert WW2 victory celebrations today Putin was definitely smiling and looking smug.

[Shadowsfall]

He must have known Vlad would get him one way or another….,,anybody think this is just a coincidence…

[Tatetopa]

For the Russia experts, a  small question.  What we are hearing happened probably happened.  And yet, is there a chance Prigozhin knew and he and his aid did not stay on the plane?

[CrimsonKing]

9 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

For the Russia experts, a  small question.  What we are hearing happened probably happened.  And yet, is there a chance Prigozhin knew and he and his aid did not stay on the plane?

Always a chance,but stabbing his own top brass in the back and letting them take off for certain death would make him one of,if not the most hated/wanted men in Eastern Europe...

He'd never be able to show his face again.

[Megaro]

16 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

For the Russia experts, a  small question.  What we are hearing happened probably happened.  And yet, is there a chance Prigozhin knew and he and his aid did not stay on the plane?

Prigozhin’s second Embraer (RA-02795) was also in the air - but it landed safely at the Ostafyevo airport.  

Edited August 24, 2023 by Megaro
Clarification

[Buzz_Light_Year]

13 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

For the Russia experts, a  small question.  What we are hearing happened probably happened.  And yet, is there a chance Prigozhin knew and he and his aid did not stay on the plane?

Quite possible as Prigozhin had his own intelligence agencies and most likely better informed than Putin.

There is also the possibility that Putin knew nothing about Prigozhin plane being targeted. Prigozhin shot down 7 Russian aircraft on his march to Moscow and we may be seeing some revenge being metered out by a Russian Air force General rank or even lower.

Nah! Putin erased the man that embarrassed him in front of the whole world.

[+susieice]

The BBC is reporting that the story going around is that the plane was shot down also. They also said an unconfirmed report said Prigozhin's body was found and identified.

Yevgeny Prigozhin: Wagner chief presumed dead after Russia plane crash - BBC News

Wednesday's crash in the Tver region, north-west of the capital Moscow, comes on the same day that senior Russian general Sergei Surovikin was reportedly sacked as air force chief.

Gen Surovikin was known to have good relations with Prigozhin and had not been seen in public since the mutiny.

Edited August 24, 2023 by susieice

[+and-then]

2 hours ago, Grim Reaper 6 said:

Apparently, the leadership of Wagner was also on the plane. Hopefully, this is the end of Wagner or there may be an internal power struggle that will destroy the organization.

The only people on that aircraft that I feel sympathy for are the three crew members.  

[+and-then]

1 hour ago, Shadowsfall said:

He must have known Vlad would get him one way or another….,,anybody think this is just a coincidence…

He lived at least 2 months longer than most suspected he would.  

[DarkHunter]

1 hour ago, Tatetopa said:

For the Russia experts, a  small question.  What we are hearing happened probably happened.  And yet, is there a chance Prigozhin knew and he and his aid did not stay on the plane?

I'm not a Russian expert but the chances of Prigozhin knowing a head of time and avoiding what happened is very low.

While Putin has had people assassinated and even with some oligarchs being killed relatively recently nothing like this has happened before.

Every other assassination done by Putin has had an element of plausible deniability behind it, poisoning, falling out a window/off a building, getting shot, ect can all be played off as accidents or someone having a personal issue with the person and killing them.  This time from what is known so far a privately owned passenger jet was shot down in daylight near the capital, there is absolutely no way to run plausible deniability on this.  This was just far more blatant than anything Putin has done before, it's so blatant I'm not sure Putin is the one behind it.  

As for the recent death of Russian oligarchs there has never been one killed off as high ranking as Prigozhin.  The ones that have been killed so far have been relatively low level unlike Prigozhin who knew Putin at a personal level and owned by far the most successful PMC with the most wide spread operations which supported Russian interests abroad.  Even then it's not clear if Putin ordered those other oligarchs killed or if it was oligarchs settling grudges due to Putin losing control and power

This whole thing is just insanely out of character of Putin and the Russian government and I doubt Prigozhin even considered something this blatant a possibility.  With how blatant this whole thing is does make me think their is a possibility that Putin isnt behind this but instead the Russian MoD.  It's no secret the Russian MoD and Prigozhin hated each other and fought rather openly with each other.  I also remember reading a day or two ago about how there are cracks forming between the Russian FSB and the Russian MoD over Ukraine.  From what I remember the Russian FSB wanted to do more of what Prigozhin wanted with a full scale mobilization and outright unrestricted war while the Russian MoD wants to just end the war in a way that will let them hold onto as much as they can as they are starting to view it being impossible to achieve all of their objectives.  It's possible killing Prigozhin by shooting down his aircraft was the Russian MoD sending a message to the other powerful groups in Russia that they will not be challenged.

