There are few less surprising stories than when someone who has clashed with Vladimir Putin dies in a mysterious accident. So it is with Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin:
The internet has exploded with an avalanche breaking reports that Wagner chief Yvgeny Prigozhin’s business jet has crashed over Russia’s Tver region, northwest of Moscow.
Unconfirmed reports say anywhere from seven to ten people were on board, all presumed dead – but it was initially unclear if Prigozhin himself was on board at the time. Russian media sources are now confirming that he was on board the downed plane, and is presumed dead.
This has led to immediate speculation that the private plane could have been shot down upon Putin’s orders.
Snip.
A private jet traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg crashed on Wednesday in Russia’s Tver Region. The Russian Emergencies Ministry said all 10 people on board had died. Rosaviation has since said that Evgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Private Military Company, was listed among the passengers.
Suchomimus has video of the plane going down:
I’m not sure we need any more complex explanation than “Man angers Putin, man dies.” The aborted coup certainly gave Putin enough reason to off Prigozhin.
As far as what effect this has on Russia’s illegal war of territorial aggression against Ukraine, who knows? Wagner forces were reportedly the most competent military element in Russia’s forces over the last year, but they lost a lot of troops in the fight for Bakhmut, and it’s unclear just how engaged Wagner was in the war following the abortive coup. But if Wagner were indeed “fiercely loyal” to Prigozhin, his assassination/death could have serious repercussions in various spots around the world where Wagner does heavy lifting for the Russians (like the coup in Niger).
I imagine there will be an effort to incorporate Wagner troops into regular ussian units, but whether they’re willing to do that is anyone’s guess…
Tags: Foreign Policy, Military, Niger, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, Suchomimus, Vladimir Putin, Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin
Your guess is as good as anyone’s as to what is actually going on.
Even if they produce the body, I’m not taking anyone’s word that Prigozin is dead, nor am I buying that Putin did it. As shambolic as things are in Russia, it’s entirely possible that Prigozin was operating at Putin’s behest all along, and if this latest thing killed him, that some pissed-off aviation guy in the Russian military decided to mete out justice on his own for Prigozin’s factual murder of Russian aircrew during the so-called “coup”.
We had no idea what the hell was going on during the coup; we still don’t. Given the half-hard way that Progozin went at it, giving up as quickly as he did? I would not be surprised to find out it was actually a Putin-orchestrated thing, all along.
I also wouldn’t be the slightest surprised that all of this was just Russians being Russians, and that nobody is running anything with any real plan. The whole setup, from start to finish, just doesn’t make any kind of sense.
Talk to some people and they’ll say Russians lack imagination…
Consider hanging yourself with a bedsheet in jail while everyone is looking away and the cameras are off or tying yourself to a tree and shooting yourself in the head with a nailgun 3 times, and you gotta give them credit. When it comes to having your enemies killed, just shooting down their airplane is pretty unimaginative.
Come on Ruskies, step up your game. We even have heart attack guns! Rooskies are rookies. You guys need to bump those elaborate suicide numbers up!
About the only thing that you can count on in all this is that something that was flying over Russia has crashed. Bomb on board? Actual Embraer jet? Air defense missile did the job? Who knows; I’m not going to be surprised if Prigozin shows up in blackface somewhere in Africa, TBH.
The world has gotten entirely too nuts for my taste. I did not have “Former nuclear superpower turns into farcical Third-World nation” anywhere on my dance card… And, that’s precisely what Russia has become. They can’t even manage the front organizations, any more. Which is all that Wagner really ever was…
With Tig If True on this one: one of the rules of the Evil Overlord is, “when I become the Evil Overlord, shooting is NOT too good for my enemies.”
I think it’s safe to say with 100% certainty that Prigozhin had information that would lead to the arrest, trial and conviction of Hillary Clinton.
Brazilian made Embraer Legacy 600 jet with American made Rolls-Royce 3007A turbofan engines. The Ukraine war sanctions against Russia embargo all maintenance spare parts and tools for both the aircraft and the engines. Both Embraer and Rolls-Royce have been enforcing the sanctions on all Russian registered aircraft.
Russians have been scrounging parts and deferring maintenance on most civil aircraft. The international aircraft parts black market is a bit dodgy.
Might just have been a turbine stage blade failure after a full power take off. May have penetrated the fuselage and damaged the elevator control mechanism.
The video on ‘X’ of the plane coming down shows the plane pitching wildly around its y-axis. This suggests the elevator(s) or their control mechanisms were somehow damaged. The tail mounted RR AE 3007A turbofans are immediately adjacent to the hydraulics which control the elevators on the Embraer Legacy 600. The turbine stages at the rear of the turbofans are right underneath the leading edges of the elevators.
