Some claim, this was the plane.
IMHO, this is interesting news.
The NYT writes something similar.
Conspiracy theories will sprout, I guess.
IF he was on the plane then yes, this is an interesting development.
The NYT article you linked quotes a source saying Prigozhin may have been on a different plane.
Whether or not this was an assassination, will anyone believe this wasn’t an assassination?
Woof. This feels big, and destabilizing, and I just can’t tell if that’s gonna be good or bad. Prigozhin is one of the baddest of the bad guys, but his conflict with Putin seems to have hindered Russia’s reign of terror. What will happen with him gone?
Sounds like he is out of the picture, whether he was on that plane, Putin wants everyone to believe he was on it, or he himself wants everyone to believe he was on it.
I doubt we find out the truth before Putin dies, and maybe not ever.
I’m still pissed off he called off that advance to Moscow. Things were just beginning to get interesting.
May you live in interesting times.
I prefer boring.
If he wasn’t on the plane, then he is at this moment having unspeakable things done to him. If he was on the plane, I suspect it was shot down.
I read on Russian media (translated by wife, I don’t speak Russian) all kind of speculation. Some even claim that because Ucraine is sending drones to Russia it may have been shot accidentally, confused with an enemy drone (which I think is ridiculous). Others say there were two planes flying in tandem, the second plane turned around and went back to Moscow. That would give Prigozhin a 50:50 chance of survival.
Man, who wants to be the poor bastard who has to explain to Putin that they shot down the wrong plane?
“What, are we skimping on missiles now? Why didn’t you shoot down both of them?!?”
Surely the issue was never “if” he’d be assasinated, but merely “how”.
They have windows in planes but I suspect they are too small to “fall” through.
CNN is being very clear that Progozhin’s death is not confirmed.
They also quoted a rather droll line from a month or so ago, from the US Secretary of State:
If I were Mr. Prigozhin, I would remain very concerned. NATO has an open-door policy; Russia has an open-windows policy. And he needs to be very focused on that.
The explosion of a missile warhead probably widens the window frame a bit.
At altitude, sucked, fell, whatever.
Perhaps tangentially, CNN is also reporting that most of their information is coming from Russian state media, and implying that “you can take that as you will.” Still, there is new video coming out, and an unconfirmed report that when the aircraft fell out of the sky, it was missing a wing, as if it was hit by a missile.
Mikhail Khodorkowski’s TV on-line channel confirms Prigozhin was on board and is dead. He is usually well informed, if not exactly objective concerning Putin (he hates him deeply and thoroughly). Meanwhile Putin is celebrating the victory over Nazi Germany 80 years ago with a ceremony awarding medals to soldiers. The same medal he gave Prigozhin a couple of years ago. He has not mentioned the crash at all.
Interesting that there were rumors of Putin being assassinated this morning.
I agree with everything BobLibDem says. I called this shit after the advance on Moscow, as did every single reasonably-minded person on these boards. I’d like to know when ANYONE would stand up to Putin. Jim
Murder is, suddenly, de rigueur…
Surprised it took so long.
I mean I’m not sure “conspiracy theory” is the right word here, as absolutely the most obvious, almost universally accepted, version of events (from the moment the news broke) is this was the result of a conspiracy by Putin to kill the person who led a mutiny against him. The nutjob conspiracy theory here is that this was just a regular plane crash caused by mechanical issues or pilot error.
The conspiracies I mean are of the kind “he faked his own death”, “he was not on the plane”, “the plane was shot down by mistake” (that one has already been mentioned), “Putin has nothing to do with that, it happened behind his back” and many even more absurd I can’t think of right now, but do not worry: somebody will soon.
Yes, “theory” in this case can be taken in the true scientific sense rather than the more colloquial “thrown together wild-ass guess”.