Edited August 24, 2023 by DarkHunter

[CrimsonKing]

13 minutes ago, DarkHunter said:

I'm not a Russian expert but the chances of Prigozhin knowing a head of time and avoiding what happened is very low.

While Putin has had people assassinated and even with some oligarchs being killed relatively recently nothing like this has happened before.

Every other assassination done by Putin has had an element of plausible deniability behind it, poisoning, falling out a window/off a building, getting shot, ect can all be played off as accidents or someone having a personal issue with the person and killing them.  This time from what is known so far a privately owned passenger jet was shot down in daylight near the capital, there is absolutely no way to run plausible deniability on this.  This was just far more blatant than anything Putin has done before, it's so blatant I'm not sure Putin is the one behind it.  

As for the recent death of Russian oligarchs there has never been one killed off as high ranking as Prigozhin.  The ones that have been killed so far have been relatively low level unlike Prigozhin who knew Putin at a personal level and owned by far the most successful PMC with the most wide spread operations which supported Russian interests abroad.  Even then it's not clear if Putin ordered those other oligarchs killed or if it was oligarchs settling grudges due to Putin losing control and power

This whole thing is just insanely out of character of Putin and the Russian government and I doubt Prigozhin even considered something this blatant a possibility.  With how blatant this whole thing is does make me think their is a possibility that Putin isnt behind this but instead the Russian MoD.  It's no secret the Russian MoD and Prigozhin hated each other and fought rather openly with each other.  I also remember reading a day or two ago about how there are cracks forming between the Russian FSB and the Russian MoD over Ukraine.  From what I remember the Russian FSB wanted to do more of what Prigozhin wanted with a full scale mobilization and outright unrestricted war while the Russian MoD wants to just end the war in a way that will let them hold onto as much as they can as they are starting to view it being impossible to achieve all of their objectives.  It's possible killing Prigozhin by shooting down his aircraft was the Russian MoD sending a message to the other powerful groups in Russia that they will not be challenged.

Agree completely...

It's possible the MOD went rogue,if so,a very very stupid idea!...even if Putin "allows" it.

Now they've got the most battle hardened troops,outside of Ukraine on the planets blood boiling...there will be blood for this!

[DarkHunter]

58 minutes ago, CrimsonKing said:

Agree completely...

It's possible the MOD went rogue,if so,a very very stupid idea!...even if Putin "allows" it.

Now they've got the most battle hardened troops,outside of Ukraine on the planets blood boiling...there will be blood for this!

The whole thing is just so blatant and out of character it doesnt make sense.  If they wanted Prigozhin gone along with the Wagner leadership they could of easily and quietly arrested them in St Petersburg after the plane landed.  If they absolutely had to be killed the Russian MoD or Putin could of easily had special forces attack them in their home or office building or really any where.  They could even dress them up in Ukranian uniforms or using captured Ukranian arms, they could even drop off an actual killed Ukranian soldier in the area, to make it look like Ukraine did some type of commando raid to kill Prigozhin and the Wagner leadership.  People would of easily believed it too.

Would be a bit funny and ironic if what really happened was a Ukranian commando team took over an S-300 battery and used it to shoot down the plane to cause infighting in Russia.  That is extremely unlikely and to be clear not something I believe happened.  With the way the war has been going who knows what could of actually happened.  The head of Ukrainian intelligence did say big things would be happening in a few days a few days ago.

[Megaro]

My previous post misidentified the registration number of the Embraer jet that safely landed, its RA-02748.  
It’s a Wagner Group owned plane too.  The flight tracker info for that plane is interesting.  It’s recently flown to Turkey,
Saudi Arabia, Moscow, and seems to have just departed for St. Petersburg.
Very strange, but I think the best assumption is that Prigozhin and Utkin are deceased.   

[Alchopwn]

5 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

At the concert WW2 victory celebrations today Putin was definitely smiling and looking smug.

It was for the Battle of Kursk actually.  Just some extra detail.  Putin's double got caught looking on the wrong wrist for his watch today too.  The things a murderous dictator has to put up with.

[Alchopwn]

1 hour ago, Megaro said:

Very strange, but I think the best assumption is that Prigozhin and Utkin are deceased.   

Good work, not enough people have mentioned that Utkin is likely dead as well.  It was a huge mistake to have them both on the same plane, thus enabling a decapitation strike against Wagner PMC by Gerasimov and Shoigu.

[Antigonos]

19 hours ago, Abramelin said:

The Russian word for "wolf" is "volk".

Interesting. The same word in German means “people”.

[+susieice]

US officials now say the plane crashed as a result of an assassination plot but don't think it was a missile. 