The descriptive summary of the plane’s last 30 seconds before its final plunge by Flightradar24 confirms loss of elevation control:
“Flightradar24 said the jet went thorough a series of ascents and descents of a few thousand feet each over 30 seconds before its final, disastrous plunge.”
The interpretations are mine, but any competent engineer will confirm that pitching ( θ roll around the ‘Y’ axis ) is usually due to elevator issues in a plane which has its turbofan thrust vectors on the centerline plane of the fuselage. This isn’t a Boeing 737 MAX situation where the engines alone could cause pitching because they were well below the centerline plane.
This incident could have been caused by a SAM or a MANPAD which hit the rear of the jet, but it could also have been caused by a broken turbine blade penetrating the fuselage and cutting an hydraulic circuit to the elevators, or damaging the elevators themselves.
“Might just have been a turbine stage blade failure after a full power take off. May have penetrated the fuselage and damaged the elevator control mechanism.”
“This incident could have been caused by a SAM or a MANPAD…”
Pictures of the fuselage show multiple holes of similar diameter. This suggests the plane was downed by an S-300/400. There were two planes but only Prigozhin’s was intercepted
Putin cut the head off the snake because Wagner is too dangerous for it to be allowed independent action.
“‘Flightradar24 said the jet went thorough a series of ascents and descents of a few thousand feet each over 30 seconds before its final, disastrous plunge.‘“
Why, it’s almost as if the pilot had begun evasive maneuvers, realizing the radars had locked on his plane and were about to launch a missile his way.
Meatwood Flack said:
“I think it’s safe to say with 100% certainty that Prigozhin had information that would lead to the arrest, trial and conviction of Hillary Clinton.”
In very much the same vein, a commenter on another blog pointed out that Prigozhin was mentioned by name in a suit alleging theft of the 2016 election!
Point 1: Prigozhin had a task, and failed at it. That’s been terminal in Russia for hundreds of years. (Which ever task you want.)
Point 2: There’s an old saying, When you strike at the king, you must kill him. Well, …
Another theory is that there’s a drone attack in Moscow at the same time and Wagner’s plane switched their transponder, which may have allow AA batteries into shooting down anything that’s not right. It may very well have been an accident.
Don’t look for anyone to come up with an answer to the conundrum of “Who killed Prigozin and why did they do it…?” any time soon.
Assuming he’s even dead. Dude has done this sort of thing before.
About the only thing you can assume with some confidence is that we’re all like Plato’s cave-dwellers, watching the shadows on the wall. What’s actually making those shadows? Who the hell knows; what are they doing? No idea. We can’t even really tell what the hell they’re trying to sell us, with all this shadow-play. Look for surprises and “revelations”, not to mention some severe blowback. I’m coming around to the idea that the whole “Wagner rebels…” thing was likely a put-up job, by someone, for some reason. The point of which is as yet unknown, and may never be known.
This is Russia. They do things like this… Has anyone ever come forward to acknowledge that they got the ball rolling, with WWI? How’d that turn out for Russia, again?
It somewhat calls back how Lin Biao (formerly the heir designate for Mao Tsedung) was killed. Lin Biao was trying to run away to Soviet Union after a major falling out (or coupe attempt) with Mao. His plane was shot down over Mongolia.
My favorite thing about this is that it just confirms how big the veil of civilization is and how effective it is at deluding huge swaths of humanity into thinking high-minded principles apply to real life.
Look at what happened to Prigozhin
Look at what’s happening to Trump
Take almost any current event and filter it through what we know historically about the Borgia’s, De Medici’s, Bourbon’s or Tudors and it all makes sense. Cutthroat murdering bastards then. Cutthroat murdering bastards now. All of them. Nothing has changed. If you want power, you better be ready to kill and you better be ready to die, especially if you try to kill the king.
Americans had it good but don’t remember why institutional creep was important to keep at bay, and why faith in principles mean nothing if they’re not enforced vigorously. They don’t remember how the world works, and now it’s gone. Realpolitik isn’t back, it never left.
Good photograph of the rudder and one elevator of the Wagner Embraer Legacy 600 RA-02795 on the ground in Reuters’ lead story this morning:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/investigators-trawl-site-plane-crash-believed-have-killed-wagner-boss-prigozhin-2023-08-24/
Three takeaways:
1) No fire damage, so this assembly broke off the main section of the aircraft – which crashed and then burned – before the main section hit the ground.
2) No evidence of frag damage.
3) The starboard elevator is gone and could well have been the the first failure. Would explain the Flightradar24 record of the planes’ gyrations.
Doesn’t rule out a missile attack, but does support the possibilities of other theories.
it worked for Hillary to get rid of JFKJr.