Early Intelligence Suggests Prigozhin Was Assassinated, U.S. Officials Say (msn.com)

The plane carrying Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner paramilitary group, crashed as the result of an assassination plot but doesn’t appear to have been shot down by a surface-to-air missile, U.S. officials said.

The preliminary U.S. government assessments, which officials stressed are incomplete, suggest that a bomb exploded on the aircraft or that some other form of sabotage caused the crash northwest of Moscow.

The Russian government has said it is investigating the cause of the crash, but hasn’t offered an explanation. Social-media channels close to Prigozhin’s Wagner have claimed that the aircraft was downed by a Russian military antiaircraft missile.

Local media reported that the bodies of the victims had been loaded into cars belonging to a funeral service company and driven away. State news agency RIA cited local residents saying they had heard an explosion before they saw the plane plummeting to earth. The agency said one part of the plane had landed 2 miles from the main crash site.

 

The Kremlin can only benefit from uncertainty because Prigozhin was a divisive, if popular, figure within Russia, as well as a protégé of Putin. While the Kremlin has eliminated rivals before, Prigozhin was the first high-level loyalist whom Putin is suspected of killing for alleged transgressions.

His death is problematic because he was a hero to millions of disgruntled veterans and common Russians for his war record and his truculent denunciations of alleged sloth and corruption in the military.

[CrimsonKing]

Well Putin sent out condolences today...

I believe him 

[spartan max2]

I really don't understand what he was expecting. Like he did a little mutiny and then backed down and thought Putin wouldn't try to kill him. Makes no sense. He either needed to go the full way with the mutiny or not do it at all.

[bmk1245]

14 minutes ago, spartan max2 said:

I really don't understand what he was expecting. Like he did a little mutiny and then backed down and thought Putin wouldn't try to kill him. Makes no sense. He either needed to go the full way with the mutiny or not do it at all.

Well, if coup wasn't successful, kill your double and hide somewhere as John Doe. $billions Prigozhin had/have can buy a lot. I'm still not sure he went full blown crispy barbecue.

[CrimsonKing]

27 minutes ago, spartan max2 said:

I really don't understand what he was expecting. Like he did a little mutiny and then backed down and thought Putin wouldn't try to kill him. Makes no sense. He either needed to go the full way with the mutiny or not do it at all.

Some people overestimate their abilities to lead revolutions,they don't want to be the dead martyr of their cause...

They get people riled up,then expect them to do the dirty work and pay the price if it fails.

Prigozhin miscalculated.

[jmccr8]

1 hour ago, spartan max2 said:

I really don't understand what he was expecting. Like he did a little mutiny and then backed down and thought Putin wouldn't try to kill him. Makes no sense. He either needed to go the full way with the mutiny or not do it at all.

Hi Spartan

He may have thought more of his expected supporters, oligarchs and some military would unite for the march snd when they didn't show backed down. Who knows it might have been a set up to get rid of him so got played into making the march. None the less his time was marked I don't know that this is over as Prigozhyn did travel quite a bit since and was likely inititating plans in the case of his death. Wagner was pretty quick to announce that this type of event had been anticipated and plans made and were engaging them.

[Only_]

2 hours ago, spartan max2 said:

I really don't understand what he was expecting. Like he did a little mutiny and then backed down and thought Putin wouldn't try to kill him. Makes no sense. He either needed to go the full way with the mutiny or not do it at all.

I'll go full on conspirational mode:

Part of the deal between Lukashenko/Putin and Prigozhin was that after restructuring Wagner's operations towards Africa, he would have to go unto hiding and given a new identity.

After faking his death, he would disappear from the public view and his business activities taken over by the Russian MoD.

Edited August 24, 2023 by Only_

[Megaro]

One of the innocent victims on that plane was Kristina Raspopova.

The linked article says that she complained of "repairs" being made to the jet that delayed the departure. 

https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/prigozhin-flight-attendant-kristina-raspopova-told-of-mystery-jet-repairs-as-bombladen-wine-case-was-loaded-onboard/news-story/c96b490d3a1dba870b3ebfd0d620d36f

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

3 minutes ago, Megaro said:

One of the innocent victims on that plane was Kristina Raspopova.

The linked article says that she complained of "repairs" being made to the jet that delayed the departure. 

https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/prigozhin-flight-attendant-kristina-raspopova-told-of-mystery-jet-repairs-as-bombladen-wine-case-was-loaded-onboard/news-story/c96b490d3a1dba870b3ebfd0d620d36f

Prig would have had to have rocks in his head to have seen that and still flown. 
I reckon he’s going to do a surprise “FU! I’m still alive!” in a week or so. Possibly at the head of a tank column heading for Moscow.